The Waking Dreamer: 2026

Thursday, June 11, 2026

The Power of God's Love

The Power of God’s Love

Psalm 8, Matthew 28:16-20[1]

We have a complicated relationship with power. On the one hand, we seem to be fascinated with those whom we consider to be the most “powerful” people. Even to the point that our admiration can at times approach a kind of “worship.” There are many powerful people in this world who have an almost “cult” like following among their fans. On the other hand, we seem to be inherently distrusting of power. Especially when we believe someone is abusing their power. Anytime someone in power “bullies” those who are more vulnerable, we think of it as an abuse of power. And in our world we may see that kind of thing so often that we become distrusting of all power, regardless of how it’s used.

Our Scripture lessons for today speak to us about God’s power. The creation story in Genesis portrays God’s power to simply “speak” all things into existence. That’s a kind of power that most of us may want, but I dare say none of us would use well. But God most certainly used it well. That’s the point of the refrain that occurs throughout the creation story: “and God saw that it was good.” God used his extraordinary power to create a world and all the living things in it that was not only “good,” but indeed “very good,” as God observes at the end of the process (Gen 1:31). It may be hard for some people to imagine even God using that magnitude of power for good, but that’s precisely what the Bible teaches us! God always uses his power for good!

In our reading from the Psalms, we find this perspective on God’s power confirmed. Like many of us, the Psalmsinger found himself confronted by the majestic power of the God who created all the heavens and the earth simply with a word. I would say that the more we understand about how vast this cosmos really is, the more we are confronted by God’s majesty and power in creation. Even in ancient times, a simple glance at the night sky led the Psalmsinger to wonder, “what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:4). And yet, despite the fact that he frames his faith in the form of a question, we shouldn’t overlook the affirmation that lies behind it: God is mindful of us all; God does care for us, both deeply and continually. That is also the nature of God’s power!

The Psalmsinger had good reason to believe this. It’s the heart of what Hebrew Bible affirms about God: “I am the Lord God. I am merciful and very patient with my people. I show great love, and I can be trusted” (Exodus 34:6, CEV). It is the revelation God gave to Moses in the “cleft of the rock” when he asked to see God’s glory. And it echoes like a refrain throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, because it is the truth that serves as the foundation for biblical faith. The message of the Scriptures is that God’s power points us to the fact that God loves us with a love that will never let us go. It may be difficult for us to grasp, but the truth of our Scripture lesson is that we are constantly surrounded by the love of the God who is powerful enough to create all things simply by speaking the word. As one of our affirmations of faith puts it, the Bible leads us to believe in a God whose love for us is “powerful beyond measure.”

We see this theme of power reflected a little differently in our Gospel reading for today. It’s the story of Jesus’ final appearance to his disciples according to Matthew. When he appeared to them on a mountain in Galilee, he said something that would have been startling for them. And it should still catch our attention today: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt 28:18). We’re used to hearing that language because it’s part of the “Great Commission.” But in that day, “all authority” belonged to God. Any human being claiming “all authority in heaven and on earth” would have been viewed as directly contradicting God’s authority. In fact, there are many in our world to this day who struggle with the image Jesus as having “all authority in heaven and on earth.”

I think what made the difference is that it was the risen and living Jesus who made this startling claim. They had seen him die, and they had seen him alive more than once after he rose from the dead. It was the resurrection that confirmed that this authority had come from God. I think we could say that Jesus received this authority in response to the fact that he had “fulfilled all righteousness” as Matthew’s Gospel puts it (Mt 3:15), or in other words that he had carried out God’s plan to “set right” all things and all people by his death and resurrection. Because of that, God himself gave this authority to Jesus. So it is that, in the New Testament, there is no contradiction whatsoever between the affirmation that all authority belongs to God, and that God has given that authority to Jesus Christ.

One reason for that is because Jesus uses that authority to carry out God’s purpose in the world. That’s not something we expect these days. It goes against the norm in our day. In our world, “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”[2] That’s the way we view power. Many of those who have the most power in our day use it to benefit themselves. But Jesus used the authority given to him by God not for his own benefit, but to extend the peace, justice, and freedom of God’s kingdom to all people. And he continues to use that authority to fulfill God’s work of “making all things new” (Rev 21:5). And at the end of it all, Paul said that Jesus would surrender all authority back to God, so that God “will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere” (1 Cor 15:28, NLT), bringing the new life of God’s kingdom to everyone and everything!

I think the point of all this was to inspire confidence in those of us who follow Jesus in a world that is set against God’s authority and power, in a world that remains set against the peace, justice, and freedom of God’s kingdom to this day. We see that opposition almost daily. Part of the assurance that God’s love triumphs in this world through Jesus lies in the promise that “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). Yes, we live in a world where the work of God’s kingdom isn’t complete. Yes, we live in a world where people continue to abuse power for their own benefit, and they hurt innocent people in the process. But rather than letting that cause us to doubt God’s purpose, or cause us to question Jesus’ power and authority, we can be confident because Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord is the one to whom God has entrusted “authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world” (Dan 7:13, NLT). And with that authority, Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord rules right now over “everything in heaven and on earth, everything seen and unseen” (Col 1:16, NLT). And the promise is that “His rule is eternal—it will never end” (Dan 7:14, NLT).

When we get caught up in what’s happening around us in this world, we can easily lose sight of all this. We can wonder where God’s rule, God’s power, and God’s authority are in this world. It’s still there! Jesus the Christ and our Savior and Lord is reigning with “all authority” at the right hand of God, right now! And he promised that he would be with us until the end of the age, continuing to fulfill the promise of God’s kingdom with the authority and power that God has given him. And part of the promise is that the power of God’s love will never fade. The promise is that the rule of love that Jesus carries out in our lives now will never end. One day, the power of God’s love, the rule of love that Jesus carries out in our lives now will extend to all people and encompass everything. On that day, then the whole creation will return to where it was in the beginning, when God “spoke” it into being, and everything was “very good.”

[2] Famously penned by Lord John Dalberg-Acton, Letter to Mandell Creighton (5 April 1887), referring to the declaration by Pope Pius IX of the Roman Catholic dogma of papal infallibility. He said, “I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. … Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. … There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which … the end learns to justify the means.” Cf. Historical Essays and Studies, by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (1907), edited by John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence, Appendix, p. 504. Accessed at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lord_Acton.

Casting Our Cares on God

1 Peter 5:6-7[1]

Life brings us all kinds of unexpected experiences. Some of them are better than we could ever possibly imagine. I can still remember holding my oldest son Derek on the day he was born. He’s pushing 40 these days, and there’ve been a lot of wonderful memories with him and with my other children since then, but that memory stands out. It was fulfilling and awe-inspiring at the same time to hold my firstborn son. Other experiences in our lives are worse than we could ever possibly imagine. I never dreamed I would be divorced on that day when I was holding my son. It just wasn’t something I could have even wrapped my head around. I can’t say that I was ever a perfect husband, but I gave my all and my best to my marriage. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that these things just happen to us sometimes.

