letters

"Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them."
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  
In our world of emailing, texting, tweeting, and blogging, an old-fashioned, hand-written note is a rarity, isn't it?  I love to receive letters.  Breaking the envelope's seal.  Seeing penmanship.  Feeling the paper.  Knowing the familiar signature at the end.

If you're fortunate, you've had the chance to scan the words of generations past on faded, yellowed paper.  You've wondered where your grandmother was when she read that note from her husband.  You've tasted a little bit of a legacy.

During Paul's ministry, letters of recommendation were common among traveling preachers, as a means of authenticating their mission and credentials.  In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul unconventionally proclaimed that the church at Corinth was, instead, sufficient testimony of his divine mission:

"You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts" (3:3).

As a fan of letters, this was such a treasure to read this morning, and as a believer, it is a heap of responsibility!

Think about this with me.  When we write letters to people, we do so because we value them, and we have something we want to communicate to them.  Something we want to share.

While God primarily speaks to His children through the Word, He speaks to unbelievers through a beautiful love letter: His church.  He has gone to great lengths so that His message will be proclaimed to all people, and it is written carefully, legibly, on hearts of flesh.  Hearts, in fact, that are evidence of radical change.

He has authored the story, and He expects us to be a legible representation of that message to those who haven't yet heard it.

We are His letter.

And we have a legacy to advance!