05/18/2026
Weekly Meditation by Reverend Devon Thomas-
What makes the Easter story important is how it shows God is in communication with us. The ministry of Jesus started a conversation between humanity and God through Christ. Jesus’ ex*****on and resurrection started a new, one-on-one conversation between God and humanity.
This direct communication was not just a blessing; it was the point of Jesus’ ministry among us. Jesus sacrificed himself to help us understand that God has always been speaking to us, and God is still speaking to us. God’s Spirit of love lives inside of us, and when we open ourselves to that loving Spirit living in ourselves and the people around us, then suddenly, God has a voice in the world.
John 17:1-11 is a passage about finding that Spirit within us. In it, Jesus blesses his followers, “For the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. ” (John 17:8,11).
In this passage, John wants to show us that it was Jesus who entrusted his message to his disciples after his death. So that readers of his Gospel could see that we all have the ability to be messengers of God. For his followers, Jesus was like a jumper cable that shocked them with awareness of a connection they already had with God’s love. Once they understood this, they became messengers of God, and the disciples became the apostles.
No matter how extraordinary we feel the apostles were, they were just people, the same as you and me. They came to Jesus from ordinary lives, but after Jesus reminded them they had love in their hearts to share, they let that love guide their lives.
We, too, struggle as the disciples did to listen to God’s voice of love and follow it. We close ourselves off to love's call. Or we only listen for it in ways that make us comfortable. That is not how Jesus communicated with God, and it is not how the apostles did either.
Jesus and the apostles went out into the world. They accepted and listened to people who were suffering and being oppressed. They created communities where all people were valued equally, and they resisted the powers of oppression even when doing so put their lives at risk.
They embraced the discomfort that it takes to listen to God, because often God tells us things we do not want to hear. Love reminds us that we benefit from systems, harbor biases, and commit actions that harm other people. God’s love reminds us that when we are not aware of others, we do harm to others.
When we challenge ourselves to listen to these uncomfortable truths, it enables us to better live our lives with compassion and love for our neighbors.
All of us can be messengers of God if we are up to the challenge of listening to the Spirit of love that lives in us all.
