"Miracles, Signs, and Wonders"

 “Miracles, Signs, and Wonders”

John 4:46-54

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

February 27, 2022

This is a sermon in three acts. (holding up signs) Miracles. Signs. Wonders. 

ACT ONE: MIRACLES

We pray for miracles, don’t we? I mean, like, even if we are super rational people with lots of questions who talk our way out of hoping for miracles….we still pray for them sometimes, right? I know I do. When we’re not sure what else to do. When things feel hopeless. When we can’t see a way forward through a problem. When we’re desperate, we pray for miracles. weebly

Just like people have been doing for thousands and thousands of years. Just like this unnamed father in John’s gospel did. 

Miracle stories in the Bible are so hard. Because, on one hand, they are filled with good news. Wow! Healing, salvation, resurrection. It’s amazing! 

And on the other hand - wowwwwww. We have a lot of questions. 

Because what do we do with all the times we’ve prayed for a miracle and it hasn’t happened? When we pray for a person we love to be healed, but the body doesn’t cooperate? When we pray for war to cease, but the images of lives blown apart break our hearts? When we pray for the relentless attacks on LGBTQ youth and their families to end? When we pray for justice in our criminal justice system? When we pray and pray and pray, but it feels like our prayers aren’t answered.

Or when we pray and pray and pray and it seems like our prayers ARE answered. Someone gets better. A problem is solved. The phone call comes and it’s good news. Nations at war somehow miraculously DO beat their swords into plowshares and peace returns. Laws protect the marginalized. Justice is served. How do we understand all  of the miraculous goodness in the midst of a world that’s also so plagued by difficulties? 

The dictionary definition of a miracle is essentially something we don’t understand. Something that defies explanation. Sometimes we think of these things as being supernatural - beyond the laws of nature as we understand them. Of course, there are lots and lots of things about the natural world that we humans simply haven’t discovered yet, don’t understand YET. Are those technically miracles? 

This is one of those sermons that might have more questions than answers, by the way. Which seems fitting for a sermon about something that, by definition, is something we don’t understand. 

Miracles trouble us because they don’t make sense. They can seem unfair. They can seem impossible. 

Miracles sustain us because they give us hope. They delight us. They fill us with gratitude. 

Miracles keep us humble. They remind us that there really are lots of things we don’t understand. They remind us that there’s more to life than what we see right in front of our face. They keep us seeking and searching for something More with a capital M. 

The word miracle doesn’t appear much in John’s gospel. Instead, most English translations usually use the phrase “signs and wonders,” to describe miraculous events. 

ACT TWO: SIGNS

A sign is something that points to something else. A sign isn’t about itself, it’s about something beyond itself. It’s not an end, it’s a means to an end. 

We can see this at play in the story we heard today. A desperate parent comes to Jesus asking for help because his son is ill. It’s clear to us what the man’s problem is: his sick son. Jesus doesn’t exactly address the father’s problem directly, though. The man begs for Jesus to help and Jesus responds, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you won’t believe.”

It’s a puzzling response. Jesus seems out of tune with the man’s desperate request. 

Biblical scholars Amy Robertson and Bobby Williamson interpret it in this way: Jesus and the man are both working towards something here. The man’s concern is his son. Jesus’s concern, though, is something quite different: drawing human beings closer to God. And so Jesus is wondering how he can draw this father closer to the Holy. And Jesus figures the way to do that is probably by showing him a sign. [1] 

It’s almost like, “Gosh, guys. I wish you could just follow in my ways without all these signs and wonders but it seems like that’s what you need, so I guess that’s how we’ll handle this.” 

When we hear this story, I think we’re most likely to put ourselves in the place of the father. Only natural, of course, because his very human concerns make the most sense to us. But if we allow ourselves to come into this story through Jesus’s vantage point and see what Jesus is working towards here, this story takes us to a whole other place. The sign literally becomes a SIGN - pointing beyond the miracle, beyond the sign. Jesus uses the sign to direct our attention to his larger mission of building the Beloved Community here on earth. Jesus uses the sign to point to his larger message of hope, reminding us that we abide with God and God abides with us. 

