Dear Friends in Christ,

This upcoming Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday of Epiphany Season.  Full of this season’s learnings about Jesus, born to be a savior, we enter the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday, one week from today.  

Lent is a time for turning inward, shining Christ’s light on ourselves to prepare for Easter resurrection. (Resurrection is about us as well as Jesus!)  One way to do so is by reading devotions, reflections on Scripture passages that give us relevant food for thought and transformation.

Do you read devotions?  If not, and you’re a computer user, I encourage you to subscribe to the United Church of Christ Daily Devotional. (Daily Devotional – United Church of Christ)  In it, gifted UCC Pastors and other writers offer timely thoughts on passages in Scripture. 

Below is an example of one from Epiphany season regarding Baptism.  See what you think.

Blessings of the Seasons,
Pastor Ed

 Water & ICE    by Rev. Matt Laney, published Jan 24, 2026

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. – Matthew 3:13 (NRSV) 

At the dawn of life, there was water: wild and wide, two Hs holding an O, a life-giving dance, the first deep “yes” of all that’s meant to be. 

Baptism does not create our worth.  It names what’s true from the start of birth.  It rinses away all that hides us.  It calls us to our rightful place. 

But drop the temperature, slow water’s vibration, and the dance of molecules stagnates. Liquid life assumes a rigid shell, a frozen form, hard and cold.  When ice takes hold, it is unyielding, unforgiving—a kind of death that keeps on living, slippery and slick, isolating your breath as soon as it escapes. 

Today we witness frozen power: fear made into policy, vulnerability named a threat and a crime, mercy mocked as a waste of time.  Communities hunted, hearts shut down, compassion throttled. 

Our anger rises, skin runs hot, love grows cold, the conscience knots.  We want hardness to meet hardness, ice to meet ice.  We want to strike back. That is what frozen power wants most: not only to chill one target; not just to tear us, friend from friend; but to make everyone as cold as them. 

We are people of water who stir, not shake. People who flow and bend, not break.  People who refuse to freeze compassion.  People who let love move us into action. 

Prayer
Your love-made-flesh is the whole deal. Yours is the love that heals. Yours is the only Love that will suffice and has the power to melt the ice.

Dear Friends in Christ,

Last Sunday, we adapted our plans for our worship and annual meeting. With late-morning snow predicted, we worshipped for a half-hour without the bulletin and started our annual meeting at 10:30am in the sanctuary. We were “out the doors” shortly after 11 am as the storm started.

Adaptation allowed us to return to our homes with the assurance of being safer. Whether it’s about safety or survival, adaptation is a human gift from God that permits us to move forward with life.

These days, it’s good to remember this. Our world has been changing in disconcerting ways. Secular political leaders have developed and adopted reprehensible ways of governing that could become normalized. Churches have moved to the sidelines of our culture at a moment when society desperately needs our witness of Christ-like values and ways of practicing caring relationship with one another. Adaptation of our ways of being and practicing church is being called for.

This upcoming Sunday, we’ll continue our series on parables, stories by which Jesus taught his followers how to adapt their usual ways of human thinking and acting that too frequently resulted in insensitivity, violence, and destruction. These ways stood – and still stand – in stark contrast to more divine ways of imagining and bringing forth a new order, one worthy of being called the Kingdom – or Kin-dom – of God.

As followers of Jesus and participants in the church, ours is a divine calling. God yearns for our Christ-like humanity to be more effectively seen and adopted in the world.

How might we achieve our calling? It could start with learning from – and being transformed by – Jesus’ parables.

Blessings of Adaptation,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ,

This upcoming Sunday, we’ll have our Annual Business Meeting.  Amongst other business items, we’ll review and approve our 2026 budget.  But what’s our business?  And what’s a budget? 

Jesus essentially told his parents when they found him in the Temple that he was there to be about “his Father’s – or God’s – business.”  He would “budget” his life’s time, energy, wisdom and love – not to mention his life itself – for this purpose as he understood it to be. 

But what of us as Christ’s people and church?  I think our business is doing ministry after Jesus’ manner.  And, a church budget, I think, is more than just numbers to be balanced; it’s a reflection of our understanding of our ministry and purpose. How we budget our money expresses what we value and deem important as Christ’s people and church. 

So… I wonder: What would you say our church budget reflects?  And, what does it suggest we think our business to be? 

We’ll consider these questions in our worship service which will serve as a kind of prelude to our “business meeting.”  So, I invite you to come with these questions on your mind, your perspectives, and see – in the end – how you answer.  

Blessings, Christ’s “Businesspeople!”
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ,
As I mentioned last week, we now find ourselves in Epiphany season. It’s the season between Christmastide and Lent. It starts on the 13th day after Christmas, lasts four to nine weeks depending on the date of Easter, and ends on Transfiguration Sunday, just before Ash Wednesday.

Epiphany literally means “appearance.” In the church, it refers to the appearance and manifestation of Christ Jesus to the world. In essence, it refers to a growing awareness that Jesus, the ”babe born in Bethlehem,” was more than he appeared to be – one who grew up to be “in the league of the highly esteemed Abraham and Elijah.” And, he would be one to hold many titles ranging from Rabbi or “Teacher” to Savior and Lord.

Epiphany is a season for asking ourselves, ”What do we make of all of this? And, who does this Christ-child grow up to be for us?”

For me, Jesus is divinely “human.” He’s the one who teaches me of my purpose as a human being and shows me how to fulfill calling as one of God’s chosen stewards of creation. But this baby born so long ago in Bethlehem, who – and what – is he for you?

Blessings of Epiphany Season,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ,
An epiphany is a sudden, profound realization or insight triggered by an ordinary – or extraordinary – learning experience. It’s a “Eureka!” or “A-ha!” kind of moment that produces a new or deeper understanding of something.

In the church, after Christmastide, we now find ourselves in the season of Epiphany.  It’s a time when we’re called to grow in understanding of what’s happened at Christmas in the birth of God Emmanuel or “God with us.”  This we do by focusing on the experiences and growth of the baby born in Bethlehem become our teacher and savior, Christ Jesus who is the Light, Life, and Lord of our world.     

So, on this upcoming Sunday – which commemorates the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, we’ll share communion – and more.  The more?  A renewal of our Baptism by reaffirming our promises and experiencing a “sprinkling” of water. (No raincoats necessary!)

Ours will be, as it were, a “Sacramental Sunday,” a time when we celebrate Baptism and Communion as signs meant to give us “a touch and taste” of the holiness of God’s love in Jesus.   

I hope you can join us!  And, if you do, I hope you’ll experience your own “Eureka!” or “A-ha!”

Blessings of New Year’s Wishes – and More: Blessings of an Epiphany!
Pastor Ed