Bonded by Bread

Bonded by Bread

John 17:17-24, Ephesians 2:8-10, 14-22

On the night before his arrest, Jesus prays. Not a quick prayer. Not a safe prayer. Not a prayer for comfort or protection. Jesus prays for unity.

Our reading from John’s Gospel comes from Jesus’ farewell prayer, spoken on the edge of betrayal and crucifixion. In that moment, Jesus does not pray that the disciples will all agree, and Jesus does not pray that they will avoid conflict. Jesus prays that they may all be one.

Jesus prays to God,
“As you are in me, and I am in you, may they also be in us. I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know.”

This is not a call to sameness. It is a prayer for relationship, a unity rooted in our life in Christ. And Jesus names why this matters: “so that the world may know God’s love.” Unity, for Jesus, is not about internal harmony for its own sake. It is about witness.
That matters, because we live in a world shaped by division.

We live in a country where disagreement is often experienced not simply as difference, but as threat, where political, cultural, and social divides are reinforced by fear. Our choice of news channels and the algorithms of our news feeds heighten this apprehension, making us prone to confirmation bias, paying attention to what confirms what we already believe and dismissing what challenges those beliefs. Over time, this does not just shape opinions. It builds walls.

And the church is not immune.

Christians are divided over theology and scripture, over worship and culture, over gender, sexuality, and identity, over politics, and still, painfully, over race. Sadly, “Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour in America.” The church does not stand outside these tensions. We live inside them.

I saw a small but meaningful example of this just this week.

After consulting with our Session, I shared a denominational call to prayerful action in response to the recent violence in Minneapolis. The next day, a member of our congregation came to my office with questions. We did not agree about how the situation should be understood or where responsibility should fall, but we sat together and talked, not with anger or suspicion, but as people of faith trying to follow Christ.

We listened.

We spoke honestly.

We disagreed.

And we left that conversation still united in our love for our church and our commitment to one another.
I walked away grateful, grateful for the courage of the conversation, for its sincerity, and for what felt like a holy moment. The Spirit was at work, not erasing difference, but holding us together. That conversation helped me hear Paul’s words to the church in Ephesus with fresh clarity.

Paul writes to a community deeply divided between Jews and Gentiles, people shaped by different histories, cultures, and fears. Jews understood themselves as God’s chosen people, formed by laws meant to preserve identity in the face of oppression. Gentiles did not share those practices or that story, and many viewed Jews as barbarians. Each group saw the other as a threat.

Paul names this reality honestly, and then he makes one of the boldest claims in the New Testament:
“Christ is our peace. In his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility.”
Christ does not simply manage conflict. Christ does not ask one group to absorb the other. Christ creates something new, one new humanity.

In Christ, difference is not erased, but hostility is. Notice how Paul speaks about this reconciliation. It happens in the flesh. It costs something. The wall is not negotiated away; it is put to death.

Paul also shifts his grammar as he writes. He speaks in the past tense: you have been saved by grace; the wall has been broken down. Then he moves into the present perfect: through Christ, we both have access in one Spirit.

Reconciliation is ongoing.
Unity is still being forged, even now.

“So then,” Paul writes, “you are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”

Not strangers.
Not outsiders.
Family, all adopted in Christ, all beloved children of God.Built together. Joined together. With Christ as the cornerstone.

This is what unity looks like in God’s kingdom, not uniformity but belonging, not sameness but shared life. Peace for those who are far off and peace for those who are near, for those who feel at home in the church and for those who never have.
This matters for us, because it is often easier, even comforting, to divide the world into “us” and “them,” to see the other through the lens of fear, to assume the worst, and to let suspicion become habit. But the gospel insists that God’s household is larger than our comfort zones and sturdier than our divisions.

Throughout Scripture, God consistently works through those we least expect: through Joseph, a brother betrayed and sold into slavery, who becomes the one who saves his family and a nation; through Ruth, an immigrant widow, an illegal alien, who becomes the great-great-great-great-great grandmother of Jesus; through Matthew, a tax collector, a despised enforcement officer of the empire, who becomes a disciple of Jesus. Over and over again, God transforms outsiders into bearers of grace.
Which brings us to the Table, where we are transformed and made one, bonded by bread.

When reconciliation feels impossible, when fear feels louder than faith, when the dividing wall feels too high, we return to the Table. We do not come because we agree. We come because Christ invites each and every one of us, no matter who we are, or what we have done, or what we carry, citizen and immigrant, documented and undocumented, saints and sinners, those who are far off and those who are near.

Here, we are united with God through Christ and bonded to one another as Christ’s body.
Bonded by bread.

The bread is broken, but not divided. Shared, not earned. As we share it, we are reminded that closeness to God is not achieved by conformity or control, but by grace. By this bread, we are being built together into a dwelling place for God’s Spirit, so that the world may witness and experience God’s love.

So we come to the Table again today, not because we are worthy, but because Christ is faithful. Not to erase difference, but to bear witness that Christ’s peace is stronger than the walls that divide us.

“That we may all be one, so that the world may know.”

May it be so in your life, in the life of your families, in the life of our congregation, and in the life of Christ’s church.

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Rooted, Renewed, and Restored

Rooted, Renewed, and Restored

John 14:25-27, Ephesians 3:14-21

Have you ever eavesdropped on a prayer? When I was in seminary, I once came upon a classmate fervently praying out loud in an empty room next door to the classroom where we were gathering to take our final exam in biblical Hebrew. This was not a quiet, murmured prayer, but a full voiced, impassioned appeal. He was asking the Holy Spirit to give him knowledge, confidence, and clarity so that he might pass the exam. I confess that I lingered outside the door longer than I should have. I listened, and as I did, I realized I was holding two conflicting feelings at once. On the one hand, I was a little judgmental of what I thought was a rather bold petition. On the other hand, I was envious, envious of his confidence, his freedom, his expectation that God’s Spirit might actually show up and help. When he finished, I told him, “I wish I could pray like that.” And he replied, without hesitation, “It’s not me. It’s the Holy Spirit.”

There’s an old joke among pastors about a preacher who neglected to prepare a sermon, telling colleagues that he would simply rely on the Spirit to give him the words. On Sunday morning, during the prelude, he prayed fervently, “Come, Holy Spirit. Place your wisdom on my tongue, that I might preach your good word this morning.” And as the final strains of the organ faded into the back of the sanctuary, he heard a voice say, “You should have prepared a sermon.” At the time, I thought the joke exposed something pretentious, treating the Spirit as if God were on call, ready to provide inspiration on demand. But looking back, I wonder if the greater danger isn’t presumption, but modesty, expecting far too little of the Spirit at work in our lives and in the life of the church.

If I’m honest, I think I’ve often discounted the power of the Spirit in my prayers and in my expectations. I’ve tended to think of prayer primarily as a spiritual discipline, a way to grow closer to God, a way to reflect, a way to become more centered and attentive. All of that is true and good, but I didn’t often expect much in the way of response. Perhaps that was immaturity. Perhaps I’m still growing. I grew up in the Presbyterian tradition. I learned how to pray, beautiful prayers, thoughtful prayers, but I don’t remember much connection being made between prayer and the active, empowering work of the Holy Spirit. I believed in the Spirit. Sometimes I even felt the Spirit in an emotional way. But I didn’t really know what it meant to be strengthened by the Spirit, or transformed by the Spirit, or carried by the Spirit when faith felt thin. Looking back, I realize that what I was missing wasn’t faith, but expectation. I believed in God, but I had a fairly modest vision of what God’s Spirit actually does among us, how the Spirit roots us when we feel unsteady, renews us when we are weary, and restores us when love has frayed.

In many ways, that is exactly what Paul is praying for in his letter to the church in Ephesus. And that’s what we get to listen for today as we overhear Paul’s prayer. Paul is writing from prison. He is confined, uncertain of his future, and yet he is on his knees, praying not for his own release, but for the church. He prays that they do not lose heart. He prays before the God who has named and claimed every family on earth. And in overhearing Paul’s prayer, we discover something important about ourselves and about what prayer is meant to do.

The first thing Paul’s prayer reveals is this. Our life with God is inseparable from our life with one another. Experiencing fellowship with God is tangled up with being bound to each other. Christians are blessed with one another and stuck with one another. Charles Schulz captured this tension well through the great theologian Snoopy, who once admitted, “I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand.” We need community. We depend on it, even when it’s difficult, even when it’s messy, even when disagreement turns sharp or relationships strain.

So Paul prays that the Creator of every people would strengthen the church in their inner being with power through the Spirit. The word translated as power is dunamis. It means potential, capacity, possibility. And the you in this prayer is plural. Paul is not praying for individual spiritual toughness. He is praying for power at work in the whole community. If Paul were in Texas, he might say, “I pray y’all have the gumption to see all the ways that God is in your life.” Our life together is anchored not in certainty or agreement, but in love. Theology matters. Doctrine matters. But only love reconciles.

At the heart of Paul’s prayer are several intertwined hopes, not abstract virtues, but realities meant to take shape in the life of the church through the work of the Trinity. First, Paul prays that the church would be strengthened by the Spirit. This strengthening is not about individual resolve or personal grit. It is something that happens together. We are strengthened by the witness of those alongside us in worship, by the faith of those who sing even when their hearts are heavy, by prayers spoken aloud and prayers quietly carried, by acts of courage and generosity that remind us who we are. We are strengthened by those we remember, saints who have gone before us, whose faith still steadies us. And we are strengthened when we gather in hymns, in Scripture, in preaching and teaching, in the shared rhythms of worship that hold us when we feel unsteady.

Second, Paul prays that Christ would dwell in the hearts of the congregation. Not as an idea. Not as a story from the past. Not as a memory. But as the living, risen Christ who comes to us in Word and Sacrament and seeks a home among us. Where Christ dwells, love is produced, love that is patient, love that bears with one another, love that refuses to let fear or resentment have the final word.
Third, Paul prays that together we might comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love. This is not a private insight. It is something we discover together with all the saints, through listening to one another’s stories, through paying attention to prayers that are not our own, through witnessing acts of kindness and generosity that widen our vision of what God is doing. Through one another, we encounter new dimensions of grace, dimensions we could never discover on our own. Paul prays that we would come to know a love that surpasses knowledge. This is the great paradox of faith. There is a knowing that goes beyond information. Christ becomes the lens through which all other knowing is measured. In worship and in community, we are reminded again and again that God’s love exceeds our expectations.

Paul ends his prayer with praise. “Now to the one who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.” God is glorified not in isolated spirituality, but in the life of the church. The power Paul describes is already at work within us, not around us, not someday, but within us right here and now. So if you could overhear my prayers for you, if you stood quietly outside the door and listened, I think they might sound something like this.

I would pray that we would be rooted, rooted in the love of Christ that holds us fast when the world feels unsteady and our footing unsure. Rooted not in fear or certainty, but in the grace that has named and claimed us as God’s own.
I would pray that we would be renewed, strengthened in our inner being by your Spirit at work among us. Renewed through worship and word, through song and silence, through the faith we borrow from one another when our own feels thin.

I would pray that Christ would dwell among us, not as an idea or a memory, but as a living presence shaping how we love, producing patience where there is frustration, compassion where there is pain, and courage where there is fear.

nd I would pray that we would be restored, restored in our life together as your people. That we would come to know, together with all the saints, how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. A love that reconciles what knowledge cannot, that heals what has been wounded, and that opens us to one another and to the world you so love.

Give us courage to confront division with grace, to tend grief with gentleness, to welcome those who are lonely, searching, or in need of belonging.

Restore us as a community of peace and hope. I pray all this with confidence, trusting that the power at work within us can do more than we ask or imagine.

To you, O God, be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, now and forever. Amen.

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Eyes of the Heart

Eyes of the Heart

John 1:35-42, Ephesians 1:15-23

So, why do Presbyterians with presbyopia love responsive readings? Because if they cannot quite see their line, they are confident someone else will read it for them, decently and in order. And what is the difference between presbyopia and Presbyterian polity? Presbyopia makes it hard to see things up close. Presbyterian polity makes sure at least three committees study the problem before anyone admits it. Presbyopia is the age related loss of the eye’s ability to focus on close objects. It is caused by the hardening of the lens. For me, it meant starting with reading glasses and eventually wearing glasses most of the time.