It’s all very on-brand for Jesus. Whether or not we get the miracles we pray for, the truths Jesus points to with his actions in this story remain. Because in the person of Jesus, the Christ Force meets us where we are. Christ is the Word Made Flesh who draws near so we can see God more clearly. Christ is that relentless force of love incarnate who abides with us. Christ points the way to God, reminding us all that we are eternally held within the Spirit’s care. 

ACT THREE: WONDERS

Signs and wonders. They go together like peas and carrots in John’s gospel. A wonder is something that takes us by surprise. Makes us shake our heads. Causes us to rethink things we thought we knew before. There might be a feeling of astonishment or shock. An unraveling as we set aside preconceived notions and recalibrate. 

In this story, there’s a lot of wondering. A lot of unanswered questions. A lot of surprises. 

Just like in the other “miracle at Cana” story (you know, the water into wine one) the miracle isn’t clear cut. No one sees it happen. The father asks for Jesus to heal his son. Jesus replies, “Oh, man. You’re gonna need signs and wonders to believe,” and then the man begs again, “Jesus, come and help.” And then Jesus says, “Go home. Your son lives.”

And so the man sets off. He really has no way of knowing what’s going on. Jesus didn’t say, “I healed him,” or “It’s all going to be okay.” He just stated a simple fact: “Your son lives.”

And so the father travels miles and miles back home in this in-between state of not knowing. He must have been full of questions as he made the journey, wondering what had just happened in his interaction with Jesus, wondering how everything would turn out, wondering if his child was still alive. 

Before he gets home, his servants come out to meet him and tell him his son is still alive. He asks when his son started to improve and they said it was the day before, right around the time the father had been talking with Jesus. 

In this moment of connection - things come into focus. Because before they started wondering about all of this together, no one had all the information here. No one had all the pieces to the puzzle. The servants just knew that the boy was improving. The father just knew that Jesus told him to go home. When they wonder and contemplate all of this together, they come to believe that Jesus is somehow responsible for the healing. 

No one can really know what happened, of course. Because no one has all the pieces of the puzzle. There are so many things we simply can’t know, can’t understand. So many questions left unanswered. 

But this moment of connection - this moment of knowing within community feels so true and real. The way that we humans come together and tell our stories, hear each other’s stories, piece it all together and come away knowing more than we did before. Come away feeling more tightly held in the Spirit’s love. Come away feeling connected with something beyond ourselves. Come away with hope. 

I don’t pretend to understand how it all works. This story, quite honestly, may leave us with more questions than answers.

Miracles are, after all, things we really can’t explain. 

Signs point to something beyond themselves. The way Jesus is pointing to…..something bigger than we can even name. Sometimes even God seems too small a word. 

Wonder is something we do in community. We each bring our experiences, our questions, our own human selves together and we contemplate something….much better than we can even name. 

God of miracles, signs, wonders - 

we give you thanks for ancient stories that take our breath away. 

We are filled with questions and at the same time we feel the tug of your certain presence drawing us in. 

Knit us together in your love, O God. 

Show us something beyond fear and violence and war and terror. 

Mold our very lives into instruments of your peace. 

Draw us ever more fully into your ways of peace and justice and hope for all of creation. 

Let us see miracles, signs, and wonders in all the places in our world that so desperately need them. 

Amen. 

NOTES:

[1] Bible Worm podcast, episode 326. 

"Living Water"

John 7:37-52

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

February 20, 2022

There are a lot of things in our lives that we take for granted….until they stop working. This is, of course, a great joke when it comes to technology woes. “Technology, it’s great when it works, isn’t it?”

Some of that technology we take for granted feels a little more low-tech than high-tech simply because it’s been around forever. Take, for example, running water. My guess is almost all of us have had access to running water for almost all of our lives. We think nothing of it, even though most of us sure can’t explain the complex technology that makes it possible. 

