God's love with us...

More covid musings.. this one from a letter to ministers in the South Western Synod:

I was recently reading the account of Jesus walking on the water in John chapter 6 (v16-21). I realised I am much more familiar with Matthew’s account, where Peter attempts to join Jesus on the water, or Mark’s account, where Jesus climbs into the boat and the storm subsides; and of course Mark also tells us the story of Jesus asleep in the boat and woken to still the storm.

This account in John chapter 6 feels more like the situation we are in at the moment: the storm is raging and we cannot help feel afraid. We know we need Jesus to help – but we might also wonder how that help will come to us.

When Jesus appears, walking on the water and speaks to reassure the disciples, they are ‘ready to take him on board’ and immediately they reach the land they were headed for. They never actually have the absolute reassurance of having Jesus safely inside the boat with them, yet he helps them be where they need to be.

This speaks to me of what our readiness for the next phase of church life needs to look like. We cannot be sure what the other shore of the future will look like, and we doubt our ability to get there by our own strength. So like the first disciples we need to be realistic about the dangers, alert to the presence and power of God in Jesus, and ready to travel forward with Jesus at the heart of what we do. Acting together, we will find ourselves where God needs us to be for the next stage of our journey of discipleship.

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