e-vo for week of May 23

Dearest e-votees-

This coming Sunday is one of the high holy days of our church year—Pentecost. It is the day when the Holy Spirit was unleashed in an unprecedented way among the believers. Some have rightly called it the birthday of the church.

Blessings on you as the Holy Spirit blows in and through your worship this Sunday.

Peace,
Karl

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22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Roman 8:22-27, NRSV

There is nothing quite like waiting for a baby to arrive. Some take to creating an elaborate nursery. Some take to reading everything they can lay their eyes on about good and healthy parenting. Some take to sketching out life trajectories and retirement accounts for the unborn. Some just take to dreaming and hoping and praying. There really is nothing quite like waiting for a baby to arrive.

There is certainly nothing quite like a baby arriving. Not just the visceral moments in the delivery room but also every moment after a birth is infused with a new hope, a new joy and a new responsibility. You can talk about and read about and think about and plan about a birth all you want but until it happens you just can’t fully understand.

Paul uses birth imagery in the passage above talking about the pregnant pause of the church coming to fruition. The Holy Spirit is at work helping us pray and sigh and hope and plan and dream. The Holy Spirit that was unleashed at Pentecost still is blowing through God’s people to this day. God opens up our hearts to belief and our minds to understanding. God opens our mouths for opportunities to witness and our ears to hear the cries of “the least of these”. God brings about new things and renews those people that have lost the hope and the vision we ought to have.

Our lesson for this Sunday from Romans stops just before one of the most profound promises of scripture:

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28, NRSV

This does not say that all things that happen to us are caused by God. Way too much pain has been made by carelessly asserting that. What this does say is that no matter what happens God can be at work in it and through it (go Holy Spirit go!!!) and bring good even from the things that seem so very irredeemable. Thanks be to God.

Thanks be to God that the church has been birthed. Thanks be to God that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and because of that we are too and becoming even more so. Thanks be to God that no matter what comes our way God can work to bring good and life and healing.

This faith life we are living—there is nothing quite like it. Let’s give thanks to God and enjoy the journey knowing God has us and will carry us. Let’s give glory to God by sharing that message in whatever ways it takes to get the good news heard by the world around us.


Holy Spirit, you have born us anew as children of God. Continue to stir and blow and prompt and inspire. Fill our lives with your whimsy. Teach us to discern you more clearly and abide with you more faithfully. Amen.

e-vo for week of May 17 (Ascension Day)

Dearest e-votees-

Today—Thursday, May 17—is 40 days after Easter this year[counting the partial days as they do in the Bible (on the 3rd day He rose again…, etc.)]. Acts 1:3 says that Jesus gave many convincing proofs and spoke about the kingdom of God. He told them to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:6-11 has the account of Jesus’ ascension.

There is another account in the 24th chapter of Luke (printed below).

Both of these ascension accounts are part of the assigned lessons for “The Ascension of our Lord.”

May you be blessed this day and may your spirits be lifted.

Peace,
Karl

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44 Then [Jesus] said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." 50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Luke 24:44-53, NRSV

Jesus talks about fulfilling the law and the prophets and the psalms. The law and the prophets show up together fairly frequently in the New Testament. This verse 44 is the only time that the psalms is folded into that formula.

Jesus fulfilled the expectations of the law revealed to Moses and tended by Aaron and so many who sought to honor God with lives lived in a holy and reverent fashion.

Jesus fulfilled the promises and the exhortations revealed to Elijah and Daniel and Jonah and Amos and all the so many others who sought to honor God by speaking the truth about God’s hopes and God’s concerns.

Jesus fulfilled the psalms—the songs and the prayers and the exultations—revealed through David and Asaph and Korahites and all the others who sought to communicate with God through song and prayer and worship. Jesus had a deep connection with the Psalms. Bonhoeffer writes this in “The Prayerbook of the Bible: An Introduction to the Psalms”: “If we want to read and to pray the prayers of the Bible, and especially the Psalms, we must not, therefore, first ask what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus Christ.” Part of what the Psalms have to do with Jesus Christ is that he brought them to fulfillment.

Having brought things to fulfillment, it was time for Jesus to go. Knowing this was the last thing he would say to this group of disciples and to us before returning to the place that he left on our behalf he says those things that are most important:

• He came as Messiah and brought salvation through suffering
• He rose victoriously on the 3rd day
• Repentance and forgiveness for all people, beginning in Jerusalem, are found in him
• We are called to be witnesses of these things
• We abide in this call not of our own strength but with power from on high

He left them in a posture of blessing. And they gathered and blessed God.


