Hamilton College Community Church

C H E C K  O U T  O U R  F A C E B O O K  G R O U P --
"Hamilton College Protestant Community!"
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=34491738507

Chaplain - The Rev. Jeffrey McArn
Musical Director - Bob Ford
(Communion first Sunday of every month 

WORSHIP FOR SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2008
A Special Service Remembering Kat Eckman '09 who passed away on Friday after a battle with leukemia.

as always... P I Z Z A  &  W I N G S  following the service

Meditation: "The Awful Grace of God"
based on a reading of Ezekiel 24
(see summary below...)

Music: Hard Times Choir
"Hard Times" by Stephen Foster

Hymns:
Amazing Grace
Our God Our Help in Ages Past
This Little Light of Mine

C - C H U R C H    B A N D:
Nate Taylor, Bass
Tony Sali, Sax
Cindy Reyes, Violin
Joshua Hicks, Drums
Michael Allen, Keyboards
Bob Ford, Piano

G O S P E L   C H O I R
Vako Tamaklo '09, President
Brianna Felton '09, Vice President
Courtney Carroll '11, Sec/Treasurer
Amanda Barnes '12
Alison Brown '11
Fallon Chipidza '10
Catie Ferrara '11
Denise Ghartey '12
Sarah Kane '12
Heather Otis '10
Nate Taylor '11

H A R D  T I M E S  C H O I R
Bob Ford, Music Director
Nancy Thompson, Dean of Students
Mark Thompson
Amy James, Director of Outreach and Orientation
David Bell, Career Center
Leslie Bell, Career Center

M E D I T A T I O N   S U M M A R Y
October 19, 2008
"The Awful Grace of God"

In the 24th chapter of the writings of the prophet Ezekiel, he wrote about the sudden death of his wife. God said to him not to be distracted by his grief, but to sigh inwardly, and through his grief, be a witness to the grief all around him of people who had lost home and family as the Babylonians uproot the Hebrew nation and destroy Jerusalem including its temple. What were the people meant to learn from their broken hearts, and the emptiness of loss of homeland and temple and family and friends? What are we meant to take away from the death of our friend Kat Eckman? How about Kat's family, her boyfriend and close friends -- how are they supposed to move ahead through a world that seems suddenly dark and empty and frail?

Perhaps Ezekiel is leading us to see that our devastation at the loss of a loved one is an avenue to become closer to our God, to increase our trust in God when it seems clear to us we cannot depend on life itself, the way we thought we could.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Robert F. Kennedy, whose brother, President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated five years earlier, heard the news en route to a political campaign stop in Indiana. He announced to the crowd this heart-stopping news that Dr. King had been shot and killed, and he went on to describe his own sadness by quoting Aeschylus from his play, Agamemnon: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

People of faith sing about the "amazing grace" of God, how God can make – as Dr. King used to say – a way out of no way, how the love that comes from God is steadfast and eternal, so that not even death can overcome it. But if we are honest believers, we have to confess that the grace of God is also "awful" (aweful?) because it's wisdom largely comes through the suffering of love which we experience in the cold fact that Kat is not coming back to us in the way we once had her with us. May God's awful/amazing grace come to us quickly in our grief and in our suffering. Amen.

About Community Church

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Services in the Chapel

Community Church

See you next year!  ~

~

Newman Community