February 5, 2023
This is African American History Month. We are experiencing challenges which require commitment and courage, faith and fortitude, and resolve and resistance. We still have much to overcome to make of our nation a more perfect union as the founding fathers intended with the Preamble to the United States Constitution beginning with the words, “We the People”, as a brief introductory statement of the Constitution's fundamental purposes and guiding principles. Courts have referred to it as reliable evidence of the Founding Father's intentions regarding the Constitution's meaning and what they hoped the Constitution would achieve.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation. In the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention, a lady asked Dr. Franklin, “Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.” We are challenged to maintain our republic with its democratic principles of equality, justice and liberty for all.
We have received from our predecessors examples which inspire us to make courageous choices and difficult decisions. Our history is filled with persons who made the necessary sacrifices in order to bequeathed to their posterity what they were denied to have for themselves. We owe all of them a great debt of gratitude. Never have so many given so much for many more to have what they could only dream of having. The words of Jesus remind us, "others have labored and we have entered into their labor" (John 4:38). We reap where we have not sown and enjoy the results of others labors. We pick up where the laborers, whose work benefits us, concludes as ours begins. Life is like a relay race where one generation passes the baton to the next to continue. The labor is always unfinished and calls for us to continue what has begun. We commemorate and celebrate the legacy passed to us to continue what we have received. Let me conclude with the words of the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem, A Psalm of Life: "Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and departing leave behind us footprints on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, sailing over solemn main, a forlorn and shipwrecked brother, seeing shall take heart again. Let us be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait."
Our special activities this month that require your presence and prayers are:
Tuesday February 14 is Valentine's Day. I have shared with you in the past the origin of this observance. Remember we are made in the likeness and image of God. We are to love one another as God has loved us.
Sunday, February 19 is Installation of Officers Sunday. All officers elected to serve this year are requested to be present and to sit in the center aisle so that they may be installed into the position to which they were elected.
Wednesday, February 22 is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten Season of the Christian Calendar Year. The liturgical calendar gives us a way of ordering our lives cyclically with an awareness of practicing our faith consistently. We begin with the birth of Christ coming as God's presence in our lives to save us from the destruction we cause ourselves (Advent). Secondly, there is the awakening that occurs with embracing the gift of God in Christ (Epiphany). Then comes the third season, Lent, reminding us of the discipline required to fulfill our destiny and direct our devotion. Ash Wednesday Service will be held at 7:00 pm. via zoom to prepare ourselves for the Lenten Season.
Sunday February 26 is the Black History Sunday School Program at 11:00 am via zoom.
It is my privilege to be paired with you on this journey of faith as we continue "to serve this present age our calling to fulfill."
Let us consider the commitment we are willing to make to continue through this year as we have in years past to develop our discipline, foster our faith, and put weigh in our witness to the reality of the Lord’s presence in our lives.
-Pastor Epps
Dr. William S. Epps, Senior Pastor