God, help us bless you this day. Help us bless you in those we encounter—easy to love or not so much—who are fashioned in your image. Help us know the truth of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. Help us live as a forgiving and repentant people. Speak your truth through us—with words and without—all in a way that blesses you and the people. Equip us with your power from on high. Thank you for your undeserved love. Help us love others particularly those we might deem as undeserving. Amen.

e-vo for week of May 9

Dearest e-votees-

This weekend we commemorate Mother’s Day. This weekend we linger in the good news of the empty tomb. This week our appointed epistle text reminds us that we are beloved children of God.

May we steep in these rich and poignant moments. May we share them with those who are jaded or maimed or disenfranchised. May God’s will come to bear in our lives.

Peace,
Karl

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1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, 4 for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. 5 Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.

1 John 5:1-6, NRSV

Three strands of this text jump out from this appointed for this upcoming fifth Sunday of Easter (which also happens to fall on Mother’s Day):

• We are reborn children of God.

• God has commands and expectations that are good for God’s children.

• Blood and water testimony.


We are reborn children of God.

Through baptism and through belief in Jesus we are born as God’s children. The image of God in which we are created is drawn back to God in a loving and saving relationship. We are brought into a loving community that loves not only God (the parent) but also all of God’s children (including us). Part of what assures us and testifies to the world is our love for God. God loves us as a parent. The language in our text is particularly masculine in regards to God but other scriptures also testify to the more feminine aspects of God. Genesis 1:27 talks of us being created male and female in God’s image. Perhaps this weekend, and for all times, we would do well to expand our understanding of God to embrace all aspects of parental love—male and female—and give thanks that God has birthed us into the family through belief in Jesus as Christ.


God has commands and expectations that are good for God’s children.

“Eat your vegetables, they’re good for you.” has never been a winsome argument for me. Asserting (even rightly so) that something is good doesn’t make it less burdensome. Our text asserts that the commandments that God’s lays out for God’s people are not burdensome. I don’t know if this is so. What does seem evident to me after some years both on the inside and on the outside of minding God’s commandments is that they are far less burdensome than what ensues when we choose to disobey. God loves us as a parent. No mother, no father wants ill to come to their children. Part of what assures us and testifies to the world is abiding in God’s commandments. Not only will abiding in God’s commandments relieve burdens on our lives but will also help us to “conquer the world”—whatever that means. It strikes me that we would conquer the world much in the way of Jesus—with sacrificial love, with forgiveness, with a washbasin and a towel, etc., etc. We have seen too many of God’s children slaughtered, jaded, maimed and disenfranchised through our understanding of conquering the world. When Jesus said to forgive our enemies and love those who persecute us that was a commandment. If we love God we will allow this commandment to take deep and abiding root in our lives.


Blood and water testimony.

Jesus came into our world in much the usual way (after the rather miraculous conception). Human births are bloody and watery affairs. Jesus testified to his love for us by becoming one of us as a child. Jesus left this world in a brutally painful way. He died a bloody death on the cross. He undertook a foreboding baptism on our accounts. John 19:34 tells the grisly account of blood and water gushing forth from Jesus’ dead body as a soldier thrust a spear into his corpse. Jesus testified to his love for us by dying for us as a wrongfully condemned man. Jesus sustains us in a sacramental way. He commanded us to go into the world and baptize in water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He commanded us to eat his body and drink his blood in the forms of bread and wine. Jesus testifies to his love for us by continuing to offer water and blood for our sakes and for our salvations. And the Holy Spirit affirms this testimony.


God we thank you that you have brought us into your family. We thank you that you want what is best for us and lead us to be people who abide in your commandments. We thank you that you continue to testify to us about and through the works of Jesus—with water and blood—and shore up that testimony with the Holy Spirit. Continue to Mother us (and Father us) until we fully rest in you. Amen.

e-vo for week of May 2

Dearest e-votees-

In the appointed gospel text for this coming Sunday Jesus speaks figuratively in the image of a vine bearing fruit. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. For us to bear fruit we must remain attached to him. We just need to remain. It is as plain and simple as that—so why is it so hard sometimes?

Peace,
Karl

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1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples."

John 15:1-8, NRSV

The driving image of Jesus’ teaching is a branch needing to be connected to the vine in order to bear fruit. The underlying message is remaining connected.

Perhaps if Jesus were teaching this to us today he would use something more contemporary such as he is the Wi-Fi access point and we are the wireless devices. The underlying message remains—stay connected.