But the truth is, we do not need corrective lenses to see what is happening in our world. We can see the political turmoil and violence that saturate our news feeds. We can see the deepening division and rancor, the abuse and oppression of those who are marginalized and vulnerable, from recent immigrants, to day care workers, to trans kids. We hear government leaders declare that there is no such thing as international law, that might makes right. We grieve lives lost to gun violence, including the recent killing of Renée Nicole Good, a mother, a youth mission worker, the widow of a veteran, and the child of a Presbyterian pastor, now living in Valley Falls, Kansas, who described her as relentlessly hopeful and optimistic, with a seemingly infinite capacity for love. It is all too easy to see these things and become bitter, cynical, angry, or simply exhausted. It is tempting to turn away, to numb ourselves, or to tune it all out. Into that reality, the apostle Paul offers a prayer, and with it, another way of seeing.

Paul begins by giving thanks for the faith and love of the church in Ephesus. He then prays that God would continue to deepen that faith, not simply by giving them more information, but by giving them what he calls a spirit of wisdom and revelation. This is more than intellectual knowledge. It is knowing with our heart, the way we know a best friend, a sibling, or a spouse. At the heart of the prayer is this striking phrase, that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, literally to let the light of your heart illuminate your vision. Paul prays that with enlightened hearts they may perceive three things: the hope to which God has called them, the richness of their shared inheritance, and the immeasurable greatness of God’s power at work in Christ and also at work among them as the church.

What does it mean to see with the eyes of the heart? It is not the denial of what is broken or painful in the world. Paul is not naïve about suffering, injustice, or fear. Rather, seeing with the eyes of the heart means perceiving reality through the lens of God’s love. To see with the eyes of the heart is to look at every person and recognize a beloved child of God. It is to notice not only the violence and cruelty around us, but also the quiet, persistent power of God’s love still at work in the midst of it all. It is to hold on to hope, not optimism and not denial, but hope grounded in God’s faithfulness.

Paul roots that hope in God’s power, a power that is deeper and stronger than the self proclaimed power of rulers, empires, and principalities. Paul uses two different Greek words for power in this passage. The first is dunamis, which refers to potential power, latent energy, like a stick of dynamite before it is lit. The second is kratos, which refers to forceful, exercised power, the explosion of that dynamite, the raw force often associated with earthly rulers and systems of domination. Paul proclaims that God’s kratos power is revealed in Christ’s resurrection and exaltation. Christ is raised above every rule, authority, and dominion. No empire, ideology, or violent force has the final word.

And yet, and this is crucial, the church is entrusted not with Christ’s coercive power, but with Christ’s dunamis, the living, potential power of God’s love at work in the world. As the body of Christ, we bear that power in our shared life and witness. Christ continues to call the church, just as he called the first disciples, saying, “come and see.” To see with the eyes of your heart enlightened. To see Christ’s love alive in the world. To be a witness to its transformative power in our lives, in the life of this church, and in our community.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke directly to this tension between love and power. He rejected the idea that they are opposites. In his 1967 address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he said, “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.” True power, he argued, is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice is power correcting everything that stands against love. King believed not in brute force, but in moral power, the power that transforms hearts, redirects human longing, and bends history toward justice. That is the power Paul is pointing to, not domination, but love that acts, not withdrawal, but courageous and compassionate engagement.

A similar insight comes from the fourteenth century Christian mystic Marguerite Porete. In her book The Mirror of Simple Souls, she imagines a dialogue between Reason and Love about the life of the soul. At one point, Love says to Reason, “Ah, Reason, you will always see with one eye only.” Reason matters. Thought matters. Theology matters. But if we rely on intellect alone, our vision is incomplete. We are called to see with our hearts as well, to allow love to illuminate what fear, cynicism, and calculation alone cannot see.

Paul ends his prayer by reminding the church then and now that we are the body of Christ, the fullness, the plērōma in Greek, the complement and abundance of the One who fills all in all. In his paraphrase of Paul’s letter in The Message, Eugene Peterson puts it this way: “The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.”

