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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There is a story Jesus tells in the Gospel of Luke about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. The rich man feasts sumptuously every day. Lazarus lies at his gate, covered with sores, hungry. They live, you might say, in parallel universes — separated not by miles, but by indifference.

What is striking about the story is that the rich man is not a villain. He is not cruel. He simply doesn't see Lazarus as someone who matters. And that habit of not seeing — quiet, gradual, unremarkable — is what finally separates them for eternity.

I think about a man I know. In the wake of George Floyd, when a lot of us were feeling the weight of the racial divide and didn't quite know what to do with it, he decided he wanted to do something. But not in the way you might expect. He didn't want to organize a drive or write a check. He wanted to work alongside people on the other side of that divide. Build relationships. Have conversations that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Show up. That's all.

He didn't solve anything. He just stopped looking away. And it changed him.

The Apostle Paul writes to Timothy that those who are rich are to be "generous and ready to share — thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life."

The life that really is life. As if to say — there is the life we are living, and then there is the real life, the full life, the life we were made for. And the path toward it runs straight through generosity. Through seeing. Through refusing to look away.

I learned a prayer from Steve Hayner, the late president of Columbia Theological Seminary, that has stayed with me:

Lord, give me eyes to see the world as you see it. Give me a heart to break at the things that break your heart. And then, Lord, help me not to duck.

Is there a parallel universe near you — just a few miles away — that you have never quite seen? Is there someone at your gate whose name you do not yet know?

As we have been blessed, may we be a blessing.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us for the times we have looked without seeing. For those who are invisible to most of the world and yet known by name to you — we pray. Give us eyes to see the world as you see it. Give us hearts that break at the things that break yours. And then, Lord, help us not to duck. Help us to take hold of the life that really is life — the generous life, the feeding-one-another life, the reaching-across-the-table life. Amen.

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Today’s message was written by my friend, Roger Kunkel, founder of Dial Hope.

We often see a sign over stores reading "under new management." Friend of Dial Hope, when God takes over the management of our lives we may still blunder, and we may still present the same old face to the world, but there is hope of a new beat, a new spirit, a new honesty, a new reality. Wherever we are on our spiritual journey, may we put our lives "under new management - God's management." And remember, God has blessed us so we may be a blessing to others. Now make this day a masterpiece... With God's help. 

Let us pray: "Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee. Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise. Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my will and make it Thine; It shall be no longer mine. Take my heart, it is Thine own; It shall be Thy royal throne." Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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