Of course, there have been a lot of experiences that fall somewhere in between “the best day of my life” and the “worst day of my life.” Many of them have been good and wonderful. Others have been stressful, hurtful, discouraging, and even frightening. Through it all, like many of you, my testimony is that God has always been faithful. Always! And through it all, I’ve continually tried to follow the instruction of our Scripture reading for today from 1 Peter to “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you” (1 Pet 5:7, NLT). Those of us who first learned this Scripture verse decades ago will remember it in the older Bible translations: “casting all your cares on him, for he cares for you.” However you translate it, it’s an important part of the life of faith that Peter was trying to teach to the believers of his day. We learn to trust God precisely by entrusting to him the cares and worries of our lives.

In those older translations, it may be easier to see that enacting our faith by entrusting all our cares and worries into God’s care is connected with our overall approach to life. In the preceding verses, Peter makes that connection clear: “all of you, dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor” (1 Pet 5:5-6, NLT). And then he goes on to say, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” In the context, Peter is addressing relationships within their community of faith. But he’s talking about principles that apply generally to the life of faith. The faith to entrust all our cares and worries into God’s care is inherently connected to the attitude of humility Peter encourages them to practice. You really can’t have one without the other!

I’m not sure that we always make that connection these days. Part of the problem is that we need a working knowledge of the Bible do so. And there are a lot of those connections in the Psalms. That’s why the Psalms have been viewed by the faithful throughout the ages not only as an important source for learning to pray, but also for learning faith. The passage I think of when I read our lesson from 1 Peter is Psalm 55:22, “Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you” (NLT). Again, many of us may remember that verse in a more traditional version: “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you.” What we may not know is that assurance in the Psalm was set in the context of a prayer for deliverance from friends who turned out to be enemies. If you’ve ever experienced that, you may know how deeply unsettling it can be, and how hard it can be to entrust your “burdens” and your “cares” to God when it happens to you!

I’ve mentioned before that John Calvin connected this passage to a different Psalm. He saw it as a reflection of Psalm 38. That Psalm has a similar setting. The Psalmsinger is at wit’s end because he’s being attacked by those who were “foes without cause” and who had repaid him “evil for good” (Ps 38:19-20). His suffering was so great that he could say, “I am utterly spent and crushed” by the turmoil he was undergoing (Ps 38:8). It was so great that even his friends and family kept their distance from him, likely only increasing the burden (Ps. 38:11). It was in that setting that the Psalmsinger reminded himself and us that God sustains us even in the most difficult of times, even in times that are harder than we could ever imagine. He says it this way, “For I hope in You, O Lord; You will answer, O Lord my God” (Ps 38:15, NASB).

One of the challenging twists in this Psalm is that the Psalmsinger sees all of this turmoil and hardship as “discipline” from the Lord! Psalm 38 opens with a plea: “O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath” (Ps 38:1). We’re familiar with the idea that God “disciplines those he loves” (Prov 3:12). But associating that with God’s anger and wrath may not only be unfamiliar, it may be troubling to us. I know when I was in college, and I read Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which is widely considered to be one of the great American sermons of all time, I found the image of God portrayed there to be disturbing to say the least. It was as if God took delight in dangling “sinners” over the “open fires” of “hell.” When we read about God’s anger and God’s wrath toward his people in the Hebrew Bible, it may cause us to wonder how much we can really trust that God’s love for us never fails!

But here’s where it all ties together. In the Hebrew Bible, God’s “anger” and “wrath” are a kind of “last resort” response when God’s people stubbornly refuse to follow God’s ways. Paul says that when anyone refuses to honor God as God, he “hands them over” to the consequences of their choices (Rom 1?). The language the Bible uses for that is “pride.” I don’t think the Bible is talking about a natural human sense of satisfaction we gain from a job well done, or from seeing someone we love succeed. I don’t think it refers to the “pride” we may feel when hold our newborn children and grandchildren. I think “pride” in the Bible refers to when we know what the right thing to do is, and we simply refuse to do it. It refers to a deliberate rejection of God and God’s ways. “Pride” is a deliberate refusal to honor God as God by humbling ourselves enough to not only hear God’s truth but also to repent when we’ve gone astray. Simply put, “Pride” means intentionally rejecting God’s will for our lives.

That brings us back to the connection between humility and faith in our lesson from 1 Peter for today. Peter reminds us that we cannot practice the faith to entrust all the cares and worries of our lives into God’s care without humility! And that’s the lesson that John Calvin draws from this passage. He reminds us that those who are humble are those who recognize that they cannot rely on their own abilities or insights or resources alone, but rather they seek their refuge and help and strength “from God alone,”[2] especially in times of trouble. I’ll be the first one to admit that’s easier said than done! But it seems to me that’s the heart of the challenge that our lesson from Peter presents to us today. It’s a challenge to set aside our natural inclination to believe that we know what’s best, to think that we can fix things ourselves, or to insist that if we could just get everything under our control, it would all work out fine. Rather, learning to cast all our cares on God, as Peter instructs us, requires us to learn the lesson of the Psalms, that we can only entrust our lives into God’s care when we humble ourselves enough to recognize that only God can sustain us through the twist and turns this life can bring our way!

[2] John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, 148.

Through Fire and Water

Psalm 66[1]

I find it interesting how popular music changes. What was edgy and “out there” when it first came out becomes more “mainstream” over time. When I was younger, “protest songs” and “rock music” were viewed as “edgy” and “out there.” Definitely so by my parents! But I find it interesting and almost amusing how the “edgy” music of my generation became the “oldies” of my children’s generation, and now some of it is so “tame” it gets played as “elevator music.” One of my favorite musicians from those days is James Taylor. Of course, he’s still around, still making music. But if you look at the progression of his album covers, his image has undergone quite a change. In the beginning, he was something of a defiant representative of the “hippy” counterculture. These days, he looks like any other “Baby Boomer,” and looks like he could be anybody’s grampa! I’m not sure what the James Taylor of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s would have thought of that!

One of my favorite “JT” songs is “Fire and Rain,” which was his first big hit in 1970. It’s a bittersweet song about coming through hardships, including the death of a childhood friend and his problems with addiction, to get to the other side and finding peace and even success. There’s a twinge of regret in the lyrics that I think many of us might be able to resonate with. Life is full of choices that we make, and the longer we live the more we have the chance to reflect on the path that has brought us to where we are. Hopefully, we find peace with that path. But at the same time, we always feel the losses we go through along the way.

Our Psalm reading for today reminded me of “Fire and Rain.” The psalmsinger looks back over the history of Israel’s interactions with God. And, although they had to go through some deeply troubling experiences, including slavery in Egypt, and their oppression at the hands of powerful nations like the Babylonians, they knew God was with them through it all. More than that, they knew God had brought them through it all. In fact, the psalmsinger uses language reminiscent of James Taylor’s song: “we’ve been through fire and water. But you brought us out to freedom” (Ps 66:12, CEB). As a result, the psalmsinger worships God for the “awesome works” he does for us (Ps 66:3-5). More than that, the psalmsinger worships God because his “awesome works” point to the awe-inspiring quality of God’s character. God is the one who “turns the sea into dry land,” so they could cross over from danger into safety. God is the one who reigns over all the nations, and he does so in a way that continues to draw “all the earth” into the song of praise.

