Good Morning, My Dear Friends,
In Alex Haley’s book, Roots, there is a memorable scene. It’s the night the slave, Kunta Kinte, drove his master to a ball at a big plantation house. Kunta Kinte heard the music from inside the house, music from the white folk’s dance. He parked the buggy and settled down to wait out the long night of his master’s revelry.
While he sat in the buggy, he began to hear other music — coming not from the big house, but from the slaves’ quarters, the little cabins way out back. It was different music, music with a different rhythm. He felt his legs carrying him down the path toward those cabins. There he found a man playing African music, the music he remembered hearing in Africa as a child — the music he had almost forgotten. Kunta Kinte realized the man was from his section of Africa. They talked excitedly in the native language, of home, and of the things of home.
That night after returning from the dance, Kunta Kinte went home changed. He lay upon the dirt floor of his little cabin and wept, weeping in sadness that he had almost forgotten, weeping in joy that he had at last remembered. The terrifying, degrading experience of slavery had almost obliterated his memory of who he was. But the music had helped him remember. He remembered who he was.
I take this story to be a parable for those of us who are Christ followers. It is a parable of how easy it is in the midst of life to forget who you are and whose you are. So, the church is here to remind you, to remind one another, that we have been bought with a price, that someone greater than us has named us and claimed us and seeks us and loves us with only one good reason in mind — so that he might love us for all eternity.
So, whenever you come into Imagine Church, whether on Sunday or anytime during the week, remember your baptism, and be thankful. For this is who you are.
The grace of Christ be with you always,
Bruce Jones, Pastor
Imagine Church