Look at the verses again paying attention to the word abide:

1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples."

The New International Version (NIV) translates the same word in Greek as “remain”—the word is meh-no. This is a root of the word “remain” in English. In eight verses this word shows up eight times. The call, the invitation, the expectation, the challenge and the way to living a full a fruitful life is found in remaining in Jesus.

There are three places where Jesus can be consistently found. By remaining in those places we can greatly increase our chance of remaining in Jesus. Fortunately all three of these places can be found in your local congregation. The three places where Jesus is most certainly found are Word, Sacrament and Community.

Word: Luther talks about the Bible being the cradle that holds the Christ child. If we want to encounter Jesus, to understand Jesus, to be more like Jesus we need to spend time in the Word. Arguably this can be done by ourselves. How much richer, however, to draw near others who expound and process scripture perhaps differently than we? We can draw near others who may well make us look at scriptures we might rather leave out of the discussion. We can hear and support each other as we engage these holy words that Jesus came to inhabit and fulfill. When we remain in the Word it helps us remain in Jesus.

Sacrament: Jesus attached great promises of grace by commanding that we take simple elements and use them as he said. In many traditions there are two sacraments—baptism and communion. In some traditions there are more. In either case, we are called to be a sacramental people. As we recall the promises of God, we strive to be faithful to the commands he has given and we grow in being humble enough to receive bread and wine and water. We receive these as intended—as healing and good—we remain in Jesus. As we make room for others at the font and the table we invite them to remain in Jesus too. When we remain in the Sacraments it helps us to remain in Jesus.

Community: Jesus promises that where two or three of us are gathered in his name he is there with us. If we truly believe that each of us bear the image of God (imago dei) than we ought to receive one another as we might receive Jesus himself. When we love others as we would want to be loved we remain in Jesus’ command. When we learn how to love those who are hard to love—though we can see them—it shapes us into people who can love God who can at times be hard to see. What we may lack individually in terms of gifts, ability, stamina and vision we can find in community. As we welcome strangers and seeker and the “least of these” into our places and our ways we may find ourselves welcoming Jesus himself. When we remain in Community it helps us to remain in Jesus.

Bottom line: This part of the country takes a certain pride in individualism. We like finding our own way. We don’t necessarily like words from without shaping our ways. We might not choose to commune in a church but rather commune with nature. We are individuals and we must all walk our own lives and we can shun community and sacramental life if we wish—but we do so at our own peril.

Jesus says that to live a fruitful life we must abide in him. Jesus and the church make a compelling case that this is best done through Word, Sacrament and Community. Let us partake of this communal wisdom and life.


God, teach us to abide in you. Draw us back again and again and again. Teach and inspire us through your Word. Cleanse and sustain us through your Sacraments. Challenge and comfort us through your Community. Help us live into the simple yet hard truth that we need to remain in you in order to truly live the abundant life. Amen.



ps- I don’t usually go past the prayer but my mind is drawn to the book Outliers (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/outliers-malcolm-gladwell/1100030024?ean=9780316017930) by Malcolm Gladwell. He has a wonderful discussion early on in the book about the 10,000 hour rule (that basically to attain mastery of a craft a la the Beatles or Michael Jordan or Bill Gates) that the requisite time is on the order of 10,000 hours. That would mean that if one’s only experience with church/things of faith were once a week for an hour it would take 192 years (beyond most of our life expectancies) to attain mastery. (whatever attaining mastery in the faith means) Of course, we are called to be about the faith at all times but more particular focus/practice/learning is well facilitated by Word, Sacrament and Community. While I don’t buy the 10,000 hours as a hard and fast law I do think that a large part of abiding/remaining is showing up and being present at and around the activities of the local congregation. This makes the case to me for us to be more thoroughly and regularly involved well beyond the weekly worship opportunities. What think ye?

e-vo for week of April 25

Dearest e-votees-

This Sunday’s appointed text is the familiar gospel text about Jesus being the good shepherd.

It reminds us that we have one looking out for us who will do whatever it takes—even to the very point of laying down his life and taking it up again—to ensure our safety. And the “our” is a broad “our” including those that do not yet belong to the fold. Thanks be to God.

Peace,
Karl

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11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father."

John 10:11-18, NRSV

Just some rhetorical questions…

• Do you treat your rental cars as carefully as you would your brand new car you were driving home from the dealership on purchase day?

• Are you as diligent about turning off extra lights at the hotel as when it is courtesy of your power bill at home?

• Would it surprise you to learn that some people, while in the process of being evicted, pour cement down the drains of the house that once was theirs?