This is the God who remains with us to this very day. This is the God who brings us through all that we may have to go through in this life. This God is the one who always hears our prayers, and the one whose “faithful love” for us never fails (Ps 66:20). But as with psalmsinger, it’s not only what God does for us that gives us this assurance, it’s also who God is. A similar passage from the prophet Isaiah expresses it well. It’s Isaiah 43:1-3. The prophet was speaking to the people of Israel while they were still in exile in Babylon. They had not yet come through the “fire and water” into freedom. It may have been all too easy for them to think that God had forgotten about them there (Isa 40:27-31)! But the prophet reminds them that God not only had not forgotten them, but he was with them. Hear how Isaiah says it:

“now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isa 43:1-3).

The God who created them just the way they were, the God who chose them just the way they were, was the same God who was with them wherever they went, and who would bring them through whatever they might have to endure. Even through the fires of adversity, even through the floodwaters of loss and suffering!

That promise through the prophet Isaiah demonstrates the same character of God the psalmsinger celebrates. He’s the one who reigns over all the nations, over all peoples, with “wisdom, power, and love,” as the song says it. And because that is the God who made us all, and the God who chose us all, that God is the one who will draw all the peoples of the earth to worship him for the awesome and awe-inspiring things he has done and continues to do (cf. Rev 15:3!). I realize this is a different way to talk about God. For centuries, the church presented God more as one who threatens to strike us in his anger than as one who promises to bless us with his love. The church has been more interested in detailing exactly what you have to do to “make it” into heaven than in worshipping God in such a way as to draw all people to join in the celebration. The psalmsinger’s words, “All the earth worships you” (Ps 66:4) are both true now and at the same time not yet fully realized. But the idea behind this Psalm, and many other biblical passages like it, is that who God is and what God does is so awesome and so awe-inspiring that it will inevitably draw “all the earth” into the worship of God.

I still remember the first time I noticed this language about “all the peoples of the earth” coming to worship God in passages like this. There are many of them throughout the Bible. It sounded too good to be true. But it’s there, over and over, in the Psalms, and the Prophets, and even in the New Testament. The idea is not that you can do whatever you want to because God is going to “save” you anyway. The idea is that who God is and what God does is so amazing and so awe-inspiring that it will inevitably draw all the earth to worship him! That’s a big promise, and a big hope!

We might wonder what our role is in all of that. I think the psalmsinger suggests at least one answer to that question: our role is to worship God. Some might think that’s a lame answer. But the psalmsinger won’t hear of it. Worship, from the perspective of the Psalms, is not only a way to remember that God is awesome and awe-inspiring. It’s also a way for us to draw others into the experience of God’s awesome and awe-inspiring work. As one commentator suggests, every time we sing “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” we are inviting all who hear to not only remember that Jesus died for them, but also to experience the love that God poured out for us all when Jesus died for us.[2]

When we join together for worship, we do so as those who know that we’re God’s beloved children. We worship as those who know that God loves us, always has and always will. We join together for worship as those who know that God made us just as we are, and he made us for a purpose that only we can fulfill in this world. We worship as those who trust the promise that like Jesus, we’re God’s beloved children, and he is pleased with us just the way we are. And we worship as those who know that this God will always be with us, come what may, even through fire and floodwaters. And as we join together in worship, celebrating the awesome and awe-inspiring God who loves us in this way, we create a place here in this sanctuary where all who join us can feel that all of this just might be true for them as well. As we join together in worship, we create a place where we not only we can feel like we belong, but also and especially where those who may feel “on the outside” of faith can feel like they belong. I would say that in these days of fear and hostility, it’s no small thing to create a place where all people can feel that they belong in God’s love!

[2] Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 222.

Thursday, May 14, 2026

Just Believe?

John 14:1-11[1]

John 3:16 may be one of the most widely known Bible verses of all time. I remember watching pro football games back in the 1970’s, and there was always someone in the endzone, usually squarely in the middle of the camera when it came to the extra point, with a sign that simply read “John 3:16.” I don’t know how effective that method may have been for directing anyone to faith in Jesus Christ, but it was always there. Perhaps less effective than you might imagine, but more effective than you might think. I’m not sure how many people ever took the time to even look up John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” But John 3:16 was everywhere. It seemed like the assumption was that if people would just read that verse, and just believe it, they would be “saved.”

One problem with that approach is that whenever you take any verse out of its context, you can make it say whatever you want. I would certainly say that’s what’s happened to one of the verses from our Gospel lesson for today, John 14:6. At least in the modern history of the church, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” has been treated a lot like John 3:16. Again, I think the assumption is that if people would just read this verse, profess their faith in Jesus (like we do), go to church (like we do), and conform to certain expectations about how they live (like we do), then they can have eternal life. But then we tend to take it further and assume that if people don’t do this, they’re rejecting Jesus and they’ve condemned themselves to an eternity in “hell.” In my mind, that turns this verse on its head. Instead of focusing on Jesus being “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that the life he brings is for “all people” (Jn 1:4), we shift the focus to “no one can come to the Father except through me.” And the result is that a verse that was meant to reassure Jesus’ disciples gets turned into something that excludes people who don’t believe (like we do).

Part of the problem is that it misses the whole point of what Jesus was trying to accomplish. When we look at this verse in the context of the chapter, and even in the context of John’s Gospel as a whole, some things should stand out. First, we should recognize the opening verses. They’re used in most memorial services. Especially Jn 14:3, “if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” The whole extended dialogue in John 13-16 is set during Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. And it’s clear that he’s preparing them for the fact that he was about to die on the cross, perhaps literally the next day! I think Jesus knew that would shatter their faith. So he sets about giving them assurance that would see them through that crisis. He tells them things like “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (Jn 14:27) and “I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (Jn 16:22).

One of the central themes of this dialogue is that all of this was necessary to complete the work of opening the way for us all to come to the Father. In the process of giving his disciples this assurance, we see Jesus engaging with them on some pretty serious questions they had about it all. When Jesus assures them that they all knew the way to where he was going, Thomas says, “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (Jn 14:5). And when Jesus tries to assure them that they have already come to know the Father through him, Philip seems to miss the point altogether! He says, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied” (Jn 14:8)! These are Jesus’ closest followers. The ones he would commission to take the good news to the whole world. And they don’t seem to understand the first thing about any of it. And Jesus responds to their struggles by meeting them where they are and helping them work through their questions.

That’s quite different from what passes for evangelism in too many cases these days. The standard approach is to throw a few isolated Bible verses at someone and then pressure them into “just believing” like we do. I know, because I had to learn that approach for a class on evangelism in seminary. That phrase, “just believe” reminds me of what Jesus said in response to Philip: “Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (Jn 14:11, NLT). But that can be a tall order! Just taking what that verse says as an example, I’m not sure any of us really understands how it is that Jesus of Nazareth could be “fully human” and “fully God” at the same time. Perhaps that can help us recognize that much of our faith will always remain a mystery that defies explanation. That may be one reason why some people are slower to believe than we may think they should be. They may just have a hard time wrapping their heads around the message of the gospel.