But we wake up and use the toilet and whoosh - flush - keeping our homes clean and healthy in ways that humans for most of history couldn’t even dream of. We turn on the sink in the bathroom to brush our teeth and - boom - water. Clean, clear, water that’s safe to drink, just comes flowing out of the sink. Incredible! We move on throughout our morning and there’s water, water everywhere. We boil the kettle for our tea or coffee. We take our morning medication with a glass of water, maybe even filtered directly from the refrigerator. We prepare meals, clean clothes, clean bodies, clean windshields, clean dishes, splash and play, water our gardens, and on and on and on all thanks to the gift of clean, running water. Wow. 

Probably the only time we stop to notice this everyday miracle is when it’s not working properly. When we’re under a boil order, we sure notice, don’t we? Or when there’s some other plumbing problem in our home? Then we notice. 

Access to clean, safe water should be a human right but for all too many it’s a privilege. 

Many in our own community struggle to pay their water bill each month, of course. And in too many communities in the United States and around the world, the water might not be safe to drink. Communities of color are disproportionately kept from access to clean drinking water. Economically poor communities cry out for access to safe water systems and struggle, sometimes for decades, to get something most of us take for granted. 

We’ve been told that climate change means many more of us will be thinking about access to water in the future. The ways we currently use water - along with most other natural resources - just isn’t sustainable. Of course, our indigenous neighbors have been telling us this for generations already. “Water is life,” said the protestors at Standing Rock, as they put their bodies on the line to protect the waters of their lands. Teens, adults, elders from all over the U.S. gathered in that place and listened to those who called themselves Water Protectors - and were reminded of all the ways in which water is sacred, necessary for life. All the ways water must be honored and protected at all costs. 

But we mostly don’t think about it. We turn on a tap and there it is. Running water. An everyday miracle. 

The people in Jesus’s time were thinking about it. They had gathered in Jerusalem for the Festival of Booths, Sukkot. This is the fall harvest festival for our Jewish neighbors. In Jesus’s time it involved a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and daily festivities. After a long, dry summer in an arid land, thoughts turned to rain and the water necessary for creating and sustaining life. In an agricultural society, few things are more important than rain - and just the right amount. 

I learned that the hard way when traveling to a friend’s wedding in college in rural Kansas. I remarked at the rehearsal dinner that it was going to be a beautiful weekend for a wedding without a cloud in the sky and no rain. Several of the farmers at my table grimaced at me and one said in a grumbling voice, “Well, we NEED rain.” The conversation then turned to what a dry summer we had had - and I, a city girl, hadn’t noticed. But you’d better believe the farmers were keeping track. 

The folks in Jesus’s time were keeping track, too. During Sukkot, Jews like Jesus would have participated in daily rituals related to water as they prayed for God to bless their crops and create the conditions necessary for life to flourish. Pilgrims may have carried green leaves and fruit to signify the desire for an abundant harvest. And religious leaders walked to the Pool of Siloam, dipped a container in to fill it with water, and then took that water back to the Temple as they prayed for abundant rain. [1]

It is into this context that Jesus cries out,

“All who are thirsty should come to me!

All who believe in me should drink!

As the scriptures said concerning me,

Rivers of living water will flow out from within him.” [2]

“Rivers of living water will flow out from within him.” All who are thirsty come to me, Jesus says, come to me and drink. 

Living water is a more poetic way of saying running water. Moving water. Water that’s not stagnant. Which is to say, in this ancient context, water that is more likely to be safe to drink, cleaner, a gift to humanity. 

Jesus comes to us as a spring of living water. Rivers of water gushing out from him. He looks at these pilgrims, so worried about the upcoming harvest, so caught up in their vulnerability as people eking a life out of dry land, and says, “Come to me and drink.” 

Other translations say that the rivers of living water will be gushing out from the believers. From Jesus’s disciples. And from you and me. And I guess the Greek is basically just ambiguous. It could truly mean either thing. Or both. 

Living water gushing out from Jesus. Living water gushing out from us. 

