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Pastor · Sunday Schedule · FBC
News
2000
REFORMATION PILGRIMAGE
When you read this Sharon and I will be somewhere in
Switzerland or Germany, touring sites connected to The Protestant
Reformation. While in Germany we will also attend The Passion Play at
Oberammergau. This play has been presented every ten years since the
Middle Ages. Our tour concludes with a three day excursion of Rome and
Vatican City. The tour is being sponsored by Northern Baptist Theological
Seminary and the president of the seminary and the professor of church
history will be our lecturers and hosts.
Little did I ever believe, sitting in Theology, Bible
and Church History classes, as a student in seminary, I would one day
actually visit the places that were the backdrop of my studies and so much
of both the development of my spiritual life and my intellectual life as a
Christian.
A few years ago I was in a boat on the Sea of Galilee
and I remembered thinking to myself, My eyes are seeing what Jesus saw.
Last year when Sharon and I walked down the well worn marble street of
Ephesus in Turkey, it was the same highway The Apostle Paul had walked and
off to the right were the ruins of the place where he had attempted a
public defense of the Gospel.
Now, when you are reading this, we might be standing in
the church where John Calvin preached or visiting Wittenberg where Martin
Luther posted his 95 thesis or we might be on our way to Rome where The
Apostle Paul was brought as a prisoner.
In a sense it is as though I have been in correspondence
with these places since I was a student and now I get to see them in
person. It is like meeting a penpal for the first time. Or, it is like
going home, for all these places I have visited are so much a part of the
story that belongs to the shaping and nurturing of my faith. I imagine,
for me, these pilgrimages are comparable to what others might discover at
a family reunion - a greater sense of who they are.
On these trips I am always very aware of how fortunate I
am. I think of the line of the psalmist, "The lines have fallen for
me in pleasant places. . . yes, I have a goodly heritage." I also
hope when I return, I bring back more than slides and a few stories. I
hope it effects, positively, the way I do ministry and that it rattles
something inside of me that will make me a more perspective human being.
When I am away I always think about those who I wish
could be with me. I think about my family. I worry about my dog and wish
there was a way to say to her, I will be back. And, you can believe that
in every church I visit, John Calvin's and Martin Luther's and Zwingli's
and St. Peter's, I will within my heart and soul pray for you, the people
of First Baptist of Greater Toledo. I return to the pulpit of First
Baptist on Sunday, September 17.
Dr. David W. Andersen
        
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