The church is called to be Christ’s body in the world, not just on Sundays and not just in the glow of stained glass windows, but in the world amid division, rancor, pain, and violence. To be the church is to live in that world with hearts enlightened by the abundance of God’s love. It is to let our ministry, our mission, our protest, our service, and even our grief bear witness to the love first shown to us in Christ. It is to live in the faith and trust that God’s power of love and life is greater than the earthly powers claimed in hatred and violence. It is to see the world with the eyes of our heart.

Seeing with the eyes of the heart does not mean looking away from suffering. It means refusing to let fear have the final word. It means trusting that God’s love is still at work and that, by grace, we are part of that work.

Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus is also a prayer for us, that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened. May we see one another as beloved. May we recognize the quiet but resilient power of love at work among us. And may we live as a church worthy of our calling, grounded in hope, shaped by love, and sustained by the power of God made known in Christ. May it be so in your life, in the life of your family, in the life of our congregation, and in the life of Christ’s church.

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Remember Your Baptism

Remember Your Baptism

Matthew 3:13-17, Ephesians 1:3-14

Like Christmas, Epiphany is more than one day. It is a season, a season celebrating Christ revealed to the world. Our first scripture lesson is another epiphany moment, a revealing of who Jesus is and whose Jesus is. As Jesus rises up from the water, the heavens are opened, and God’s Spirit descends upon him like a dove. A voice proclaims, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” This is not just a private affirmation. It is the public beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

This Sunday commemorates the baptism of our Lord and gives us an occasion to remember our own baptisms as a sign and symbol of our adoption in Christ as beloved children of God. The Apostle Paul begins his ministry in Ephesus by baptizing a small group of believers, not with a baptism of repentance, but with one of reception, acceptance, and belonging. It is a baptism that acknowledges their connection to their Creator as beloved children and their connection to one another as members of the body of Christ.

Years later, Paul writes to that diverse church of Jews and gentiles, male and female, old and young, privileged and oppressed, soldiers and rebels, conservative and progressive, citizens and immigrants. He begins by reminding them of who they are and whose they are, all destined for adoption as God’s children through Jesus Christ. All are joined together as siblings in Christ through the waters of baptism. It is the same for us.

Baptism is not a reward for faith or a badge of piety. It is an acknowledgment, an acceptance, an affirmation of something that was already true. Paul puts it this way: we are predestined by God’s grace and adopted into God’s holy family through Christ. Baptism names what God has already done. God loved us long before we loved God.

This is the good news that Paul proclaims, and I hope it is not news to you. But Paul presses us further, because with adoption comes inheritance. We are marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, claimed as God’s own people, not just for comfort, but for the transformation of ourselves and our world.

One of the highlights of my time in Barcelona was visiting the Sagrada Familia, an enchanting and awe-inspiring church designed by the visionary Catalonian architect Antoni Gaudí. Construction began more than a century ago, in 1882, and has continued through the Spanish Civil War and two world wars, and it is still not complete. Its spires tower over the skyline, and the ornate exterior façades tell the story of Christ’s birth on the east side, his death on the west side, and his glory on the south. The scale and intricacy of the figures are incredible, but it is the inside that truly transforms you.

As you enter, your eyes are drawn upward. Tree-like columns arch toward the heavens, and stained glass windows flood the space with light. Morning and afternoon sun pours through in waves of color. You feel small, and yet deeply connected, held within something far larger than yourself.

As I sat in this sacred space, my attention shifted from the architecture to the people, visitors from all over the world. Believers and non-believers. Young and old. Some praying quietly. Some walking. Some talking in tour groups. All gathered in the same space, all bathed in the same light, all surrounded by beauty they did not create but were invited into. And it struck me. That is baptism.

Baptism is not a single moment in the past. It is a way of seeing and living in the world, a perspective shaped not by the limits and divisions of this world, but by the love revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is a life not constrained by what separates us, our social standing, our nationality, our politics, even our religious traditions or lack thereof, but grounded in a shared inheritance as siblings, bound together by Christ, who gathers all things together in heaven and on earth.

Baptism shifts our focus from inwardness and self-concern toward care and compassion, for those we love and those no one loves, for the least, the last, and the lost. Baptism is the recognition of God’s claim on our lives and God’s promise to walk with us through flood and fire, in times of joy and in times of trial, in abundance and in uncertainty.