But the commonality in both readings is that we’re talking about living water. That miraculous, everyday thing that we take for granted because we turn on our taps and it’s there. Jesus and his companions did not have that luxury. Living water was harder to come by for them, but no less necessary. 

And so we’re invited to ponder - what does Jesus offer us when he says living water will gush forth? What are the oh-so-necessary things in our lives  that are hard to come by these days? 

Perhaps it’s rest. Or space for quiet reflection. A sense of peace. A feeling of security that can lead to freedom. Maybe it’s patience or joy. What are the things that can keep our lives from becoming stagnant? Can keep us all fully, utterly, beautifully, wonderfully alive? 

Christ came to these thirsty, worried, vulnerable people and said, “Come and drink. I’ve got more water than you’ll even know what to do with.”

That water flows forth from Christ and saturates us, overflowing and cascading along to others in the world who are also thirsty. This living water sustains us in our shared ministry, giving us courage and strength to continue reaching out to the world around us in love, seeking justice for those who have been trampled upon and seeking health for all of creation.  

When we gather for worship, we are coming to the waters. When we make space to rest in the Spirit’s loving gaze, we are coming to the waters. When we pause and choose our words carefully with love, we are coming to the waters. When we carve out space for joy and delight even when we don’t think we have the time, we are coming to the waters. When we seek creative ways to call out injustice, we are coming to the waters. When we allow our hearts to soar through music, art, poetry, dance, we are coming to the waters. When we make time to sit with a child and hear Christ’s wisdom in their questions, we are coming to the waters. When we listen to someone who is very different than us and lean in with curiosity rather than judgment, we are coming to the waters. 

Jesus is there in all of it. Overflowing with love. Inviting us into abundance. Seeping into the cracks and fissures, seeking out the dry places - soothing and sustaining. Pulling us towards life. 

This is good news for parched people. 

May all who need their cups filled have open hearts to receive it. Amen. 

NOTES

[1] Working Preacher Narrative Lectionary podcast for Feb. 20, 2022.

[2] Contemporary English Bible translation

"How's your life right now?"

 

John 6:35, 51-60

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

February 13, 2022

“How’s your life right now?” said my dear friend through the phone. 

Not, “How’s it going?” or even, “How’s life?” But “How is YOUR life RIGHT NOW?”

What a jarring question. How is YOUR life RIGHT NOW? 

Goodness. 

My answer that day, which was a few years ago now, was that I was worried about something. I don’t recall the details. So I poured it all out to my friend. Eventually, I kind of spiraled into one of those “what if” cycles where I was, oh, about 2-3 years out in the future of the present moment imagining scenarios that might never come to pass.

I am CERTAIN none of you know what I’m talking about. (wink wink)

And this wonderful friend of mine said something like this, “You know, Caela. God promised to give us our daily bread. DAILY. So I don’t actually think God promised to give you a crystal ball today and show you exactly how everything for the next 2 or 3 years is going to play out. God promised to meet us in each day - today - and give us what we need - today.”

There was a long pause while I let that sink in. And then I said, “Right. And then each of those days strings together…”

And we both said, “Into a life.”

(inhale - exhale)

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but bread is kind of everywhere in the Bible. It’s important enough that it makes an appearance in the Lord’s Prayer. It’s in the stories about Jesus’s final days here on Earth and, because of that, we still gather around tables and bless bread and remember Jesus’s life and ministry. 

And it’s not just in the Second Testament, of course. When the Israelites flee Egypt, we are told that they leave in such a rush that they don’t even have time to let their bread finish rising. Instead, they wrap up the unrisen dough in their clothes and toss it on their backs as they flee. That’s why the bread used at Passover is unleavened. And who can forget that when the Israelites are in the desert, starving and hopeless, God sends a bread-like substance called manna to feed them? (Incidentally, God feeds them with just enough for each day - not 2-3 years at a time as my dear friend so gently reminded me.)

Anyone who’s ever made bread can tell you: it’s basically an everyday miracle. All you really need to make it is flour, water, salt, and some kind of leavening agent - like yeast. 

