by Amy Norton-Benfield, January 28, 2026
This Epiphany Season (January 6-February 17) we are following the ministry of Jesus as told in the Gospel of John, alongside our Church School curriculum. I saw a meme the other day that referenced this Sunday’s scripture passage, in which Jesus surprises a Samaritan woman by reciting back to her, though she ought to be a stranger to him, the entirety of her complicated marital history:As a bookworm with not enough time on her hands to get through a massive ‘to be read’ stack, I felt very seen (and a little called-out) by the Jesus in this meme. At the… Read More
by Matisse Peppet, January 22, 2026
This Sunday’s reading from the Gospel of John includes what’s arguably the most famous verse in the Bible: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” This week, we hear that sentence in context – spoken to someone trying to understand what life actually is, and grounded in a strange comparison to a wilderness story from the Hebrew Bible. In the book of Numbers, the Israelites, worn down by fear and exhaustion, are bitten by poisonous snakes. God does not remove the snakes or… Read More
by Kent M French, January 15, 2026
This Epiphany Season (January 6-February 17) we are following the ministry of Jesus as told in the Gospel of John, alongside our Church School curriculum. Like a lot of us, I grew up with this idea of Jesus as gentle, loving, embracing, slow to anger, quick to love. It’s a conception nestled deep in my psyche that has brought much comfort throughout my life. Which is part of why I’m grateful for this Sunday’s passage (John 2:13-25), when Jesus gets really pissed off in the temple, even overturning tables. I like it because we see the really human side of… Read More
by Kent M French, January 08, 2026
The sequence of our scripture readings in January always make me chuckle. Jesus is born, a week later the Magi come, Mary and Joseph take the baby and escape to Egypt, then he’s baptized as an adult and then he’s off and running in his active adult ministry. And in three months, we’ll remember him dying on the cross and defying the tomb. Fast forward. We’ve mixed up the readings from the usual course and this week we’ll remember one of the pivotal moments from the early days of his ministry: turning the water into wine at the wedding at… Read More