It seems to me that we should be a lot more hesitant about making assumptions regard the faith of those who are “outside” the church (or their lack thereof)! If we can’t wrap our heads around this basic affirmation, that Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him, how can we judge anyone for their so-called “lack of faith” in what we may think is the simple “truth” of the Gospel? It’s so easy for us to assume that everyone “should” believe like we do. But you may have heard that phrase that I used earlier: “like we do.” I used that phrase on purpose. It’s easy for us to assume that everyone “should” believe “like we do.” But people come from all kinds of backgrounds. And those experiences shape how they view faith. I’ve known people who’ve been deeply hurt by their own church family, and they never returned to church because of that. Others simply approach faith differently, and the “just believe” line doesn’t work for them. Some people can’t get past childhood trauma they may have experienced. When you dig deeply enough, you can usually find that someone who doesn’t believe (like we do) has some pretty big reasons for their struggle with faith.

Beyond that, it seems to me that it’s not our business to judge other people based on what we perceive to be their “lack of faith.” It strikes me as really quite unkind and disrespectful to assume that we know the condition of another person’s relationship with God because we think that they “lack” faith. At least that’s the way it felt to me back in the day when I was the one trying to “fix” someone’s “lack of faith” by “throwing” Bible verses at them and expecting them to “just believe”! More than that, if as Paul reminds us (Eph 2:8-9), faith comes to all of us as a gift from God, then perhaps we should be more empathetic with those who may struggle to believe. Perhaps we should follow Jesus’ lead in dealing with his own disciples and try to meet people where they are. When we take the time to actually listen to their story, to really hear their questions, and to understand their challenges with faith, we can demonstrate God’s love for them by the way we treat them. That’s not a very quick method for “winning souls for Christ.” But building a caring relationship with them can become the foundation for sharing our faith in a way that they might just be able to hear and take to heart. Different people respond to different approaches to faith. Maybe this is one we should consider when dealing with some who have a hard time coming to faith.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 5/3/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Doing Good

1 Peter 2:13-25[1]

Many of us know the Scripture verse that says, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord” (Rom 12:19). But I would say that we can be obsessed with taking our own vengeance. In some segments of our society, “getting even” is just what you do. If you doubt that revenge is something that infects our culture, I would challenge you to take a look at how many of the most popular movies are based on the premise of someone taking revenge. It’s always justified, of course, but it’s still revenge. And do we enjoy watching those movies because we like to see the “bad guys” get what’s coming to them at the hands of the “good guys” who’ve been wronged. Somehow it reinforces our ideas about the way life “ought” to be.

But life doesn’t always work the way it “ought” to. There are all kinds of ways in which we can find ourselves wronged. More than that, in our violent world, there is no shortage of harm that gets inflicted on people who don’t deserve it. But revenge never solves anything. Those movies we like to watch always end with the one who is wronged walking away from vengeance that’s completed. And that’s the end of the story. All’s right with the world again, supposedly. But what they don’t show is what happens in real life. Revenge, especially when it involves violence, only breeds more violence. Revenge only leads to more revenge. As many have said it, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”!

In our Scripture lesson for today, Peter calls believers to “follow Christ” by enduring the wrongful suffering they may have to face in the same way that Jesus did. Peter calls them to entrust their lives to God’s care. He says it this way: “For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps” (1 Pet 1:21, NLT). And Peter illustrates what that looks like, especially when someone does you wrong, by the way Jesus responded when he was wronged. He says that Jesus “did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly” (1 Pet 1:22, NLT).

Now, there are some other things Peter says in this Scripture lesson that may sound confusing to us. He talks about submitting to “human authority” in a way that may not work for us. We know that we’re all responsible to obey the rule of law, but in a Democracy we all have the privilege and the responsibility of voicing our disagreement with the authorities when their actions seem unjust. Perhaps more troubling is the way Peter talks about slaves obeying their masters even if those masters are “cruel,” even if they’re beaten by their masters! I would say that we believe it’s never acceptable for anyone to undergo mistreatment for any reason. And we certainly don’t believe people should be “beaten for doing wrong.” So some of Peter’s language may sound confusing, if not offensive.

What we have to remember is that there really was no such thing as “human rights” in those days. Those first Christians lived in an empire, not a democracy. They were subject to the “powers that be”, and those powers exercised their rule absolutely and with violence. The believers Peter was addressing really had no choice but to submit to those who held power over them. That applies even and especially to those who were slaves. Slavery was a long-established feature of the ancient world. Many have wondered why Jesus and the early Christian leaders like Peter didn’t do more to overturn slavery. But we have to remember that the church was a fledgling movement on the margins of society. Their power to effect that kind of social change was limited.

Rather than risk the violence that would be the inevitable response of any empire to those who resisted, apostles like Peter encouraged Christians to endure whatever mistreatment they had to face with patience, looking to Jesus’ example. That brings us back to our focal verse for today: “God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21, NLT). And Peter specifically refers to the example Jesus set by dying for us on the cross! When Jesus bore that undeserved suffering, he did it because that’s the way God brings wholeness and new life to this world. And so the cross was not just Jesus’ path; it’s the path that he marked out for all of us. When we respond to the wrongs and hardships of our lives with patience, our suffering “joins with and continues the sufferings of Christ” (Col 1:24). Our willingness to follow Jesus’ example and suffer patiently without taking revenge contributes to the healing work God is doing in the whole world to this day!

But equally, how we respond when someone provokes us or attacks us unjustly also shapes who we are. When we take revenge on others in any form, the bitterness that drives that act takes root in our lives. Taking revenge by attacking someone verbally is especially challenging. Especially when we’re talking about others behind their backs. In all too many cases, we can do it and get away with it without any apparent consequences. But when we give in to the impulse to take revenge in that way, we’re not only harming the one we’re attacking. We’re also harming those who hear and ourselves as well. That’s because we’re reinforcing the pattern of getting even as a habit, both in our lives and in the lives of those who hear us. It just makes revenge and bitterness take root more deeply in our lives. And we’re all more likely to continue taking revenge in that way.

But our Scripture lesson calls us to a different way. It calls us to follow Jesus’ example and to obey God’s call to “do good” and not do harm. When we do that, we not only contribute to the fulfillment of God’s work in the world. We also learn what it means to truly entrust our lives to God’s care. When our lives are in God’s care, we don’t have to take revenge! We show that faith when we learn be grateful for all that we may have to undergo in this life. As one of my heroes in the faith, Henri Nouwen, puts it, when we can “look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God,” then we can find the gift in every experience of our lives.[2]

I know that may sound crazy. How can some of the things we have had to endure ever be a “gift”? It comes back to truly entrusting our lives to Gods’ care, the way Jesus did. When we do that, we can affirm that somehow, someway God takes everything that happens to us and uses it for good in our lives. That can be especially hard when we might believe we’ve been “wronged.” That kind of faith is what gives us the strength to respond to everything in this life, even and especially when we may be wronged in a way we don’t deserve, the way Jesus did. We can not only refrain from taking revenge, which can be so easy and so habitual for us, but maybe we can take a step further and actually learn to forgive as Jesus did. Jesus forgave those who crucified him. That’s a high level of faith. I don’t think we’re going to learn that easily or quickly. But our Scripture lesson calls us to follow Jesus’ example. By entrusting our lives to God’s care we develop the strength to do just that, to “follow in Jesus’ steps” and obey God’s calling to “do good” and not harm in this world.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/26/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith, January 12: "The Spiritual Work of Gratitude."