Now, yeast in and of itself, also feels miraculous. For starters, although most of us buy our yeast at the store in little packets, it’s actually just a naturally-occurring organism out there in the world. If you don’t have access to a grocery store or a starter, you can apparently even just capture WILD yeast. Amazing! [1]

Yeast does its thing by sharing the fruits of its metabolic process with us. When the yeast eats, it creates little gasses that eventually make our dough rise. [2] When my kids were little, David taught them that the yeast was burping and that always got a giggle when bread was being made. 

And so these simple, everyday elements - flour, water, salt, leaven - come together and are transformed into a miraculous substance that keeps us alive. It’s a beautiful interplay between the natural world and human ingenuity. And when we think about those cute little yeasties eating and burping so that we can eat and burp, too, it’s all very circle-of-life, isn’t it?

Bread is a gift. And so when Jesus says, in the Gospel of John, “I am the bread of life,” I think we all sit up and pay attention. Because whether you live in the year 2022 where you can have bread delivered straight to your door after ordering it from an app on your smartphone or in the ancient world where yeast had to be captured and nurtured and baked into bread every day, one thing is true across all time and cultures: we all need to eat to live. And for most of us, that eating involves bread in some form or fashion. 

Now, when the author of John was in school, one of his writing teachers must have taught him the importance of “show, don’t tell.”  Because before Jesus even says, “I AM the bread of life,” he shows it. Right before the passage we heard this morning is the story of Jesus and his disciples feeding the crowd of 5,000 people with five little barley loaves that a local boy brought with him. After everyone ate and had their fill, the story goes that there were still leftovers, even. And so we have this miraculous story about abundance and sharing and the ways that God provides daily bread for us when our physical bodies need sustenance. 

And then on the heels of that story, John can’t help but to TELL a bit, too. Having shown the ways Christ meets our physical needs, the author of this gospel also wants to make it clear that Christ comes to meet our spiritual needs, too. And so we get this lengthy Bread of Life Discourse that we heard just a small part of today.

Jesus tells us what he just showed us - that he is bread for our journey. Christ comes to us as embodied, enfleshed nutrition. Filling us up, helping us grow healthy and strong, sustaining us, bringing us joy and sustenance. And this gift of bread is for everyone. And it isn’t bound by the regular laws of time and space. Instead the bread of life is the One who is with God in the beginning. 

“The bread of life was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through the bread of life, and without it, not one thing came into being. What has come into being through the bread is life, and that life was the light of all people.”

Life, life, life. 

It’s everywhere in John’s gospel. Biblical scholar Jamie Clark Soles notes that the Greek words for life and living occur almost 15 times in this passage alone - but they really permeate the entire gospel. [3]  And the Greek word for life, zoe, often comes as a part of a phrase, aionios zoe, eternal life, everlasting life. I heard someone once call this “the God kind of life.” 

Full life, abundant life, life outside constraints. Life beyond our wildest dreams. Life that’s bigger, bolder, more beautiful than we had even hoped for. Life with bellies and spirits that are overflowing with the nutrients we need to not just survive but thrive. 

And so, I ask you today, “How’s your life?”

Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to raise your hand and tell everyone. But I do want you to take the question and tuck it in your pocket for later. Go ahead, fold it up. Tuck it ij. When you can find a quiet moment - by yourself or with a friend - take it out and turn it over in your heart.

How’s your life right now? 

If you’re struggling, where can you turn for support? I know you might be one of those people who “doesn’t want to bother somebody else,” but Jesus wants you to have abundant, full, overflowing life. And who are you to argue with Jesus? 

Reach out to a friend, a family member, someone from church and let them know you’re going through a hard time. The person you reach out to might not be able to fix it, but there is something healing in just speaking your truth aloud to someone and allowing them to enter into the struggle with you, isn’t there? Jesus said he’s the bread of life and bread is shared around tables - in community. We can be community for each other in the hard times. It’s the way of Jesus. 

If your life is pretty great right now - if you have more than enough daily bread - how can you make sure others are filled, too? 

