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November-December 2006

Volume 9, Issue 6

Articles

See that Train A-Comin'

Congregational Life

• Birth Announcement: Dakota Bell

• Note of Thanks from King Family

• PMC Ladies Retreat: A Time of Refreshing

• Christmas Musical: Angels Aware

• Woodchoppers Ball

• Did You Know

Keeping In Touch

• Dorothy Powell

Mission Outreach:

• Live Nativity

• Operation Christmas Child

• Croatia Mission

• Kennell Family traveling to Peru

From the Pastor's Heart

• "Just Wondering"

See that Train A-Comin’

    It’s interesting to reflect on how my upbringing shapes the way I see things – especially in Bible reading.  I rediscovered that fact the other day when I thought of Isaiah’s vision: “In the sixth year of the reign of King Uzziah I saw the Lord and His train filled the temple.”  Well, my Daddy used to take us boys down to the Charlotte, NC, Southern Railway Station on Sunday afternoon from time to time. The main attraction of the trip was the arrival of Old 1401-an amazing steam locomotive. It was an old Class Ps-4 locomotive and when it steamed into the train station it was like the arrival of a team of dragons. The ground shook before Old 1401 came around the curve to the station and chills would run up my spine. Then it came around the curve all steam and smoke and bellowing whistle. I can still sense the excitement of seeing that train come in! As a matter of fact, that very locomotive is on display in the Smithsonian Museum of History now and I remember the thrill of finding it there on my last visit.

           So early on, when I would hear about Isaiah’s vision, you can surely guess the picture I had – steam, smoke, and thunder filling the temple as Old 1401 tore between entrance and altar.  Not such a bad picture when I think about it.  When Isaiah saw the vision he was smitten with fear and thrill just as Little Pres was when he saw Old 1401 a-comin’.  So that childhood experience really shaped my understanding of Isaiah’s experience.

           But we have to grow older and more sophisticated, and I did.  I realized that the train of God that filled the temple was like a king’s train or a bride’s train–long and beautiful, representing the one who walked at the head of the train.  The longer the cloth train, the more important was the one it adorned.  Not a bad interpretation for an intellectual and it stood me in good stead until the other day.

           By now I have outgrown some of my sophistication and am not so sure about symbolic trains of passive, following cloth.  I think I like Old 1401 better.  But now, the Lord has given me an even better way to see the vision.  The train is not a smoking choo-choo nor is it a cloth adornment symbolizing power.

           The train is alive and it is praising God in voice and in walk.  The train has become, for me, all those who walk after God in Christ.  You and I fill that temple.  Not because we have earned a place in the train but because God in Christ has baptized us in His Holy Spirit – and by that grace we can follow Him as surely as a train follows its tracks or its wearer.

           Now when I read Isaiah 6. I see Duncans, Burkholders, Hertzlers, Babers, Bells, Falts, Moyers, Kennells, Pruetts, Aydlottes, Shenks, Arringtons, Grabers, Lancasters, Schaefers, Powells, a Hardy, Starks, Brennemans, Wilsons, a Spiller, Gonzaleses, Bowleses, Iazzis, Habels, a Leeth, a Perry, Broughtons, Shultzes, Nowlins, Weavers, Bensons, Landises, a McKinney, Rancks, a Wyatt, Vaughns, a White, a Stoners, Clouds, Waltons, and a whole host of those whose names are not known to me.

           Do you see that train a-comin’?

 By Pres Nowlin