426 Mountain Lion

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Mountain Lion”, originally shared on August 13, 2026. It was the 426^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Mountain lions are big and imposing in the wild. The “lions” in our lives may threaten us, but they have already been overcome. Today, we’re going to see why.

   Did you see the story in the news this past week about the mountain lion that was found just off Foothill Blvd. in San Dimas?

   It was lying under a tree, about 1.4 miles from Sally’s and my home! We could see and hear four helicopters hovering above the mountain lion from our driveway!

   It was being reported on TV, and the lion looked like it had been injured, maybe hit by a car. It was tranquilized and taken to a vet to save it. Hopefully it will survive because it had a savior.

   We who are injured by our own sin, who are naturally separated from God, and who should have no chance for salvation on our own, have a Savior in Jesus Christ because God loves us, as Paul writes in Romans 5:8,

⁸ But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

   Jesus, who was fully God and fully a human being, restored us to the living relationship with God for which we were created while we were sinners!

   Human beings brought evil into the world. Creation is broken, and we still sin. We still rebel. But by the grace of God we are both saints and sinners.

   In fact, everything that God created is less than what it was made to be, including mountain lions. And even they long for a time when they will live in peace.

   Paul writes, in Romans 8:19-22,

¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; ²⁰ for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;

   Now is the already here, in Jesus Christ, but not yet fully perfected, reign of God.

   What is our hope? Jesus death on the cross and his resurrection that validates it.

   The Reign of God has already begun in Jesus Christ, but it will not be brought into perfection until Jesus’ return to judge the living and the dead, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

   Isaiah, the major Old Testament prophet, begins the 11^th chapter the book of Isaiah with a prophecy about the deliverer who is Jesus Christ. This section is described as Isaiah’s prophecy of The Peaceable Kingdom, and it mentions lions twice in Isaiah 11:6-7,

⁶        The wolf shall live with the lamb,

the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

and a little child shall lead them.

⁷        The cow and the bear shall graze,

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

   All Creation will be restored in the new heaven and the new earth. 

   How does that happen? Mountain lions give us a clue.

   Their scientific name is Puma concolor, and they have more common names than any other animal.

   Mountain lions are also called cougars in North America. They are usually called pumas in Latin America and in parts of South America. They are also called panthers and catamounts (I’ll bet you never heard of that last one, but is does have the word “cat” in it.)

   Fun fact: they can’t roar like the big lions. They can only hiss, growl, or purr.

   If you encounter one, you are supposed to face the animal and keep eye contact, make yourself look big, speak loudly to it but don’t scream, and pick up small children without bending over or turning your back to the lion.

   Be large and in charge.

   You can look like something you’re not, but if one attacks you, you’re likely going to need a savior.

   We can look like a good person to the world, but if we are wounded and broken by sin, separated from God, we’re going to need a Savior.

   We have now entered the college application season, a high stress time for prospective students and their families. How do you get into your college of choice?

   Is it merit? Is it life experiences? Something else?

   “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” may be a cynical but sometimes all too realistic description of how some people get ahead by the world’s standards.

   It’s also an excellent description of the Christian life.

   When our son James was in the college application process, his school invited an admissions officer from Stanford to come and explain how things work. She said that, contrary to popular belief, they didn’t look for well-rounded students. She said that their goal was to make well rounded student bodies, so that a-typical abilities and experiences carried a lot of weight.

   The Heaven admissions process that Jesus describes in today’s main Gospel reading is not based on qualifications, it’s not based on merit, or on bribes, or on who your parents are/were. It’s based on grace, and that grace is given on the basis of the great gift of God revealed and given to us in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

    It’s not what you know. It’s who you know. The only question is, “Do you know Jesus?” Do you have a personal living relationship with the one true living God?

   The first part of today’s Gospel, the optional part, comes in Matthew 15:10-20.

   A crowd is listening to Jesus teach near the shore of the Sea of Galilee and, at one point, he talks about whether eating certain foods is not acceptable to God.

   Jesus answers that food is not the problem. The problem is what comes out of the mouth not what goes into it. What comes out of the mouth, like our words and evil intentions, comes from the heart. They can result in things like murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, and slander. These are expressions of the evil that is within us, and they are what separate us from God.

   The religious purity laws are mostly found in the Bible’s book of Leviticus. It’s the third book in the Bible and is about as far as a lot of people get after they’ve said, “I’m going to read the Bible, cover to cover!” 😊

   They were written to define the identity of the Hebrew people. They were blessed, as we are blessed, to show all people who God is.

