Today’s Scripture passage ends with a lovely and heart-warming promise, namely that all who obey Jesus, all who put their trust in His grace and wonder-working power, are members of His own family--members not because of something that we do or are, but simply because of His love for us.  As the apostle Paul says, "while we were yet sinners...”, that is, while we still did not yet have anything to commend ourselves.   That, truly, is something worth celebrating.

I see some very welcome and needed instances of churches and denominations working and worshipping together, but sadly, I would suggest, some of this unity and harmony is undone when there is turmoil within the local churches and among their members.  Far too often, in my experience, there are disagreements and acrimony based either on people’s own desires and ambitions, or on unresolved issues and negative experiences from their pasts.  The problem with the first is that people don’t always put their own desires and ambitions aside and look solely to what God wants, and the problem with the second is that they don’t allow God to heal those experiences and issues and enable them to move forward with their lives.  And, I dare say, these are things that we can all work on.

Something that is quite ‘normal’, and rather problematic, is how often we forget to say ‘thanks’, thanks to our spouses and family, thanks to our friends and associates, thanks to our civic and national leaders, and of course, thanks to God.  I was especially made aware of this a number of years ago when I phoned my grade six teacher, Miss Henderson, to thank her for how she positively impacted my life.  (She was the one who encouraged me to write, and to read all sorts of things.)  But in thanking her, I was surprised and more than unnerved by her response.  She broke down in tears there over the phone and told me that I was the first to have ever thanked her.

I am sure that we do the same with God, and so today’s psalm of praise to God is a well-timed reminder, and model.  May we, all of us, be more attentive to all that God does in our lives, and thank Him for it.

Today’s passage is perhaps the most important one in all of Scripture for it asks us where we stand with regards to Jesus.  It asks this, not of someone else such as a friend or relative, but of each of us personally.  And then asks, by implication, what we are going to do with Him given our decision.  And really, this is what discipleship, following Jesus, is all about.  It is something that we have to ask, and answer, every single day.

To hear it from the Holy Bible, our God is a God of surprises, or at very least, that is the way that it seems.  But then, is He the God of surprises today as well?  Can we, do we, expect Him to do great, wonderful, and surprising things today?  And do we expect Him to do these things in our lives?  And, oh yes, do we expect Him to do these things with us?

These wonderful things that we read about in the Bible took place with and through ordinary people like you and I, and so there’s no reason, no reason at all, why He cannot do surprisingly things in us as well.  Thanks be to God.

Most of us will remember, perhaps with some fondness, the old nursery rhyme about Little Jack Horner who pulled out a plum and exclaimed 'what a good boy am I.’  It is a constant, and all too human temptation, for us to sit back, rest on our laurels, and consider ourselves to be doing very well indeed (our version of ‘what a good boy am I).  It appears that today’s psalmist had fallen into this trap, thinking that God’s help and protection had come his way simply because of how good he was.  Somehow, that it was because of God’s love and mercy, had escaped him.

Seeing as this tendency can also come upon us, you and I, we need to be constantly aware that everything that we have, and in fact, everything we do, are the products of God’s love and mercy.  In other words, gifts rather than something of our deserving.  And so, in everything, we need to give God the praise that is His due.

Christianity is unique in all the philosophies and religions that world over in saying that there is nothing that we can do to earn salvation, or merit it in any way.  Because of our sin, conscious or unconscious, only a sinless person, namely Jesus, could bridge the gap between us and God.  And so, in His love for us, He offers salvation to us free of charge, as a totally unearned, unmerited gift.  All we need to do is to accept it!  It sounds too good to be true, and in earthly, human terms, it is.  But this comes from God, whose love for us could never be matched by anything that we humans know or exercise.  Thanks be to God.

Today’s passage relating the apostle Paul’s prayers for the believers in Ephesus, puts me in mind of a question, namely, if any of us was to ask Paul--or anyone else, for that matter--for prayer, what would we ask for?  Paul asks for greater knowledge or understanding for these people, a greater awareness of just how blessed they are.  What would we ask for?  Something tangible and earthbound, like guidance or health or relationships or peace?  Or, do we also need to become more aware of how good God is, and how much He has blessed us?  Something to think and pray about.

