Pastor’s Message – SEPTEMBER 2001  

“You will show me the path of life,

in your presence there is fullness of joy,

and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.”

(Psalm 16,11)

When I chose this text to be my confirmation sentence back in 1977, I wouldn’t have thought in my dreams that my personal “path of life” would lead me to Baltimore (however, I even at that time hoped it would lead me to ZION – but that’s another story).

It is the strength of biblical sentences that they accompany you, sometimes like a hidden treasure, waiting to be found again, and then unfolding and helping you to see and understand developments in your life from a deeper perspective.

I am writing this in a period of transition. I am still in Hamburg, but with so many thoughts and prayerful reflection already spiritually with you in Baltimore. The first book boxes are here to be packed. My wife Alexandra and I are saying good-bye to many friends and relatives. Although a journey across the Atlantic now is so much more comfortable and much faster than it used to be for some of you or your ancestors, it still is, we are realising, a huge step.

We are doing this step in faith, looking to Abraham, who by faith left his fatherland, and I am confident that Zion is the place where God wants me to use the gifts he has given me.

I am looking forward to exploring with you the “path of life” which God is promising to show us. “Fullness of joy” and “pleasures for evermore” are big words, but that’s our promise and what we have to offer through Christ and in His presence – do not let us ask for less. Let us make use of whatever hidden treasure we find in Zion and create a vision which will be to us – and to hopefully many people still searching - the path of life.

Allow me to end with some German lines – a hymn from our new German hymnal (no. 395). It has a most extraordinary history: written in 1989 by an East German professor of Pastoral Theology, Klaus Peter Hertzsch, for a family wedding, it quickly became a kind of anthem for the prayers accompanying the Wende, which brought about the end of the Berlin wall and of the DDR. Since then, it has made its way throughout Germany and has become one of the most well known new songs in the hymnal (sung to the tune “Lobt Gott getrost mit Singen”). It combines the message “Trust the new ways” with biblical symbolism like “God’s radiant bow” (verse 1), “the gates are open” in the promised “land, which is light and wide” (verse 3).

1: Vertraut den neuen Wegen, auf die der Herr uns weist,

weil Leben heißt: sich regen, weil Leben wandern heißt.

Seit leuchtend Gottes Bogen am hohen Himmel stand,

sind Menschen ausgezogen in das gelobte Land.

2: Vertraut den neuen Wegen und wandert in die Zeit!

Gott will, daß ihr ein Segen für seine Erde seid.

Der uns in frühen Zeiten das Leben eingehaucht,

der wird uns dahin leiten, wo er uns will und braucht.

3: Vertraut den neuen Wegen, auf die uns Gott gesandt!

Er selbst kommt uns entgegen. Die Zukunft ist sein Land.

Wer aufbricht, der kann hoffen in Zeit und Ewigkeit.

Die Tore stehen offen. Das Land ist hell und weit.

Yours in Christ
The Reverend Holger Roggelin
Your new Pastor

P.S. I will take up my ministry in mid-September. The congregational meeting scheduled for September 17 is an excellent opportunity to meet me first-hand and to share your expectations, hopes, visions and concerns for my ministry and Zion.
I am looking forward to seeing you there! Do not miss it!

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