Donna Zacharias started planning for Sunday’s annual grave decoration and church supper at Zion Lutheran Church in Schwartz some 360 days ago. In other words, as soon as last year’s event was finished, preparations were under way for this one, a clear and present indication of the importance the event holds within the church and community.
Pastor Jim Goos was once again invited to lead the service and his sermon spoke broadly to placing ourselves within a context of faith, hope, gratitude, good-will and love.
In addition, and after years of loss compounded by the pandemic, he seated his sermon in the memory of those in attendance by sharing, “This special service is to honour our members who have died in the last year and those who have been buried in our cemetery, and we have been blessed to not have a member pass away in this last year.”
These were welcome words to a small congregation.
Phillip Holmes delivered a powerfully evocative rendition of Amazing Grace with local musician Nikki Buechler accompanying on the church organ. With the last stanza, Holmes brought emotions to a crescendo when he elevated his own voice to new heights, carrying the hymnal message of forgiveness and redemption into every corner of the church and likely into every soul found therein.
Following the service inside, Pastor Jim invited the congregation out into the cemetery, accompanied by the resonant clarity of the church bells, for a grave-side continuation. There, the cemetery had been painstakingly groomed and lovingly adorned from one end to the other with a vast array of flowers, plants, tokens and decorations.
The image as a whole was one of beauty and the setting, in conjunction with the service, was affective, offering a complex mix of life celebration and melancholy.
Attendees were subsequently invited back inside for what has become a beacon of community: the Zion Church Supper.
No fewer than 250 church and community members filed into the church, past the beautiful stained glass windows and the simple, yet ornate, altar, through the parish room at the back of the church and into the basement where a veritable feast was in wait.
Zacharias and her legion of volunteers were ready for this feast, the culmination of weeks and months of planning and food preparation, and punctuated it all with a radiance befitting the locale.
There was a constant buzz at the rows of tables set end-to-end and running the length of the church basement. Attendees were clearly enjoying both the food and the fellowship in exactly the kind of moment that was likely envisioned 360 short days ago, and extensively, for the one already imagined for next year.