   Everything in life was established to remind them that they were a particular people. They were not even to wear clothes made of two kinds of fabric.

   Their dietary laws, or keeping kosher, included things like not eating dairy and meat in the same meal, not eating animals that were not one kind of animal or fish or another but had characteristics of both.

   Don’t be a different thing. Don’t be two things. Don’t compromise. Be who you are, who you have been called to be by God.

   But that blessing was not an end in itself. God’s people were blessed in order to be a blessing to all people. All people.

   That’s what Stewardship, or “management”, is about. We are blessed to be a blessing.

   Biblical giving is first fruits giving (we give to the church first whenever we receive something as income), proportional giving (a percentage amount) and growth giving (starting with where we are and then increasing it until we reach 10%, and even beyond).

   How can you do that? I recommend two things.

   First, calculate what you give to your church now as a percentage of your income and begin increasing it regularly, until you reach a tithe and beyond.

   Second, always practice “first fruits” giving.

   I read a story once about a professor who stood before his class with a large empty jar. He put large rocks into the jar until he could put in no more.

   “Is this jar full?”, the professor asked the class. “Yes, it is full.”, the students replied.

   He then put several scoops of small stones into the jar, until he could put in no more.

   “Is this jar now full?”, the professor asked. “Yes, it is now full.”, the students replied.

   Then he put several scoops of sand into the jar, until he could put in no more.

   “Is this jar now full?”, the professor asked. “Yes, it is now full.”, the students replied.

   He then poured several quarts of water into the jar, until he could pour in no more.

   “Is this jar now full?”, the professor asked. “Yes, it is now full.”, the students replied.

   “What is the meaning of this example”, the professor asked the class.

   One of the students raised his hand and said, “Even when you think that you have too much to do in your life, there is always room for more.”

   “No,” the professor said. That is not the meaning.

   “The meaning is that if you take care of the most important things first, there will be room for much more. But, if you fill your life with the small things first, you will not have room for the things that are the most important.”

   Sally and I contribute a little over 10% of our income, and we have seen again and again that if we give money to our church first and live on the rest, there is always enough. But if we wait to see what we have left over before giving, there is never enough.

   This is the greatness of life for all people as servants of God. We live for God as Jesus has died for us. Jesus has already done the hardest thing for us through his death on the cross. We can’t earn it. We don’t deserve it. We were captive to sin, but Jesus paid the ransom for us. We did not earn our ticket to heaven; it has been paid in full with the blood of Jesus Christ.

   This brings us to the second part of this week’s main Gospel lesson, as Jesus moves from Galilee to Gentile territory northeast of Israel, in Matthew 15:21-28,

²¹Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. ²²Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” ²³But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” ²⁴He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” ²⁵But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” ²⁶He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁷She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” ²⁸Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

   A non-Jew, a woman, a gentile like us, received the miracle, an action of Jesus that points us to the way that the world was intended to be and the way it will be again. She was a foreigner and yet her daughter was healed instantly, because of her faith in Jesus, no matter what his attitude appeared to be.

   Her faith, her relationship with Jesus, fully God and fully human being, her connection to God, was all that was necessary.

   Her daughter wasn’t healed by the woman’s faith, however. She was healed by Jesus.

   We are not good people or bad people. We are sinners.

   We can’t get ourselves out of the mess we’re in. We need a savior.

   Did you see the story on the news last week about a new species of Ice Age toad that was discovered in the La Brea Tar Pits? It got stuck in the tar toward the end of the last Ice Age in Los Angeles and died, as creatures have got stuck and died there for 10s of thousands of years.

   It couldn’t pull itself free. It would have survived if it had had a Savior.

   We can’t get ourselves out of Sin. We’re stuck. We can’t earn our way out with good works. We need a Savior.

   We are God’s people and, like the Canaanite woman, we have received mercy. Why? So “that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light,” so that you may share the good news.

   It’s not what you know. It’s who you know. And we have been given the gift to know Jesus. We have been blessed to be a blessing.

   All the Canaanite woman had going for her was that she knew Jesus. She was connected by the gift of faith, the connection to God we have been given by knowing God. The connection that brings us life in His name.

   Jesus reminds us that we are called to obey the religious law in response to the gift of salvation, but not to let it define us. We are defined by faith in our connection to God, who is our Savior in Jesus Christ. And that that connection is all that is needed for this life and for the life to come.

   My parents had four children in five years, and I was the oldest. (I make it a point to tell my younger siblings that they should be grateful since I must have been such a good baby that our parents said, “We want three more of these!” 😊)

   When I was around 7 years old, by dad wanted to diversify the family business. His father, my grandfather, was very conservative with his business and reluctant to take any risks, but he allowed my dad to investigate the possibility.

