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A pastor was preaching at a nursing home one Sunday afternoon. She asked the residents a simple question, “What story from the Bible would you like to hear today?” The room grew quiet. Then one woman spoke up, her voice thin but steady, “Tell us a resurrection story.” Another voice joined in, then another. Before long they all wanted the same thing “Tell us a resurrection story.”  These were people who knew their bodies were failing, who knew time was short, who were living with loss close at hand. They weren’t asking for a favorite passage or a comforting memory. They were asking the deepest Easter question there is: Is resurrection still possible here? Do we still get Easter, even now?

Although we who are gathered here today live independently, we are not in walkers or wheelchairs, and most of us are fairly healthy, not suffering from dementia, able to travel—even so, if we are honest, we are not very different from the people in that nursing home. In many ways, many of us, like them, are all too aware of our frailties, fears, and the limits of our lives. Like them, we need a resurrection story.

Easter is God’s promise that resurrection meets us not after everything is fixed, but right in the middle of fear, loss, and places where life feels fragile or unfinished.

That question—Do we still get Easter? –is not new. The women who came to Jesus’ tomb early on the first Easter morning were asking it too, even if they didn’t have the words for it yet. They came carrying grief, fear and loss, expecting death to have the final word. And right there in the middle of their fear, God met them with resurrection. We heard a resurrection story a moment ago in Matthew 28.

Today’s text is only one of numerous resurrection stories in the Bible. Since we all need a resurrection story, I’d like to tell you one of my favorites.

Years ago, way back in March of 1994, a young woman named Kelly Clem was serving as the pastor of Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama.

On Palm Sunday the church was packed. Kelly’s two-year-old daughter, Sarah, was in the church nursery. Kelly’s four-year-old daughter, Hannah, was dressed in a little blue and white choir robe, sitting in the front row with the children’s choir, palms in hand. Kelly’s husband husband, also a pastor, was away that Sunday with the youth on a mission trip.

As the service got underway, the congregation heard wind blowing outside. The sky turned black. Then the lightning began, followed by hail. Then, suddenly, there was a burst of wind. The stained glass window shattered, and shards of glass shot across the sanctuary. Somebody shouted, “Tornado!”

Pieces of ceiling started to fall. There was a horrible sound as the roof of the church was ripped off, and the building crashed around them. Rev. Kelly ran to check on her children. But, a brick hit her on the head, and she fell hard on her shoulder. When she finally got up, she looked around at the rubble. Someone told her that her daughter, Sarah, was okay— that the nursery was still intact.

Then Kelly looked down to where Hannah had been sitting. There was nothing there but a pile of bricks. Under that pile of bricks, she could see little blue and white choir robes. Members of the church pulled Hannah and the other children out of the bricks, but Hannah did not make it. 19 people in the church died, and 86 others were injured.

The days that followed were devastating. Kelly performed one funeral after another, including a funeral for her own daughter. Towards the end of that painful week, Kelly began to get phone calls from members of the congregation. They asked the strangest question. “Reverend Clem,” they asked, “Are we having Easter this year?”

What an unusual question. “Are we having Easter this year?” Yet, when you think about it, it’s really not such a strange question. In a world that feels increasingly unstable- marked by violence, fear, division and loss we might ask  “Are we having Easter this year?”

Some of you are facing health concerns and very real fears about the future. You may be wondering “Are we having Easter this year?” After the death of a loved one, or the death of a marriage, or the death of a business, or the death of good health, or the death of a dream, we might ask, “Are we having Easter this year?” The early disciples in the years after the resurrection could have asked that question. After seeing Jesus arrested and mocked and beaten and abandoned and crucified and laid dead in a tomb, they might have asked, “Are we having Easter this year?”

And so, members of Goshen United Methodist Church asked Kelly, “Rev. Clem, are we having Easter this year?” But Kelly knew they weren’t just asking about Sunday’s services. She knew they were saying, “Rev. Clem, we desperately need an Easter.” And, after leading 19 funerals, including the funeral of her 4 year old daughter, Kelly Clem knew that she needed an Easter also. So, Kelly and her congregation planned an Easter sunrise service. The church was destroyed, so they had the service out on the lawn, in the midst of all of the devastation of the tornado.

Early on Easter morning, over 200 people gathered in the front yard of the church. There, in that dismal setting of destruction and death, Reverend Kelly Clem, with a bandage on her head, and her shoulder in a brace, made her way to the makeshift pulpit. She looked into the faces of people whose dreams and lives had been shattered. Then she read the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 8, “There is nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” And with that, the Goshen UMC of Piedmont Alabama began their Easter service. They sang “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” They prayed. They read the Easter story about how God brought life even out of death.

On that Easter morning  the sun had barely come up. The building was still gone, the roof missing. The brick were still piled where children once sat. Nothing had been fixed yet, nothing rebuilt. Grief was fresh. Bodies were sore. Hearts were broken.

And yet- people came. Standing in front of the rubble they looked at one another, bandaged, tear stained faces, barely holding on. Noone pretended things were ok. No one rushed past the pain. They sang, they prayed, and they listened to the old, stubborn promise that nothing—not even death—can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And Easter happened there. Not because the storm had been undone. Not because the losses had been explained. Not because life suddenly made sense again.

Easter happened because, in the very place where death had done its worst, God showed up anyway. That’s how Easter always comes. Quietly, unexpectedly, right into the middle of where it hurts.

If you came here today carrying grief, or fear, or exhaustion. If you came here wondering whether hope still has a place in your life. If you came asking out loud or deep in your heart- Are we having Easter this year?  The answer is yes.

Not because everything is fixed. Not because the tombs we carry are already empty. But because God is still in the business of rolling stones away.

Easter came for Kelly Clem. Easter came for the people of Goshen. And Easter comes for us. Because even now—especially now—Christ is risen. And resurrection is already on the way.

Sermon: The Seventh Sign—The Voice that Wakes the Dead

Scripture: John 11:1–45 | Old Testament: Ezekiel 37:1–14
Theme: Finding “Resurrection Life” in a world of dry bones and dead ends.

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I. The Design of the Beloved Disciple

When John wrote this Gospel decades after the Resurrection, he didn’t just list miracles; he curated seven specific signs. In the ancient world, “seven” represented completion. We have seen Jesus turn water to wine, feed the five thousand, and heal the blind.

But here, at the Seventh Sign, the stakes reach their peak. This is the climax of what scholars call the “Book of Signs.” John isn’t just telling a story about a friend of Jesus; he is showing us the reversal of the irreversible. He tells us his purpose plainly: “These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah… and that through believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

II. The “If Only” Heartache in an Uncertain World

When Jesus arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days. In that culture, the fourth day meant hope was medically and spiritually extinct. Both Martha and Mary meet Jesus with the same cry: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

“If only” is the language of grief, but it is also the language of our modern anxiety.

• Global “If Onlys”: As we look at the news this week—the persistent rumors of war, the shifting alliances in Europe and the Middle East, and the volatility of the global economy—we often find ourselves living in that same “If only.” If only leaders were wiser; if only the economy were steadier; if only the world made more sense.
• The Four-Day Reality: We often feel like we are standing at the mouth of a tomb, watching things decay that we cannot fix. Whether it is a political system or a personal health report, we know the weight of the “four-day wait.”

III. The Echo of the Prophets (Ezekiel 37)

While this moment in Bethany feels like a brand-new miracle, John wants us to see that it is the long-awaited answer to a promise made centuries ago in a valley filled with bones.

In our reading from Ezekiel, the prophet stands in a valley of death and hears God ask: “Can these bones live?” God promised then: “I am going to open your graves and bring you up… O my people” (Ezekiel 37:12).

What Ezekiel saw in a vision, Jesus performs in flesh and blood. When Jesus cries out, “Lazarus, come out!”, He is the fulfillment of that ancient promise. He is the one who finally opens the graves. In a world that feels like a valley of dry bones—dried up by cynicism, division, and fear—Jesus proves that the New Covenant has arrived.

IV. The Great “I AM” in Mazatlán

In the middle of this crisis, Jesus makes his fifth great “I AM” statement: “I AM the Resurrection and the Life.”

