05/04/2026
Yesterday at St. John’s, we heard a sermon that remained in the heart long after the dismissial, the kind that quietly settles into your thoughts and follows you home.
Read, Watch and Listen to the Sermon here:
https://stjohnsbowmanville.com/sermons/fifth-sunday-of-easter-1
It began with a simple and deeply human image. A child who, when missing her mother, doesn’t ask for a place or a thing, but simply says, “home,” because for her, home is not a location at all, but a person. From that gentle and touching moment, we were drawn into Jesus’ words in Gospel of John 14, spoken at a time when his disciples were facing confusion, uncertainty, and the looming reality of his absence, and yet what he offers them is not a set of directions or a distant promise, but something far more intimate and reassuring: the assurance that they belong, that a place is being prepared, that they are not forgotten.
As the sermon unfolded, it invited us to reconsider what we so often imagine when we think about “home,” moving beyond walls and rooms and structures, and into something richer and more enduring like a sense of being known, of being welcomed without condition, of being able to rest in the presence of another without pretense or fear. And then came that profound realization that Jesus is not simply leading us toward home at some distant point in the future, but that he himself is the home we long for, the place where we are fully received, fully known, and fully loved, both now and always.
Listening to this, it became almost impossible not to reflect on the people and moments in life where that same feeling has quietly appeared, those rare and sacred encounters where you realize you can simply be yourself, where you are not performing or striving, but are instead held in a kind of grace that feels both grounding and freeing at the same time.
And in that light, it is hard not to recognize something of that same spirit here at St. John’s Bowmanville, where over time, what might begin as a place you attend gradually becomes something much more meaningful, something that begins to feel like home in the truest sense. Not because everything is perfect, but because the people are genuine, the welcome is real, and there is a shared sense that you belong just as you are, wherever you happen to be on your journey.
There is beauty in that, a kind of warmth that cannot be manufactured or staged, but only grown through care, presence, and a willingness to walk alongside one another, and it is that same spirit that continues to invite others in, not with pressure or expectation, but with an open door and an open heart.
If you have ever found yourself looking for that kind of belonging, or simply curious about what it might feel like to step into a space where faith is lived with both honesty and hope, then perhaps next Sunday is as good a moment as any to come and see for yourself, because sometimes the most meaningful discoveries are not found in grand gestures or dramatic moments, but in the quiet realization that, somehow, you have found your way home.
