One of my congregational Churches closed yesterday, and while I saw it coming for some time, when it actually happened I wasn’t ready for it.  And what I mean by that is, it was not like anything I had ever experienced before.  I knew it was going to be difficult, I had walked with this small congregation for the last four years, and in the last year when we saw the end was getting very near I walked pastorally with the few that was still there to prepare them for this day. Helping them to get ready, listening, consoling, comforting, encouraging, giving the support that was needed.  And it helped them move from the need to hold on to a building, a place, that had meant so much to them, with a history of family, baptisms, weddings, funerals, fellowship and love shared over the years, and which now was a heavy burden to carry for the few,  to look forward to building new relationship within another worshipping community, and become a part of it there.  But I was not ready….. I was not ready for the profound sense of loss I felt when I drove down the road to that little community, knowing this would be the last time I would be going there to worship.  I was not ready, …..to say goodbye to this little church.

I had helped prepare the congregants but I was not ready. After the service and de-consecration …. tomorrow it would be just another building in the community.  I was not ready, to let go of the sacredness of this little place, I was not ready to close the book on it yet, it was a part of my history now too, my story,  but the time had come, and it was now.  I was not ready to hear the word read for the last time in that place by the same two who had lovingly read the scriptures there so faithfully these past years, no I was not ready.  How do you make yourself ready, to put away the Holy in something that has been Holy for so long?  How can you?….. when you are about making things Holy, that is our calling to bring the Holy, to speak the Holy, to teach the Holy, not to put Holy away. I was not ready. I was not ready to celebrate the eucharist in that little place for the last time ever, to put away Holy things, I was not ready.  Oh, I know God’s presence is where ever we are, but I was not ready. No, I was not ready to hear the last prayers read, the last hymn sung, to put out the last candle, to dismiss the people for the last time, …. I was just not ready.  How could I not be ready??… I saw it coming, knew the end was near,…. I prepared the others, helped them work through their fears,  find new places of worship, held them while they shed their tears, and even shed a few of my own along the way, but yet…..I was not ready, to close the door and turn the key for the last time, to be the last clergy to serve in this place,… no I was not ready, for this profound sense of loss, that comes with closing a Church, putting away the sacred, the Holy……… No, I was not ready…..when the end came….. but even then I knew God’s peace, felt his love, his presence, and he enabled us to do what needed to be done, and in the end, it was a beautiful thing!

“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever.” (Isaiah 40:8)

“And the one seated on the throne said, see, I am making all things new,…then He said, it is done, I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end” (Rev 21:5-6)

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13)

“for I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)