Between Sundays
“Jesus grew in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”
~ Luke 2:52
There is a particular kind of joy that comes with this time of year, and I felt it in full this past Sunday.
We held our Back to School blessings, and one by one, students and staff came forward to be prayed over as they step into a new year. Each received a little tag for their backpack, a small reminder that they carry more than pencils and notebooks out the door. They carry our love, and they carry the blessing of this whole congregation. “Bless this backpack and the one who carries it,” the prayer reads. “Fill their days with wonder, kindness, and courage. Walk with them this year, every step of the way.”
What moved me most, though, was who came forward. Not only the children and the young students, but the adults. Teachers, aides, staff, some of them heading back to a classroom for their twentieth year or more. There is something deeply holy about a person who has given decades to educating and caring for our children still coming forward, still needing the blessing, still saying yes to the calling. To teach is a vocation in the truest sense of the word, a sacred trust. And to celebrate that calling, to lay hands on it and pray over it, was a gift to me as much as to them.
This is one of those weeks where the whole campus seems to be waking up.
Today marks the very first day of Kindergarten at our Weekday School, and next week we welcome our PreK families for orientation. Soon the playground will be full again, ringing with the sound of children’s voices, and our Education building will hum with the beautiful, busy energy of a full house. I cannot wait. An empty church campus is a lovely, peaceful thing. But a church campus full of children is something else entirely. It is the sound of the future, right here among us, and it is one of my very favorite sounds in all the world.
The Gospels tell us almost nothing about Jesus between his birth and his ministry, but Luke gives us this one quiet line. He grew. In wisdom, in stature, in favor with God and with the people around him. Somewhere in those hidden years there were teachers and parents and a whole community pouring into him, helping him grow into who he was made to be. That is what we get to be part of, every single time we bless a backpack, welcome a Kindergartner, or pray over a teacher heading back to work. We are helping children grow, in wisdom and in years, and in the knowledge that they are deeply and unconditionally loved.
So as the backpacks fill and the buses roll and our own little ones find their cubbies for the very first time, let’s hold all of them in prayer. The students and the teachers. The nervous first-timers and the seasoned veterans. The ones bounding through the doors and the ones who need a gentle push. May this be a year of wonder, kindness, and courage for every one of them.
And may God walk with them, every step of the way.
Until Sunday, and all the days between,
Dr. Hutton