• Are you as mindful about portion control and not wasting food at home as you are at the all-you-can-eat buffet?

• Would you treat your workplace differently as the owner as compared to the minimum-wage earning hireling?

We treat things differently when we regard them as ours in contrast to when we are putting in the time minding someone else’s stuff.

Consider watching sheep. Sheep aren’t always the best at self-care. They can wander away from the fold one bite of food at a time until they are exposed to elements, dangerous surroundings and hungry predators. When we are compared to sheep by Jesus it isn’t always the most flattering reference.

In order to protect sheep someone needs to stay with them – to look out for predators, to guide them back to the fold, to get them to proper food and water, to gather them and help them live safely and be well tended.

There are really a couple of options:

OPTION 1: The sheep owner can hire someone to take care of tending the sheep. If one wanders off towards the predators the hireling might not want to be troubled or endangered. If one gets lost the hireling might rationalize that it’s better to look after the 99% and practice some sort of “Occupy Sheepfold”. When it comes to watering and feeding the flock the hireling might cut corners, add fillers, save time at the expense of the health of the flock. Bottom line: The hireling doesn’t have nearly the incentive to care for the sheep—when danger comes the hireling may well flee.

OPTION 2: The sheep owner can take care of the sheep. If one wanders off into dangerous territory the owner may well risk it to save the 1% from danger. When it is your prized possession or your profits or your reputation on the line every sheep matters. It seems crazy to the hireling but makes perfect sense to the loving shepherd. When it comes to feeding one’s own sheep nothing but the best. Forget foul water and filler-filled by-products—the sheep would get bread and wine, cleansing water and any other manner of gracious gift. When you know the sheep by name and they know you then you will do whatever is required – even unto laying down your life. Bottom line: The good shepherd lays claim to the sheep – nothing can separate them from the love of their shepherd – NOTHING!

God (aka Jesus aka the Good Shepherd) loves us – to the point that there is nothing God won’t face to claim us, save us, cleanse us and draw us into a joyful and abundant life. It doesn’t stop with us. God chases after sheep that are not yet part of the fold. When God sees us God does not see rental cars and foreclosed upon houses and hotel lighting and squanderable all-you-can-eat buffets and very disgruntled part-time, underpaid labor forces. When God sees us God sees ones made in God’s image. God sees invaluable treasures, wandering but deeply loved sheep and ones worthy of making the ultimate sacrifice in order to save.


God thank you for claiming us. Thank you for chasing away predators, drawing us all others deeper into the fold, feeding us with body and blood, cleansing us, drawing us into community and teaching us to live in joyful abundance. Help us see ourselves and others as you do. Forgive our hireling ways and shape us to be sheep dogs bringing glory to the Good Shepherd. Amen.

e-vo for week of April 18

Dearest e-votees-

This week’s appointed gospel text features a post-resurrection appearance by Jesus to the eleven disciples, their companions and the two who were on the road to Emmaus—Cleopas and the other who was not named. He offers them peace, shows his wounds, breaks fish with them, opens their minds and calls them to be witnesses of all of these things.

This meal is one of the three types of meals of fish that Jesus had with his disciples. All of them are instructive and reveal to us the nature of this Jesus who lived and breathed, who died while yielding his last breath and then lived and breathed again.

Peace,
Karl

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Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37 They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate in their presence.

44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.

Luke 24:36b-48, NRSV
There are three types of fish meals in the gospels where Jesus is present:

• Meal of Provision: Miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes—Feeding of the 5,000 + (Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-14) and Feeding of the 4,000 + (Matthew 15:32-39; Mark 8:1-10

• Meal of Revelation: Jesus shows proof that he is indeed risen from the grave (Luke 24:36b-48)

• Meal of Restoration: Jesus welcomes Peter back into the fold (John 21:1-14)


Meal of Provision:

Jesus demonstrates the compassion heart of God. At both meals (5,000 + and 4,000 +) there are large crowds with not enough to eat. Rather than send them away Jesus takes a meager portion of fish and bread and multiplies it so that there are baskets full in the aftermath (12 and 7 respectively—both rather holy numbers). The feeding of the 5,000 + is the only miracle that Jesus performed that was recorded in all 4 gospels. There is something good and deep and important about God blessing and breaking bread and providing sustenance. The resonance with Holy Communion is abundantly clear as well. God loves the multitudes. God has compassion on them. God can and will meet their needs. There is sufficient resources when offered in faith. We, too, are part of the multitudes. God has compassion on us. God can and will meet our needs. There are sufficient resources when we approach God in faith. Thanks be to God.


