April 5, 2025
Board of Managers, American Baptist Historical Society, Atlanta, GA
When we visit places like Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts or the Biltmore in North Carolina or at many other historic sites especially in the East Coast, we find re-enactors, dressed in period clothes. If you try to trick them by asking them something about what you know in the 21st century, they are never fooled by your antics! They stay in character. I know because I tried!
We call this “living history” to suggest that what happened long, long time ago is appearing right in front of us. I think it’s like time travel. Even if we see the blacksmith hammering hot iron at the anvil to shape the iron piece, we know that most of what we buy at Home Depot came from China. Even if we romanticize living in a drafty house where the pilgrims lived on the Plymouth Plantation, we know that we’ll get into our cars with heat or AC whenever we wanted. Imagining what was, is fun and sentimental.
But during the challenging times in which we find ourselves today, going back in time when everything just seems to be better, is not possible. You see, we are “living in history.” Every day is history. Every Sunday, a church door opens to welcome in worshippers is history. Every ABC Biennial is history. And twice a year, every ABHS Board of Managers meeting when we come together is history in the making.
Today, April 5, 2025 lectionary text is Romans 8:31-35, 37-39, written probably when Emperor Claudius, expelled the Jews from Rome in AD 47 when there were already Christians in Rome.
In the many funerals that I have officiated, I have read this particular passage. [Read]
When someone dies, a date is etched on the tombstone along with the date of birth because it’s history. God giving us Christ is history that has organized our calendar years. When the early Christians faced persecution in their time, Paul reminded them that Christ interceded for them.
When we are confronted today with “rulers” who try to separate us from “doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God,” we know that in times like today, the rulers won’t be able “to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
As an historical society, we collect and archive a lot of history with the hope that there may be interest in looking back. We find it interesting to time travel to re-enactments with the hope that maybe, just maybe, we might better appreciate what we have today. We pray that what we do in the present would not be a waste of time but faithfully doing the Lord’s work.
The Swiss Catholic priest, author and theologian, Hans Kung wrote in the book, The Church, where he shares that indeed, the church has a future, it has the future. We are living a time when God will complete God’s work of creation, the church will reach the goal of its pilgrimage and the world will recognize the Lord. Hallowed by the resurrection of Christ, Kung wrote,
“Then we shall have holiday and we shall see, we shall see and we shall love, we shall love and we shall praise. Behold, this is how it shall be at the end without end. For what else is our end, but to come to that kingdom which has no end.”
We are living in a challenging time and we wonder if there’s any interest in history. But now that we know the resurrection of Christ, whatever has happened in the past and whatever is challenging us today, we are history in the making because the future in Christ is before us.
Let us pray.
O God, renew our spirits and draw our hearts to you, that our work may not be to us a burden but a delight. Inasmuch as Christ interrupted human history that redeemed the world, we pray that we may be vital members of making history toward that time when heaven and earth are one in you. In the name of Christ Jesus, we pray on this day and forevermore. Amen.