This past Sunday, I was reminded of the simple beauty of a life transformed by Jesus. Our lives are undeniably busy, crazy, complicated, and important. We struggle with identity: wanting to know if the person we are is the person we “ought” to be. We wonder about the love we experience and we wonder about the love we long for. We have pain. We are familiar with sadness and sorrow. We see and know momentary happiness, while not-so-secretly wondering if there’s a little more of it somewhere else. But, amid all of it, there’s Jesus. He is forever calling us, inviting us back to Himself to the place where the most potent of life’s anxieties are addressed in gentle, but powerful love. It is Jesus’ love which is most transformational. It’s His love poured out on the cross, victorious in resurrection, that meets us in our troubled now. That love — undeniable, unpredictable, unexpected — changes us. The world, at least for the time being, will still be the world as it is: rife with confusion and bewilderment. But, it is Jesus who has the capacity to change our confusion into awestruck wonder.

Foremost among the forms and symbols of that wonder is baptism. Vast and mysterious, yet personal and understandable, being immersed in water then raised again, the eminence of God meets the very human us. Baptism communicates what is often lost in the shortcomings of language. It is the definitive picture of a life reset.

This quote from our Facebook page sums it up well:

“A little over a year ago a few friends of ours invited us to Mariners MV. I was feeling overwhelmed with life and knew something needed to change. I didn’t know it at the time but the answer I was looking for was Jesus. This year I have been loving life while learning how to follow Jesus. Today I was baptized! It was an amazing day!”

I’m honored to be a part of the work God is doing at Mariners MV. Join us this week as Doug Fields will be teaching from God’s Word and Kanji Mbugua, from our partner church in Nairobi Kenya, will be leading us in worship. It will be a great weekend to include friends and neighbors longing for a fresh understanding of God’s great love for us.

See you Sunday,
Jeff