Wednesday, April 15, 2026

“By this we know that we are in him: whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk in the same way as he walked.” (1 John 2: 4 -6, New Revised Standard Version)

            I am up for the challenge.

My daughter, Katie, has offered to take me to a Toronto Blue Jays’ game in late May. But - isn’t there always a “but”? -  she has challenged me that I have to be ambulatory enough to do all the necessary walking that it will take to get to the ballpark, roam around the stadium to see the memorabilia of 50 years in the big leagues, and get back. That is a lot of walking under the best of circumstances. But I have not been too limber or agile lately, mostly due to my arthritis, but I also just don’t get much physical exercise, period. So, I am now “in training.” I am walking down our block with cane in hand to the near-by park, each and every day, weather permitting. Coincidentally, Katie’s house is on the far side of the same park. My goal is to increase the number of steps I take, each and every day. By game time, who knows – maybe I will come close to walking around the whole park which is of considerable size. Don’t bet on it, though! But here’s hoping.

It boggles the mind to think how much Jesus walked in his three years of ministry. There were no taxis, buses, cars, planes or trains.  Unless there were Uber camels or Lyft donkeys, he had to walk everywhere he wanted to go and he wanted to go to a lot of places throughout Judea, Samaria, Galilee, etc. He and his disciples walked mile after mile, kilometer after kilometer, in order to spread the Gospel and meet the people, to heal, to preach, to interact with the world around him, to make himself available to one and all. Although it is believed Capernaum was his home base, he was never home much. Thus, he said of himself “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man[a] has no place even to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20) His sandals must have ben worn thin.

It seems appropriate then that early Christianity was known as “The Way.” (Acts 9:22) Disciples and others were called to come and follow Jesus. “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27) The way of faith was not an easy road to take: “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.” (Mark 8:34) The apostle Paul wrote about “following the truth of the gospel message” (Galatians 2:14) or “following the whole will of God.” (Colossians 4:12). Peter picked up the theme, too “He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:21) It leads us to understand that practicing our faith is an exercise in walking in trust, in belief, in doing good works, in move forward into the world with Christ’s love, compassion, forgiveness, and his likeness. Christianity is not a passive belief system; it is a movement. We can’t just sit back and become idle. Our faith demands practice, effort, intention, as we seek to follow Jesus Christ.

                Not only  just “follow”, but that invitation often was accompanied by the challenge “to go.” Jesus was sending his followers into the world to be light or salt. “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28: 19-20, The Message Bible) That’s right - we are all called to be missionaries of a sort; maybe not to the far corners of the world but he sends us into the near-by-corners of our neighbourhoods and communities. “Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world.” (John 17:18)

                So put on your most comfortable walking shoes or best running shoes, spiritually speaking. There is a lot of ground to cover.  The life of faith is not generally a short race; it is a marathon. So limber up. Don’t just be a spectator. “And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

                Are you up for the challenge?

Prayer:

                Our Creator God, grant us a renewed strength and vitality to sustain our walk with Jesus. Help us when we falter or stumble. May we always be in step with Jesus, following in his footsteps so that we are meeting the challenges of doing his good works in the world about us. Help us to walk aright, so that others will see the Way though each of us and be led to follow, too.  In Christ’s name, Amen.

 

Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
    you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
    I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
    you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
    all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
    before I’d even lived one day. (Psalm 139: 13 -16, The Message Bible)

               I just know that you are all dying to know how my jigsaw puzzle is going – the one I mentioned a few weeks ago. You may recall that it is a 1000-thousand-piece puzzle featuring 350 or so of just the faces of Lego characters, all with different expressions and facial features, all in various colours of yellow, brown and black. It’s been a challenge but that is what I like when I am doing jigsaws.  

                I am getting close to being done. But I am down to a very hard, difficult stage. The majority of the faces are basically done. Now I am down to trying to find very little pieces of the faces to complete the puzzle. It is a little piece of an eye-brow here, a part of an eye there, maybe a tiny little corner of a mouth, a little stubble of a beard, a freckle or two. This is going to take some patience and perseverance to finish. But I won’t give up or stop until I am done.

                I wonder if God sometimes finds us, who are created in his own image, like a puzzle. It was originally a good and beautiful world.  “Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!” (Genesis 1:31) But does God look at the world made for humankind and see it like a jigsaw puzzle just coming out of the box – a jumble of pieces, some upside down, unconnected, a hodge podge that has no form or coherency, that needs sorting and organizing, that needs patience and endurance to put back together?  Does God look at our broken world right now and wonder, in frustration, whether he can put the pieces all back together again, to make it like he pictured it at the beginning, i.e. like on the lid of a puzzle box, so to speak.? When and how did the world fall to pieces?

                Our Psalm outlines the meticulous care which God gives to his world, especially the lives of humankind.  The Psalm affirms God’s intimate knowledge of each and every one of us. Like my faces in my puzzle, God knows even the little details of who we are and why we are and who we need to be. He knows us inside and out.  God knows where we belong. God knows when a piece is missing from our stories and he looks to find it for us. He understands our brokenness and fragmentation. He understands when we are trying to fit in, feeling upside down, trying to find our right places, to connect with others around us. No part of our lives is tool small, too insignificant, too unimportant, that God does not give us a helping hand to help us put it together. Like the hymn celebrates, “He walks with me, he talks with me, and He tells me that I am his own.”

