My Dad passed away last month.  It is hard to write that.  One evening I was texting him about our big family summer get-together, the next evening he was gone. 

My wife and I headed back to my parents’ home to be with my mom, and grieve, and prepare for a funeral, and all those things. 

On Sunday we headed to church as we do every week, only this time not our home church, but my brother’s church.  We sang “The Solid Rock” – a great old hymn about our hope in Jesus.  I say we sang, but I had trouble singing, coming in and out, as the emotions raged between grief and the very real hope that is ours.  During the pastoral prayer, the pastor prayed for our family in our loss, and there real tears.  Then we sang “There Is One Gospel” – a new hymn that I knew, but had never sung in church before.  It too spoke of our hope in my grief.  Then came “O Lord My Rock and My Redeemer” – a new song too, but one I had never heard before.  No matter – it too spoke of our hope. 

The message was from Mark 4 about the Sower and the four soils.  I confess I don’t remember much about it, except that it was grounded in the Word.  After the message, we sang “I Will Glory in My Redeemer” – one of my favorite newer songs that again talked about my hope.  We celebrated the Lord’s Supper, my wife and I with my brother and his wife and a church full of people I didn’t know.  But we were all brothers and sisters in Christ celebrating the reality of Christ’s death on our behalf that gives us hope for the future.  We closed with “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” – another great old hymn reminding us that in all of this, God was still faithful.

And sometime during that service, it hit me – this was what will get me through.  This weekly rhythm of singing songs about our great hope in Jesus that transcends death.  Prayer, the Word, the Lord’s Supper – all reminding us that we have a great God who has redeemed us and promised us a glorious future with Him.  This weekly rhythm rehearsing the glorious truths of our Savior. 

And it didn’t matter if it was an old hymn or a new one, a song I knew or didn’t.  All that mattered were the words speaking the gospel hope into my life. 

Some people say that church is boring, but it is anything but boring when you are wrestling with the realities of life and death, grasping for hope in the midst of tragedy.  And maybe that is our problem.  Not church, but us.  Too often we are pre-occupied with more trivial matters, distracted by things that have no eternal value.  The gospel speaks words of life, but we are too busy chasing the next thrill, the next meme, the next new something that means nothing compared to the old, old story of Jesus.

I don’t remember anything about the message that Sunday.  I don’t remember what I had for lunch that day either.  But in both cases I was fed.  And just like I need that daily rhythm of eating, I need that weekly rhythm of worship together.  To be fed, to refocus on what is important, to be reminded again and again of our hope in the Lord.  This weekly rhythm is what will get me through.

And yet, the weekly rhythm would mean nothing without the truths behind it. The rhythm would be worthless if I didn’t know that our Redeemer lives, and because He does, so shall my Dad.

The rhythm would just be wishful thinking without my Savior risen and reigning.  The rhythm points to Jesus.  And that is why the rhythm is powerful.  Because it is a means that He will use to get me through.