Mark 1:21-28
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The gift of God in Jesus Christ is so truly amazing that it seems almost unbelievable that people would find it offensive.

The grace we receive in the Gospel is the gift of a relationship with God that sustains us in this life and through death to an eternal life. This relationship with God is a gift that gives our life purpose, meaning and direction. In accordance with God’s will and God’s purposes, it is a gift that sets us free, truly free, to live as God’s children, whole and well in God’s praise. And so it seems almost incomprehensible that this word, this grace, this promise would evoke such violent reactions and responses in the hearts of the very people it sets out to love, save and bless.

​Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

This is a night to remember Ursula. Even though remembering makes us feel the sadness of Ursula’s absence, it also keeps her present and part of our lives. Our memories of Ursula can be expressions the love we had and shared together, and so, those memories are simultaneously painful and happy. There are other memories there as well, I am sure. Maybe memories that fill us not so much with love as with regret or guilt or shame. These too are part of the reckoning me all must do at the end of something, a settling of accounts, so to speak. That is why a service such as this reminds us that we will be okay, and that we will not have to bear the full weight of our mourning or grief all by ourselves, but that Jesus himself bears that weight with us and for us so that we might remember love, receive forgiveness and pardon, and live on in hope of the new thing that God Himself is revealing in the world.