Treating of Greeting

The LORD appeared to him from afar, saying, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness." -Jeremiah 1:3

It is common in many local parishes for the congregation to leave the sanctuary in a procession of sorts, either semi-formal or informal, allowing the Pastor (or Pastors) to greet them individually. On many occasions I have been a Pastor who greets individuals as they leave the sanctuary, just as my Pastor has.

Here it happens that a man given to consider eternal things day in and day out is presented with an unpredictable onslaught of faces and names, each of whom he holds dear to his heart, having often thought through their lives and conditions, needs and cares, and yet never knowing for certain whether his notions are in accord with reality, except that they struggle with the same flesh he does.

For you, dear one in Christ Jesus, who greets your Pastor after Divine Service or on any other occasion, Your Maker is appearing to you from afar and saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness."

A Pastor is often distracted. To you it may even seem as if he is aloof. Although he knows better, human judgments about performance hound him just as badly as your own concerns in daily life do. Yet, as he looks at each face, he is seeing the faces of those who are baptized into Christ Jesus; whose bodies will at the Last Day be raised up pure and unencumbered by all that sticks to these bodies of death; whose lives are hidden in Christ Jesus.

A Pastor delights in seeing the congregation one-on-one, as it were. He knows that despite any and all weaknesses that attend to his person, those under his charge have received the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life that Christ Jesus lavishly bestows upon the Church He purchased through His holy and precious blood; His innocent suffering and death, all of which He most earnestly desired and intended before you were born.

It is for you as you leave the sanctuary just as it is for you going in: that all things delightful and good for you are ready and present according to the way your Creator set up your eternal well-being in Christ Jesus, that He has loved you with an everlasting love, and therefore drawn you into the body and blood of Christ who is risen from the dead, having made perfect payment with joy to purchase and win you to Himself; that He has placed this weak vessel in your very presence to convey gifts that even the highest powers on earth cannot create or offer.
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