News Flash Mailing April 28 Vol 81 Issue 4-4

F I R S T B A P T I S T C H U R C H
W I N C H E S T E R , V A
April 28, 2020
Volume 81, Issue 4-4
The TIE that binds the church & home together
NEWS FLASH
Dear Friends,
Inside this issue:
News Flash Of the Happenings at
the Church and the Latest on the
Coronavirus Updates
Sermon Manuscript April 26
Daily Devotionals—Week 6
Inspirational
Bible Verses:
2 Timothy 1:7
“For God did not give us a
spirit of timidity, but a spirit
of power, of love and of
self-discipline.”
Psalm 16:8
“ I have set the Lord always
before me. Because he is at
my right hand, I will not be
shaken.”
2 Thessalonians 3:3
“But the Lord is faithful,
and he will strengthen and
protect you from the evil
one.”
Isaiah 40:29
“He gives power to the
weak and strength to the
powerless.”
I have continued to be so impressed by the incredible spirit of our church! Thank
you to our mask-makers, our grocery deliverers, our devoted prayer partners, our
card writers, and all of you as you find new ways to be Church to and with one
another.
This week, I hope you will continue to join us for Tuesday and Thursday morning
prayer times on our church Facebook page for a morning devotional and prayer.
On Wednesday evening we will gather at 6:30 pm for a Bible Study on Christian
Spiritual Practices through Zoom:
(https://zoom.us/j/340308044?pwd=VU9lZHpXbU10V0NiQjNYaHhQdUY1Zz
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Password: 678659).
On Saturday, on Facebook, we will air another one of the Singin’ Seniors concerts
from past years. And I also encourage you to continue to find ways to connect with
our program ministries online. Our children’s ministry is posting videos and Bible
studies, our chancel choir is meeting through Zoom, our youth group will continue
to meet on Sunday afternoons for Youth Group through Zoom, and we, of course,
will worship together each Sunday.
If you know of those who have particular needs during this time, we ask that you
reach out directly to Pastor Kristin via email: kwhitesides@fbcwinc.org or by calling
the church office: 540-662-5367. We have folks who are ready and willing to help
deliver groceries and paper products.
Maybe you are wondering how you can continue to support all these efforts when
we cannot gather for worship?
Remember: It is very simple to set up an automatic or one-time bank draft
through your bank. Simply go to your bank’s bill pay webpage. Set up First
Baptist Church, Winchester as the “payee” and have your payments
automatically delivered electronically. This is simple and doesn’t cost you or the
church any fees.
Our church is also set up to receive tithes and offerings through online giving.
Just visit our webpage at www.fbcwinc.org/giving and follow the instructions.
Our church can also receive mailed offerings at our physical address: 205 W.
Piccadilly Street, Winchester, VA 22601.
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I am grateful for the ways that we are still able to “gather” during this strange season in the life of our church, our
community, our country, and our world. I am grateful for the ways that we can worship together, pray together,
and uphold one another, despite our present circumstances and hardships. I am praying for each of you. May you
sense God’s strength and peace surrounding you this week.
God Bless You,
Pastor Kristin
Sermon for Sunday April 26, 2020
Rev. Dr. Kristin Whitesides
I.
Two weeks ago we celebrated Easter. But it was a different sort of Easter celebration this year, stripped down to
its most basic elements. There was no sanctuary to gather in. There were no lilies and the music we enjoyed and
the hymns we sang were enjoyed and sung in our own separate homes. All we had was the simple refrain: “Christ
is Risen! He is Risen Indeed.”
Since then, we may have wondered if Easter has changed anything. Just like the first disciples, who heard the
good news from Mary but continued to huddle behind locked doors in fear, we too are still quarantined and
isolated in our own homes. And yet, as we see in our Gospel text for this morning, even if we feel as if we have
missed Easter altogether, the Risen Lord comes to us, wherever we may be.
II.
You see, after Jesus’ crucifixion, the disciples were terrified. They could no longer pin all their hopes and dreams
on a powerful Messiah that would put them in charge. They no longer knew what their purpose was. They didn’t
know what to do next. And so they hid out, lonely, scared, and grieving, huddled together behind locked doors.
But Jesus found them, even there. Pushing past all the things that they had constructed to keep themselves safe,
the Resurrected Lord came to them and said, “Peace be with you!” And then, as they were filled with awe and
wonder, Jesus showed them his hands and his side, the marks and wounds that now identified him but did not
define him. He commissioned them to go out and share the good news: That the one they had loved and followed
and seen die on a cross was alive again! That their Lord was moving and working and showing up, even to them,
even behind their locked doors. And right as they began to try to wrap their minds around this impossibly good
news and incredible commission, Jesus was gone.