   In the process, sales reps from toy companies were regular visitors at our offices and, when they found out that my dad had small children, they gave him samples of their products.

   That Christmas was spectacular! We all received complete cowboy or cowgirl outfits. The boys got boxing gloves. I was old enough to get a bicycle, with my first name on the frame! In addition to lots of other stuff, we got a family gift of a full-sized stuffed toy mountain lion!

   We had seen mountain lions on cowboy shows on TV, and a toy like that allowed us to imagine having one as a pet, or more likely imagining that we were wrestling with it and surviving! 😊

   Parents, particularly fathers, often roughhouse with their children. The children have fun, they survive, and they learn, at some level, not to be afraid when they struggle with something larger than themselves.

   Lions are big and imposing!

   Lions are mentioned in the Bible, like where Daniel survives a night in the lions’ den, Sampson kills a lion with his bare hands, David kills lions and bears to protect his father’s sheep, and so on.

   Today, they have been extinct in the Middle East for at least 80 years.

   But they still live vividly in the Bible.

   Satan is described as a “roaring lion”, looking to devour people through fear or temptation in 1 Peter 5:8 but Jesus, as always, gets the final word of victory.

   He is called “The Lion of the tribe of Judah” in Revelation 5:5,

⁵ Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

   Jesus has won the victory over everything that defies God, He represents majesty, and royal power. He has conquered sin, death, and the power of the devil. The Kingdom he has conquered is not of this world. It is the Kingdom of the human heart. He reigns in the already-but-not-yet-perfected reign of God.

   He is coming. He will return to restore Creation in the new heaven and the new earth.

   We have no fear of Jesus, our Savior, only an open heart to receive him and a desire to share the good news of his salvation.

425 Joke on the Water

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Joke on the Water”, originally shared on August 5, 2026. It was the 425^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Life in this world can leave us stunned. We need time to process what is happening, time that often isn’t given. What then? Today, we’re going to find out.

   I had an experience at Costco the other day that is still in my head, and it still has me stunned. And it took me awhile, but it gave me insight into the Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, Matthew 14:22-33: Jesus Walks on Water and Peter Doesn’t. 😊

   Sally and I were checking out at our local Costco and the customer in front of us lifted a huge chunk of meat in his basket so that the cashier could scan the price; $162 and change! For one chunk of meat! In a retail store!

   The guy could have had a business, or was buying food for a family reunion, or planned on turning it into jerky for his Zombie Apocalypse storehouse. I don’t know.

   But it was shocking to me that a store would think that there was enough of a demand for one hunk of meat that expensive to keep it in stock.

   I asked the cashier if that was the biggest hunk of meat they sold at Costco and he nodded sheepishly and said that he thought so, though I’ve since found out that Costco sells large hunks of meat for much more!

   “Wow,” I said, “we could have bought one hunk of meat instead of all of this,” pointing to our basket. 😊

   When something happens that is so unnatural, so unexpected, it can stun you while you attempt to process it. I think that that’s what happened to Peter in this week’s Gospel reading.

   Jesus had been teaching his followers at the Sea of Galilee, he had been rejected in his hometown of Nazareth, he had learned of the execution of his second-cousin John the Baptist and took a boat by himself to a lonely place on the shore of the Sea. The people followed his boat and when he came ashore they begged him to heal their sick, which he did, all day. As the day was stretching on, he saw that they were hungry and ended up feeding the 5,000 men, besides women and children, from the five loaves and two fish that a little boy had presented. That meal ended with 12 baskets of leftovers! Even in abundance, nothing went to waste!

   And then he does something even more shocking, in Matthew 14:22-27,

²²Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. ²³And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, ²⁴but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. ²⁵And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. ²⁶But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. ²⁷But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” 

   There are those words again, “do not be afraid”. It’s been said that they appear 366 times in the Bible, one for every day of the year plus a leap year. And with unexpected and shocking things like this happening, when things happen that stun even the closest of Jesus’ followers, it’s not surprising at all that we need to hear those words. Every day. And especially when our life’s seas are rough.

   Sally and I and our son James were in Maui in 1997. I swam for a competitive adult swimming club in the United States Masters Swim program and the Pan Pacific Masters Swim meet was held there, mostly in Lahaina.

   I swam my pool events in the early part of the day and the rest of the day we’d have available to explore the natural beauty of the island. We visited a Lutheran church, saw the banyan tree, drove the road to Hana, and toured a volcano.

