The Church Has Different Faces (Part II)

Where the Episcopal Church had all the grace and stateliness of the old world, Zion had the light of new life. Built on a hill, Zion is appropriately named and I was struck by the brightness of this church. A city on a hill cannot be hidden, indeed! Where St. Luke was red, Zion was white. This church did not have the mystique of St. Luke's, but it was alive! People were bustling around, greeting one another, smiling and talking. Children were waving their palm leaves. It was a chaotic friendliness.

Zion Lutheran Church in Kalamazoo, MI

As the service began, the chaos subsided into a comfortable rhythm. An organ prelude. A gospel

reading. A hymn. A congregational response. Another New Testament reading. Offertory. Then, it was the time for what we were all looking forward to: the Cantata! The choir and orchestra were superb.

One song in particular grabbed me and forced me to consider what it was we were celebrating. Called “One Day,” this song began with the women singing in subdued voices about the sin that “was as black as could be.” Then the men joined in with a drum pounding the unrelenting story of the man who was born of a virgin, but was rejected and nailed to a tree. The chimes brought in the next part of the story: the grave could not hold Him! As the piece crescendoed, it told the story of triumph. O glorious day! This musical presentation of the gospel was so beautiful, I wanted to cry and laugh all at the same time.

Of course, I am also biased in favour of Zion because they sang one of my favourite hymns: “What Wondrous Love is This.” I will forgive the choir for stealing my favourite verse, but only because they did such a good job of it!

There were other things along the way that made this time so meaningful. Because the words were printed in the bulletin, I was able to reflect on them and think about our description of heaven as home, the idea that Christ's life and death are both expressions of His love, the centurion's realization of Christ's divinity before His resurrection, and the appearance of sight—excuse the pun—in our Scriptures and songs (i.e. we speak of receiving sight at the cross, Paul was blinded at the same time he first recognized Christ as Lord, God's gift to Simeon was being able to see the promised Christ before his death, etc.). It was a good service and the crowning touch was receiving palm leaves of my own as we left the sanctuary! This is the face of Christ's bride.