The Bungee Cord. 5-3-24

Hello,

As many of you Bungee readers know, I grew up in a household that avidly practiced the Christian faith. Prayers at meals. Weekly worship. Prayers at bedtime. Singing hymns with mom at the piano. Generous offerings to church. Strong involvement in youth programs. Sunday school every week, and Confirmation instruction in Jr. High.

I grew up in a Lutheran church, but I would have to tell you that I didn’t really know what that meant until I went to Seminary and became a Lutheran pastor. Anyway, in our church, kids received their first communion after they completed confirmation instruction. For two years we learned Bible stories on Sunday morning, and we learned the Lutheran perspective of the Christian faith on Saturday mornings. All the years of my Sunday School learning did a pretty good job of putting the Bible stories in my memory, but I think that the doctrinal stuff pretty much flew over my young head that was far more concerned about Little League and Babe Ruth Baseball and riding my bike throughout town with my friends.

But on the day of our Confirmation, Palm Sunday I think, we were given white robes and a red boutonniere, and we stood in front of the congregation and the faith in which we were baptized was confirmed in us. It was a milestone in faith for us eighteen eight graders. I don’t know how deep that day impacted the other confirmands, but I know for me, it was a big day. I don’t think I would have been able to articulate the impact when I was young, but in my rear-view mirror of life I now understand how important it was to stand in front of 100+ people who loved me for one reason alone: Jesus loved them and me.

For me, the experience of Jesus’ love for me was, and still is, most deeply found in Holy Communion. Although practiced and understood differently among Christians, I understand the bread and wine which I receive at Holy Communion to be an intimate, personal, and real connection with Jesus. Simply put, Jesus himself hugs me, hugs me in such a way that makes me inseparable from him; he hugs me from the inside.

Ever since that first communion, when I have returned to my pew, I bow my head in prayer. Much of that prayer time is simply silent, resting quietly in Jesus’ hug. And when the silence has done its job to settle my heart, I have always ended my prayer with words akin to “keep me in your peace.”

The world, of course, offers peace: financial peace, peace from success, peace from relationships, peace from health, peace from wisdom and knowledge. Some of the world’s peace is far more solid than others, but in the end the hug that the world gives imputes a peace that is breakable….and breaks.

If peace is something that you yearn for, let me invite you to receive a hug that only Jesus, the Son of God, can give you: a hug from the inside. Let me invite you to an intimate, personal, and real connection with Jesus, then to sit in silence and feel Jesus’ unbreakable embrace, and then step back into the world with a peace that “surpasses all human understanding”.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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