From the Study...

Dear Friends,

             The world seems to be a pretty uncomfortable place these days. Nations are busily posturing against each other with the voices and hardware of war as voices are raised in anger with each side to the conflict claiming the righteous ground and pointing to the other as the aggressor. The political landscape is beginning to get all stirred up with candidates for office all assigning blame for society’s ills on each other. Gun violence is taking its toll of life and safety. Even the one who doesn’t watch, hear, or read the news feels the stirrings in the air and hears the shouting voices. We need now to pay attention to the only thing which can overcome the anger … love. And it’s purest expression is the love it took for God to give us God’s own self in Jesus as a demonstration of the extent and purity of that love. God’s love came down at Christmas and lifted us up to God’s Kingdom at Easter.

As our Lenten journeys begin on Ash Wednesday, we are reminded of our mortality and our need for God’s saving grace in Christ when we hear “remember you are dust and to dust you shall return” and the ashes are imposed on our foreheads. Every Lord’s Day that follows leading up to Easter Sunday adds a layer of hope to those words. If we have paid attention, we will have heard of the self-sacrificial love God has for the world. Jesus will show us how God’s love ignores society’s boundaries as he ministers to the woman at the well. We’ll discover that our spirits have better vision than our eyes when they see through the lenses of faith. We will hear Jesus calling us into ministry with him. We’ll join the parade into Jerusalem, watch him overturn the tables at the Temple, sit at table as he gives us the Bread and Cup of God’s love, then watch as the darkness of the cross is overcome with the light of the sunrise on Easter! It really is a journey and Jesus calls us to walk it with him each step along the road to the cross and the empty tomb. Come and let us walk this path together and at Jesus’s side!

Grace and peace,

Mike