Rev MaryGean Cope

Tag: holy spirit

  • The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 102)

    The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 102)

    We had some kids come forward to commit their lives to Christ, and one of them was our UPS delivery guy. DJ Light. You know him. Probably didn’t know he was wrestling with that until he was ready.

    And I looked at these young people and I thought about what we’re doing here. This church has made a difference in the lives of a lot of young people over the years. A lot. And that matters. It matters right now and it’s going to matter for the rest of their lives.

    When kids are growing up, they’re looking for something real. They’re not looking for adults to be perfect. They’re looking for us to be honest. To actually mean what we say. To show up when it’s inconvenient. To keep showing up.

    These three young people made a choice. They said yes to Jesus. Not because they’re perfect, not because they’ve got it all figured out, but because they saw something here worth saying yes to. And that’s the miracle. Not that they’re suddenly fixed. But that they’re willing to give their lives to something bigger than themselves.

    If you know these kids, love them. Pray for them. That’s not just nice sentiment. That’s them needing to feel that they’re part of something. Because they are. They’re part of the body of Christ, and they’re going to need us to remind them of that when things get hard.

    This is why the church exists. Not to run programs. Not to fill seats. But to help young people see that there’s a God who loves them, and that their lives can mean something. That it’s worth the risk to say yes.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer

    The Heart of Prayer

    Moses reminds the people: you were immigrants in Egypt. Joseph was there first, and it was complicated. But when famine came, his family came looking for help and found him. They were invited to live. They became prosperous and numerous. They got their own territory.

    And then a Pharaoh came who didn’t know Joseph and didn’t care what Joseph had done. He got worried. He made things hard. He enslaved them. And God heard their cries and sent Moses to say: let my people go.

    So now, generation later, the Lord is saying to these people: you know how to treat immigrants because you know what it’s like. You’ve been treated well. You’ve been treated badly. So treat other people well. Love the stranger. The foreigner. The one who isn’t you.

    It’s the same standard Jesus taught later: do to others what you’d have them do to you. But here’s the part that gets me—and it should get us—the emphasis is on us. Not on what immigrants owe us. Not on what rules they should follow. On what we owe them because we’ve been there.

    All of us need the grace of God. All of us need forgiveness. All of us need to repent and turn back. And when somebody is on the outside looking in—whether it’s because they’re a literal immigrant or because they’re just new and don’t know how things work—our job is to help them feel safe. Help them feel welcome. Help them know they matter.

    That’s not a political position. That’s a Jesus position. That’s what God asks of us. And it starts with remembering that we weren’t always where we are. We weren’t always comfortable. We weren’t always home.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • Following the Way

    Following the Way

    You know, we talk a lot in church about coming to the table, about communion being this family meal. I want to say that clearly. If you’re here and you say you follow Jesus, you’re invited. It doesn’t matter if you were baptized Methodist or anything else. If you’re trying to follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, this meal is for you. All of us. All ages, all conditions, all the mess we’re carrying.

    I think sometimes we miss how radical that is. In Jesus’ time, you didn’t just eat with anybody. There were rules about who sat with whom, who touched what, who could be at the table. And then Jesus says, no. This is a family meal. My family. Everyone in it.

    So when you come to communion here, you’re not joining a club. You’re not passing some test. You’re sitting down with family. And that family is bigger and stranger and more broken than you probably expected. But it’s your family if you want it to be.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Spirit Among Us (Matthew 3)

    The Spirit Among Us (Matthew 3)

    When Jesus went to John to be baptized, John knew something was off. Jesus didn’t need to be baptized. Jesus had no sins to repent of. But Jesus said to him: I need to do this. I need to fulfill all righteousness. I need to show you how.

    And when Jesus came up out of the water, something amazing happened. The heavens opened. The Holy Spirit came down like a dove. And a voice from heaven said: This is my son.

    All three persons of the Trinity, right there at once. The Father speaking, the Son being baptized, the Holy Spirit descending. It’s one of the few places in Scripture where you see all three together.

    The dove image stuck because that’s what people could understand. How do you describe the Holy Spirit? It’s invisible. But it came like a dove—gentle, pure, unmistakable. And that’s why we use the dove for the Holy Spirit even now. Because at that moment, people needed to know the Holy Spirit is real. Tangible. Present. Coming upon Jesus to anoint him for the work ahead.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer

    The Heart of Prayer

    The church needed a way to sum up what it believed. And there was this guy named Marcian who had completely wrong ideas about God. He thought all matter was evil. So Jesus couldn’t have actually been human, couldn’t have been born, couldn’t have died. He was just some spiritual being delivering nice messages.

    The church said no. That’s not what we believe. So they wrote the Apostles Creed to push back against that heresy. And if you look at the middle part of that creed—the part about Jesus—it’s all about him being real. Conceived. Born. Suffered. Crucified. Dead. Buried. Because if Jesus wasn’t actually human, he couldn’t have suffered. He couldn’t have paid the price for our sins.

    Here’s what matters: Jesus came in flesh. He walked on earth. He bled. He died. And that’s how he saved us. Not as some ghost, not as some idea, but as a person. A real person. That changes everything.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope