Scripture Readings: Deuteronomy 4:1-9 | Psalm 15 | James 1:17–27 | Mark 7:1-23

​“But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” (James 1:22).
 
There’s a saying that seems to reflect a certain spirit of the age these days: that ‘rules are made to be broken.’ The basic idea behind this saying is that any kind of command, restriction, or limitation we face must simply be an oppressive obstacle to our ‘freedom’, which we should feel free to overcome, or just ignore.
 
Of course, rules really are restrictive by nature. They are meant to narrow down the possibilities of our actions,
but in doing so they can also bring to life many other possibilities that cannot exist apart from these necessary limits.
 
For all those bakers and cooks among us, think of how recipes… rules about ingredients and measurements… can help us construct even very complex meals… but only if we actually try to follow the directions.
 
For those of us who follow sports, what good would a game or a competition be if the athletes involved just ignored the rules of how to play and did their own thing?
 
Imagine living without rules… no traffic laws. No expectations for how to treat our neighbours. No safeguards to protect those of us who are most vulnerable? No one to say no to those with no concerns at all about the damage they will cause by chasing after their desires.  
 
Of course, sadly this is not totally hypothetical. There have been times and places throughout history when all the rules have been set aside… scenes of war and chaos… and it isn’t pretty! Rules are restrictive, yes. But the limits they offer us can be a real gift to us… helping us experience truly life-giving possibilities… that is, if the rules themselves are leading us into life.
 
Not all rules do that, of course. Some rules are actually intended to keep people trapped… or to oppress us, instead of leading us to the peace and freedom they claim to offer.
 
The truth is, it can be hard to know which rules are good for us in the long run, and which rules should really be left behind. So many of our ongoing and divisive political disputes today boil down to disagreements about which rules our communities should follow… which goals we should all be striving for… which ways of life are worth protecting and preserving, and which should be resisted instead.
 
We know sorting through all this isn’t always easy. But as Christians, we are not just starting from scratch either. We have already been entrusted with a way of life… a vision for the kind of life the Living God intends for His creatures. Yet we too can resist the restrictiveness of the rules God has given to us… seeing them as a burden and a barrier to a fulfilled life, instead of as pointing us down the path that leads to God’s blessings, for us and our world, that we could not experience alone.
 
Thankfully, our Scripture passages today call us to reflect, not simply on a list of rules we can either accept or reject according to our own wisdom, but rather they call us to reflect on the overall role that God’s commands play in our lives as His people… reminding us of what it means to respond to them faithfully… and the fruit that this obedience will bear in our own lives, and in the world around us.
 
In our first reading today from Deuteronomy Chapter 4, we hear the words of Moses, addressing God’s people, and reflecting on the covenant the LORD had made with them at Mt. Sinai… the clear parameters… the rules of this sacred relationship forged between Yahweh and Abraham’s family.
 
Moses reminds them that they are to live by God’s rules in the land they are about to receive. Deuteronomy 4:1, “So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.” These commandments were meant to guide and shape their shared life in the land… helping them walk in God’s good ways, and experience the blessings that they lead to. But there was another reason beyond their own benefit: by obeying God’s commands, they would be showing the rest of the world the blessing that they too can experience, if they draw near to the Living God in faith, and follow His ways.

Deuteronomy 4:5-6, “See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!’”
 
In other words, if Israel would walk faithfully in God’s ways, they would become a sign to their neighbours, revealing God’s wisdom, goodness, power, and steadfast love that all are invited to share in. But if they refused to do so, the nations around them would miss out on this sign.
 
Following God’s commands, His way of life, is an integral part of sharing His saving love with the world. Faithfulness to Him draws us into His mission, and though it can be challenging, it leads us and others around us into life. Faithlessness, on the other hand… leads us all in a very different direction.
 
The rest of Israel’s story in the Scriptures gives us a clear warning here. Despite the words of the prophets continuously warning them to turn around and return to the ways of the LORD, God’s people kept pushing back against the commands Yahweh had given to them. And as a result, they end up losing their land, and are carried away into Exile.
 
And yet even so, God’s grace did not abandon them. In His great mercy, the Living God allows His people to learn first-hand where their lawlessness ultimately leads to, but eventually He led them back to the land… opening up the wonderful possibility that their descendants would remember His covenant with their ancestors, and walk again in His ways.
 
And so, although their story offers us a warning, it also offers us a vivid reminder that the One who gives us these commands is not a cruel uncaring dictator, arbitrarily making up rules for no reason! No, He is the Giver of Good Gifts… the Lord of Love, who longs for us to share in His blessed life… the One who can bring forth all sorts of unforeseen and beautiful possibilities in our lives, if we will trust in Him, and faithfully walk in His ways.
 
This leads us right to our second reading today from the letter of St. James, and his words reminding us that we can confidently place our trust in the steadfast grace of God.
 
James 1:17-18, “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures”
 
The gift of God’s blessed life is not fickle or fleeting, uncertain like flickering lights or dancing shadows. God’s grace is completely consistent, trustworthy throughout the ages, carrying always a common purpose: to shape and transform those of us who trust in Him, so that we might become the first fruits… the starting point of His great work to transform the rest of His beloved creation… to bring His blessed, rescuing life and love, not just to a few, but to all who will receive it.
 
And so God’s commandments, God’s ways are a great gift to us, but one that we must also put into practice.
After all, it may be important to know the rules, but that won’t help us if we don’t actually follow them.
 
James 1:22-25, “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.”
 
God gives us the word, the Good News and the way of life that flows from it… a way of life intended to bless us, and to help us share this blessed life with all those around us. But we need to actually do what it tells us. It needs to take root in and influence our day to day decisions. Only then will it start to transform us into those who reflect the goodness and love of the Lord.  
 
This leads us at last to our reading from the Gospel of Mark, where we heard Christ’s confrontation with some of the experts on God’s laws: some Pharisees and Scribes, who were both deeply devoted to obeying the commandments of the covenant God gave to Israel… carefully and publicly putting them into practice… and watching to make sure everyone else did the same.
 
In fact, many of the Pharisees were so concerned about breaking God’s laws, that they created all sorts of other rules around the covenant to make sure they never got close to breaking them. These extra rules were often passed down, and followed just as strictly as God’s own laws, seeing this as as a mark of true faithfulness, even though they were not found in the covenant God had made with Israel… which led to the confrontation we read about this morning.
 
These law experts criticized Jesus and His disciples because they were not following the traditions of the elders; eating food without first washing their hands.
 
Jesus hits back with a withering critique, highlighting the hypocrisy that He sees at work in those who claim to be defending God’s ways, while twisting His commandments to suit their own purposes.
 
Mark 7:6-9, Jesus “said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’ Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!
 
Jesus then offers examples of how these experts on God’s laws would use pious sounding loopholes to avoid actually putting God’s commands into practice… showing that even if they thought they were committed to the covenant… to the rules God had given them, in truth their hearts did not belong to the Lord at all, but to themselves.
 
Jesus is here pointing out the hypocrisy of religious people using religion to serve their own purposes, instead of serving the Living God, and letting Him lead them into life.
 
This problem remains a temptation for many of us today. One example that quickly comes to my mind are all the politicians that make use of other people’s faith, and their religious commitments to build up their own following… arguing that, unless you sign up to their agenda, and support and vote for them, you can’t really be a faithful Christian.
 
But there are lots of ways that this temptation can be at work in our own lives too. Like when we follow the commandments we like… the ones that don’t challenge us to change our ways… and then ignore those that don’t suit us, as if they were dishes in a buffet to choose from, instead of essential ingredients in a recipe.
 
And as Jesus just showed us, we can even run into trouble when trying to follow them all… if we do so for the wrong reasons… if we are obeying the rules so we can compare ourselves to others, and try to prove how good we are. That’s like being so focused on the rules of a sport that we completely forget what the game is all about!
 
So if it’s so messy… if it’s so hard to figure out how to truly obey God’s ways, and faithfully follow His commandments, what are we supposed to do?
​
Well, as Christians our hope has never been about how we can sort through life’s challenges on our own, or how we can be sure to perfectly obey God’s laws in our own strength. We need something more than rules to follow… we need Someone to rescue us.
 
Jesus goes on to teach His followers that the uncleanness we should care most about comes not from the outside, but from within… and so, while rules about washing hands can perhaps point us in the right direction about the need to be clean, they can do nothing at all about the uncleanness already at work inside of us.
 
The point I am getting at is this: even God’s commands in the covenant are not an end in themselves… but a tangible, practicable invitation to trust in the Living God with our whole lives… teaching us to walk in His ways so that His goodness, and holiness, and saving love can take shape in us, and live in us, and live through us in the power of His Spirit.
 
Rules and commands, even from God, may be a good gift to us, but alone they are unable to cleans our hearts of sin. For that, we need the gift that God’s rules all point us to: the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, who gave His life at the cross to wash away our sins by His blood, and who, through His Spirit at work in us, shares God’s blessed life with us, and with the whole world.
 
These are the life-giving possibilities that God’s rules open up for us: God gives us a way of life intended to bless us, so we can start to share this blessed life with others. God gives us this gift for our good, but we need to put it into practice to truly benefit from it. And while trying to follow God’s ways on our own does not save us, they will point us in the right direction: inviting us to keep placing our trust in Jesus Christ, whose perfect obedience and sacrifice of love alone can save both us and our world.
 
So as Christians, committed to the way of Jesus every day, and in all that we do, let us remember that the gift of God’s commandments call us to keep the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord at the centre our hearts and minds. For it is there in His death that Jesus put the entire perfect law of God into practice once and for all. And it’s there in His rising again to share His new life with us, that He shows us what these rules are all about: /as He breaks down everything that stands between us and His saving love. Amen.

​And our Songs for this week can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Joshua 24:1–2a, 14–18 | Psalm 34:15–22 | Ephesians 6:10–20 | John 6:56–69 

“So Jesus asked the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.’ ” (John 6:67-68).
 
How many of us here today find it easy to make decisions?
How many of us don’t?
How many of us are struggling to decide how to answer that question?
 
Whether we like it or not, life is full of decisions to make… of moments when we are forced to choose one option or path, and to leave behind all of the others.

For some of us, it might be a struggle when it comes to simply ordering food from a menu… or having to choose which route to take through an unfamiliar city. We might find it hard to choose who to vote for in an election… or how best to respond when a conversation suddenly takes an unexpectedly controversial turn… or how to treat our friends, and family members, and neighbours who make choices that we would never even consider.
 
Life is full of choices… decisions we have to make… some small, some much more significant. And our Scripture readings this morning invite us back into some of the most important, and life-shaping choices that we will ever make… decisions that influence every other aspect of our lives.
 
In our first reading today, we heard how Joshua, called the people of Israel together to make a clear decision about their allegiance. After the death of Moses, Joshua had been the leader of God’s covenant people, helping them follow the ways of the LORD, as they finally entered the Promised Land. But now, as Joshua’s own life was drawing to an end, he knew that the people once again needed to reaffirm their commitment to serving the Living God alone.
 
Joshua knew all to well the story of his people: how they kept turning their hearts away from Yahweh, the Living God, who had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, sustained them through the wilderness, and graciously invited them to share in His own blessed life, if they would trust and follow Him.
 
Joshua saw first hand how fickle the people could be: quickly forgetting time and again all of the ways that the LORD had shown them His mercy, generosity, and steadfast love… and how easily they went back to their old sinful ways, serving their own self-centred desires.
 
And so, at the end of his life, Joshua calls Israel to once again make a definitive choice to serve Yahweh alone, and not to go after the other so-called gods, the spiritual powers worshipped by the peoples all around them.

“Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:14-15).
 
The choice is stark. There is no middle ground here, just two options: to be faithful to the Living God, walking in His ways, or not.

And how we respond to this choice shapes all other choices we make in life. It challenges us to re-evaluate all of our priorities. It calls us to reconsider so much of what we might otherwise simply take for granted. If our ultimate allegiance belongs to the Living God, than all of our choices, big and small, need to be made with Him and His ways in mind. It’s an ongoing acknowledgement that our whole lives now belong to Him.
 
And of course, this is a choice we don’t just make once… but over and over again. And not just with our words, but with our whole selves… our hearts, and minds, and actions as well.

In Joshua’s last days, the people of Israel said yes to his challenge to serve the Living God alone, but sadly, before too long they would fall back into their old sinful ways. And we too can say all the right things one moment, but still not remain faithful to the LORD in our daily lives.
 
What we need is not simply to make a choice, but to be transformed by a choice.  
 
This leads us to our reading from the Gospel of John Chapter 6, and the conclusion of a challenging conversation between Christ Jesus and the crowds that followed Him… a conversation where He claimed to be the Bread from Heaven, the source of God’s blessed life.
 
Jesus knew that many of those who were following Him did so, not because they really believed in Him, but because of the miracles He had done for them, like feeding thousands of hungry people with just a few loaves and fish.
 
Jesus knew that the hearts of these people were still serving their own interest and appetites… and so He pushed them to make a choice: to decide to trust in Him… to place their faith in Him as God’s gift of unending life… to not just be fed miraculous bread, but to give Jesus their full allegiance as God’s Messiah, the Son of Man sent to save them once and for all.
 
But sadly, many in the crowd that day chose to walk away from Jesus instead. They chose to trust in their own understanding, and not to believe in His words.
 
This choice lies before us too: are we simply interested in what Jesus can do for us? In the ways He can satisfy our desires, and help us achieve our goals? Or are we open to what He is offering us? Are we open to having our lives transformed by His invitation into God’s Kingdom? An invitation into a whole new way of life, centered not on ourselves, but on the holy love of God?
 
Jesus offers us Himself as the source of God’s own blessed life, and He invites us to believe in Him… to trust Him, and walk in His ways even when it’s hard. Even when we don’t understand. Even when no one else around us understands.
 
This is the choice that we Christians make every day: to place our trust in Jesus Christ alone. To entrust our lives, and our world into His saving hands, and to follow the way He has shown us.
 
After many of those who had followed Him turned back, our Lord turned to the Twelve Apostles and said to them: “‘Do you also wish to go away?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:67-69).
 
As disciples of Jesus Christ today, we are invited to make Simon Peter’s words our own, and not only that, but to translate those words into action through all of life’s choices.
 
If we also believe and know that Jesus is the Christ, the Holy One of God, who alone has the words of eternal life, then are His words taking root and transforming the many decisions that we make from day to day? Do we consider His Kingdom’s priorities when we are making our plans? Are we open to making changes to our habits and behaviours as we learn more of His holy ways? Are we willing to go against the flow of those all around us when we know our Lord calls us to follow a different road?
 
Will we choose again today to give our full allegiance to our Saviour, or not?
 
At the cross, Jesus chose to suffer and died for you and me… and for everyone. And He calls us now to trust and follow Him… to live His way in the midst of a mixed up and combative world. But instead of simply giving in to the divisive and destructive spirit of the age, He longs for us to have our lives shaped and transformed by His truth, His mercy, His holiness, His compassion, and His self-giving love.

And no matter how chaotic and confusing the world around us might get, we can choose to stand firm in our faith, in the Good News that in Jesus, God has chosen us! He chose to give Himself to our world at the cross, laying down His life so that sinners like you and I might believe in Him and share in God’s unending life.

I don’t know what sort of choices you may be facing today… or the challenging situations you may be having to navigate. But as you seek a wise way forward, don’t forget where your true allegiance lies. Remember the Good News that God chose to share His unending life with us in Jesus Christ, inviting everyone to trust in Him, and to be transformed in Him. May this beautiful truth help to reshape all of our priorities, and may every choice that we make flow from His life-giving love. Amen.

​​And our Songs for this week can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Proverbs 9:1–6 | Psalm 34:9–14 | Ephesians 5:15–20 | John 6:51–58

Jesus said: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” (John 6:54-55).
 
