A friend of mine once gave me a stack of old comic strips she had saved over the years. Thumbing through them, I found two sitting right next to each other that formed a striking contrast.

The first was Winnie the Pooh. Pooh asks Eeyore, "Why do you always expect the worst, Eeyore?" Eeyore answers, "You've got me all wrong, Pooh. I don't expect the worst — I depend on it."

The second was Peanuts. Snoopy's cousin Spike is writing home from the desert: "Life here in the desert is hard but wonderful. Sometimes it is very hot..." — and there's Spike, tongue out, eyes crossed, sun beating down. "And the nights can be very cold. Sometimes we have rain and sudden flash floods. Sometimes it even snows. But there are always beautiful places to walk and things to see. And when I return home, I always have a place to hang my hat." In the final frame, his hat is hanging on a cactus.

Same circumstances, more or less. Heat, cold, flooding, isolation. But two completely different postures toward them.

Eeyore has decided, before anything happens, what the world is going to give him. Spike has decided something else — that even out in the desert, with nothing but a cactus to his name, there is still beauty to notice and a kind of home to be found.

I don't think Spike is naive. The desert is genuinely hard — he says so himself. He isn't pretending otherwise. He has simply chosen where to rest his attention. The hardship gets named. And so does the gift.

The Apostle Paul, writing from a prison cell, said something remarkably similar: "I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content." (Philippians 4:11) Not because his circumstances were easy. Because he had learned where to place his gaze.

Most of us are not stuck being Eeyore. We get to choose, again and again, whether we depend on the worst or look for the cactus to hang our hat on.

Prayer: God of Grace, it is true that life is often hard - but also wonderful. Even when we get beat down by the weather, by our health, or by ugly circumstances give us eyes to see beauty and grace and love at work. Remind us of all that you have done for us that we would be filled with gratitude. Thank you for your providence and love through Jesus Christ. Amen.

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Yesterday I shared that in the Gospel of John, Jesus' last words from the cross are: 

It is finished…

His human life on earth, finished.
His ministry in person, finished.
The pain and suffering, finished.

But there is more, isn't there?

I have a friend, about my age, who some years back was going through serious health issues — clearly suffering. He couldn't work. He lost his job. I remember talking with him on the phone during that season. He told me that ten years earlier he had made a huge mistake — that he had betrayed a friend's trust, and it had hurt the man deeply. Then he asked me, "Do you think God is punishing me for that now? Is that what this is about? I've prayed many times for forgiveness. I've apologized. I've tried to make amends. But I don't know."

Ten years in the past. And it was still heavy, heavy on his heart.

One of the most powerful things the cross does is show us this: in Jesus, God experiences the worst of what humans can do. He fully bears our sins in his body — the violence, the betrayal, the injustice. And he loves us anyway.

This is a love that knows fully what it is to suffer, to be broken and betrayed. It is a love that takes on our sins, and a love that provides the means for a way forward.

The prophet Isaiah put it like this: "By his wounds we have been healed." (Isaiah 53:5)

Early in John's Gospel, John the Baptist, pointing to Jesus and to what was to come on the cross, said, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."

As I mentioned yesterday: no longer can we think of God as one who punishes, dominates, smites. That way of thinking is finished.

No longer do we need to hold on to old sins and guilt and shame. We've been set free to make amends and start anew. It is finished!

Prayer: We thank you for your love for us, O God — unconditional, undying. Help us to accept that love, mercy, and grace, and to live our lives in response. In Christ's name. Amen.

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In the Gospel of John, Jesus' last words from the cross are: It is finished…

In her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard tells about a native Alaskan hunter who approaches a local missionary. "I want to ask you something," he said. "What's that?" replied the missionary. "If I didn't know about sin and God, would I go to hell?" "No," replied the missionary. "Not if you didn't know." The Alaskan responded, "Well then why on God's good green earth did you ever tell me!"

The truth is, long before the missionaries came to town and began talking about these concepts, these are realities people have always experienced. We've long known the great divides of the human heart that lead to separation, brokenness, heartache. And yet at the same time, we've also long experienced that there is far more to this world than what we can know and see and touch — that in spite of the darkness, there is light.

