Grace and Glory Pastor's Page
Pastor's Message November, 2009
In the crisp autumn air after a substantial downpour, I thought the deer would be moving. It was gun season, but it was the rut and bucks, I knew, were going to be on the move. And it was my birthday. The same day I killed my largest buck to date. I sprang from the bed at 5 am with an unshakeable optimism.
Though the night had spit rain like residue of a passing storm, the sun arrived like it had an appointment with my wrist-watch.
The fog which hung close to the earth began to flee when it saw the sun come up over a canopy of trees lining the edges of a broom grass field. I let out a few doe bleats around seven o'clock. Sure enough, an amorous and generously sized buck came directly toward me looking for his fair maiden. He paused in a saddle at about 55 yards from where I stood smack up against a cedar tree, my shotgun resting on an old horizontal post.
I slowly took aim. I shot. I missed! Totally and completely. The buck bounded off at the alarm of the blast, uninjured and surely counting his blessings. I made sure I was not mistaken. There was no evidence my buckshot had even given him so much as a souvenir for his time. I missed the mark. I don't know how, but I did. Was it ammunition failure? Did I flinch when I pulled the trigger? The questions do a dance in my mind. But the reality is unchanged.
When you think about what it means to sin, you can think about my fruitless fifty-five yard shot at 7am. To sin means to miss the mark. It means, in our relationship with God and others, we may aim to do one thing, but we somehow manage altogether to miss the mark of our intentions. We may aim to be a good parent, but find that our temper proves a point altogether in contradiction to our goal. We may aim to be a super spouse, but get hung up on having to have things done our way, rather than cherishing the art of compromise. We may aim to flee from abusing substances or intend to do more truth-telling with our siblings, but then we bump up against the harsh reality that somehow, our best intentions fail to accomplish anything close to what we had hoped for.
So, how does Jesus impact our situation? Whereas we miss the mark, he hits it every time. He lived the life we were not capable of. Jesus was determined that nothing was going to block or budge him off-course. His goal was to be one with God. To follow what he believed God was leading him to do, even when everyone else thought he was way off track. And in his dying, because he hit dead-center on God's heart for humanity, you and I have been freed from the power of sin.
Our trajectory has been straightened. Our path has been laid out and lamp-lit.
Certainly we will continue to miss the mark, and flub up our relationships as long as we have breath in our lungs. But God, who is gracious and slow to anger, doesn't look at our record of misses and botched attempts to do good. He looks at Jesus' record, and lets it stand as the grade for the whole class.
Thanks be to God that we have a Savior who hit what he was aiming for, so that all of us may enjoy the benefits of his successful endeavor. Ready...aim...give thanks.
Pastor Ken Albright
Pastor Ken Albright - Biography
Pastor Ken Albright is an ordained pastor with 15 years of experience, serving congregations in Knoxville, TN and Atlanta, GA before accepting the call in 2006 to be the first, full-time called pastor of Grace and Glory.
He also serves on the board of Fluvanna Habitat for Humanity, as chair of the church relations committee.
He married Charlotte in 1991, who is employed in Human Resources at the University of Virginia. They have two daughters, Julia, and Meredith, and share their home with their gregarious animals, a Labrador mix and a grey tabby cat.
Pastor enjoys Biblical storytelling, getting youth and adults involved in mission trips, and helping people discover their God-given gifts and delight in using them. He believes in the power of re-creation, and practices it in the forms of tennis, kayaking, hiking, and biking.