   The ocean had been red flagged that week because conditions were very choppy, like we’ve had at our local beaches for the past couple of weeks, but they allowed those of us who were there for the swim meet to swim in the optional 1-mile ocean race for Masters swimmers. We later met a guy who had actually broken an arm swimming in those waves.

   On the last day we were there, I read an article in a local paper about how many surfers had needed to be rescued by the lifeguards that week. Most of them native islanders!

   Maui is a popular tourist vacation destination, but it is very expensive to live there. According to the article, most residents needed to work two and three jobs, so they didn’t have time to teach their kids how to swim. The tax base was low, so the schools didn’t have the funding to offer swimming lessons either. As a result, something like 90% of the island kids didn’t know how to swim!

   They loved to surf, though, and they had been using their surfboards as flotation devices! The stormy surf that week meant that the leashes they used to attach themselves to their boards were snapping and so the lifeguards had had to jump in and pull them out. Sound familiar?

   People don’t generally do well in the water during storms at sea, as we see as our Gospel reading continues, starting with a typically overconfident statement from Peter in Matthew 14:28-32,

²⁸Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” ²⁹He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. ³⁰But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” ³¹Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” ³²When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 

   This text reminds me of the Warner Brothers cartoons with Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner,  and swerves off a cliff. He keeps going, running on air until he looks down and realizes HE’S RUNNING ON AIR! And right then he sinks like a stone, crashing onto the desert floor.

   The joke on the water is that Peter, a disciple in Jesus’ inner circle, steps out of the boat and starts walking on the water, until he realizes that he’s in a storm and HE’S WALKING ON WATER! He’s stunned by what he sees, and he doesn’t know how to process it. And right then, he starts to sink like a stone. 😊

    But Jesus reaches out and saves him and says to Peter, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

   Is this text telling us that if you have enough faith, you could walk on water? I’ve known many faithful Christians, but I don’t know anyone who’s ever done that!

   So, what does it mean?

   Prof. Dr. Roberta Hestenes, who taught at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena years ago, was called to serve as president of Eastern College, an Evangelical college just east of Philadelphia.

   She came back to California as a guest speaker sometime later and told of how, one year, a graduating class came to her with a special request.

   Graduation at Eastern traditionally took place next to a beautiful lake on the campus. The seniors would come over a hill, walk down to the lake, then take a sharp right turn to go to their seats.

   That year, the Seniors asked if they could have the school maintenance department install underwater posts and sheets of thick plexiglass just below the surface of the water so that the class could walk down to the lakeside, step onto the plexiglass, and appear to walk on water, taking a sharp right turn to the shore and then going to their seats.

   President Hestenes said, “No.”

   That’s as close as I’ve come to hearing of anyone but Jesus, and Peter, briefly, walking on water.

   I think that this text is, like all of Jesus’ miracles, not about how to overcome the laws of physics. It’s about Jesus pointing to the way the world was supposed to be, and about how it will be again in the future, in the coming perfected Reign of God. God is Lord of all things. The storms were, and will, be calmed.

   We are naturally lost in a sea of rebellion against God. The good news is that we have a Savior in Jesus Christ, who will return to judge the world, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. That’s the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ!

   But, today, our Gospel lesson reminds us that the world is not what it’s supposed to be, that the storms of life continue, but that everything good in this world continues to come from God.

   You may have heard it said that “If you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.” Cute. But today’s Bible reading about Jesus walking on water from the gospel of Matthew has nothing to do with water and everything to do with the future of the Church.

   The World Council of Churches is an organization that seeks to coordinate the work of all Christian denominations internationally. My wife, Rev. Sally Welch, is active in its work. Its logo is a boat, not a ship. It’s small. It’s tiny compared to a freighter or a cruise ship.

   I think that that’s because the Church is often more like a boat than a ship. We are more like salt, and light, and leaven, the small things that make a huge difference because they maintain their flavor, their character, their integrity, not their size.

   I think often of the story of the Anglican vicar who decided that what his church needed was a service of Holy Communion at 6:00 a.m. every day.

   Sometime later, some colleagues asked him how it was going. “Great!” he said.

   Skeptical, one asked, “About how many people come to worship at that hour.”

   “Well, there’s me, and the two widowed sisters who come to everything, about a million Serafim, a billion Cherubim, and all the hosts of heaven.”

   We are light. We are salt, we are leaven.

   The Christian Church is like a boat, but the Christian life is not only lived in a structure. The Christian life is lived where the people are. We seek out the lost and adrift. The Christian life is lived everywhere, where Jesus is.