Tuesday, May 12, 2026

A "Living" Hope

A “Living” Hope

1 Peter 1:1-12[1]

People sometimes make outrageous claims. Social media, podcasts, YouTube, and the internet all makes it very easy to put your message out there, no matter how outrageous it might be. The truth of the matter is that people have made outrageous claims throughout the ages. In previous centuries, they did so in published tracts or books. That made the invention of the printing press a “dangerous” new technology to the institutions that were in power at the time. It was “dangerous” because eventually, printed tracts would lead to the reshaping of the church, politics, society, the family, and our whole view of life. From the invention of the printing press in the 15^th century to the rise of radio and television in the 20th century, the printed word was viewed by some as a dangerous technology that would undermine the conventional norms and practices of both church and state, both society and home. It changed everything!

The rise of radio and television in the 20^th century changed everything as well. It created a whole new means of getting the “word” out. I’m sure there were some who cautioned against the danger they posed. But at the same time, many embraced the new technology and used it for good. Some of us remember Walter Cronkite as a voice you could trust. But there were other voices that made outrageous claims. Of course, the rise of the internet, email, social media, podcasting, and streaming services has led to vastly more ways of getting your message out there. Some of it is very helpful. If you need to fix just about anything, there’s probably a YouTube video for it. And I subscribe to several YouTube channels for insights into playing guitar more effectively. But again, there’s a lot of content out there that continues to be outrageous.

In the days of the first Christians, there were likely many who would have view Peter’s declaration that believers had been “born anew into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet 1:3, CEB) as outrageous. For one thing, most people in the Greek and Roman world would have scoffed at the mention of anything like a “resurrection.” They believed that there was no return from death. Death was final, and that was that. Talk of a resurrection would have literally sounded like nonsense to them. It would have been outrageous!

More than that, the whole question of the afterlife was just as confused then as it is now. The prevailing view in those days was that everyone, both good and bad, died and went to “hades.” It wasn’t exactly the same idea as the notion of “hell” that has developed over the centuries. Everyone went there, not just those who “deserved” punishment. It was just the place of the dead. Good and bad, rich and poor alike, all went there at death. But it was a place of fires and ash, a kind of perpetual purgatory where you lived in regret for your mistakes forever. Not something to look forward to at all!

Into that world came the Christian gospel. As our lesson from 1 Peter puts it, “you have been born anew into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). There were several aspects of that claim that would have been viewed as outrageous. First of all, the claim that Jesus had been raised from the dead would have been rejected outright. Because death was final, there was no returning from it. At least that was what most people believed. But that’s precisely the point of the death and resurrection of Jesus in the Christian gospel. As another Christian teacher put it, by dying and rising again, Jesus freed “those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Heb 2:15). So it is that Peter could call the hope that we have through Jesus a “living” one because it stems from the fact that Jesus is alive to this day. I think the Contemporary English Version does a good job of bringing out this emphasis when it says, “by raising Jesus from death, [God] has given us new life and a hope that lives on” (1 Pet 1:3). Our hope is a “living” one because Jesus “lives on” to this day.

More than that, the hope that God has given us through the death and resurrection of Jesus is a “living” one because it points us to our own future. Peter says that “You have a pure and enduring inheritance that cannot perish—an inheritance that is presently kept safe in heaven for you. Through his faithfulness, you are guarded by God’s power so that you can receive the salvation he is ready to reveal in the last time” (1 Pet 1:4-5, CEB). I like the way the Good News Translation puts it: Jesus’ death and resurrection “fills us with a living hope, and so we look forward to possessing the rich blessings that God keeps for his people. He keeps them for you in heaven, where they cannot decay or spoil or fade away” (1 Pet 1:3-4, GNT). The main idea is that the “new life” that we’ve been given through Jesus’ death and resurrection is one of the “rich blessings” that God is keeping for us for the future. And there’s nothing and no one powerful enough to take that future away from us. As Gene Peterson puts it in The Message translation, “God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole” (1 Pet 1:4, MSG). Our hope is a “living” one because it points us to our future life in the fullness of God’s blessings.

There are still a lot of people in our world who believe that death has the final word. When you die, you just die, and that’s it. Maybe some of you believe that. But the clear message of the Gospel is that Jesus died and rose again to give us something more to hope for than life that ends at death. Jesus died and rose again to give us a “living hope,” as Peter puts it in our lesson for today. That hope is a “living hope” because Jesus lives at God’s right hand and in our hearts and lives. It’s a “living hope” because it points us to the promise of new life with Jesus in the fullness of God’s presence. And I would add that our hope is a “living” one because it gives us a reason to live our lives differently. If life definitively ends at death, there are some who would think you better grab all you can while you’re here. Not everyone believes that, but some do. But if Jesus’ resurrection from the dead points us to our new life with him after death, then we have a unique reason to do all the good we can do while we’re here. At least in part that means, as Peter says later in this chapter, we’re to “Love each other deeply with all your heart” (1 Pet 1:22, NLT).

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/12/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Monday, May 11, 2026

On This Day

Psalm 118:24[1]

On this day we come together to celebrate the heart of our faith: Jesus who died was raised to life! For those of us who have grown up with it, we accept that Jesus rose again on the third day as the heart of our faith. But none of us has first-hand experience with the resurrection of Jesus. At least not in the same way that his original followers did. They experienced his physical presence after he was raised from the dead. They ate with him. They could touch him. None of us has that kind of first-hand experience with the Easter miracle. But we can experience the risen Lord in our lives “first-hand” in a different way.

We can sense the presence of the Spirit, we can feel Jesus’ call to compassion, and we can enjoy the love of the God who is always with us wherever we go. At the end of the day, I think that’s what our celebration of Easter is about. We may not have the same kind of first-hand experience of Jesus the risen Lord as his disciples did. But we do have Jesus’ living presence in our hearts and in our lives. And we celebrate Easter Sunday because the same Spirit of the risen Christ that the first disciples experienced physically all those years ago lives in you and in me and in all who know his continuing presence.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you may have noticed that I do something different on Palm Sunday. We typically use verses from Psalm 118 for our call to worship. But one of the verses doesn’t sound quite right. It’s the one that usually says, “This is the day that the lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24). That verse has become so much a part of Christian life and worship that some might think it’s going too far for me to tinker with it. But being the student of the Bible that I am, I have to read that verse in the context of Psalm 118 as a whole.

When you do that, when you read the whole of Psalm 118, you find that the Psalm is a celebration of a kind of death-to-life restoration. The psalmsinger speaks of being in distress, of being surrounded on every side (Ps 118:5, 10-11) and being “pushed hard” to the point of falling (Ps 118:13). It sounds like the psalmsinger was engaged in battle and at the point of what must have felt like certain death. It’s in that setting that the psalmsinger affirms, “The LORD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation” (Ps 118:14). He celebrates that the Lord has delivered him from what may have seemed like certain defeat.