Jesus wants us ALL to have abundant, full, overflowing life. Jesus desires for ALL to be nourished, full, healthy, growing, satisfied. And that only happens if those who have more than enough reach out and share what they’ve got with others. We live in a world where systems have been created to keep the poor down and the rich up - but when Jesus was in his mother’s womb he heard her sing a song about God lifting up the lowly and bringing the powerful down from their thrones. Mary sang of a God who filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. 

How can you be a part of God’s dream of a world like the one Mary envisioned? Where can you share your resources, time, privilege, and energy to dismantle systems that harm and offer compassionate, urgent care for those who are hurting? The needs are there - and it is my prayer for you that you allow Christ to partner with you in determining where to focus your gifts in serving others. 

However your life is right now - great, bad, wonderful, awful, somewhere in between or all of the above at the same time - hear this good news: Christ desires that we have life and have it abundantly. Christ, the bread of life, invites us to take and eat - and to be filled and nurtured and sustained. Christ invites us to abide in him and wants to abide in us. Christ comes to animate us into life. 

NOTES

[1] https://www.masterclass.com/articles/wild-yeast-guide 

[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/single-celled-science-yeasty-beasties/#:~:text=What%20do%20they%20eat%3F,process%20is%20known%20as%20fermentation. 

[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/bread-of-life/commentary-on-john-635-59-2 

"Turn, Turn, Turn"

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

February 6, 2022

“Everything’s temporary.”

Two words that can call forth a whole torrent of emotions. 

If you’re sick and laid up in bed and miserable and every day seems like an eternity because you just can’t get comfortable, remaining yourself that “everything’s temporary” can feel like good news. This, too, shall pass, right? And soon enough you’re likely to feel better. 

Those two short words can be a balm. 

But if the person who is laid up in bed is your beloved parent or grandparent and if you know that you don’t have much time left to sit by their sick bed because they are nearing the end of their life - well, then, “everything’s temporary” can make you feel a bit panicked. There isn’t enough time left to hold onto all this goodness and love before it undergoes a permanent change.

Those two short words can feel like a shock. 

And, of course, “everything’s temporary” isn’t quite true. Many of us humans would argue that SOME things are permanent - like God’s love or Christ’s presence or the refreshing, renewing wind of the Spirit. Sitting with the question, “what do I think is permanent?” is a wonderful prayer practice. You might try it sometime and find yourself surprised to discover the truths that lie inside of you. 

But MOST things are temporary. Even January of 2022, which, let’s be honest, must have been at least 3,589 days long, right? 

But we made it through. It came. It went. It did not last forever. 

Millennia ago, a person named Qoheleth wrote a treatise on everything being temporary. We don’t know much about Qoheleth, but the name means Teacher and the book, Ecclesiastes, is one of the newer books in the Hebrew scriptures, likely written between 300-200 BCE. 

I remember, when I was a child, that my father told me this was his favorite book in the Bible. In fact, I believe he said it was the only book he much liked at all. For that reason, I picked it up and read it. It’s not long. You could read the whole thing in one sitting if you’d like. I remember paging through it as a 10 or 11 year old and coming away scratching my head a bit. It’s certainly not like a lot of other books in the Bible. 

For one thing, there’s not much of a story. For another thing, it doesn’t explicitly say much about God. And for another thing, it seems like something someone could have written yesterday. It’s full of existential angst, wonderings, big picture questions. 

It feels like a really, deeply HUMAN book - with all our warts and all. It’s definitely not a pithy little “live laugh love” crossstich. It’s gritty and raw. I’ve heard people say it’s fatalistic or pessimistic, but when I read it I come away feeling like, “Yeah, someone gets it. This is real.” 

And how pessimistic can a book be if one of the major themes is to eat, drink, and be merry? There’s a lot of joy in this book mixed in with the hard stuff. Which is to say: it’s a lot like LIFE. 

Qoheleth says, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” And I suppose that can feel hopeless - like perhaps no progress can be made. But it can also be quite comforting to know that what we’re experiencing has been experienced by others before and that our troubles and celebrations and difficulties and accomplishments are all part of one long, eternal, unending duet between humanity and the divine. 