Did someone, perhaps your parent, ever say to you during your childhood or teenage years that you were ‘getting too big for your britches’ and needed to ‘be taken down a notch’?  I know that this certainly happened to me--and it did not always bode well, especially in the short term.  But, nevertheless, it was most necessary.

Today’s passage from Isaiah is something along this same line: we humans were getting ‘too big for our britches’ and needed to be reminded who God is and what He has done.  It’s a way of putting things back into their proper perspective.  Sometimes we need that, for our own good!

Years ago, a British theologian, Burnett Hillman (B.H.) Streeter, wrote a book called “The God Who Speaks”, and in it, tried to describe the various ways that God has spoken to humankind throughout history, through creation, through history, through the church, through the Scriptures, and of course, especially through His Son Jesus Christ. The wonderful thing, to me at least, is that God continues to speak in all these various ways, and wants to be heard thereby. The ‘fly in the ointment’, however, is that we don’t always listen, and on those occasions when we do listen, don’t always follow through with what we’d heard. In other words, we don’t always obey.

But maybe this might be a good and profitable ‘exercise’ for the new year: to think of how God might be trying to speak to us. Through others perhaps, through the news maybe, through our own experiences, and of course, through the Bible: just to ask, ‘what might God be wanting to say to me through these?’ and then go from there.

The apostle James once suggested that sometimes ‘we have not, because we ask not” (James 4:2).  That is, we don’t go to God in prayer concerning the matter.  However, perhaps we don’t do this because we are fearful or intimidated by what might happen if God did indeed grant our prayer.  That certainly could have been part of the motivation of the crippled man in today’s passage from John.  Being healed would have totally disrupted and disoriented his life.  He could no long ‘veg’ all day long or be the subject of peoples’ pity, sympathy or handouts.  He would have to work for a living!  But perhaps he is not alone in this: perhaps we wonder what might transpire if God answered our fondest hopes and dreams and aspirations.  Maybe, that is a reason we don’t ask quite so often.

Today’s meditation focuses on the need to give credit to God for His abundant mercies.  However, that action on our part is predicated upon two other things.  Firstly, it requires us to look around ourselves to see God at work, and give thanks even for the most ordinary and mundane things, things like our homes and health for instance, or family and friends and faith.  And secondly, it requires us to go to Him more frequently and diligently in prayer--and be led by Him and depend upon Him.  Often we don’t see His hand at work because we ask so little of Him.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, never ceases to amaze me.  Who among us could ever be like her, with her carte blanch willingness to do and be whatever God wanted, as in the Annunciation?  Or her words to the servants at the wedding in Cana of Galilee: do ‘whatever’ He tells you?  I’m afraid that most of us probably have our own agendas, our own ideas or preferences, that ‘get in the way’.  I’m sure that Mary had such things as well, but she never let them get in the way of whatever was God’s will.  May we, you and I, be like that as well.

If my memory of liturgy and church history serves me correctly, today, January 6, Epiphany, was for many years a feast day that had greater prominence and importance than Christmas.  This was because it too ‘broke new ground’, as the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, that is, the magi, the wise men.  The birth of Jesus, the Incarnation, was a real ground breaker, but so too was the idea that the Messiah was for the entire world, and not just for the Jews.  That surely was good news, and especially so as the infant church started to spread beyond the borders of Judaism and the Holy Land.  It meant that all of us--this means us--had a share in God’s salvation.  To that, all I can say is ‘wow’!  That is why today was so important back then, and why it is still so important today.  It includes every person we will ever see or meet, and here we can have a part.  We, like the apostle Paul, can be one of those people that bring that Good News to them, whether by word or deed or example.  It is an amazing challenge and awesome responsibility.

The two images that Jesus uses to describe Himself in today’s passage from John are most telling.  He describes Himself both as the gate, the way to life, both now and forever, and He describes Himself as the Good Shepherd, who is the One who provides for that new and eternal life, and who is indeed life itself.  As we now venture into this new year, these are good reminders of just how central Jesus should be in our lives.