The Rev. Canon Leonard L. Hamlin, Sr.

Today’s Gospel: John 12:27-36

There are moments and seasons in our lives when we are listening more intently, observing our unique individual circumstances ever more attentively and reflecting on life with great wonder. These past few days and weeks we know as the Lenten Season, have presented an opportunity to listen, observe and reflect so that prayerfully there would be the will to act. These days have not been driven by the dynamic presence of doubt, but by a wonderful sense of wonder. Alice Walker in her book “The Color Purple” lifted a major thought about the power of wonder when she wrote, “I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love.”

The biblical text before us today opens with a great question that rises out of Gospel. I hear the words Jesus and I have felt the emotional difficulty of my soul being troubled at times throughout my life. It was then that I had to ask “What shall I say?” I wondered about my circumstance, I wondered about my faith, friends, resources and my life. I wondered until my wonder led me to consider my God. The more I wondered, the more I wrestled. The more I wrestled the more I recalled and realized. There are moments when our wonder helps us to value what God is saying to us more than what people may be saying about us. As a Disciple, I know we have been created for just such a time as this! Thank God for the light in my present but I am thankful for the light that shapes my becoming. Let my wonder be so great, that it leads me to better embrace the love that transforms my life and the lives who I am blessed to encounter.

Leonard+

Oh yes, fix me, Jesus, fix me. Fix me so that I can walk on a little while longer. Fix me so that I can pray on just a little bit harder. Fix me so that I can sing on just a little bit louder. Fix me so that I can go on despite the pain, The fear, the doubt, and yes, the anger, I ask not that you take this cross from me, only that you give me the strength to continue carrying it onward `til my dying day. Oh, fix me, Jesus, fix me.

“Fix Me, Jesus, Fix Me”
African-American Spiritual