Over and over again, Qoheleth’s refrain is that life is hevel. Which is Hebrew for breath or vapor. 

A translator somewhere extrapolated that into “vanity.” 

“Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher. All is vanity.”. 

Hevel has also been rendered pointless, useless, futile - yikes. I guess you can see why some people find this book pessimistic. The Message renders it more literally: “Smoke, nothing but smoke. It’s all smoke.”

Smoke, vapor, breath - these things are fleeting, ephemeral, evanescent. 

Temporary. 

I don’t know about you, but winter is a time when I often forget that things are temporary. It’s my least-favorite season (no offense to anyone who loves it - you do you) and when I’m on day 3,588 of January, I can start to forget that this isn’t forever. That this, too, shall pass. 

12 years ago in the wintertime, I was hugely pregnant and having a hard time remembering that everything wasn’t forever. I was so eager to meet our new child and so deeply, deeply tired of being pregnant. I was ready to fast-forward to the next good thing. I was done with winter. Done with waiting.

And then the snow came. It snowed every day for a couple of weeks in Indiana that year, I think. My due date came and went. Still no baby. And every morning I would wake up to hear David shoveling our driveway, God bless him, what a guy. He wanted it to be clear, of course, so we could safely make our way to the hospital. 

Every day was the same. Open my eyes. Still pregnant. Scrape, scrape, scrape of the snow shovel outside. 

Of course, it WASN’T forever. Eventually, after 3,589 days of waiting, our sweet baby arrived. And I’ll never forget how surprised I felt when, just a few weeks later, I was out for a walk with this astounding, amazing, incredible new human being. Just snuggled up tightly against me in a wrap and I was wearing only a light jacket. Because it was - quite suddenly, and quite surprisingly - spring. 

Winter hadn’t been forever. Not at all. How had I forgotten this?

Qohelet didn’t forget. Qohelet reminds us that nothing is forever. That life itself is ephemeral, evanescent, fleeting. There is a time for everything under the sun. 

A time for the scraping of driveways and a time for the melting of snow. 

A time for waiting and a time for fulfillment. 

A time for welcoming new life and a time for saying goodbye to our elders.

A time for tears and a time for giggles.

A time for mourning and a time for dancing. 

A time for peace and even a time for war. 

And as much as we don’t want there to be a time for war or hate or any of the painful things that the Teacher includes in this book….we can’t help but look at these old, old words on the page and feel “Yes. That’s true. This describes the beautiful complexity of being human. It’s all here. All these things. The good, the bad and everything in between.”

Vapor, smoke, breath. Here and then gone again. 

Just like the snow that covered the ground earlier this week. 

If you go out on a walk this afternoon- and if you happen to look up while walking under a tree you might notice buds. The leaves and flowers are there waiting, you know. Curled up tight still, but there. They remind us that although January 2022 may have seemed 3,589 days long, it actually did come to an end. Just like winter will. And spring after that. And summer after that. And Autumn, too. 

It all keeps turning. And God is in the turning. And we keep turning with it. That’s what the song says, right? “To everything (turn, turn, turn) -  There is a season (turn, turn, turn) -  And a time to every purpose under heaven.”

And so we are invited to join in the dance and keep turning. 

To turn up the volume on our favorite song and dance our little hearts out. 

To turn down the covers and crawl under warm sheets on a cold winter’s night. 

To turn our faces up and feel the warmth of the sun kissing our cheeks. 

To turn inward and listen for the still small voice of Love within each of us. 

Tu turn out and speak up loudly for justice, for peace, for those who have been pushed aside and oppressed. 

To turn around and right past wrongs; to set our feet onto new pathways. 

To turn towards love, towards the breath of the Spirit making all things new, towards the Holy - which we find not only in heaven but right here on earth in each other's eyes. 

To turn, turn, and keep turning. 

Knowing that all of it - every last bit of our lives - is held within the eternal light of Christ, who is still making all things new. 

Thanks be to God.