The Blessings of the Resurrection

One of the comments I recall from a sermon I heard many years ago, long before I became a hospice chaplain had to do the blessing of community. I sometimes hear patients and/or family members the saying, “I don’t have to be a church member to connect with God. I sense God’s love while walking in the woods, in nature.”  While that may be true for them, I can’t help but feel they are losing out on the full sense of God’s love and grace without being in relationship with community.

My pastor said in that sermon long ago that one of the blessings of the resurrection is community.  This sense of connection with fellow believers is available to each us most fully where two or more are gathered in Jesus’s name. (Matthew 18:20).  Luke 17:20 states that God’s kingdom is within you, and yet various translations say in the foot notes that this passage can be also interpreted to mean God’s kingdom is among you. I really sense that a correct understanding of this important passage in the Bible is that its meaning does not have be an either/or but perhaps both.

In Genesis 2:18 God says, “It is not good that man should be alone.” God created us to be in relationship, with God, with all of creation, and with one another! As we enter into relationship with others, especially our hospice patients and families, we are providing

and facilitating community as we enter into sacred space, inviting God’s Holy Spirit to bless us with grace that is sufficient in all things! Amen!