Because of that, the psalmsinger rejoices that “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24). That’s the way most English translations put it. But if we pay attention to the context, it seems like there’s more to this verse than just celebrating God’s hand in every new day. The psalmsinger is celebrating a special day of deliverance. And so that verse that’s so familiar to us probably shouldn’t be read as “this is the day the Lord has made.” It probably should be read as a celebration of “the day of the Lord’s victory” (Ps 118:24, GNT), an act so unexpected, so “marvelous” (Ps 118:23) that all we can do is to “rejoice and be glad in what he has done.” And so, in my humble opinion, we should say, “This is the day of the Lord’s victory, we will rejoice and be glad in what he has done.”

I think that’s what Easter is about. It’s a celebration that on this day, all those years ago, God acted decisively to break the power of everything that threatens to oppress or distort or destroy our humanity. It’s a celebration that, on this day, God took all our pain and sorrow and suffering and loss and death and turned it into new life. Easter is the celebration that the new life that came into being on that day will one day transform everything and everyone.It’s a celebration that, on this day, God acted to demonstrate that he is constantly working to restore the whole creation to the place where it is once again “very good,” as it was in the beginning. When that happens, “the Lord’s victory” will be complete.

I know all of that may sound very hard to believe, especially in the light of all that’s going on in the world these days. But I believe it’s part of the Easter miracle that began all those years ago. It may sound hard to believe, but our first-hand experience of the risen Christ alive and present in our lives serves as a basis for our faith in the Easter miracle that continues to “this day.” Because of what God did in and through Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Christ is alive and present in all our lives. And so “on this day” we “rejoice and are glad in what he has done.” Because of what God did in and through Jesus, we experience the “marvelous” work of the God who is bringing salvation—grace and peace and mercy and love and joy and new life—into every life. And as we celebrate that “This is the day of the Lord’s victory,” we experience that “marvelous” work of God in our own lives. And so we “rejoice are glad in what he has done.”

In one respect what we celebrate happened a long time ago in a land far, far away. But because we know Jesus’ living presence in our hearts and our lives just as the first believers did, just as faithful people throughout the ages have, we do more than remember what happened on that first Easter. For us, every Easter, indeed every Sunday, becomes a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Every Easter, indeed every Sunday, is meant to be a celebration of the new life that God has “injected” into this life to transform us all. It’s a day for us to celebrate that “this is the day of the Lord’s victory, we will rejoice and be glad in what he has done!”

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/5/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Saturday, May 09, 2026

The True Meaning of Obedience

Isaiah 53:1-12[1]

One of the greatest challenges we may face in this life is undeserved suffering. It’s not hard to find plenty of examples. Especially with all the pain and suffering in this world inflicted by violence! In fact, if we pay close enough attention, we might be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people who live with suffering that they didn’t do a thing to deserve. This can call into question our faith in God’s grace and mercy and love at its very core. We see that innocent people who put their faith in God the most are often the ones who suffer the most, and it’s a hard pill to swallow. And unfortunately, many good people lose their faith in a loving God because it’s all so overwhelming.

Our lesson from Isaiah is perhaps one of the best-known descriptions of undeserved suffering in the Bible. It’s one of several “Servant Songs” in Isaiah, where the prophet proclaims the role of the “Servant of the Lord” in carrying out God’s purposes. The “Servant” is the one who will set things right for those who have been oppressed (Isa. 42:1-4). The “Servant” will bring “light” to restore Israel, but also to grant the “nations” salvation as well (Isa. 49:1-6). In this chapter, the “Servant” takes the sufferings of “the many” on himself to fulfill God’s purpose to bless us all with salvation.

The “Servant of the Lord” in this passage willingly offers himself to endure undeserved mistreatment for the sake of others. As the Scripture puts it, “He was painfully abused, but he did not complain. He was silent like a lamb being led to the butcher, as quiet as a sheep having its wool cut off” (Isa 53:7, CEV). Unfortunately, for all his pain and suffering, he was despised by the very people for whom he was suffering. Again, the Scripture puts it this way, “He was hated and rejected; his life was filled with sorrow and terrible suffering. No one wanted to look at him. We despised him and said, ‘He is a nobody!’” (Isa 53:3, CEV).

As I’ve mentioned many times, in those days anyone who suffered was thought to have done something to deserve it. The idea was that if you obey God, you’ll be “blessed.” But if you’re suffering in any way, you must have done something wrong. But our lesson from Isaiah shows us that sometimes people suffer unjustly, like the “Servant of the Lord.” And all too often when they do so, those who benefit from their suffering may misjudge them. Isaiah puts it this way: “He suffered and endured great pain for us, but we thought his suffering was punishment from God” (Isa 53:4, CEV). And it also says, “Others thought he was a sinner, but he suffered for our sins and asked God to forgive us” (Isa 53:12, CEV). All too often, those who suffer for the sake of others are judged harshly for it!

One of the challenges this passage presents is the idea that somehow an “angry God” made Jesus suffer in this way to satisfy a need to punish us for our sins. But the image of God as a punishing God is a scary one in a world where there’s so much abuse and violence. If God is angry and punishing, perhaps he’s not much different from someone who’s violent and abusive. Simply put, I don’t think that’s the point of Isaiah 53. I think the point is that God’s “Servant” is called to suffer on behalf of others because that’s what God does. God suffers for us! The God who never quits loving us is a God who suffers for us and with us. That’s what our Study Catechism says: “In Jesus Christ God suffers with us, knowing all our sorrows. In raising him from the dead, God gives new hope to the world. Our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is himself God’s promise that suffering will come to an end, that death shall be no more, and that all things will be made new.”[2] The idea is that it’s precisely through his suffering on the cross that Jesus accomplished all of this. And it was all what God desired for us all.

What we see when we look at Jesus on that cross is God’s love poured out for us, taking on all the pain and suffering of the world. God takes that suffering on himself precisely because it’s the only way to truly set things right in a world of violence and injustice. And the reason for it was that we might find God right in the middle of it all, using the undeserved suffering of the one who served him best to create new life. It’s one of the great mysteries of our faith. We see in Jesus a “suffering servant” who is willing to fulfill God’s love for us even when it leads him to a humiliating death on a cross.

I think that puts the undeserved suffering in our world in a whole different light. Our Scripture lesson speaks of the “Servant’s” willingness to suffer for others what he didn’t deserve. It says it this way in the Contemporary English Version: “By suffering, the servant will learn the true meaning of obeying the LORD” (Isa 53:11, CEV). The prophet Isaiah tells us that the experience of the “Servant of the Lord” who suffered for the benefit of others without deserving it was “the true meaning of obeying the LORD”! Instead of expecting obedience to lead us to God’s “blessing,” in the example of Jesus, we see “the true meaning of obedience”: the willingness to fulfill God’s purpose even and especially when it leads to undeserved suffering.

