Letters to the church not yet born
The faith as a gift we received and will give
Someone will read these words in a century you cannot imagine, in circumstances you cannot predict, in a world shaped by events that have not yet happened.
They will be your grandchildren's grandchildren, or strangers entirely. They will carry the faith forward from a point you will not live to see, through challenges you cannot anticipate, sustained by the same things that have always sustained the church: the creed, the table, the prayer, the scripture, the community gathered in the name of the one who said he would build it and the gates of hell would not prevail.
What do you want to say to them?
Not the theology — they will have that. Not the history — they will read it. What do you want to say to the person in 2125 who is running the race with the same weight you ran it with, in different shoes, on a different track, toward the same finish line?
Maybe this:
The cloud of witnesses is real and you are in it now.
The promises were true when we held them and they are true when you hold them.
The table is still set. The prayer still works. The creed still stands.
He is still risen. He is coming back.
Run well. We are watching.
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
— Paul, Galatians 2:20
“Posterity shall serve him. Future generations shall be told about the Lord. They shall come and shall declare his righteousness to a people that shall be born, For he has done it.”
It shall be told to the coming generation.
You are somewhere in the middle of that telling. You received it from people who are now in the cloud. You will give it to people who are not yet born.
The telling is not only formal — not only sermons and books and devotionals. It is the life you live in front of people who are watching. It is the faith you carry through the hard years when it would be easier to set it down. It is the prayer you teach your children and the table you bring them to and the creed you say with them until they say it on their own.
You are making a chain link right now. It will either hold or it will not.
Make it hold.