Does anyone here remember the TV show Survivor Man? I used to watch it years ago, and recently stumbled onto it again. It’s a show where an expert survivalist heads out into all sorts of wilderness areas, places like the arctic, or tropical jungles, or deserts, and then they record their attempts to last a week all alone in these life-threatening situations.
 
One of the things that I think the show highlights pretty well is the importance of wisdom when it comes to surviving in the wild: of recognizing the potential of simple, everyday objects to help overcome big challenges… of understanding your surroundings, and the dangers that need to be avoided… of making good use of precious and limited resources… and of finding enough food to sustain life… which can sometimes be found in surprising places.
 
Apparently, over the years several people have actually credited this show with helping them to know how to survive unexpected emergencies that they had faced while in the wilderness. They may not have been experts, but they picked up enough practical wisdom from it to help them in their time of need.
 
One piece of this survival wisdom that stuck out to me was when the host warned of the dangers of something called 'rabbit starvation', or 'protein poisoning'. Have you heard of this? It’s what happens when you only eat extremely lean meats (like wild rabbit), that don’t give you enough fat content, and you end up really sick, or worse. It’s kind of tragic. You can think you are eating plenty of food that will sustain you, but end up not getting the true nourishment you need to make it through.
 
And this danger struck me as a problem not simply for those in wilderness survival situations, but in lots of areas of life. I mean, in so many ways we can think we are getting everything that we need, but instead, we can end up starving ourselves… missing out on something that’s essential to our actual survival.
 
Now hunger is something that affects us all… urging us to seek to satisfy our very real needs… but sadly, we don’t always have the wisdom to know the best ways to meet those needs.
 
And that goes for our spiritual hungers too… for the deep longings in us, whether we’re conscious of them or not… longings for meaning, and purpose, and truth… for community, for a sense of belonging… and for love.
 
How we go about trying to satisfy these deep hungers really matters… and tragically, it’s all too easy for us to settle for things we think will fill us up, and give us what we need, but that cannot truly sustain us.
 
Which is where the need for wisdom comes in. Wisdom involves knowing where to look for what will truly sustain us. And wisdom can help us to avoid the pitfalls, distractions, and dangers found in the wildernesses of our hearts, so that we can be prepared to take in and receive that which will bring us life.
 
 
And the biblical vision of wisdom, as it turns out, can be quite surprising. It’s not the same as common sense… insights that should be obvious at all. And it’s not the kinds of hidden knowledge possessed only by experts who spend years mastering it. No, biblical wisdom is presented as a precious gift, one that actively seeks out any who will be open to receiving it… regardless of how learned or simple they may be.
 
Biblical Wisdom… the kind needed for knowing where to look to find what we truly need… is not held up as a prize or reward we can earn or achieve on our own, but as a gracious gift of God, to lead us into life.
 
In our first reading today from the book of Proverbs, true wisdom is personified as a woman calling out in the streets, having prepared a wonderful meal to provide for anyone who will come and share in it… eagerly and earnestly entreating us to be open to it, and find life through it.
 
Wisdom says to us in Proverbs 9:4-6,
“You that are simple, turn in here!”
To those without sense she says,
“Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.”
 
In this sense, wisdom’s not a body of knowledge, or a special skill set… but a summons… an ongoing invitation to turn to the LORD, the Living God, and find in Him all that we need in order to find life. In a word, wisdom tells us to place our trust in God to lead and sustain us.
 
And in our Gospel reading today from John Chapter 6, we hear our Lord Jesus Christ make the bold claim that He is Himself the One we are to turn to, in order to receive the gift of God’s life… referring to Himself as the wonderful, life-giving meal, the bread sent from Heaven to save and sustain us.
 
Christ came not to offer us tips and tricks to get through the tough times of life on our own, but He came to offer His very life as the gift that alone can keep us going… not just day by day, but forever.
​
Jesus tells us that He is the Bread of Life: the wonderful provision from God’s right hand, sent to meet the needs that we all have… the need for meaning, for a purpose, for truth… finding ourselves in Him, and that we are not simply intelligent animals, bent on mere survival, but the beloved children of God the Father, the Creator of all, and we are made to mirror and reflect His divine goodness and holiness into our world through our lives in all sorts of ways.
 