                Back in the day, it was popular, for a while, to say “God doesn’t make junk.”  There is truth in that although I dare say that I wonder if there are times when God is exasperated, frustrated and might wish to put the “puzzle” that we are back in the box and back on a shelf somewhere. But that is not how God so loves the world. God has committed his own son to enable us to get our lives all together and just maybe then, we can help God put the world back to right, “thy will be done in earth as it is heaven.” God made man and woman to be pieces of his Creation, to be stewards of the world he created. He made us to work in partnership and collaboration to nurture love, peace, joy and justice between us, despite our differences and diversity. He has placed each one of us in his Creative masterpiece as a piece of the puzzle.

               “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10)

 Prayer:

Our loving Creator, we confess we sometimes fail to understand just how good and kind you are towards us.  We complain about our lives or how broken the world is. Help us to remember that you are still very close to us and have our ultimate welfare in your hands. Grant us the courage and the wisdom to be a part of your good will, that we, too, may become participants in helping you to build your Kingdom. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Wednesday, April 1, 2026 – Holy Week

“Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.” (Hebrews 10:22, New Living Translation)

                 At Jesus’ religious trial, the High Priest, Caiaphas, accused Jesus of the ultimate blasphemy, of declaring himself to be the Messiah. “Blasphemy! Why do we need other witnesses? You have all heard his blasphemy. What is your verdict?” (Matthew 25: 65-66) And so the Council decreed, “’Guilty!’ they shouted. ‘He deserves to die!’”

                Guilty - that is a terrible judgment to lay on anyone shoulders, least of all Jesus. Our faith asserts that Jesus was innocent, without sin, yet the world in which he lived in judged him, condemned him and punished him severely for his “guilt”.  It could be said that all Jesus was guilty about was telling the truth, showing compassion to one and all and revealing the pomposity of these same religious hypocrites who were now judging him. Who was really guilty here?

                  Guilt is not a particularly fashionable word in our modern culture, sort of like the word ‘sin’. Outside of our country’s courtrooms and its legal verdicts, words like sin and guilt make us feel very uncomfortable and unpleasant.  They are words that bite and take chunks out of our souls, so best left alone. Nobody is perfect, we get that.  But most prefer to avoid feeling guilty. Back in the day, it was popular to note that the Greek word for sin literally meant “to miss the mark.” That is a much softer landing spot for acknowledging our mistakes and blunders of behaviour, words and deeds. So we goofed, we’ll do better next time. Sorry about that.  Forget about it. Bad things happen. Let’s move on, shall we? To err is human; to forgive is divine.  Nobody, myself included, wants to feel guilty. It’s like a death verdict on our psyches.

                Psychologist, Chris Moore, argues that “guilt is not simply an unpleasant emotional burden – it can be a powerful force that helps repair our relationships.” (Gayle MacDonald, Globe and Mail) He points out that guilt is comprised of three things. “There’s fear or anxiety about the damage that might have been done to a relationship. There’s compassion for the person who has been hurt. And there’s self- directed anger about what you did.” This sounds to me all too neat and tidy, very clinical. Even he still back-pedals on the power of guilt, “If you feel guilt, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It usually means you care about other people.” Not sure what world he lives in, because the world that I live in largely feels no guilt about much of anything, even the most egregious behaviour, and feels no spirit of remorse or any desire for reconciliation.  But I do resonate with his theory that “The most powerful antidote to guilt is forgiveness.” But that is not an easy road to travel.

                I am the last person on earth who should be counselling about guilt. If I, reluctantly, stop to think about my own life, I have plenty to be guilty about. Relationships have been broken. People have left my churches because of my leadership. I have failed at times in parenting. The list goes on. You can stop me any time. In the midst of a lot of good and many blessings, I feel badly and guilty about my failures. “My guilt overwhelms me— it is a burden too heavy to bear.” (Psalm 38:4)

                The one thing that the good psychologist does not bring up is that we never bear our guilt alone. If we are willing to confess and open up to our failures, then, at least,  God is on our side. “Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.” (Psalm 32:5) It is rightly said that confession is good for the soul.  Confession is about total honesty and truth about ourselves; no pussy-footing around, no excuses, no alibis, no avoidance of the ugly truth. We begin by confessing to God, then mustering up the courage to fess up to the people we have hurt, ignored or harmed. I am still working on that last part. “Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty!” (Psalm 32:2)

                Our text from Hebrews reminds us that we can bring our guilty consciences into the presence of God. It affirms that Jesus’ Crucifixion was the remedy for our guilt and sin, “but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins.” (Romans 5:16) This ultimate act of forgiveness by the way of the Cross is once and for all.  Our guilt has been removed. Our shame has been erased.  We are given a New Life.  Let’s make the best and the most of it, to forgive as we have been forgiven, to love as we have been loved, to be reconcilers as we have been reconciled.

                “Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.” (`1 John 18 -20)      

 Prayer:

                Our loving and forgiving God,  it is hard to confess all the mistakes and blunders that have tripped us up in our lives. But we very grateful that you pick us up with forgiveness in Jesus Christ. He paid such a horrific price to lead us back into your Presence and Love.  In his death, we have had our sins and guilt washed away and we have been made clean.  May we abide in your generous Love and show that Love to others. In Jesus’ name. Amen.