III.
When Thomas returned to the locked up room, perhaps from sending out job applications or picking up some
groceries, the disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas began looking around but did not see Jesus
anywhere. And as he looked around, he could not tell that anything had really changed. His friends were still
locked behind doors in fear. The windows were still boarded up. No one had left the house to share the good
news. They had just waited for him to come to them so they could tell him. Jesus had miraculously appeared to
them, given them the gift of his presence and his peace, commissioned them to share the good news of
resurrection and new life. But they were still afraid.
Maybe that is why Thomas wondered whether or not he could believe what they were saying. It seemed like just
another idle tale to him. For it had not seemed to make any difference in the actual lives of his friends. So
Thomas said quietly, “Unless I see the mark of the nail in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and
my hand in his side, I won’t believe.”
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IV.
It seems like a particularly gruesome thing to ask for doesn’t it? But after the trauma and terror of the crucifixion,
perhaps Thomas needed, more than anything else, to see for himself that that Jesus also knew about those
wounds. After all, in that moment, all Thomas knew for sure was that the world was a scary place, full of death
and violence and bad news.
And so, when Jesus appears again, this time to Thomas as well, the first thing that he shows Thomas are the nail
wounds in his hands. The gaping wound in his side. And in doing so, Jesus shows Thomas that he understands
the pain Thomas is going through too. He knows about hurt and about the wounds that don’t completely heal but
mark you instead with scars that you will bear forever. He reminds Thomas that he too knows what it feels like to
lose things that you love, people you love, a life that you love.
Maybe today that is the kind of reassurance we need too. We don’t quite understand how people can see the risen
Lord and then carry on with business as usual. And we don’t want the shiny exclamations of good news that don’t
seem to take into account the scary reality we find ourselves in. So how do we too come to terms with Easter
when there is still so much pain?
V.
In the movie ‘Shrek,’ an ogre named Shrek and his donkey friend are sent on a quest by the loathsome Lord
Farquaad to rescue a princess from captivity. Though they don’t know it, the princess has been enchanted by a
witch so that during the day she is a beautiful, human princess, but at night she changes into the gruesome form of
an ogre. The witch’s curse says that only true love’s first kiss will release her from the enchantment and allow her
to take on love’s truest form.
Following the rescue of the princess from the highest room in the tallest tower, Shrek, the donkey, and Princess
Fiona journey back to her intended groom, Lord Farquaard. And yet, as the journey unfolds, Shrek realizes that
he has fallen in love with Fiona himself. So, on the day of the wedding, Shrek rushes into the ceremony to object
to the union. His entrance stalls the proceedings long enough that the sun sets and the enchantment is revealed—
Princess Fiona is an ogre!
In the midst of the outrage that follows, Shrek and Fiona share true love’s first kiss and then she is released from
the curse. Only, as it turns out, ‘love’s truest form’ is that of an ogre, that “seemingly ugly, terrible, undesirable
form, and not the form of a human like Fiona had anticipated and hoped for. And yet, it is the form of an ogre
that connects her most to the one she loves—it is the form that they share.
As Kerri Clark has written, “It is not unimportant that the resurrected body of Jesus bears the scars of his
suffering and death.” 1 But it is, perhaps, surprising. Maybe we would prefer a God who emerges victorious from
the grave without any wounds or scars. And yet, Jesus instead takes on “love’s truest form”—the form he shares
with us—when he appears after his resurrection. A form that is still wounded and human. For in doing so, Jesus
shows us that the God we serve understands why we are the way we are. Believing and yet scared. Faithful but
still needing reassurance. Sent and called but still hesitant and halting.
VI.
Jesus reminds Thomas, and us, that he understands the full gamut of emotions and experiences that we are
grappling with in these days. And he has not left us alone to deal with any of it on our own. Instead, he has come
to us, even behind our locked doors of fear. He has shown us that uncertainty can be hope’s next-door neighbor.
He has revealed his own wounds and then asked us where we hurt. And this is love’s truest form—a God who
put on flesh to dwell with us, who created us with bodies of all kinds and called us good, a God who shares our
suffering so that we might share in resurrection. Gently and carefully, Jesus has told us that though the wounds
“Footnotes”
1 This connection to the movie Shrek was first mentioned to me by Kerri Clark, the pastor at Trinity Lutheran
Church in Connellsville, Pennsylvania in reference to her sermon “Love’s Truest Form.”