One of the most powerful things the cross does is show us this: in Jesus, God experiences the worst of what humans can do. He fully bears our sins in his body — the violence, the betrayal, the injustice. And he loves us anyway.

This is a love that knows fully what it is to suffer, to be broken and betrayed. It is a love that takes on our sins, and a love that provides the means for a way forward.

On the cross, Jesus said, It is finished…

No longer can we think of God as one who punishes, dominates, smites. That way of thinking is finished.

No longer do we need to hold on to old sins and guilt and shame. We've been set free to make amends and start anew. It is finished!

No longer do we need to consider ourselves not worthy enough, not good enough. It is finished.

No longer can we think we suffer alone. It is finished.

By the time Jesus dies on the cross, the heart of God has been fully revealed.

Prayer: Loving God, we thank you for forgiveness and grace. We remember that grace was not cheap, but costly. May that grace wash over us anew and empower us to respond with our very lives. In Christ's name. Amen.

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Something I hear often from friends outside the church is: "I'm spiritual, but not religious." You've probably heard it too. I've even said it myself. Usually it means something like: I'm not into the institution.

But the word religion has a powerful origin that gets lost in that conversation. It comes from the Latin re-ligio — to re-ligament, to reconnect. In many of the world's major faiths, especially Judaism and Christianity, reconnecting with other human beings is treated as one of the central ways we reconnect with God.

Paul put it this way: "God was pleased... to reconcile to himself all things... and has given us the ministry of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:18-19, Colossians 1:19-20)

In that sense, I do want to be religious. I want to play some small part in re-ligamenting what has come apart — between people, and between people and God.

We need more of that. With all the division and hostility in the world around us, we need more people who are willing to take risks and work outside the cultural scripts that encourage polarization. We need more people who see the value and the potential in every human life. We need more people to build bridges. 

May God give us the compassion, the creativity, and the courage for that work.

Prayer: God of grace, you have reconciled all things to yourself through Christ, and you have given that same ministry to us. Re-ligament what is broken in us, and use us to reconnect what has come apart in the lives around us. Give us eyes to see your image in every person we meet. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Today I would like to say a special word of thanks to those of you who have supported the Dial Hope Foundation with a financial donation. Your gifts make this ministry possible!

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant once said that humanity has always been asking three questions: "What can I know? What shall I do? And for what may I hope?" It is that third question that hits right at the heart of our faith. For what may I hope?

Maybe you've wondered about hope watching the news this week. Maybe you've wondered about it if you're struggling in a relationship, or worried about your job or your finances. Maybe, somewhere along the way, you've simply found yourself asking: for what may I hope?

In the book of Jeremiah, God asks a question of his own: "Is anything too hard for me?" (Jeremiah 32:27)

The biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann makes the claim that this really is the fundamental question — and that every one of us must answer it, not lightly or easily, because how we answer determines everything else.

If the answer is yes — if we believe there are situations even God cannot reach, circumstances too far gone, brokenness too deep to heal — then hope becomes a fragile, conditional thing. Something we can only risk when the odds look decent. Something we quietly withdraw the moment life gets hard.

But if the answer is no — if nothing, truly nothing, is too hard for God — then hope is not naive optimism. It is not pretending things are fine when they aren't. It is something sturdier than that. It is trust placed in the character of God rather than in the circumstances in front of us.

That is not an easy thing to believe in the middle of a diagnosis, a broken relationship, a financial crisis, or a world that often looks like it is coming apart at the seams. I don't think God expects us to believe it effortlessly. But I do think God invites us to keep asking the question — and to keep listening for the answer that has echoed through scripture for thousands of years.

Is anything too hard for me?

For what may you hope today? Perhaps it begins simply by believing that the answer to Jeremiah's question is no.

Prayer: Gracious God, in the middle of all that worries us, all that feels too hard, all that looks unsolvable — we bring our doubts and our questions to you. Help us to trust that nothing is beyond your reach. Give us hope this day, not because circumstances are easy, but because you are faithful. Amen.

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