Letter from the Pastor

St. Augustine once said, “Dig deep enough in any person, and you will find something divine.”  That is a perfect description of the working method of Jesus.  Put Him one-on-one with any person, and He would dig until He found that something divine.  Then He would seek to draw out that quality and make it the dominant theme of that person’s life.  He did this with the woman who was caught in adultery.  He saw something inside of her, deeper than her sinfulness.  And He made His appeal to that.  Underneath her worst, He never doubted there was something better.  […]

Back in January of 1982, a plane crashed at National Airport in Washington D.C.  While  taking off during a snow storm, it lost altitude, bounced off a bridge and fell into the river.  In the aftermath of the tragedy, a helicopter was used to lift survivors from the icy water.  The rescue effort produced a number of heroes. One of the most memorable was a man in the water.  When the helicopter came for him, he waved it on to another survivor.  He did this, not once, but several times.  And when the helicopter came back the last time, it […]

In every normal person there is a longing to be somebody, to get somewhere, to amount to something.  In our first moments, we would like to be able to live our lives in such a fashion that at the end, those who know us best could look back and say, “He was a truly great man.  She was a truly great woman.”  Jesus Himself talked about a quality of life that can be called true greatness and calls us each day to this greatness.  But we need to look closer at what that truly means and what that kind of […]

The newspapers a few years ago carried the tragic story of a young high school student in Fort Worth, Texas who decided to play a game of Russian Roulette.  He took a .38 caliber revolver out of the glove compartment of a friend’s car, emptied all the bullets out of the chamber, put  only one back in, and gave it a spin.  Then he put the gun up to his temple, pulled the trigger, and fired it.   He died in a hospital a few hours later.  And I’m sure your reaction to that is essentially the same as mine.  For […]

The early church fathers said there were seven deadly sins.  High up on their list they placed the sin of anger.  In fact, it was second only to the sin of pride.  Today we need to ask ourselves, “What makes us angry?”  Think about the things that made you mad this past week.  What were they?  A car on the highway that cut into your lane?  A rude clerk at the department store?  Having to stand in line a little longer than you thought necessary?  A phone call that interrupted your evening meal from someone trying to sell you something […]