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on his body and the wounds we carry ourselves tell stories of great pain and sadness and death, those wounds and
scars do not have to be the end of the story.
“This is my body,” Jesus has said, showing us the nail scars and the wound in his side.
“This is my body,” Jesus has said, taking bread and breaking it and giving it to us, asking us to share it.
“This is my body,” Jesus has said, this wounded, scarred, and beautiful community of believers that we call the
Church.
Jesus sends this body out into the world to share the good news of resurrection. Wounded and broken more than
we want to admit. But still beloved and holy because of God’s unstoppable love. And, in the end, it is this broken
and beloved body that can, Jesus reminds us, change the world.
Amen.
Evening Devotionals—Week 6
Written by Rev. Dr. Kristin Adkins Whitesides for COVID-19
SUNDAY:
“When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had
met were locked for fear, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’”—John 20:19
“Jesus,
We walk the ways of death and life
holding fear in one hand
and courage in the other.
Come find us when we are locked away.
Come enliven us.
Come bless us with your peace.
Because you are the first day of creation
And all days of creation.
Amen.”
-Padraig O Tuama
MONDAY:
In these days of quarantine, I am struck by the repetitive but necessary tasks of caring for life. Whether it be
making a meal, washing our clothes, or making a bed, even when the world around us requires us to still other
parts of our lives, these daily domestic tasks remain.
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“A Prayer for Domestic Days”
written by Douglas Kaine McKelvey
Many are the things that must be done.
Meet me therefore, O Lord,
in the doing of the small, repetitive tasks,
In the cleaning and ordering and
maintenance and stewardship of things--
of dishes, of floors, of carpets
and toilets and tubs,
of scrubbing and sweeping
and dusting and laundering—
That by such stewardship I might bring
a greater order to my own life,
and to the lives of any I am given to serve…
High King of Heaven,
you showed yourself among us
as the servant of all,
speaking stories of a kingdom to come,
a kingdom in which those who
spend themselves for love,
even in the humblest of services,
will not be forgotten,
but whose every service lovingly rendered
will be seen from that far vantage
as the planning of a precious seed
blooming into eternity.
Amen.
TUESDAY:
Jonah had been in the belly of a great fish for three days and three nights. He had been thrown off a ship headed
to Tarshish that he had boarded trying to escape God’s call. And yet, despite the ways that he had fled from God,
God was still present.
It took Jonah a few days in the belly of a whale to figure that out. But while still surrounded by the darkness, the
seaweed, and the uncertainty, Jonah prayed, saying, ““In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
and you listened to my cry…The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
brought my life up from the pit…with shouts of thanksgiving, I will sacrifice to you.”
Jonah prayed this prayer while still in the belly of the whale. His praise arose from the depths he found himself in,
not because he had been delivered, but because he had come to realize that he was not alone. May we remember
that today as well.
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WEDNESDAY:
I have been touched by the small acts of kindness that have popped up like wildflowers, unexpected and beautiful,
during this strange time. It reminds me of this poem.
“Kindness”
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
…
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
THURSDAY:
On the wall, next to the door and above the basket where we keep our keys, we have a framed print with words
from Psalm 139. Its words remind me of the prayer that Jonah prayed in the belly of the whale as well:
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
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even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
The Psalmist reminds us that there is nowhere we can go and nowhere we can find ourselves that God is not
present. Or, as Carl Jung once put it, “Bidden or unbidden, God is present.” Whether we are aware of God or we
are not, whether we are seeking God or we are not, whether we feel God with us or we do not, God is there.
FRIDAY:
“This Is My Father’s World”
Maltbie D. Babcock
This is my Father's world,
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas--
His hand the wonders wrought.
This is my Father's world:
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker's praise.
This is my Father's world:
He shines in all that's fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.
This is my Father's world:
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King: let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let earth be glad!
SATURDAY:
May you find Sabbath rest today.
“Stillness”
by Sharlande Sledge
Quietly,
we come to you in prayer.
During this hour we want to be still
and know that you are God.
So much of our existence is spent
in scrambling and searching
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that we forget what quietness
and contemplation are.
Today we ask for a steadying,
a refocusing,
a reshaping,
of our lives.
Let us meet you
at the deepest places
of our hearts.
We know we cannot stay still.
We must move again.
But out of this time of stillness,
may we go steadier and surer
of who you are
and who we are.
May our breath
move in and out
as one with yours.
In the silence,
we rest,
we worship,
we open ourselves to you.
Amen.
May God Bless You,
Pastor Kristin
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