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.