For those of us gathered here in Mazatlán—living as “snowbirds” or expats—this hits home in a unique way. We live “between worlds.” We are away from our home countries, often watching the political and economic news from the U.S. or Canada with a sense of distance and disquiet.

• Retirement as “New Life”: Sometimes, this season of life can feel like its own “dry bones” moment. We wonder if our most productive days are behind us.
• The Present Tense: But Jesus doesn’t say, “I was the resurrection” or “I will be the resurrection.” He says, “I AM.” Right now. On the Malecon, in our casitas, and in the midst of global upheaval, He is the present-tense life that the world cannot take away.

V. The Cost of the Sign and the Call to Unbind

John carefully notes the irony of this final sign: Lazarus’ life leads to Jesus’ death. Immediately after this miracle, the authorities plot to kill Jesus. He stands before a tomb of stone so that, a week later, He can walk out of His own. He takes on our “grave clothes” of fear and uncertainty so we can wear His robes of peace.

But notice what happens after Lazarus walks out. He is still bound in linens. Jesus tells the bystanders: “Unbind him, and let him go.”

• Our Mission: That is our job as a church in this community. We are called to help “unbind” one another from the bandages of loneliness, the fear of what we read in the news, and the anxiety of an uncertain future.

VI. Conclusion: Do You Believe This?

John ends this account with Jesus asking Martha a piercing question: “Do you believe this?”

He doesn’t ask if she understands the geopolitics of the Roman Empire or the mechanics of the resurrection. He asks if she trusts Him.
As we head toward Holy Week, the Seven Signs have been laid out before us. In a world that feels like it’s breaking apart, we have heard the Voice that wakes the dead. The grave is not the end, and the “dry bones” of our world do not have the final word.

Amen.

Lord God, the Resurrection and the Life,

We come before You today acknowledging that we often live in the “four-day wait.” We look at our world—at the tremors of war, the friction of politics, and the uncertainty of the economies we rely on—and we feel like Ezekiel in the valley, wondering if these dry bones can truly live again.

Thank You, Father, for the Seventh Sign. Thank You for the voice of Your Son, Jesus, which is louder than the noise of the headlines and stronger than the finality of the grave. We thank You that even here, in this beautiful sanctuary of Mazatlán, Your Spirit is moving, breathing life into our retirements, our transitions, and our anxieties.

Lord, for those of us feeling “bound” today—by the distance from our families in the North, by the grief of lost friends, or by a fear of what tomorrow’s news might bring—we ask for Your unbinding grace. Help us to be a community that rolls away the stones for one another.

As we turn our faces toward the Cross of Holy Week, remind us that our hope is not in the stability of nations, but in the Word that calls us by name and leads us out of the dark.

We believe, Lord. Help our unbelief.

Amen.

John included 7 of the many signs Jesus did. Like the 7 I Am sayings, and the 7 feasts and so forth, the signs form the structure of the gospel. This sign, like the others, is not a miracle per se. It is a directional sign, pointing to Jesus. They don’t function like the miracles do in the other gospels. In John’s gospel the story of the man born blind isn’t about the healing of the man as much as it is about what it reveals about Jesus, that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through believing in him there is life and clear sight. The man’s blindness is lifted, and he sees the Light of the World.

• Light is a big theme in John’s gospel.  It is mentioned 21 times. Let me highlight a few:
• 1: 4-5 Defines the life of the Word as “the light of all,” which shines in the darkness and cannot be overcome.
• 1: 7-9 John the Baptist is sent to bear witness to the “Light”  and Jesus is described as the “true Light, which gives light to everyone”
• 3: 19-21: With Nicodemus, Jesus declares that light has come into the world, but people love darkness, leading to judgment, as light exposes their evil deeds.
• In 5: 35 As Jesus is healing the man by the pool he describes John the Baptist as a “burning and shining lamp,” but not the true Light himself.
• 8:12: Gives us the definitive statement: “I am the light of the world.” Jesus declares that those who follow him will not walk in darkness but have the “light of life”. He made that declaration during the festival of lights.
• In today’s reading Jesus reaffirms, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world”.
• John 11:9-10: In next Sunday’s text he uses a metaphor of daylight/light to indicate walking securely in his teachings.
• John 12:35-36: Jesus urges disciples to “walk while you have the light” so darkness does not overtake them, calling them to become “children of light”.
• John 12:46: “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness”. 
• Light vs. Darkness: Used 5 times together, this pairing acts as a dualism contrasting truth with error.

Jesus is quite obvious with his disciples—the man born blind isn’t about sin, the man’s or his parents’. It is a sign—pointing straight to himself as the light of the world. Yet, most of the chapter is about the misunderstanding of the pharisees and the people in general. They are all focused on sinfulness and sabbath laws, blind to the Light Jesus offers.

There is a lovely progression of “sight” for the man in this story. When questioned the first time he says the man called Jesus told me what to do and I did it and I received my sight. He repeats it the second time. The third time he calls Jesus a prophet. Starting to get exasperated he responds the fourth time, “I already told you! Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to be his disciple too?”  At that they recoil which brings this eloquent reply: “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but listens to the one who worships and obeys God’s will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” That triggers a big reaction and they drove him out.

Jesus finds him and questions him in a completely different way, asking, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” It’s an inviting question. The man’s reply is open—“Who is he, sir? Tell me so I may believe in him.”  When Jesus replies “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he” the man proclaims, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshipped him. 

It’s an incremental and natural progression of growing in his understanding and devotion to Jesus.

Then Jesus replies in a way the needs explanation. He says “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.”   

The Pharisees, perhaps offended ask, perhaps sarcastically: “Surely we are not blind, are we?”

Jesus replies, “If you were blind you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see”, your sin remains.

The word Jesus uses is crima, it gets translated as judgment. That’s accurate but not nuanced in the same way we usually use judgment. It doesn’t mean condemning. It’s more like: do you have good judgment? Are you discerning? It’s about decision making or sifting one sort from another. I judge this apple as red and sweet and this apple as green and sour. Here, it goes back to the purpose of the gospel itself and the telling about the signs. He has come to identify/distinguish between those who see him and those who are blind in their own vision of how things should be.

The pharisees are blind to their need for the Messiah, they are blind to who Jesus is.

Is it the same for us? What do we need healing from? Where are our blind spots?

We all come with brokenness and barriers to seeing the Light that heals us. I’m afraid there is a pharisaical self-righteousness and need for control in every human heart. It lives there as a protective barrier to injury. What needs healing in you today in order for you to be open to the Light of God?  Is it grief, anxiety, anger and resentment, a broken relationship, an addiction or a lodged trauma. It could be anything that points us to Christ.

Grief can be a window into faith—the person aching with loss needs the loving care of another to listen to their memories and dry their tears. Like Jesus did we can really see the person who mourns and enfold them in the loving grace we ourselves have known. 

The blindness of anger, resentment, or broken relationships find their resolution in the forgiveness Jesus taught.

Freedom from addiction can be found through surrender to God’s care as the 12 steps teach.

Injury and illness become a window to God’s grace when we surround those in need with our prayer and our visits and support.

What is yearning in you for restoration, new vision, or healing? Where could you use God’s loving touch?  I’ve got a bowl here filled with mud. I used water not spit to saturate the dirt.

I invite you to reflect on what you need from God this day. Look within and dare to invite God to work with what you have—not just your strengths and talents. What have you lost? What is broken or hurt in you? What has been closed off?  What are your blind spots? 

The gospel invites us to healing and honesty before God. There’s a sign before us today and it points to Jesus who offers us life in his name.

Jesus is on the move in our gospel reading today.

The Pharisees have begun to notice him. Jesus decides to leave Judea and head north to Galilee. There are two routes he could take. One follows the Jordan River valley. It’s flatter, easier, familiar. The other route cuts straight through Samaria—rocky, mountainous, uncomfortable. Jesus takes that road.

He takes the road most Jews avoided. The road that carried centuries of suspicion, resentment, and division. The road where you were likely to meet people you didn’t understand, people who didn’t welcome you, people whose history with your own people was complicated and painful. Jesus takes the road through Samaria.

That road leads Jesus to a well. It’s not just any well. It’s at Sychar, where Jacob first met Rachel in the Old Testament. Back then the Jews and the Samaritans were one people with a common faith and heritage. Like Jacob, Jesus had a proposal, not of marriage but of reconciliation.

It is high noon, the hottest part of the day. This is not when women usually came to draw water. That happened early in the morning or later in the afternoon, when the heat was bearable and company was plentiful. But at noon, the well is quiet.

Jesus sits down, tired and thirsty.

And then a Samaritan woman approaches. She turns out to be like Rachel—who also came to the well in the heat of the day. They were both strong, independent resolute women.

Jesus looks at her and says something astonishingly simple: “Give me a drink.”

This is not a small request. Jews and Samaritans did not share cups. They did not share meals. They did not share life. And yet here is Jesus, already crossing boundaries, already dismantling assumptions.

The woman notices immediately. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?”

Jesus replies, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

Jesus is no longer talking about ordinary water. He is talking about life—real life. Life in its fullness. Life animated by the Spirit of God. Life that does not dry up when circumstances change or when familiar structures fall away.

The woman hears Jesus through the lens of her daily reality. “Sir,” she says, “you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Are you greater than Jacob our father who gave us this well?” Her question recognizes their shared heritage even as it points to their division.

Jesus responds, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give will never be thirsty again. And the water I give will become a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

She said, “Sir, give me this water.

The same Greek word for “sir” – kurios – is also the word for “Lord”. It’s also the same word for “husband,” and that’s where this conversation is going. John’s gospel is full of these subtle ironies and double meanings. 

“Jesus plays with the words and says, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’

To which the woman replied, ‘I have no husband.’ (Which is the same as saying, ‘I have no lord.’)

“Jesus said, ‘You said well, “I have no husband,” for you have had five husbands;
and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.’

It would be easy to assume that she has been divorced 5 times. That she is at fault, a sinner.  But remember, in those days, women had little control over their lives.  They were given in marriage. She may have been a teen bride, then widowed and passed along among her dead husbands brothers as the Levirate marriage practice allowed. She may have been abandoned 5 times because of infertility. Maybe she was a victim of abuse.   In any case, she would have been isolated, without status. 

Jesus sees who she is, what she has been through, and he engages in this conversation with her.  It is the longest conversation anyone has with Jesus in all of the gospels.  He sees beyond her labels: unmarried, female, Samaritan.  She speaks boldly to him, identifying him as a prophet. He sees that she prefers to be invisible. She hopes to come and go, undetected, carrying around in isolation whatever trauma, wound, sin, fear, or desperation her complicated history has left her with.

But then Jesus comes along and sees her.  He sees the whole of her.  The past.  The present.  The future.  Who she has been.  What she yearns for.  How she hurts.  All that she might become.  And he names it all.  

But he names it all without shaming, castigating, or condemning her.  He sees and names the woman in a way that makes her feel not judged, but loved. Not exposed, but shielded.  Not diminished, but restored.  He doesn’t shy away from the painful, ugly, broken stuff in her life.  Instead he allows the truth of who she is to come to the surface.  “Let’s name what’s real,” he tells her.  “Let’s say what IS.  No more games.  No more smokescreens.  No more posturing.  I see you for who you are, and I love you.  Now see who I am.  The Messiah.  The one in whom you can find freedom, love, healing, and transformation.   Spirit and Truth.  Eternal life.  Living Water.  Drink of me, and live.”

Jesus invites us to see ourselves and each other through eyes of love, not judgment.  Can we, like Jesus, become soft landing places for people who are all alone, carrying stories too heavy to bear?  To see brokenness without shaming it is not easy.  But it’s what we’re called to do.  Salvation begins with clear, tender, and unconditional seeing.  

Jesus honors the woman’s proclamation: When Jesus tells the Samaritan woman who he is, she leaves her water jar at the well, runs back to her city, and says, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!  He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

There’s so much to love about this moment.  I love that in her excitement, the woman forgets all about her water jar.  I love that her sudden need to share the good news overwhelms her desire to remain anonymous and invisible.  I love that her history — once the source of such pain and secrecy — becomes the evidence she uses to proclaim Jesus’s identity.  I love that she says, “Come and see,” recognizing that Jesus can’t be reduced to a secondhand platitude or formula.  I love that she shares her experience of Jesus even though her faith is still young, still forming, still in process.  (“He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”)  Even her questions become a part of her evangelism.  Even her curiosity becomes a tool that arouses the curiosity of others.  

Most of all, I love that Jesus honors, blesses, and validates the woman’s proclamation.  John writes that Jesus stays in the woman’s city for two days, so that everyone who hears her testimony can meet with him directly, and see that the woman is a reliable witness.  She, like John the Baptist, like the Apostles, like Mary Magdalene, like Paul, “prepares the way of the Lord” — and Jesus encourages her to do so.  “Many Samaritans from that city,” the Gospel writer tells us, “believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.”  

Who is speaking the Good News into your life?  How are you receiving their testimony?  In the most unlikely places, through the most unexpected voices, from the minds and bodies of the disempowered and the overlooked, the Word of God speaks, and the Living Water flows.  May we have ears to hear it, hearts to drink it in, and humility to honor and bless its proclamation.

March 1, 2026; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson I used to be a gymnast—a long time ago. The balance beam was my favorite event. One of the difficult moves I mastered was a tuck jump full turn. An essential key to success was focus. In order to jump up in the air, tuck your legs up so the knees are above the hips and spin in the air 360 degrees, landing on a 4” beam, it is important to focus on a point ahead of you. A spot in line with the end of the beam but in the distance—across the gym, worked. If you look at the beam right below you, or worse –if you’re looking all over, you lose your balance and miss the beam on your landing.  Faith, like balance, is not about stopping the spinning of life, but about fixing our focus on the One who keeps us. How we live our lives can be something like that. Things throw us off balance. As we twist and turn through our calendars, we can lose our focus by looking away from what orients our life: our faith. Our texts today point us to a focal point, that spot on the wall across the gym that steadies our moves. Psalm 121 and John chapter 3—great places to train our attention. With the psalmist, however, we lift our eyes to the hills—or to the news, or to our fears and we lose our balance and fall, because neither the hills nor our fears are a reliable source of strength. The psalmist knows where to focus and it’s not the hills, not other people, and not even one’s self. Our help comes from the Lord. God can ground us, clear our vision, and help us move without reeling. The Lord will not let our foot be moved. The Lord will keep us; the Lord will watch over our going out and coming in. Like the psalmist, we can choose to focus on the Lord. No one wants to be dizzy or off balance. We don’t want to feel helpless, at the mercy of the whirling world around us, so we locate our focus where it belongs. We look to the Lord. We keep our gaze steady and hold our sight. God doesn’t stop the spinning, but instead offers a spot to give our turning focus. Psalm 121 is called a Psalm of Ascent. It was used by pilgrims making the arduous climb up to Jerusalem. All along that hot and dusty road on every hilltop between Galilee and Jerusalem were scattered temples to other gods.  When they looked to the hills they saw the promises of idols scraping the sky. The hike up the long hills to Jerusalem itself revealed a symbolic contrast. Another aspect of this psalm is that the path up the hill to Jerusalem was not only strenuous, it was dangerous too. As the pilgrim looked ahead they would be scanning the narrow paths for bandits and other challenges lurking hidden in the rocky crevices. The words are a reminder that even when the path ahead is full of risk and difficulty—God keeps us. Both they psalmist and Nicodemus are asking the same question: Where does my life actually rest? In our text from John reveals Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus in the night, awhirl with questions about the deeds of power that he and his fellow Pharisees have witnessed Jesus performing. He wonders, “How can these things be?” I relate to Nicodemus. He’s a thinker, a questioner, a seeker of deeper understanding.  He’s a leader in the religious establishment and he wants explanations. He wants faith to be manageable. Jesus uses conversation to facilitate a new focal point in Nicodemus’s life. Jesus zeroes right in, setting aside the pleasantries Nicodemus started with. “Noone can see the Kingdom of God without being born again or from above.”  He’s telling the seeker that his search for knowledge and control is off target. Nicodemus’ response is straightforward, “How can that be? I’m old. Born again, back in my mother’s womb? What are you talking about? Jesus directs his attention to the spirit’s power to change lives. It’s not about having the right answers but about being transformed. Nicodemus uses logic to look for something he could control and manage. Jesus meets him with mystery and challenges him to let go, let the spirit take over. John’s Gospel features many such conversations, in which Jesus takes time to talk, face to face with seekers. He is not afraid to make eye contact and to offer the nearness of the kingdom of God as a counterpoint to the demands of the world. Jesus welcomes these talks that often create genuine relationship and opens up a space for conversion. Behavioral economist Jonathan Haidt writes in The Righteous Mind that one of the most potent and effective ways to enact personal change is through relationship. Transformation is made possible when affection forces us to entertain thoughts that differ from our own opinions. For most humans, the only way we change our mind about an issue or a person is to lean toward someone we love who thinks differently. In looking to them, we suspend our own opinions and see the world through their eyes. We change our focus. Nicodemus leans toward the Lord and entertains a new vision of faith. The psalmist leans toward the Lord and shifts the gaze from the hills to the creator and sustainer of life.  We too are invited to lean toward Christ.

It’s repeatedly surprising to me that even those of us who have spent our whole lives knowing God’s love for us still live many of our days somewhere between verse one and verse two of Psalm 121. “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come?” “My help comes from the Lord.”  I think there should be a big pause between those two sentences.  I lift my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come?  Pause.  Pause long enough to consider where we are looking for help, then and only them move on to My Help comes from the Lord.” The pause is important.  We pause to consider our own needs, our limits and our failings.  Then we look to God and discover the help we need.

It is so easy to get distracted by the worries and the activities of our days or by the irritations or inconveniences.  We forget our focus and we lose our balance.

The Jewish people have a practice that helps them remember who they are and to whom they belong.  They post on their doorposts a Mezuzah- it is a touchstone marked with the Hebrew letter Shin- which is the first letter of the word Shaddai— a word that means the Most High or God. Inside the Mezuzah are the words of the Shema, from Deuteronomy 6: 4-9

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates”

The idea is that whenever they enter or leave their home, they remember that God will keep them, no matter what. They touch it to remind themselves to love the Lord God with all their heart, soul and mind.  Sometimes the Mezuzah is also decorated with the words from our Psalm, The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.  It’s something like wearing a cross necklace, or carrying a token in a pocket to remind oneself what is important, or making the sign of the cross over oneself.  It’s not a good luck charm or a superstition, but a way of keeping our focus. Like the gymnast’s focal point, the mezuzah gives the body a place to focus when life is in motion.

After that first section, the rest of Psalm 121 seems very assured, like a great hymn of trust in God. But, it can also be seen as a suspense-filled drama in which the story of God’s faithfulness is at great risk. This is a daring love song that is sung in the face of all the other choices we could make. It is not so much philosophical certitude but passionate love for God.

² My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

³ The Lord will not let your foot be moved;   your keeper will not slumber.
⁴ Israel’s keeper will neither slumber nor sleep.
⁵ The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
⁶ The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
⁷ The Lord will keep you from all evil; The Lord will keep your life.
⁸ The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in  from this time on and for evermore.

The key word is this psalm is keep/keeper, from the Hebrew word shamar. Who is God? God is a keeper. God’s identity is to protect. God does this like a watchman keeping guard over a city (130:8) or a bird shielding its young in the shelter of his wings (91:4). What does God promise to do? God promises to keep you. God will guard you as you go on your journey of life, and as you return home. As you go out and come in. As you face the dangers of the day and of the night.

The list of promises here is not meant to suggest that those who walk in the shelter of God will face no harm or that nothing ill will befall them. They are characteristic promises — these are the sort of things that the Lord does for those who turn to the Lord. The words of blessing and promise evoke God’s protection and our awareness of it. 

I recommend memorizing this psalm, recite it when you rise in the morning and at night before you sleep. You could even post it by your doorway to remind you where to look for help.  It can be a touchstone to ward off the doubt and disbelief that pulls us from God like an unseen magnetic force. The psalms were the songbook for the Jewish people, let the words of this great hymn ring in your mind like the words of a favorite hymn—like Amazing Grace, that we heard Linda sing today.

Let us pray, Keeping God, when the world spins and our footing feels unsure, you invite us to fix our eyes on you. When we look to the hills, our fears, our own strength, or to the noise of our days, turn our gaze back to you. Teach us to pause, to name our need, our limits, our longing and then to trust again that our help comes from you. May we, like Nicodemus, be born anew by your Spirit, lean toward you, and receive the life you freely give. Amen.

Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

There is so much in our lives that is beyond our control.  Most of us want more control than we have, I know I do.  Accepting the changes that happen in our lives can be challenging.  It’s hard to face change with faith and trust.  I came upon these words by the Rev. A. Powell Davies. He writes:

We are mistaken to ever imagine that we are secure. We live on a spinning ball, all but the outer crust of which is flame; we live on it subject to all its hazards and always will: these include earthquake and hurricane, tornado and eruption, storm and avalanche, fire and flood. We live our physical lives within our own precarious bodies subject to all the perils of disease, all the dangers of accident. There is nothing we can call our own which may not be taken away.

He wrote these words in a sermon about mastering anxiety. With all that instability and suffering awaiting around every corner, how are we to make it through each day?  How do we find the courage, the strength to try again, to wake up every morning, to rise up and move forward?  Where do we find the ability to trust in our own deepest experiences, to say softly but firmly:

“…all shall be well and, All shall be well and, all manner of thing shall be well.”

Those are the words of Julian of Norwich, a religious woman who lived during the bleakest time of the Middle Ages.  She heard Jesus respond to her prayers, and she recorded his words as she heard them and as she sought to live by them.  “All shall be well,” she wrote, as the Bubonic Plague raged around her, as bodies piled up in the streets.  “All manner of thing shall be well.”  Her life was precarious, the convent cell she lived in was dark and small—yet her faith was bright.

Now, faith doesn’t mean blind trust.  The ancient Pali word, saddha, usually translated as “faith” in Buddhist scripture literally means “to place the heart upon.”  To have faith is to offer one’s heart or give over one’s heart.  A professor of comparative religion at Harvard, gives this definition of faith: “Faith is an orientation of the personality, to oneself, to one’s neighbor, to the universe; a total response, a capacity to live at more than a mundane level; to see, to feel, to act in terms of a transcendent dimension.”  Another definition says, “faith is not acceptance without proof, but trust without reservation.” 

Approaching change with faith is more than just being hopeful.  Faith is different than belief. Faith is a knowing of the heart.

 “And all shall be well and, All shall be well and, All manner of thing shall be well.”

This knowing of the heart—faith– is an orientation not only to God but to oneself and to the larger world, a way of living that allows us to move forward, take another step, even when it seems daunting impossible.

Anne Lamott, a popular writer whose stories often have to do with her son Sam, tells a story from when her best friend Pammy was diagnosed with cancer. She writes,

I’m just trying to stay faithful.  I heard this amazing …doctor talking about autistic kids who were so severely withdrawn that if you stood them up, they’d just fall over.  They’d make no effort to stand or even to shield their faces when they fell.  Then these people working with them discovered that if they ran a rope from one end of the room to the other and stood the kids up so that they were holding on to the rope, the kids would walk across the room.  So over the months they kept putting up thinner and thinner pieces of rope, until they were using something practically invisible, like fishing line, and the kids would still walk across the room if they could hold on to it.  And then—and this really seems like a brainstorm—the adults cut the fishing line into pieces, into twelve-inch lengths or something, and handed one to each kid.  The kids would still walk. 

What an amazing statement of faith.  I told this to Pammy, but she didn’t really respond right away.  She went over to where Sam was playing and sat down next to him and said, “Mommy’s a religious fanatic.”  She held him in her lap while he played with his toys, and she made him laugh, and then she started to cry.

“We need to get some,” she said… “Some what?” I asked. “Some fishing line.”

Some fishing line to walk across a room doesn’t give us the ability to walk.  But maybe that fishing line helps us to hold on to our faith in our ability to move forward.

Faith doesn’t mean that we place a blind and unquestioning belief in a thing or a person, or even in God.  Anne Lamott has also said that “that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.  Certainty is missing the point entirely.  Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.  Faith also means reaching deeply within, for the sense one was born with.”

The words from Julian of Norwich arose out of a radical life of trust in God.  She was what they called an anchoress.  An anchoress of the Middle Ages was like a nun, but took much stricter vows.  During their vows, these women were considered married to Christ—they were removed from the world, in a combination ceremony that had some aspects similar to a wedding and others similar to a funeral as they understood their vows as a dying to the world.  The small cell that Julian lived in at the convent, about a dozen square feet, was enclosed after the ceremony—bricked up and walled off, leaving only a small passage for food and communication, and a tiny squint through which to see the high altar of the church.  She could never leave. Julian was incarcerated, totally dependent, and alone.  And yet she wrote that:

“…all shall be well and All shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well.”

Even as she sat in her living tomb, death and disease at her door, Julian of Norwich dreamed of God’s love, and the beauty of a world beyond this.  She had faith that God, through it all, was with her, holding her and helping her through her suffering.  She shared her image of God holding the earth, the whole world cupped in God’s hands like a small hazelnut.  God couldn’t stop the hurt and suffering that humans inflicted on one another, but God was present in the courage, the strength, the faith that humans gathered up in order to move forward. 

I’m pretty sure none of us here today can imagine relinquishing the control over our lives in such an extreme manner as Julian of Norwich did.  In fact, I wouldn’t even suggest doing so—withdrawing from the world completely simply isn’t an option for us.  Yet, our faith does invite us to trust God’s leading.  And her words can be a refrain to recite when we face the anxieties in our own lives, when we’re facing change.

It’s hard to know just how to trust God’s leading in our personal lives and choices, and in our life together as a congregation too. Our lives are quite different from saints like Julian of Norwich or from Biblical figures like Paul who experienced God’s leading on the road to Damascus in a clear sign, in the form of a lightning bolt. In our lives, God’s call doesn’t usually come in such a dramatic fashion.  Instead of a lightning bolt it may be more like drizzle.  I don’t believe that there is one perfect path for our lives divinely planned.  God

Julian of Norwich said it well: “And all shall be well and, All shall be well and, All manner of thing shall be well.”

Paul said a similar thing in Ephesians 3: 20-21, promising that God offers us even more than we hope for.  ²⁰ Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

I’ll confess something to you: sometimes I daydream about preaching the shortest sermon in history. I call it the “Nike Sermon.” I would stand up here, read these world-shaking words from Isaiah, look you in the eye, and simply say: “Just do it.”

Then I’d sit down.

Wouldn’t that be nice? Just once? No three-point outlines—just a clear, athletic call to action. But the reason I can’t just say “Just do it” is because we immediately start asking: Just do what? How? Where? 

Isaiah was on a roll that day. Our text comes from Third Isaiah, written to a people trying to rebuild a broken world. We need this message today. In fact every “today” that every listener to this text has ever faced needed this message.

Some might think we don’t need the Hebrew scriptures anymore; we’ve got the Gospels, we’ve got Jesus, and that’s “good enough.” But these are the words that Jesus knew. These are the words Jesus lived by, the words that called him into the ministry he passed on to us. We need these words to give us hope, even as they bring a challenge and a burden.

We need these words to give us hope, even as they bring a challenge and a burden. We need these words to stir our hearts to action. There are breaches that need repairing. There are divides that need healing. There are ruins that need to be rebuilt. There are many who have been pushed to the margins of an increasingly heartless society who need to be set free from poverty, from injustice, from all that declares them less than human. This is the fast that has been chosen for us.

Between the command to act and our willingness to move stands a wall of self-preservation. It’s easy to retreat to our inner monologue, to watch the news, scroll through the rhetoric, and run a thousand scenarios through our heads. But sitting in that headspace can leave us paralyzed, feeling a profound sense of helplessness.

In the opening chapter of The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote:

“Every person always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.”

He notes that humans have an instinctive propensity to keep our heads low for self-preservation. We tell ourselves: “It’s not my place,” “I don’t want to cause conflict,” or “I’m sure someone else is handling it.” We treat the suffering of others as “tolerable” as long as it stays at a distance. We turn the groans of the world into an abstract debate, a theological or even a political problem to be solved rather than a human heart to be held.

Solzhenitsyn wasn’t speaking from an ivory tower. He was a decorated soldier and patriot arrested for a private letter critical of Stalin. He spent eight years in the Soviet Gulags, witnessing the systematic destruction of millions. He observed how ordinary, decent people—people just like us—would look the other way when neighbors were dragged off, telling themselves they didn’t have the facts or had to protect their own families first. Those words seem appropriate in our “Today.” We, too, all have these “glib reasons.” We treat the “groans” of the world as bearable as long as they stay at a distance.

Isaiah was speaking to such a “today”.  He starts with a trumpet blast against this very retreat. He asks: “What is worship?” Specifically, he asks about fasting. Fasting wasn’t for weight loss; it was a sacrifice to God, setting aside hunger to devote full attention to praise.

But Isaiah notes a problem: rather than fasting being about the one worshiped, it became about the worshiper. Rather than the focus being on God, the focus was on the self. “Why don’t you see me? Look how humble I am.” The prophet rails: “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers.” Your Sunday behavior doesn’t spill into Monday.

None of us would be so blatant as to wave to God and say, “Look at me.”  Yet the “what’s in it for me” attitude is all too familiar. We sit in worship and wonder if we’re fulfilled, if we knew all the songs, if they were at the right tempo for us while the prophet rails, “Is this the fast I choose?  Isaiah tells us that God doesn’t want our bowed heads if our hands are closed. The prophet’s message is simple: Get out of yourself. Or Just Do it!

So, what is the “it” we are supposed to “do”? You know we’re from Minnesota. I’ve been hearing first hand from our children how when rumors of injustice became the reality of neighbors in detention, the “glib reasons” vanished. There was no time for an abstract argument; there was only time for mutual aid.

This week I called a close friend, also from Minnesota. She teaches piano to adult students in Minneapolis. These weeks much of their time has been taken up with conversations about the reality they are experiencing. The young son of one of her students, who studies with another teacher, was at his first recital when ICE agents appeared. His father told him to hide. When the agents were gone the father found him hiding, and shaking in fear.

Another of her students asked a Mexican restaurant owner what she could do to help. The owner replied, show up at closing time to give the workers rides home. They are afraid, as Latinos, to walk home.

People have taken to the streets in the bitter cold. They delivered food, filmed and documented arrests, organized school patrols, and raised money for neighbors who were sheltering in place. Ingebretsen’s, a traditional Norwegian grocery store from which my friend Mara orders a yearly lutefisk, held a mutual aid drive. There didn’t seem to be any hesitation in these actions. The moment for hesitation seemed to have long come and gone. The glib little reasons for inaction had disappeared. 

A Somali-born student — a US citizen — called from the detention center. “I am sorry, professor,” he said with a politeness that seemed out of place in the midst of his terror. “I won’t be in class today. I was picked up driving to campus.” The professor called the vice provost, checked in with the student’s family, and the school spent the day trying to orchestrate his release.

I’ve collected stories: A teacher strategized how to protect her elementary school students. Danielle recorded the arrest of her neighbor. Kyle delivered groceries. “Make no mistake, things are horrible here,” Jason said last week. “But the networks of community relationships that are emerging and deepening and expanding are beautiful and breathtaking. For me they are a real source of hope for what might be when this occupation ends.”

This is what it means to be Salt and Light. You cannot be salt from a distance. You can be a light under a bushel of “what-ifs”. In the streets of Minneapolis, we can see a righteousness that “exceeds that of the Pharisees” because it is relational, not just religious.

I know that for some of you, these “Nike” instructions feel uncomfortable. In our divided world, it’s tempting to ask whether an idea is “conservative” or “progressive” before asking if it is “biblical.”

But the Prophet isn’t a partisan. If your resistance comes from a desire to protect your community, your family, or the law—know those are not in conflict with God’s heart. But Isaiah asks: In our pursuit of security, have we lost our capacity for mercy?

We can disagree on the how—the policy—but we cannot disagree on the who. The command to care for the immigrant and the vulnerable is not a suggestion for a political party. It is the most repeated ethical command in the Hebrew scriptures. It is the “fast” God has chosen for all of us.

True humility, as Pastor Rick Warren (paraphrasing C.S. Lewis) says, is “not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” It’s putting down the digital “pointing finger” and picking up a brick to be a “Repairer of the Breach.”

Our helplessness is a mirage. It is a lie we tell ourselves so we don’t have to act. There are breaches that need repairing. There are divides that need healing. There are ruins that need to be rebuilt. There are many who have been pushed to the margins of an increasingly heartless society who need to be set free from poverty and injustice.

As we prepare to sing The Servant Song, let the words stir your heart. We are here to help each other, go the mile and bear the load. The daydream of “Just do it” is over; the reality of doing it begins. Get out of your head. Get into action.

Just do it. Amen.

Not a Hallmark Card: The Radical Truth of the Beatitudes

The opening words in the Sermon on the Mount are provocative and beautiful.  They can be hijacked and misused, though.  Sometimes they get turned into wallpaper. So, let’s start by naming what the Beatitudes are not.

The Beatitudes are not Hallmark cards. Jesus wasn’t waxing sentimental. In our consumerist culture, “blessing” has become a bland hashtag—#Blessed—usually equated with material comfort. But the Beatitudes are not Band-Aids. They aren’t meant to soothe us to sleep; they are meant to startle us awake. They offer hope, but hope is not a sedative. Hope is the adrenaline that gets us out the door.

The Beatitudes are not a “To-Do” list. There is no “should” or “must” here. It is emphatically not the case that if we try really hard to be sadder or poorer, God will love us more. God’s love is not a merit badge.

The Beatitudes are not permission slips for passivity. To use Jesus’s words to keep oppressed people quiet is to render the Gospel monstrous. There is nothing here that excuses injustice or tells the suffering that their pain is “God-ordained.”

The Beatitudes are not “pie-in-the-sky.” When Jesus promises the “Kingdom of Heaven,” he isn’t telling people to grit their teeth and wait for death to fix things. This is about the “already and the not-yet”—a reign of justice that is both within us and ahead of us. The Kingdom is coming, but the Kingdom is also now.

The Blessing of Identity

The first words of Jesus’s inaugural sermon are words of blessing. Not judgment. Not “terms and conditions.” Before the disciples do anything, Jesus tells them who they are: they are blessed. They are near to God’s heart. We aren’t God’s nine-to-five employees working for a paycheck of grace. We don’t do justice in order to earn a blessing; we do justice because we are already blessed.

What would happen if we led with that, if we sought in all we do to bless others as we have been blessed? Imagine what would happen to our hearts, to the Church, to the world we we offered blessings as freely and generously as God offers blessings to us.

I’ll admit, I’m clumsy with this. When I receive a blessing, I get “cringy,” wondering if I should be more self-deprecating. When it’s time to give a blessing I can feel the same way. Who am I to offer a blessing? What do I have to offer?

Both of those fears come from a refusal to accept my core identity given to me by God—given to all of us!  It’s not a matter of deserving : it’s a matter of God’s astonishing love and generosity.  Ours is an identity of blessedness. Can we accept that?

The Portrait of Kingdom Life

If the Beatitudes are our identity, what does that look like when lived out? Jesus gives us eight snapshots of a “blessed” life:

• Blessed are the poor in spirit. This isn’t about having a low self-esteem; it’s about having a high “God-reliance.” To be poor in spirit is to stand before God with empty hands, acknowledging that we have nothing to trade for His favor. It is the death of spiritual pride.
• Blessed are those who mourn. This is more than personal grief over death; it is a holy sorrow for the brokenness of the world. It’s the heart that breaks for what breaks God’s heart. Jesus promises comfort not to those who ignore pain, but to those who are brave enough to feel it.
• Blessed are the meek. In our world, the “meek” get trampled. But biblical meekness is not weakness; it is power under control. It’s the strength of a warhorse that listens to its rider. The meek don’t have to “claw their way to the top” because they already know they are loved by the King.
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. This is a desperate, all-consuming craving for things to be right—both in our own hearts and in our justice systems. It’s a promise that those who refuse to settle for “good enough” will finally be satisfied.
• Blessed are the merciful. Mercy is treating people better than they deserve. It is the practical choice to lead with forgiveness instead of “getting even”. In a world of “cancel culture,” mercy is the most radical thing we can offer.
• Blessed are the pure in heart. This isn’t about being perfect; it’s about being undivided. A pure heart has no hidden agenda. It’s a life where the “inside” matches the “outside,” allowing us to see God’s hand even in the mundane.
• Blessed are the peacemakers. Notice Jesus doesn’t say “peace-lovers”—he says “peacemakers.” Peace doesn’t just happen; it has to be built. It involves stepping into the middle of conflict to pull people together, reflecting the character of a God who reconciled the world to Himself.
• Blessed are the persecuted. This is the “warning label” of the Kingdom. If you live with this kind of mercy and integrity, the world will eventually push back. But Jesus tells us that if we are rejected for doing what is right, we are in good company—the company of the prophets and the King Himself. 

The Reversal

Jesus describes a universe turned on its head—a world where “might-makes-right” hierarchies are dissolved. This reveals the proximity of God. God is not obsessed with the shiny; God is busy sticking close to the messy and the broken. When we are hurting and ask, “Where is God?”, the Beatitudes answer: God is in the shadows. God is in the fire.

The Beatitudes challenge our privilege. When things go spectacularly well, we don’t feel urgency for the divine. Our “fullness” can become a fortress that keeps God out. Jesus calls the poor “blessed” not because poverty is good, but because the poor have no fortress. They have nothing to rely on but God.

The Final Promise

The Kingdom is a “Both-And.” It is the hope of a future where every tear is wiped away, but it is also present every time you choose mercy over malice.

Go out today. Not as people trying to earn God’s love, but as people who are already saturated in it. Go and be the reversal the world is waiting for.

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A Closing Prayer
Holy God, we thank you for the radical, upside-down beauty of your Kingdom. Soften our hearts where they have become hard and self-sufficient. Give us the courage to be peacemakers in our homes, our communities, and throughout your creation. May we live in such a way that the world catches a glimpse of your “already-but-not-yet” Kingdom through us. Amen.

Scripture: Psalm 27:1, 4-9 | Isaiah 9:1-4 | Matthew 4:12-23

Once there was a little boy who spilled his juice all over the kitchen floor.  His mom asked him to clean it up, telling him that the mop was on the back porch. The boy looked at his mom with fear in his eyes and his little voice saying, “But, I’m afraid. What if there’s something out there in the dark?” His mom tried to comfort him by saying, “Don’t worry. Jesus is always with you everywhere. You don’t need to be afraid” So the little boy edged closer to the back door, nudged the door open just a crack and hollered, “Jesus, if you’re out there, would you hand me the mop?”

You can’t get rid of fear with wisdom. You can’t reason people out of fear. It didn’t work for the mom in the story.  It’s not what we do with a child who’s afraid. We don’t stand at a distance in the dark and say, “You know there are no such things as monsters. This being afraid of the dark is simply illogical. Think about it!” No, that doesn’t work. Instead, what works is to step in to gather our little ones up in our arms, hold them close, and remind them that they are loved—powerfully, completely, unconditionally loved. That’s how we handle fear.  Perfect love casts out fear says 1^st John 4: 18. 

When I was first ordained, my then mother-in-law gave me a card that I taped to my first pulpit. I read it every Sunday morning as I stepped into the pulpit to preach, a task that I used to approach with fear. The card quoted 2 Timothy 1: 7 For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and love and self-control. It is a verse that I’ve used as a kind of mantra. When I am afraid I tell myself that God’s spirit is within me empowering me. I can do all things through the One who strengthens me, from Philippians 4:13 is another one.

The opposite of faith isn’t doubt. It is fear. Throughout the Bible, the call is to not fear. Angels said it every time they showed up. God proclaimed it. Jesus lived it. Paul theologized about it. There is no room for fear when we are filled with the love of God and the Spirit who leads us.

