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Friday Messenger Devotion – September 18, 2020Look! On the mountains the feet of one who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace!Celebrate your festivals, O Judah, fulfill your vows, for never again shall the wicked invade you.-Nahum 1:15Buena Vista School still has the interesting meme on its sign from the summer: Coddiwomple—to wander purposefully to an unknown destinationWatching masked children returning home from school, many accompanied by masked parents, I wonder about the sign: they all seem to know exactly where they are going! Maybe the message would point us to the wider horizon—the reason those children and parents are wearing those masks. As the numbers of COVID-19 infections increases with cooler weather, we are being encouraged to be more purposeful about masking indoors, hand sanitizing, and social distancing. Alarm and disappointment at the source of the outbreaks raises now-familiar fears: another set of restrictions? A lock-down? We seem to be wandering toward an unknown destination, but we are being very purposeful about it!The contrary is expressed by the prophet Nahum. He knows exactly where he is going, and he is encouraging all the exiles to go with him. Like the children skipping home after school, Nahum and his people are going home to celebrate their own festivals, sing their own songs, offer their own sacrifices. They are going to worship God. Assyria, the superpower that punished them so mercilessly, has been overthrown for its excesses. Nahum didn’t foresee the “second wave” of oppression coming with the new superpower Babylon, but he was right about the opportunity for worship and praise in the times between. Our present moment might be a little of both coddiwompling and of Nahum’s assurance. With our decision to start in-person worship this Sunday, I know my Sunday morning destination again. May we be like those little children skipping on our way home to church (mask included)! On the other hand, we won’t know how long, or how the shut-down has changed our congregation, our worship, our celebrations. The prophets always know where they are going, but not how to get there. The coddiwomplers don’t know where they are going but they know how to get there. “Going home to church” is both a well-known destination on an uncertain journey and part of purposeful wandering to an unknown destination. Jesus holds and guides the steps of both, and is guiding us now too.O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. ................
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