That can turn our whole approach faith upside-down. I’ve never been in the military, and I’ve never been in combat. I have a son who was in combat in Iraq. I had a friend in college who had been in combat in Vietnam. What I know from talking to my friend and talking to my son is that those who have gone to war were giving their lives for their friends. They were “suffering,” they were making at times great sacrifices for the sake of their friends. There are all kinds of political interpretations of the wars we get into as a country, but when it comes right down to it, soldiers in combat are fighting for the lives of their friends. I think that’s a great illustration of this very idea of the undeserved suffering that some take on themselves for the sake of others.

Most of us practice our faith for the reward we’ll get from it. But Jesus calls us all to take up our cross and follow him. I think that means that if we’re truly going to obey God, we may very well find ourselves undergoing undeserved suffering of our own for the sake of others. Instead of expecting to be rewarded for our efforts to obey God, Jesus’ example points us in a very different direction. His example shows us that the “true meaning of obedience” is to carry out God’s purposes in this world, no matter what it may cost us. That may not be what we want to hear. It’s a tall order for us to fulfill. But it seems to me that when we read this passage from the prophet Isaiah through the lens of Jesus’ death on the cross, we can rest assured that if our obedience to God leads us to undeserved suffering for the sake of others, we can do so in the assurance that we’re taking part in God’s work of renewing and restoring and redeeming this world and all of us in it. It doesn’t make it any easier. But our Scripture lesson reminds us that when we do suffer in this way, there’s a meaning and a purpose to it. There’s something greater that we’re giving our lives for. Our lesson for today suggests that’s the true meaning of obedience. Not obeying for the sake of a reward, but obeying for the sake of fulfilling God’s purpose for all people in this world.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/2/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. “The Study Catechism,” 1998, q. 14.

Tuesday, May 05, 2026

Always in God's Care

Always in God’s Care

Psalm 31[1]

This morning I’d like to share with you another of my occasional stories about my experience with a particular passage of Scripture. I’d like to share with you my journey with Psalm 31. Like many of you, I probably first heard the words “Into your hands I commend my Spirit” from the story of Jesus’ death on the cross in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 23:46). My first serious Bible was a King James Version, and it had every verse divided separately, so it was hard to tell when people in the New Testament were quoting from the Old Testament. I soon switched to the New International Version, and they print things differently, so you can tell when someone is quoting from the Old Testament. That’s probably where I first noticed that Jesus was quoting from the Psalm. I don’t remember the exact timeframe for this, but it was a while ago.

I took my first Hebrew class in College, and then I took the required year of Hebrew in Seminary. But I found Hebrew to be harder and more confusing than Greek, and I wanted to try to master it. So I took a “Hebrew Exegesis” class to help level up my skills. It wasn’t until I started digging into the Hebrew Bible more consistently when I was in my mid- to late-twenties that I began to notice some interesting things going on with the language of the Hebrew Bible that weren’t always reflected in the English translations. And I was especially drawn to the Psalms. Along with Isaiah, they’re probably my favorite part of the Old Testament.

A case in point is the English translation of Psalm 31:5, “Into your hands I commend my Spirit.” It sounds like a prayer someone might pray when they’re dying. That’s likely influenced by the fact that Jesus prayed that prayer as he was dying. But just the language of “giving up” one’s “spirit” seems to lend itself to that understanding. When I read the verse with that in mind, I’m not sure I really paid all that much attention to the rest of the Psalm.

It was during the year that I spent living and studying in Germany in 1989-90 that I really began digging into the Psalms. One of the things I discovered about Psalm 31 is that the Hebrew word typically translated in English as “spirit” here refers to the psalmsinger’s whole life. That insight enabled me to read Psalm 31:5 more like “Into your hands I commend my life,” or as the Good News Version we read today puts it, “I place myself in your care.” It helped me see that, at least in the original context of the Psalm this is a prayer for living!

That helped me to hear the words of the whole of Psalm 31 better. A lot of us still have a problem with just lifting out verses of the Bible that we like. The reason that’s a problem is because we’re meant to read the whole Bible. And in this case, that means we’re meant to read Psalm 31 as a whole. The Psalm as a whole is the prayer of a person of faith struggling with the painful and sometimes unfair ways people can treat us. And as I mentioned above, Psalm 31:5 is not a prayer for dying, but a prayer for living with faith in God, no matter. We see that in other ways in the Psalm. The psalmsinger recounts all the hardships of his life, enemies who sought to undo him, the anxiety and sorrow he experienced from opponents. And yet, in spite of all the afflictions he endured, at the end of the day he could pray, “my times are in your hand” (Ps. 31:15). Or, as the Good News Version translates it, “I am always in your care.” With all of that in mind, it’s hard not to conclude that the whole Psalm is a prayer of trust, a prayer of confidence in the “faithful God” (Ps. 31:5). And the prayer “into your hands I commend my spirit” is a motto for living, not a prayer for dying.

In Psalm 31, as in other Psalms, the psalmsinger expresses the decision to entrust his life—his whole life—into God’s hands. That’s not an easy decision to make. Most of us like to keep the “important parts” of our lives in our control. But when try to do that, we learn that there is so much about life that is outside our control. For me, knowing that we can entrust all of that, all the things that seem too big for us, to God’s loving care relieves us of the heavy burdens we try to carry ourselves.

One of the last stages in my journey with Psalm 31 was when I read through the commentary on the Psalms by James Luther Mays in the Presbyterian commentary series called Interpretation. Yes, I did actually read through a whole commentary. I’ve done it more than once! One of the things I like about that commentary is that Mays, who himself was a Presbyterian Old Testament professor, really seems to pull together all the Psalms around some key themes. It helped me to read each Psalm, not as a whole in itself, but in the context of the entire collection of Psalms. And that only reinforced my conviction that the prayer, “into your hands I commend my life” is a motto for living, not a prayer for dying.

One of the things that Mays does is to inform the readers of his commentary how various Psalms have been used not only in the New Testament, but also throughout the history of the church. It should come as no surprise that, following Jesus’ example, a number of prominent Church leaders, including Martin Luther, used this prayer at the end of their lives. But as Mays says in his commentary, “in Hebrew and in the context of the psalm” the prayer is a confession of ultimate “dependence and trust” in God. He adds that this prayer, “Into your hands I commend my life” is essentially “a way of saying in the midst of affliction, ‘It is up to you, God, what becomes of me, and I am willing to have it so.’”[2] I find that to be a wonderful way to affirm my trust in God. I think Jesus paraphrased that prayer with his prayer in the Garden, “not my will but thine be done.”

If you think of it, what better place could we ever want to be than in God’s loving care? What more could we want than what God wants for us? That’s what I think about with this prayer, “It is up to you, God, what becomes of me, and I’m willing to have it so.” When you put it that way, the prayer, “into your hands I commend my life” really does become a prayer for living. In fact, it has been one of my primary prayers for living for over fifteen years. I haven’t prayed it every day. But I’ve prayed it most days. And many days I’ve prayed it more than once. I think one of the significant spiritual breakthroughs in my life’s journey was when I finally realized that I needed to consciously turn to God and entrust my life, all my hopes and dreams, into his care on a regular basis. This prayer has gotten me through a lot of up’s and down’s in life, and I think it will continue to see me through whatever may come in the future. Telling this story is my way of inviting you to join me in praying the prayer, “into your hands I commend my life,” following Jesus’ example, and the example of many faithful people who have gone before us. It’s a way of entrusting all of our lives into God’s hands. As we do so, may we discover that our lives are always in God’s care, and that there’s no better place we could be.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 3/29/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] James Luther Mays, Psalms, 144.

