The author of Hebrews tells us that hope is an anchor that enters in behind the curtain. The world needs hope, which is secure and reliable. God’s mission for us is to give grace and share hope with the world. How are we doing with that as the body of Christ? If we as the church are not doing that then we need to confess the difference and ask God to help us be all that He asked us to be.

This Easter Sunday we are reminded in the text that God is with us. Emmanuel isn’t just a Christmas message it is a message of hope for Easter as well. Even in the hopeless moments in our lives God is with us. Jesus gave His life to prove His love. We are now grafted in and are resurrection people. May we live that way.

Palm Sunday is a day we celebrate the triumphal entry. We wave our palm branches in praise of what God is doing. In his last moments Jesus focused on making sure the religious had their heart in the right place. Working for God instead of waging war. I pray Jesus starts flipping tables in our lives as well, any heart attitude or action that isn’t right.

Psalm 145 in the grander story of the people of God is a reminder to us that, even in the times of uncertainty, God is worthy of our praise. In this season of Lent, it might be odd for the lectionary to give us this text for today, knowing that this is the season of repentance. But even in seasons of repentance, God is still worthy of our praise.

The kingdom of God is for all that accept their place in it. We don’t get to pick and choose who enters in. In our text today the Pharisees were picking and choosing and Jesus told them that they were blind to the kingdom culture. Those on the margins are included and we as a body of Christ should make sure they are.

The beauty of the story of the woman at the well is that Jesus reaches out to someone who felt rejected and helped them feel seen, heard and loved. In this season of lent may we learn to reflect that from Christ onto the world.

In Roman’s 4 Paul speaks about Abraham, how his faith was credited to him as righteousness. We seem to think this is an old train of thought, we understand that righteousness is not credited through works. But in the same thought we might think we aren’t going to make it to heaven because we didn’t memorize the books of the Bible. God loves us and has a place for us in His narrative, we just have to be willing to receive His love and lean into what He has for us.

Today our passage from the lectionary brings us back to the beginning. We read of how Adam and Eve ate of the fruit and how they tried to hide from the truth. God still came to found them knowing. They reacted like most of us do when we are confronted with sin in our lives. But what if instead of running away from we run towards God in the moments where we know we have done wrong.

In 1 Thessalonians Paul prays that the God of peace sanctify you through and through. Entire sanctification is a moment after we give our lives over to God wherein the Spirit testifies with our spirit that God has taken the heart of stone from us and given us a heart of flesh. How can we tell? Does the love of God flow through us to others?

Jesus shared the eucharist meal with His Disciples the night He was betrayed during their Passover Feast. We partake of communion as a remembrance of what God has done. A remembrance of God working in our lives currently. And a reminder that God has bigger plans for us in the future. Communion also brings a sense of unity in the church so we can go out and partake in Christ’s mission together.

In Romans Paul tells us that through Baptism the old life, the slave masters that once ruled our life, dies. We are no longer slaves any longer. What happens is we are raised to new life, one where God is at the center of our whole being. Baptism is a sign we agree to come into covenant with God, this new covenant which was offered to us through Jesus. Should we live the way we once did? By no means!

Today we talk about nurturing, we are called to reflect a nurturing God into the world. That means we are to encourage the growth or development of. We need to see what relationships needs to nurture it, much like what we do with plants. We are called to be nurturers in creation.

Jesus tells the disciples to go and make disciples, or students for the teacher. Paul asks the question if no one tells people about the teacher (Jesus) then how will they know they need to be a student? In America we can come up with a lot excuses to not invite, possibly it is because we aren’t desperate enough for Jesus and we aren’t desperate enough for Him to share Him with others. I pray God helps us to feel desperate for Jesus!

In Ephesians and again in Colossians Paul talks about being rooted and established in Christ. In Ephesians he finishes with how he prays the readers understand fully the depth and width and height and length of God’s love for us. If we are people who are rooted we don’t build walls around God’s love because we understand that God’s love flows beyond boundaries we may set for it.

God calls us towards Renewed life. The Greek word translated renewed in Colossians chapter three means a process. Paul tells us this is a process but we are called to give our lives over, every aspect of it, as a living sacrifice for God to use as He will.

The announcement of the Messiah’s birth to the shepherds nearby is an important announcement. It was a reminder that the new kingdom, God’s kingdom was breaking through the darkness in unexpected ways. May our lives reflect and show the same light that Jesus’ birth did to those around Him.

This week, our fourth week of advent, we enter into the nativity story. We see from the first Chapter of Matthew that Jesus is entering into the world in a very messy situation. He is born to a mother who is not married into a family tree that had some messy, complicated branches. But the point of the message is that God enters into the mess to bring chaos back into order. When it seems like such a mess that we can’t do anything to help God shows up. That is the hope we have this advent season.

On the third week of the Advent season we talk about joy and our liturgical calendar gives us a passage in James about being patient and not complaining. Perhaps joy is more than a feeling we have when things are going well. Perhaps joy is not linked to our circumstances, maybe we should find joy knowing God is with us and Christ is coming again.

Jesus states that He gives us peace, but He also says that we will have trouble. So we know Biblically that peace does not mean an absence of conflict. Our verse in Romans 15 today reminds us that peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of Christ as our foundation. This advent season let us remember that peace on earth is possible, but it begins with us.

This first week of advent we are reminded that we are people who have hope. Paul reminds us in Romans 13 that we are people of light. Paul tells us we are people of light in this already but not yet time. Wake up! It’s dawn!