These weeks after Easter, as we head to Pentecost, Pastor Anne invites you to make room for a rewilding of your faith. To allow space for the possibility that the movement of God is beyond your imagination. To allow room for a fresh hope in the endless creative possibility of God who is perpetually birthing new life. 

We are made. We are loved. We are kept. 

While Peter’s initial hope for the Messiah was falling away, Peter was kept by God, loved by God, and then remade by God. At Pentecost, Peter keeps hold of these profound experiences of suffering and hope, and extends them out to us.

We think being a Christian is about belief, but really, it’s about desire.

This week we watch Jesus, very intentionally, very knowingly, walk right into a confrontation with the power structures that seek to destroy him. He enters into this confrontation without any kind of defence—no armour, no strategy, no argument; just his presence. His presence is Divine Resistance to these massive strongholds.

He arrives at the city gates and crosses into the ancient city, which is both a symbol of God’s presence and people, and a symbol of Empire, knowing that most likely this confrontation will result in his very violent, very painful death. And still, he goes.

We are witnessing the fruit and fulfillment of Jesus’ wilderness experience. There, in the barren discomfort of the wilderness, he wrestled with temptation. There he chose whom he would worship. It was there that he set aside the empire’s vision of power, success, and popularity, and chose again God’s vision of kinship. 

As we transition from Lent to Holy Week, let this be a reminder to us: we must not underestimate the power of the wilderness. Do not underestimate the power that comes to us as we sit within discomfort, leaning into the questions, welcoming the cold and heat and the loneliness and the hunger and the longing until we have clarity on the next step that love asks of us.

The three images of Palm Sunday’s Visio Divina:

(1) Power Play, 2023. Artist: Lisle Gwynn Garrity   Link

(2) Guatemala: Procession,1978. Artist: Betty LaDuke   Link

(3) Jesus Enters the City / from The Passion of Christ—A Gay Vision, 2014. Artist: Douglas Blanchard   Link

Sometimes life feels like the branches of a tree in winter: barren, empty, cold, hopeless. It can feel like things will be that way, forever. But trees teach us to wait a little longer, to watch and see what unexpected things will happen next. Trees are wise teachers. They remind us that new life appears in seemingly barren places. When viewed from the perspective of a tree, hope is the most sensible thing in the universe. 

Trees teach us about hope, and so does the Bible. “Can these bones live?” God asked Ezekiel once in a vision.

Can we find hope, and even faith, when we are sitting in a valley of dry bones? When we are lost within a copse of winter trees? When we are grieving over something loved, something lost? Fear can make it hard to hope. What if we are disappointed again? Paired with this question, hope can feel like a dangerous thing. Cynicism can make it hard to hope. What if it’s all a pile of wishful thinking? Paired to this question, hope can feel like a foolish thing.
Yet Ezekiel's dry bones and winter’s barren trees remind us that things are not always as they seem. In the midst of damage, violence, decay, death, and barrenness, might God, the Lord of Life itself, be growing something from within the barrenness that we cannot yet conceive of or imagine? 

Today's story, on the surface, is about a blind man healed by Jesus with a bit of mud and spit. But the passage is long, and peppered with questions. It seems as though the questions themselves, as well as theological assumptions and certitudes, blind people to the beauty of the healing. Here we find a second story of blindness within the story of blindness. The transforming question within this text is not "why is there suffering?", or "who sinned?", but "how is the glory of God being manifest in Jesus, in this moment?"

Starting with the woman at the well encountering Jesus (John 4:5-42), we move into a conversation with Scott Chapman, representing Lifewater Canada, and discussing how Southpoint will partner with them to support Stada Kenya. Led by Kenyan women, Stada (Stawisha Dada) recognizes that access to clean water is a women's rights issue.

What are the thresholds of your life?  What must you do to keep yourself safe?

Pastor Anne explores that longing for a new way to be human.

Abraham, Nicodemus, Jesus… you.

Some Southpointers share how their Vision of God has expanded through lived experience, particularly in times of disillusionment and personal challenge.

Guest speaker Angela Henzes asks us: Can you identify with longing to feel safe? With wanting to be seen, known, and loved with perfect love? With longing to be cared for in the exact ways that you need? In this meditation, she suggests that visualizing and experiencing God as Mother may invite you to tender places inside of yourself that need healing. It can expand, ever wider, your view of God, and help you draw closer to the mystery of who God is. It can be a powerful part of your sacred journey with God.