Gayle is a preacher and when you give a preacher a microphone, they’re gonna preach. When she came out to tell us about the party and offer us an intention for the evening, she pointed to the bible’s construct of every 40 years being a “New Beginning” and the mark for a new generation to begin.

Belonging Matters
Our Bodies Matter
Worship That Speaks to Your Soul Matters
Joy & Fun Matter

Church can be hard. Church hurt is real. Church can be a community, but so can a lot of other things. Community is essential to us loving like Jesus. Jesus knew this. He also knew that community is hard, so God sent us help. The word for Holy Spirit in Greek even means “helper.”

The Holy Spirit came,
To make a home in us.
To send peace that stays.
To help us love like Jesus, even when it is hard.

The hard truth of the Gospel is this:
We don’t get to hate people and still call ourselves followers of Jesus.
Jesus washed the feet of people who hurt him.
He shared meals with people who failed him.
That’s the example we were given.

It’s easy to say, “we love everyone.”
It’s harder to live like we mean it.

But love was never just words.
Not for Jesus. Not for us.

We are secure, not because our faith never falters, but because his love never does.

And that kind of security changes how we live. When we know who we are and who we belong to, we can live boldly.

The gospel is not meant to weigh us down; it is meant to set us free. Free to love ourselves. Free to love others. Free to live lives that testify to grace.

You are known.

You are loved.

You are held.

That is your gospel.

That is what redemption looks like. Not hiding the broken parts, but making something new out of them. That is what Jesus still does. He colors our stories with mercy and grace. Even the parts we wish we could undo. Even the pages we want to keep hidden. None of it is beyond the reach of love. What if your regrets are not the end of the story? What if they are the place where re-creation begins? The coloring book is still open. There is still space for your story.

When I heard that God birthed Jesus. My body reacted to it.

I reached down and touched my own stomach. I remembered how heavy my stomach was and how my back ached. I remembered the pains of childbirth that left me on my hands and knees, only able to breathe and wait for the next contraction.

When God birthed Jesus, there must have been so much surrender, a setting aside of God’s self to bring Jesus, who was eternally born, always part of God but now separate, into the Trinity.

My experiences as a mother holding my own children reflect on a God who is willing to come to be with us as a human. Christ embodied in the same infant experience on Mary’s chest as my tiny, vulnerable, completely reliant, slick, and slimy, beautiful, perfect children on my chest.

I imagine the way that the savior of the world’s tiny infant’s head must have smelled when Mary brushed her lips across those tiny baby hairs on his head.

Oh, how God must love us!

My experience tells me that love that is birthed, is the same love that makes one willing to break their body.

Break their body either on their hands and knees, breathing between contractions, or as a crucified savior on the cross.

Our mothering God broke their bodies for their children

in birth and for our re-birth.

Broke their bodies so that we may live.

Flourish.

Eternally.

A bumper sticker reads: "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven!" The implication of the bumper sticker seems to be that the only purpose of Christ’s work on earth was atonement. If that is the implication, the ever-pastoral, John Wesley, might commend them on the start of their Christian journey, encouraging them to continue realizing and embodying their forgiveness, into Christian perfection. Wesley might emphasize the “just” portion of the sticker, exclaiming, “But Christians aren’t just forgiven, they're so much more!”

And here is the Good News, my friends; he’ll find us the way we need to be found. Jesus isn’t afraid to get personal.

Do you remember?

So now what?

Do you remember the rest of the Good News too?

What difference does it make? What difference should it make to you?

Are you lonely? Feel Overlooked? Things are never enough? The message of Good Friday may be that you are enough, Jesus came just for you, to be vulnerable for you and there is nothing you can do or not do to change the truth that God sees you and is with you.

Is the world too far gone? Evil too prevalent? What’s the point of so much struggle? Good Friday may mean Jesus is on our side, Easter may mean that the world will actually change.

Do you ever feel like the devil is on your back? No matter what, you make the wrong choice, you are too far gone? You may see Good Friday as when you “come to Jesus.” You see how you are not supposed to be the reason for your own salvation, but Jesus is. Easter maybe when you see that God loves everyone, even the unlovable, even you!

If you are looking for a place in the bible that gets real with human emotions, drop me a message. I can point you to some people in scripture who may have felt the same.

Feeling like God is punishing you? There’s a book for that.

Feeling like the powers of the world are too much and that may never change? There are actually a few books for that.

Want to curse your STD while God listens? There’s Psalms for that.

The Bible is full of human experiences - which is why your human experience matters. Don’t let anyone cheapen your experience or the experiences of the very real people who tell the story of God in this sacred text. It’s deep and full of emotion - not cheapened by toxic positivity or false hopes.