“Abide with me, fast falls the eventide. The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.”
This beloved hymn, written in the early 19th century by Henry Lyte, has been one of my own personal favorites. There is one particular version, recorded by a songwriters’ collective called Indelible Grace that often echoes in my thoughts.
Abiding is a theme that is capturing my imagination these days. One, because in our present book study on When Church Stops Working, the authors invite churches into a posture of waiting, as they term it. But this is not to be a passive waiting. It is a mindful, attentive, discerning act in itself — not working and struggling to make things happen, but hoping and looking and expecting the Holy Spirit to invite us into the future God is preparing for us.
Abiding is a Christian practice often overlooked. Many of our fellow Lutherans do not gather to worship on Ascension Day. We do. And that’s good. For it is in the Ascension story––after the passion, the crucifixion, and resurrection, and before the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost––that Jesus told his followers to go home, wait, abide, until the Spirit comes.
And so, in these early days of June before the Feast of Pentecost,
I invite you to a time of prayerful anticipation and hopeful waiting. I invite you to abide in the future the Spirit will bring.
Pax,
Pastor Scott