An
Inkling
I was
amazed at the response. On Father’s Day
afternoon I posted this picture on Facebook of dad and me serving communion
together that morning. Immediately
scores of people responded and commented.
Something touched their hearts.
It
wasn’t just the age difference. We have
people serving communion together all the time who are that far apart in age or
more, and no one notices. I think it was
simply the relationship, a father and son ministering Christ’s grace together.
Another
such pairing in this role is common to our eyes: husbands and wives serve together all the
time. I’m old enough to remember when
that was a head-turner. Because women
had been excluded from that role, it was exciting to see them serving, and then
to see couples serving. Wow – what a
wonderful image of redeemed relationships, one of the countless blessings of
Christ’s grace at work. But now that pairing
is so familiar that we hardly notice.
And
we’ve seen another remarkable pairing in our midst. Gratefully our eyes are also now accustomed
to seeing racial divisions bridged in these serving roles. That, too, was a head-turner at first, and is
now fittingly normal. In a world where
divisions come all too easily, the very normalcy of this pairing is its own
remarkable sign of how life works in the Kingdom.
For
three generations our family’s patterns of mobile job pursuit have mostly
separated us from living near each other and being in the same
congregation. So this gift of being in
church with my parents again is one I would never have expected just a few
years ago. But it’s a happy gift, and
I’m grateful that the Lord can use it here and there to show how the breadth of
his redemption also reaches across the generations in a family.
Now
if I can just find a pair of UVA and Virginia Tech grads who are willing to
stand next to each other…
Here’s
to dad,
Keith