I guess the problem might be that we forget that. We focus our mind on other things. Our lives get filled with “What ifs?” That is the language of fear. It is a projection into the future of something that hasn’t happened yet, often built on the foundation of our own perceived inadequacy. Fear thrives in the shadows, whispering of potential loss, failure, and isolation. Perhaps that’s why there are so many biblical texts about not fearing.

In our first reading today from Isaiah 9, the prophet speaks to a people whose fears were not just based in psychological factors. The people were literally living in the “shadow of death.”  It was the 8th century B.C., when the Northern Kingdom of Israel faced the brutal expansion of the Assyrian Empire. The regions mentioned—Zebulun and Naphtali—were the first to be invaded and annexed. For those people, “What if?” was not some figment of their imagination but the very real sound of approaching iron chariots and the threat of exile. As it turned out, their fears materialized into reality. They were conquered, their lands taken, and they were forcibly marched away from their homeland and kept there in servitude for generations.

Similarly, in our gospel from Matthew 4, we find Jesus beginning his ministry in Galilee, a region under Roman occupation. The people there lived under the weight of a foreign “yoke” and the constant “rod of the oppressor.” Their “What if?” was tied to the very real challenges of economic survival and the insecurity of political instability. At the time when Matthew wrote the gospel, years after the events of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection their fears had materialized. The Roman Empire destroyed their temple in the year 70 AD. Persecutions were very real.

The story of the disciples leaving there nets portrays a faith in Jesus when fear might have been a realistic response. You see, fear tells us that the darkness is permanent and that our current resources, the equivalent of the disciples’ “nets” are the only security we have.  We can imagine the fears that might have kept them from following Jesus when he called.  What if he turned out to be a fake? What if leaving their homes and occupations caused more poverty and distress for them and their families? What if they were no good at this new calling? What if…?

Faith responds to the darkness, to challenge and uncertainty not with a denial of reality, but with a different question altogether: not “What if” but “Even if.”

In Psalm 27, we see this transition clearly. David wrote many of his psalms while a fugitive, either fleeing King Saul or later fleeing his own son, Absalom. When in our Psalm today David said, “Though an army besiege me” he is not using a metaphor; there were literal soldiers hunting him. Yet, David declares a holy “Even if.”

• “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?” 

Faith is the resolve that says: Even if the worst-case scenario occurs, God remains constant. Faith does not demand the absence of the army; it relies on the presence of the Almighty. It is the shift from focusing on the size of the threat to the sovereignty of the Savior in and through all situations.

Isaiah promised that “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light”.  Seven centuries later the people interpreted it as a prophecy of the Messiah—Jesus.  Matthew explicitly connects the moment that Jesus began calling his disciples with this prophecy of Isaiah. The “Even if” of faith is possible because of the Light that shines in the darkness.

When Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John, he does not give them a roadmap or a guarantee of safety. He gives them a person.  He says, “Follow me.” 

Leaving their nets was their “Even if” moment. They decided that even if they left their only source of income, and even if the path was uncertain, following the Light of the World was better than remaining in the shadow of their nets. They exchanged the heavy “yoke” of the world for the “one thing” that truly matters.

How do we practically move from the “What if” to the “Even if”?

David provides the strategy in Psalm 27:4:

• “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”

Fear is complicated; it presents us with a thousand different terrifying scenarios. Faith is simple; it has one focus. When we prioritize the “one thing”—seeking God’s face and dwelling in God’s presence—the “many things” of this world lose their power to paralyze us.

As you face the week ahead, the world will offer you many reasons to ask “What if?” The news is certainly full of disaster scenarios. The social patterns and norms in which we’ve lived our whole lives are threatened day by day. International alliances are shifting. There is plenty to fear these days.

Clearly, these texts from Isaiah and Matthew ring with a renewed resonance of truth in our current context. Their message is so very needed today. We need to hear that our Light has come.

The “rod of the oppressor” has been broken, the prophet declared, even as the world as they knew it was changing radically. The prophet preached these words at the beginning of the Assyrian conquest. Tiglath-Pileser III was destroying Syria and the northern region of Israel called Galilee. They were being turned into vassal states in the 730s BC. Judah was under extreme fear, and instead of trusting God, King Ahaz sought to pay Assyria for help.

The region of Galilee also called Zebulun and Naphtali, was the first to suffer under the Assyrian oppression, creating a “time of distress and darkness”. Their rule lasted 80 years, only to be replaced by a new empire, the Babylonians, who ruled for another 90 years. It wasn’t until 539, nearly 200 years, when Cyrus of Persia allowed the people to gather and build and worship as they chose again, that the situation changed.

The prophet’s words did not result in a change in physical or political circumstances right away. Yet those words have been treasured for centuries. Yes, with hindsight we see these words as pointing to the coming of Jesus. But they continue to speak at their original level, the way they were heard for the 7 centuries between their writing and the coming of Christ. 

In those words we hear a call to rejoice and walk in the light even when the yoke is heavy. It is a call to live in the love of God even if the Assyrians or Babylonians or whatever political realm that is in place rules with dominance and oppression.

Do not pray for the absence of darkness; pray for the courage to walk in the Light.

Rather than focus on the What if when the path is difficult we are called to live in the Even if. Even if it is hard, even if it is unknown, even if we are filled with fear—God’s Word is a lamp to our feet.

When we face the What if’s of an uncertain future or the What if’s of a present filled with oppression and injustice. We have the biblical example to turn those What if’s into Even if.  Even if an army encamp against us, Even if there is gloom for those in anguish, or if the darkness of oppression and injustice descend, Even if the worst things imaginable happen…we are given a pattern to follow, a pattern spoken by Isaiah, lived by David, and called for by Jesus who invites us to follow him like the fishermen who left their nets. Even if… our hearts shall not fear. The Lord is our light and our salvation. Amen.

Steve and I are sorry we can’t be there with you today in person. We’re both recovering from a nasty virus. As we gather for our renewal of baptism, you are invited to the water to remember who you are and, more importantly, whose you are.

The gospel brings us to the edge of the Jordan River alongside Jesus. In the liturgical calendar, this is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord—a day where we don’t just remember an ancient ritual, but reclaim our own identity. You are invited today to renew your baptismal vows, to touch the water, and to hear again the voice from the heavens that changed everything.

Jesus insists on being baptized by John not to wash away sin—for he had none—but “to fulfill all righteousness”. As he emerges from the water, the heavens are “ripped open,” and the Spirit descends like a dove.

The voice of God speaks a world-changing truth: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”.

Notice that God says this before Jesus has performed a single miracle or preached a single sermon. His “belovedness” is not earned; it is an existing, unending reality. When we renew our baptism today, we are reminded that God speaks that same word over us: “You are my beloved; in you I delight”. In a world that often measures our worth by our productivity or our status, baptism declares that our worth is found solely in being claimed by God.

But this belovedness is not a private treasure to be hidden away; it is a calling. Our reading from Isaiah 42 introduces the “Servant of the Lord,” the one in whom God’s soul delights. This servant—whom we see fulfilled in Jesus—is given a specific mission:

• To bring forth justice to the nations.To act with gentleness: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench”.To be a light to the nations: Opening blind eyes and freeing those in darkness.

As baptized people, we are invited to join this “world-shaping work”. We are called to be the hands and feet of God in a world still struggling with injustice, war, and displacement. Our baptismal identity is the “holy center” that gives us the strength to seek justice without breaking the “bruised reeds” of our neighbors.

In Isaiah 42:9, God says, “See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare”. On this day in 2026, what “new things” is God declaring in your life?

Baptism is not a one-time event recorded in a dusty book; it is a “living reality”. Renewing our baptism means choosing our “chosenness” every day. It means looking at the person we like the least and remembering they are also God’s beloved. It means trusting that even when we feel like “dimly burning wicks,” God will not snuff us out but will take us by the hand and strengthen us.

A few years ago, a woman named Sarah decided to renew her baptismal vows. For decades, she had carried a silent, heavy burden—a belief that she had to be “finished” or “perfect” before she truly belonged to God. She spent years trying to control every outcome of her life, from her career to her family, feeling that any failure was a sign that she was falling out of God’s favor.