Jesus is the Bread of Life… meeting our needs for community, belonging, and love… assuring us that we are not simply adrift in a chaotic and cruel wilderness, destined simply to endure trial after trial on our own. No, in Jesus we find that each of us are deeply known and deeply loved, regardless of how many dangers we face, trusting that our Saviour remains God-with-us even in the darkest wilderness… and He calls us to place our trust in Him, again and again and again.
 
Of course, one tangible way that we do this… seeking to renew our trust in Jesus Christ, and all He has done for us… is when we draw near to His table in faith, and receive the gracious gift of His life, His body and His blood, shared together in Holy Communion.
 
At the cross, Jesus offered up His life once and for all to provide what we all need. Christ’s sacrifice of self-giving love became God’s way to set about healing our sin-sickness, to offer us forgiveness in His name, and to sustain us... sharing God’s own life with us, which is now at work in us through the Holy Spirit.  
 
When we come forward to share at Christ’s Table, saying yes to all that the Lord Jesus has done for us at the cross… and to all that He still longs to share with us who trust in Him… we do not need to be some sort of expert… or have our faith all figured out in order to experience the gift of His life. Far from it! It’s enough just to come to Him in faith… reaching out our hands to ask Him to give us what He knows we need… trusting in His saving love, even when we don’t yet understand.
 
The scholar Wesley Hill puts it well: “In the Eucharist, Jesus puts Himself in our hands so we know exactly where to find Him. In that moment, we don’t have to wonder whether God is for us. We know He is because we’ve just tasted His provision. He gives us His Son—His life-giving flesh.”[1]
 
Wisdom tells us to believe that Jesus Himself is God’s life-giving gift: the Bread of Heaven, offered to all who are hungry, so that all might be satisfied.
 
Just one more point to ponder: when our physical bodies are able to consistently feed on truly nourishing food, they are more likely to grow as they should. And when they don’t get to regularly receive what they need, things start to go wrong, just like with ‘rabbit starvation’.  
 
When we consistently feed on the spiritual nourishment that Jesus offers to us… His own life… it is so that our whole lives can grow into what they were always intended to be: growing more and more like Christ, through God’s Spirit at work in us, reflecting God’s goodness and holy love out into our world.
 
This is what St. Paul is touching on in our reading from Ephesians this morning, reminding us that when we draw near to Christ in faith to receive the gift of His life, it is so that His life might begin to transform our own.
 
Ephesians 5:15-17 “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
 
Saying yes to the gift of Jesus’ life invites us into a relationship that changes us… that calls us to intentionally make some changes as well. Jesus gives us His life… He invites us to take and eat, not only so that we can make it through another day, but so that His life… God’s true and unending life… can transform us… and our world.
 
Wisdom tells us to trust Jesus, and to let His life make changes in us… and through us.
 
We all have all sorts of hungers… as do our neighbours… which require wisdom to satisfy.
 
The Good News is that in Jesus, God has shown us, and all who will believe, where to find the sustenance we need.
 
Jesus Christ is the Bread of Heaven… the true food that not only meets our needs, but shares with us the life of the Living God, so that we can actually live His ways today.
 
And this is Good News, not just for those of us who already believe, and who receive together the Lord’s life given for all… it’s also Good News for the world around us that we get to invite to draw near as well… and even though we may not all be experts, we can all still get the word out any way we can about where we all can find the answer to our world’s deepest hungers… the Bread of Heaven: Jesus Christ the crucified and Risen Lord.
 
So this morning, may we draw near to Jesus our Saviour in faith, and receive from Him again what we all need: the gift of His life… the source of our salvation that alone can sustain us, and transform us… not just to help us all survive, but to share in God’s blessed life forever. Amen.


[1] Wesley Hill, The Lord’s Prayer: A Guide to Praying to Our Father, Christian Essentials (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 55.

​Our service of Morning Prayer, Bulletin, & Reflection Questions this week can be found here:

​And our Songs for this week can be found here:

​Our service of Morning Prayer, Bulletin, & Reflection Questions this week can be found here:

​And our Songs for this week can be found here: