The Spirit Moves Me

I am so excited for Sunday!

For most people, it's just another day.  But it's my third favorite "holiday" of the church calendar.  Reformation Day is on All Hallows Eve...a.k.a. Halloween.  Being Lutheran, we are celebrating it on Sunday, making the 28th Reformation Sunday.  Reformation Day is the commemoration of the night Martin Luther nailed his "95 Theses" (or discussion points) to the church door knowing that the next morning (All Saints Day) people would be passing through those doors on their way to Mass.  And thus began The Reformation that changed the world (not just religion - I can go into that in another post).

There is something about that Sunday that reaches through me way back into my genetics all the way to the very first Lutherans in my ancestry.  On Reformation Sunday, I am worshiping with all my relatives through time.  It's like a crazy Star Trek effect taking place in my soul.  When I sing that day it's not just my voice.  The voices of all those Lutheran ancestors sing with me.  Reformation Sunday has the ability to fill me with joy to overflowing, refresh me more than a "normal" Sunday, and shut off at least for a while all the "junk" that may be going on elsewhere in my life.

Yes, I am proud of my Lutheran heritage.  I like being a Lutheran - born and raised.  I am fascinated by religion, so I have not been lax in looking at the differences between many religions, and even faiths and I happen to agree with the Lutherans - Grace alone, Faith alone, Scripture alone.

And one of my favorite bits of scripture are what I lovingly call "the Lutheran verses."  That would be Ephesians 2:8-9.  There's nothing I can do to earn God's grace and love and salvation.  He gives it as a gift.  What I do is a result of that gift - kind of like saying thank you.

I was blessed with the opportunity to pick the music for this Sunday's service.  I even get to coordinate a big choir/organ/trumpet/congregation arrangement of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" (the Lutheran theme song if we ever had one).  It is going to be so fun!  And there's an organ-piano duet of the same song as pre-service music.  It's beautiful!  Just the rehearsals lift my spirit, and fill me with energy I didn't have when I walked in the building.

Speaking of rehearsals, this week is insane and wearing me out (which is why I'm up late writing).  Play practice Sunday night...worship planning meeting Monday night...instrumental rehearsal Tuesday night...youth rehearsal Wednesday night...play practice Thursday night...choir/team rehearsal Friday night...choir/team rehearsal Saturday morning...sing Sunday morning and play practice Sunday night.  I think after that I can rest...after getting home from work Monday night.  Wow.

Something I have discovered is that being so happily busy with preparations for this Sunday has given me the opportunity also to share what Reformation Day is all about with people who just aren't familiar with it.  Some haven't heard of it at all.  Many who have don't really understand what it is and why it's important.  Honestly, I don't know who else (if anyone) celebrates Reformation Day.  I just haven't heard of anyone celebrating it besides Lutherans.  Special choirs and traditional German food are my favorite ways to celebrate our history and the theology to which we ascribe.

All I can ask for those Sunday, all the planning and practicing and history aside, is that God take the music and use it to do for others what it does for me - uplift, energize, refresh, and fill with the Spirit.  I hope others can be moved, too.  I look forward to being a conduit.  I hope my face and my voice just exude the Spirit and voice of God.  Honestly, I don't know how I could possibly have the energy to do all this.  How does someone who can't stay awake at work, who is in pain all of every day, possibly have the energy and spirit to go to rehearsals all over the place and spend a whole morning singing with energy?  Energy, energy, energy...it's not me.  I know that I can't do it.  The desire to do it is my "thank you."  Actually doing it is some days purely an act of God.  Some days, I have no idea how I do what I do...but I am so glad I do it.  I can't imagine the opposite.  I think it would be physically impossible for me to not go sing in church on Sundays.  And I definitely, definitely, need to sing on days like Reformation Sunday.  Physically, what I more likely need is to be asleep.  But emotionally and spiritually, I need to go sing the music of "my tribe" - the Spirit moves me.