Meal of Revelation::

Jesus appears to the gathered disciples. Jesus reveals himself by offering peace and by showing them the wounds from the cross. They know full well that Jesus was thoroughly dead on Good Friday. They may well be thinking that a ghost is standing before them. To help prove otherwise Jesus eats in their presence since folks knew full well that ghosts don’t eat food (see Mark 5:43 and Luke 8:55 for other examples of recently dead people have something to eat). Once he has satisfied the disciples that he has indeed been raised from the dead he shows them how this was foretold in scripture. He then sends the disciples out to bear witness. God has come into the world to be revealed to us as well. He has died and been risen. He reveals himself in the eating (certainly to us in Holy Communion). There is a call to study scriptures and to bear witness. Surely this call is on our lives. Thanks be to God.


Meal of Restoration:

Peter stood huddling around a charcoal fire (ahn-thra-kee-us--Greek root of our word “anthracite”) while denying Jesus in John 18:18. Three times he denied Jesus even though he swore he would follow him even to death. That word for charcoal fire appears only one other place in all of the New Testament. In John 21, after the miraculous catch of fish, Jesus is cooking fish over the ahn-thra-kee-us. Jesus offers fish and bread (familiar menu) to them. He then asks Peter three times if Peter loves Jesus (two different words in the Greek, loses something in translation). Paralleling the three denials Peter affirms three times that he indeed loves Jesus. Having been restored to the fold Jesus tells Peter some about how he will die and bring honor to God. God has come into the world. We have surely denied God with words and/or actions. God comes and restores us. There is now a call to lay down our lives (literally or figuratively) for the sake of the gospel. Thanks be to God.


God, we thank you for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We thank you that he meets us in meals of provision, revelation and restoration. Help us eat of these meals and invite all that we can to take their place at the table as well. You are faithful and good. Thanks be to you.

e-vo for week of April 11

Dearest e-votees,

I hope and pray that your celebration of the empty tomb continues joyfully.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Peace,
Karl

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1 We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— 3 we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. 5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; 7 but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2 and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 1:1-2:2, NRSV

This appointed text is full of words of speaking and testimony: declare (3x), message (1x), testify (1x) , say (3x) and writing (2x). The response to the Word revealed in the world (through Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection) is to offer words of testimony and proclamation to others.

Verse 3 reminds us that this is done so that others might have fellowship as well.

Verse 4 reminds us that those who give testimony have their joy made complete.

Verses 5-7 call us to have different lives—ones full of light.

Verses 8-10 speaks truthfully that we will not shine our light perfectly and that God’s forgiveness will cleanse us and restore us when we misstep.


Good News: The Word has come into the world. Jesus has come that he might be heard and seen and tasted and smelled and touched—particularly touched as this Sunday as we remember Thomas. Jesus has fully and faithfully revealed what we need to know about God. Jesus brought life, healing, restoration, reconciliation, grace and peace to a world that was mortally languishing, sick, in disrepair, in tension, driven by a insatiable works righteousness ethic and at war—within and without. Jesus has come that he might bring abundant life.

Bad News: We continue to favor the dark over the light. We err by what we do and by what we do not do. While Jesus is faithful and just we can be faithless and corrupt. We are kin with those who called for Barabbas’ freedom and for Jesus to be crucified. We choose to serve ourselves and our self-interests at the expense of others. We try to wrest away the gracious gift from the hand of God and squirrel it away as our own. And worse yet, we protest our innocence—we are kin with Cain (“Am I my brother’s keeper?”) and with Adam (“The woman you whom you gave to me gave me the fruit”). We compound sin with our lies and make God out to be a liar.

Good News: Nothing can separate us from the love of God not even our broken and sinful ways. The tomb is empty and even our murderous ways were not sufficient to silence the gospel. As God moves us to confess and turn to God we are made well and returned to fellowship. As we are healed and restored, we are able to give testimony and invite others who have also chosen the crooked paths. God will not leave us in our broken ways but beckons us—again and again—into the light of forgiveness and grace. Unfortunately, we will sin. But, we have an advocate in Jesus Christ who is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and the sins of the world. Thanks be to God.


Dear God, we thank you for all Jesus has done for us. Help us live into it most fully and to share the good news with all who might hear. Continue to change our faithless and broken ways that we might shine our lights well. Help others see our light and glorify you—our Father in heaven. We pray this all in the strong name of Jesus—our brother, our friend and our atoning sacrifice. Amen.