Welcome to St. Stephen's Episcopal Church

But the power of Bach’s music is not its attempt to totally resolve the tension between longing for and knowing the Savior, the Lover of our Souls, the bridegroom of the Church.

 The power of the music is its ability to draw us into the mystery that Christ is already present with us, even as we wait for him to come again.

The music—moving back and forth between longing, consummation, and the joy of the chorale for a wedding feast—the music teaches us all along that the fulness of the Lover of Our Souls is calling out to us as we, too, call out to him.

The story of Jacob wrestling shows us how the Old Testament—and perhaps Scripture generally—is both close and distant. And perhaps Scripture feels both close and distant because it bears witness to a God who is both beyond us and astonishingly near to us.

And it’s this very tension between closeness and distance that keeps us on our toes— indeed, like a wrestling match with God.

The collect—the special prayer—for All Saint’s Day declares:

‘Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord.’

And what do you know, the phrase ‘knit together’ is only found one other place in the prayer book.

In the special prayers appointed for the Marriage rite—some of the most beautiful in our liturgies—

in these prayers which we will hear very soon, we pray that God would:

‘Grant that the wills of Gregory and Courtney may be so knit together in your will, and their spirits in your Spirit, that they may grow in love and peace with you and one another all the days of their life.’

When we sing Go down, Moses and see before us the depiction of Moses’ divine encounter, we use our own breath and our own eyes—here and now—to bring that ancient narrative into our present.

 And isn’t that a miraculous thing?

 You see, the moment of the burning bush is—as Crite shows us—magnificent, awesome, and holy.

 But the heart of the story is not the miraculous bush or God’s splendid distance.

 The heart of the story is God’s closeness to his people.