   It’s lived in a living relationship with the one true living God who is present in our storms.

   Notice that when Jesus chides Peter he doesn’t say, “You of no faith, why did you doubt?” He says, “You of little faith…”.

   We belong to God, even when we doubt. Even when we fail. Even when our faith is small. We call out to Jesus, “Lord, save me.” And he does, he has done it by his death on the cross, and the resurrection that validates it.

   The Church may be buffeted, it may be small, but we are still saved and defined by the unearned grace of God.

   Sally and I went on a cruise to Alaska to celebrate our 40^th wedding anniversary a few years ago, and our ship made a stop at Sitka.

   Sitka is a relatively small town known by many as a base camp for hunting, fishing, photography and other outdoor activities.

   It includes Sitka Lutheran Church, St. Peter’s by the Sea Episcopalian Church, and St. Michael’s Orthodox Cathedral, which, though not a large building, is located at the center of town and highly visible. It was the first Russian Orthodox Cathedral built in America, with construction completed in 1848.

   A fire burned much of Sitka’s downtown in 1966, damaging the Lutheran Church and destroying the Orthodox cathedral, though church members and residents were able to save many of the church’s furnishings, books, and icons. They continued to gather for worship in what is now the basement of the cathedral.

   Reconstruction began immediately using the original plans but was not completed until 1977.

   It continues today to be the worship space of a living Christian community.

   The Christian Church may be buffeted by storms, it may be small, it may even be burned down. But Jesus still saves, and the Church continues to live and proclaim the good news of salvation for all who receive it as God’s gift. It continues to be a living presence in this world. How does the Church do that?

   At the end of his book Bad Religion, Ross Douthat, who was recently added to the list of reporters on the flagship weekly CBS News program “60 Minutes”, reflects on all the difficulties and challenges, mostly self-inflicted, that the Church is enduring in our times.

    And then he observes that the Church has experienced decline many times in its history and two things have brought it back: holy living and the arts.

   The arts are seen and heard and smelled throughout the Orthodox church in Sitka. They are a part of the daily lives of most churches throughout the world. They are a means of communicating the deep connection with God that God has called us to know.

   Holy living is living in the presence of God from the inside out. It is the product of a life lived near to God, in a living relationship with the one true living God. It is expressed in what Paul describes as the fruit of the spirit, in Galatians 5:22-23,

²² By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 

   The cathedral in Sitka was closed when we got there. We knocked at the door for a long time and, finally, and a kind woman let us in.

   People all over the world are searching for God, even and perhaps especially, when they can’t name the name of Jesus.

   Who will open the door? Very often, it’s us. We are the means by which God opens the door. It is opened by the way we live our lives, by the way we serve, and by the way we worship in response to what God has done for us on the cross. It is especially heard when we share it with our close friends and relatives.

   As in Sitka, God is rebuilding us, giving us a new start, making of us a new creation. We are born again.

   At the end of our Gospel reading for this week, the disciples recognized Jesus for who He is in Matthew 14:33,

³³And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

   This is the past, the present, and the future of the Christian Church.

   The future of the church is in its renewed nature, in the living relationship with the one true living God for which God created us, which we rejected, and which was restored by the death of Jesus for us, on the cross. It was, and is, and will be expressed in worship of God.

   Soren Kirkegaard, the Lutheran philosopher and theologian once said that many people attend worship services, but they don’t worship. They treat worship as if they have gone to a play and then they evaluate it as entertainment.

   Worship, instead, is prayer, praise and thanksgiving, all directed toward God.

   Kierkegaard said that the question to ask after a worship service is not, “What did I get out of that?” but “How did I do?” Not to please God, but in response to what God has already done for us.

   We respond to the outstretched hand of Jesus.

   We are lost and condemned in the heavy surf of sinfulness without a floatation device. We need a Savior, and we have been given a Savior on the cross. How can we learn to trust Him? We can’t. But God proves himself trustworthy.

   The events and conditions of our current time can leave us stunned. We sometimes need time to process what is happening, time that often is not given. What then? We turn to the hand of Jesus for our salvation.

   How do we respond in the face of the excesses of this world? By showing it the even more extravagant love of God in the hand of Jesus Christ.

   How do we live as Christians when our faith is small? We don’t have to.

   Jesus reaches out his hand to catch us. All we have to do is to take it.

   We respond to Jesus by being who Jesus saved us to be in the power of the Holy Spirit. We respond to Jesus as the disciples responded. They worshiped him as we worship him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

   And they went out into the world as we go out, to share the Good News of Jesus.