On the wall of his study, Martin Luther wrote these words: “A truly Christian life is nothing else than a daily baptism, once begun and ever to be continued.” That is Paul’s reminder to the church, and it is his invitation to us. We are invited to remember our baptism not as a past event, but as a living reality, one that emboldens and empowers us to live each day remembering who we are and whose we are.

In a moment, we will remember our baptism together. I will invite you to come to the font and take a marble from the water. Each marble is unique, like us. All are immersed in the same water, like us. I hope it will serve as a tangible reminder that we are all held in God’s overflowing grace.

This week, when you wash your hands, take a shower, or drink a glass of water, I invite you to remember your baptism. And even if you have not been baptized, remember this: you have already been named and claimed by your Creator. Through Christ, who gathers all things together in heaven and on earth, we are beloved children of God. May we claim this inheritance boldly and live each day in the grace and glory of God.

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God Loves Hugs

God Loves Hugs

Christmas Story 2025

It was a tradition in the church that I grew up in for the pastor to tell a story on Christmas Eve.
In that spirit I’d like to share a story with you that I wrote a long time ago when my kids where little.

It’s based loosely on the beginning to John’s gospel And it goes like this . . .

In the beginning God was alone with the Word.

Which doesn’t really sound like God was alone – but the Word was God and God was the Word and because they were one they were both alone.

And they were also cramped. They could feel something inside aching to emerge.

So through Word, God created the heavens and the earth. And the creation was splendid and beautiful.

God’s Spirit filled the cosmos.

Spirit delighted in dancing as the molten rock that rose to divide the waters.

And Spirit enjoyed crashing against those rocks in the surf.

Spirit stirred in storms and whispered in the wind.

Divine spirit roamed the world. It roared through the prairie in the southern wind.

It decorated the delicate webs in the tallgrass with the morning dew.

And cast rainbows across the roaring waterfalls.

But God was still alone. Because God and Word and Spirit were still only one.

So God made creatures and breathed God’s sweet holy spirit into every living thing.

Time went by, and God’s creation evolved. And the creatures began to sense the presence of the creator all around them.

And as they played in the forests and meadows, and danced in the heavenly moonlight they communed together with the Spirit.

And after a very long time some of the creatures learned to talk. And it wasn’t long before the creatures began trying to talk to God.

They sang songs to God and gave God gifts.

They built special places for God and told stories and said prayers.

But, somehow the more they talked and thought about God the more they disagreed. And the further away God seemed.

So, the creatures went looking for God. They looked on mountaintops and up in the sky. They looked in forests and they looked in desserts.

Sometimes the creatures would feel they had just caught a glimpse of God, but afterwards the memory was like a dream and seemed to get all mixed up.

And when they went back to tell the others about what they remembered they would quarrel and fight.

The divine Word of God came down to the creatures.

Word was known by many names, davar, Logos, Light, Wisdom, and Sophia to name a few.

She came in many forms: in the dreams of children, and through the passion of prophets, in the words of reluctant leaders and even through burning shrubs.

But even when the creatures listened they were easily confused and distracted.

They divided into tribes and the tribes into nations. And the nations fought. And each claimed God’s love by their own name.

The almighty Triune Creator was unhappy.

What could be done to show how much God loved all the creatures?

How could the creatures be reminded that they were all part of God?

And how could God show them how much they could love one another?

God thought and thought.

And God said, “I need a hug.”

Word and Spirit became flesh.

A girl gave birth to the Almighty Creator in a humble stable amid the other animals.

She cuddled God up and hugged God close.
And the Triune Creator, God the Almighty, the great ‘I Am’ – basked in the mother’s love.

And God looked up and smiled.

For God loved the world so much that God came down to show his beloved creatures how to love God by loving one another – sharing the love that comes from God.

Christmas is a time to hold the infant Christ in humble awe and wonder – knowing that the Creator of the Cosmos became flesh – (that God came down) so that we might know what God’s love looks like and share that love with the world.

Christmas is a time to cuddle that newborn babe – that divine presence of God – into our hearts and our lives.

We do this when we love one another as God first loved us.

May this Christmas inspire and embolden us to embrace the holy child of God
– in our care for ourselves, for those we love, and for those that nobody loves.

Or for the kids – just remember God loves hugs especially at Christmas time.

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