During a baptismal renewal service much like this one, as she stood near the water, the pastor shared a routine she used for every baptism. After a person was baptized, the pastor would walk them through the aisles, presenting them to the congregation and saying: “This is Sarah. She belongs to God. And she belongs to us”.

In that moment, Sarah realized that her “belovedness” wasn’t a reward for a life well-managed; it was the foundation of her life. She described it as a “wave of love and light” washing over her. She finally understood that baptism isn’t a declaration that we have arrived, but a declaration that we belong to Him while we are still “becoming”.

Today, as we stand at the water, today in worship, when you’re on the beach, when you wash your face… remember Sarah’s story. Whether you feel like a “bruised reed” or a “dimly burning wick” today, the water tells a different story. It says you are not abandoned to your own strength. You are claimed by a Love that will never let you go, and you are called into a community that says, “You belong to God, and you belong to us”.

In a few moments, you will be invited to come forward to the water. As you touch it, or as it is sprinkled upon you, remember that you are claimed. You are a partner in God’s mission of healing and renewal.

May the waters that touched Jesus continue to renew us as we live out our calling in 2026. Go forth as the beloved, to be a light to the nations, for the former things have passed away and God is doing a new thing.

Let us pray, Gracious and Holy God, we thank you for the gift of water—the water of creation, the water of the flood, and the water of the Jordan that touched our Savior.

Let the echoes of the Jordan ring in our ears. When the world tells us we are not enough, remind us of your voice saying, “You are mine.” When we encounter the “bruised reeds” of our community—the brokenhearted, the lonely, and the oppressed—give us the gentleness of your Servant to offer healing instead of judgment.

Lord, do a “new thing” in us this year. Take our hands and lead us. Use our lives to bring forth justice and to be a light to the nations. May we live every day as people who have been washed in your grace and sent out in your name.

Amen.

January 4, 2026; NBC; Looking Good; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Happy New Year!  I don’t know about you, but my online feeds are showing me ads for tai chi walking, yoga programs for seniors, and discounts on diet plans. It’s the time for resolutions, for getting organized and in shape. All those holiday treats have us thinking about “looking good” again. Looking good is an obsession for some. It seems to drive our culture more and more each year. What if being a ‘good looker’ in 2026 isn’t about what we see in the mirror, but where we look for God’s light?

A fellow pastor shared a story about when his son said to him, “I’m not a good looker, Dad.” He was stunned, worried, and angry at a culture that focused so much on appearance. Trying to hold it all in and talk to him about his perception he asked, “Who says you are not a good looker?” “I do!” he replied in some frustration. “Because every time I lose something, I can never find it! I’m not a good looker!” Steve might say the same thing about me. He’s constantly finding my phone or my keys for me.  I guess I’m not a good looker either.

Are you a good looker? It depends on what you are looking for, I suppose. Our Gospel reading for Sunday is full of lookers, good and otherwise. It is a familiar text, those travelers from the east.

When we tell the Christmas story, we often compress the time factor, pulling it all into one manger scene tucked under the tree. But Luke says nothing of the magi, and Matthew never mentions the shepherds or the manger. We don’t know how much time elapsed between the angel’s proclamation, the shepherds’ appearance, and the magi’s visit. It may have been as much as two years. Herod’s actions in the “Slaughter of the Innocents,” which we focused on last week, Herod ordered that all boys two years old and younger be killed. Evidently he based his decision on his question to the magi about what time the star had appeared.

That reasoning makes sense if you are dealing with a rational person. But Herod is far from rational as I mentioned last week. He is scared; he is power hungry; he is paranoid; he is Herod! So, it is much more likely that he wants to exercise his power and goes to extremes.

Some time has passed, because Mary and Jesus have moved from a stable into a house. The important element, for Matthew, is that the lookers found what they were looking for. They had gotten off track for a while. It makes sense that foreign dignitaries would visit the local ruler, I suppose. As long as they were following the star, they were doing great. But when they stopped to pay a social call, they got in trouble.

I know, it wasn’t quite that simple. But Matthew’s point is pretty clear. We need to be good lookers. Better said–we need to look where God is leading.

First point – God leads. There was a star, and no one was responsible for it but God. We are not asked to create our own stars. We don’t have to lead ourselves in the darkness. Over and over again, the Bible tells us that there is light available. All we have to do is follow it. The light of life is a gift not a burden. It’s not a 30-day plan to shape up. It’s a gracious invitation to follow the light of the world.

Second point – we have a decision to make. Stars don’t yank us onto the path. We have to look for it, and we have to decide to follow it. I believe that God doesn’t want puppets, but followers. So, we follow. Culture can pull us off course. We get busy or distracted. We get drawn into a self-reliance mode all the time but our course of action is to follow the one who called himself the Light of the World and commit our ways to him.

One of the things I’ve learned from our Mexican brothers and sisters in this congregation comes from their response to questions or comments about the future. They often respond, Si Dios quiere—God-willing in English. Their way of thinking acknowledges the leadership of God in their lives. They use the subjunctive mood of verbs.

Let me explain: The subjunctive mood in Spanish is another whole set of verb forms for showing what isn’t factual. The subjunctive is for “what if,” “what should be,” or “what is wanted” scenarios. It adds nuance to expression that isn’t generally available or used in English.

The language we speak shapes the way we think. English is a declarative language full of intention. I will, I shall, I must, I can. Spanish is much more nuanced toward uncertainty. In one word they can express the sense of it might happen that I could go. It recognizes that self-reliance and certainty over our own decisions is often an illusion. Our part of the situation is to make a decision all the while trusting God to lead us in the right ways.

Third point – God keeps leading whenever we decide to follow. God didn’t abandon the magi when they stopped in to ask Herod for directions. It was the star that got them where they were going, not Herod’s advice. After their social call to Herod, the pleasantries and cultural obligations—the distractions from their purpose, they got back on track. God continued to lead them in safety through the dangers.

Isaiah says when you lift up your eyes and when you gather together, then you shall see and be radiant. It’s as if seeing is easy on the one hand, but difficult on the other. It’s easy because all we need to do is look up, beyond ourselves, beyond our own desires and efforts, and our own abilities and weaknesses. Look toward the one who guides and directs and inspires and teaches.

Look. Easy. Or maybe it’s not so easy. Simple, but not easy. Because we get in our own way. We trust our own strength, resources and certainty rather than relying on the one who redeems and sustains us. That is why we need to follow the decision to lift our eyes with the partnership that the church gives us. The community of faith can help keep our eyes raised. When we are together, we are more likely to look beyond ourselves, to look out, and to look up. Together, we are better lookers than on our own.

So, how are you looking in this new year? If we claim once more the direction given by Jesus Christ; if we embrace the truth that God’s love is all that motivates us; if we approach every encounter as an opportunity to reflect the love of Christ – in how we treat those we know and those who are strangers; if we determine that our overall goal is to look for Christ that is within each person we meet, then our response can rightly be, “We’re lookin’ good!”

I want to conclude this with an updated version of the Wesleyan Covenant Prayer. John and Charles Wesley are considered to be the principal founders of the Methodist Church which was one of the primary components of the United Church in Canada. In that tradition the first Sunday of the year is seen as a time for a rededication to follow Christ.

Our texts today invite us to look for Christ. Like the magi, we may have wandered during the last year, sometimes across rough terrain and other times over smooth roads. Today we gather again to seek the promise that God is doing a new thing among us in this new year. When we renew our covenant with God, we commit once again to continue on the path of the Christ child throughout the coming year. We choose to look and see the world around us as bearers and seekers of divine love.

Pray with me:

I am not my own self-made, self-reliant human being.
In truth, O God, I am Yours.
Make me into what You will.
Make me a neighbor with those whom You will.
Guide me on the easy path for You.
Guide me on the rocky road for You.
Whether I am to step up for You or step aside for You;
Whether I am to be lifted high for You or brought low for You;
Whether I become full or empty, with all things or with nothing;
I give all that I have and all that I am for You.
So be it.
And may I always remember that you, O God, and I belong to each other. Amen.