Looking for What God is Doing

John 9:1-7, 13-41[1]

We turn to faith for comfort. That’s one of the main roles faith plays in our lives. It offers us comfort when the realities of life can feel like they’re too much to bear. That’s why we love Scripture passages like Psalm 23. It’s a beautiful expression of the comfort our faith offers us. But when we only look to faith for comfort, it’s too easy to focus only our ourselves, and lose sight of those around us. That’s why our faith also challenges us. Faith that’s worth its salt not only offers us comfort, it also challenges us to see the suffering of our sisters and brothers in the human family. Especially those who suffer the most in this world, the very ones we may prefer not to see. When we let our faith turn in on itself, it becomes too easy to convince ourselves that their suffering is somehow their own fault. Instead of seeing them as beloved children of God who are suffering in the same way we all can suffer, which can be a scary thought, we convince ourselves that they must have done something to bring it on themselves. The idea that they must have done something to deserve their suffering somehow assures us that it won’t happen to us. But in the process, we let our desire for comfort and safety blind us to the compassion God wants us to give to the people who suffer the most in this world.

Our Gospel lesson for today addresses this issue. It’s the story about Jesus’ encounter with a man who had been born blind. But the irony is that it turns the tables on how we might expect the story to go. In this story, the “religious” people who claimed that they could see were in fact blind. They were blind to the compassion of God, they were blind to truth that Jesus restored this man’s sight. But it was a man who was despised as an ignorant vagrant was the one who was able to see what they couldn’t or wouldn’t see. The narrator emphasizes this irony by calling the one Jesus healed “the man who had formerly been blind.” But irony is that in this story, he was the one who was able to see the truth about Jesus. On the other hand, the “religious” people were blinded because of their assumptions.

The basic assumption in this story that blinded the “religious” people is that anyone who is suffering must have done something to deserve it. That’s an assumption that we still make. In the Gospel story, it was Jesus’ own disciples who voiced this assumption, asking, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). The very fact that he had been born blind meant that someone had to have done something wrong to cause his suffering. But Jesus exploded the centuries-old myth that suffering comes from sin. I like the way Gene Peterson translates Jesus’ response in The Message: “You’re asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do” (John 9:3, MSG).

The hard truth is that we live in a world where any kind of suffering can affect anyone at any time. And we tend to use rationalizations like “they must have brought it on themselves” to assure ourselves that we won’t have to suffer the same pain! But Jesus turns all that on its head. He says that the suffering people experience in this world isn’t about blaming or shaming. Rather, it’s an opportunity for those of us who claim to follow him to demonstrate “the works of God” (John 9:4): kindness, compassion, and mercy! The suffering that people endure is an opportunity for us to “look instead for what God can do” (John 9:3, MSG), even and especially in the worst of the pain people can suffer!

Because Jesus healed “the man who had formerly been blind” on the Sabbath day, the religious people believed he had “broken” the Sabbath and therefore he must have been a “sinner” (John 9:16). They believed that following their “rules” about the Sabbath carefully and completely would act as a kind of magical protection from the suffering in the world. Because Jesus didn’t follow their rules about how to observe the Sabbath, he called into question their assumptions about God and the world. To keep their assurances intact they concluded that he must have been a sinner! Only if Jesus was a sinner could they keep their assumptions intact, assumptions that gave them false and shallow assurances that they would never have to deal with that kind of suffering. We still do that: we tell ourselves that if we follow all the rules, we’ll be spared from the worst hardships of life. And we reinforce that line of thinking by assuming those who suffer the worst must have “broken the rules,” and therefore they must be “sinners.” I would think that most of us have had enough experience with life to know that’s not the way life works. We can follow all the rules and still be hit with some of the worst kinds of suffering.

Again, in the Gospel story it was “the man who had formerly been blind” who exposed all these false assumptions. The religious leaders kept pressing him, trying to find a way to avoid the obvious conclusion that Jesus restored his sight. Finally, in exasperation they said, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner” (John 9:24). And an unlearned, marginalized, ragged, and dirty man, who just that morning had been living on the street, showed a depth of insight beyond all that they possessed. He said simply, “I do not know whether he is a sinner” (Jn 9:25). There’s probably a lot of wisdom in that when it comes to using the word “sinner” about someone else. But he said, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (Jn 9:25).

This man who had been blind was able to see the truth about Jesus. Those who claimed to see and know God’s truth were blinded by their false assumptions. That’s what the story is about. We see it in the end when Jesus makes an ironic and somewhat confusing statement about enabling those who are blind to see and making those who can see blind. The Message translation puts it this way, “I came into the world … , so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind” (John 9:39, MSG). I don’t think Jesus ever meant to keep anyone from seeing the truth about God, the truth about themselves, or the truth about life. I think what he was trying to do was to expose those who “make a great pretense of seeing” as people who can actually be blind. The story is about bringing to light something that happens all too often: those of us who think we see the truth about God and therefore view ourselves as “holier” than others are the ones who can at times be the most blind to God’s grace and mercy and compassion!

The hard truth about life is that we never know what we may have to go through. There are times when suffering just happens, not because of what we have done, but in spite of all we may have done. It’s natural in those times for us to look to our faith for comfort. But when we take that to an extreme and try to use our faith as an assurance that it won’t happen to us, we’ve missed something. Jesus made it clear that we’ve missed something when we use our “faith” to brand those who are suffering as “sinners” as a way of reassuring ourselves that we won’t have to suffer like them. What that really boils down to is an elaborate means of making ourselves feeling better at the expense of others. But Jesus framed the suffering people experience in this world entirely differently. He framed it as an opportunity for us to “look instead for what God can do” (John 9:3, MSG).

The Bible says that “nothing will be impossible for God.” We oftentimes think that some people may be beyond hope. And we tend to point the finger at them and assume that they must have done something to deserve it. It’s their fault somehow. But we really don’t know what life experiences have brought people to where they are. We really don’t know the burdens that people are carrying. I think that’s why Jesus taught his disciples and us to look at the suffering people experience not as a reason to point the finger and blame but as an opportunity to “look instead for what God can do.” Instead of shaming people, he challenged us to look for the good that God can do even and especially in the worst of human pain. After all, God raise Jesus from the dead after his suffering on the cross. If that’s true, what experience in this life is there that God can’t bring good from? And when look for what God can do when someone is suffering, not only does it change our whole perspective, but it also helps us to see that we have the opportunity to share God’s mercy and compassion with them. Maybe that’s what God “wants” to do. Maybe God wants to open our hearts to show kindness, compassion, and care, especially toward those whose suffering challenges us. I think Jesus challenges us to find the faith to look at the sufferings of this life and trust God enough to look for what God can do in any situation, come what may, and then try to join him in doing that.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 3/15/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

The Waking Dreamer