Pastor Note for
February / March 2022

Ah, February … the month of love and indulgence, filled with passion and the pleasure of chocolate all displayed in hues of red and pink. From candy to cards, lines and words dripping with sentimentality bombard us. The saccharin realities of it are enough to make one sick, and yet challenging for any of us to avoid. 

We often think that the church and the story that stands as the foundation of the church are devoid of such realities. And while we know better to sanitize it too much given the violence, betrayal, famines, death, and other things present, we don’t tend to associate the biblical narrative with love. Yet a key attribute of our God is exactly this, love. Moreover, the biblical narrative as a whole could be seen as a lover’s story. God so loved the world, and yet we continued to betray, turn away, tease our loyalties and affections, etc. Even taking it as such, we don’t tend to think of the Bible as similar or comparable to the nonsense surrounding February 14th. 

If we but plumb into its depths, we find that also to be untrue. There is love poetry throughout with much of it causing us to blush at the imagery. We neither have read it ourselves before nor heard it in church. While we are certainly behind the retail sector that was leaning into this month of love prior to Christmas, we will through the month of February be reading, hearing and exploring this evocative love poetry. Then, in March as we begin Lent, we continue through what could be seen as God’s embodied love story to the world in Jesus. Hallmark has got nothing on our faith story! 

Yours in Christ, 

Rev. Daven Oskvig