SACRED SIGNS OF SUBVERSION, Part 21: Tree of Life

November 26, 2025 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read Deuteronomy 21:22–23; Matthew 27:32–44

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right.” (1 Peter 2:24 NLT)

Symbols carry memory and meaning far beyond words. The Church has always leaned on them—sometimes hidden in plain sight, sometimes dismissed or distorted. Yet the most powerful symbols are those that subvert the world’s expectations and draw us back to the radical heart of the Gospel. In this series, we’ll look closer at the sacred signs that shock, unsettle, and ultimately call us deeper into Christ.

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 21: Tree of Life” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 21: Tree (The Cross). Before the Cross ever hung in sanctuaries or appeared on necklaces, it was a tree—cut down, stripped, and reshaped into an instrument of terror. Rome didn’t use crosses for spiritual symbolism; they used them to maintain order. A crucified body was a message to the masses: This is what happens if you defy us. The Cross was state-sponsored intimidation—public, humiliating, and brutally effective.

But long before Rome weaponized wood, Israel cherished another sacred tree: the Tree of Life in Eden. In Jewish tradition, this tree represented more than immortality. It symbolized humanity’s unbroken relationship with God—wholeness, union, divine vitality. In Kabbalah, the Tree of Life becomes a map of divine presence flowing into creation, the sefirot expressing God’s wisdom, compassion, strength, and glory. The Tree of Life is not mythic decoration—it is the architecture of existence, the very structure through which God’s life nourishes the world.

And the first tragedy of Scripture is exile from that Tree. Not because God is petty or punitive, but because God grieves what humanity has chosen. Genesis shows us not an enraged deity forcing humanity out, but a God who laments what must happen. If humanity, fractured by sin, had reached out and eaten from the Tree of Life, we would have eternalized our brokenness. We would have lived forever in sin. God could not and would not permit that. So the exile becomes protection, not condemnation—divine grief wrapped in divine wisdom. God’s heart breaks, yet God acts to preserve the possibility of healing. And from that moment on, God begins preparing another path to life: a different Tree, a different Garden, a different way home. The banishment from Eden is not the end of the story; it is the beginning of redemption.

This sets the stage for the scandal of the Cross.Deuteronomy 21 says, “Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” So when Jesus is nailed to that dead tree, many concluded He could not be the Messiah. The logic seemed airtight: if the Messiah is blessed and the Cross is a curse, then a crucified man cannot be the Messiah. Yet God interrupts that interpretation entirely. While the world points and says, “He hangs on a tree—He is cursed,” God effectively answers, “Who told you He was cursed? That is your conclusion, not Mine. This is not the curse of God. This is who I AM—entering your suffering, not abandoning it.”

And here is where the doctrinal waters often get stirred. Some have taken the temple-sacrifice metaphors of the New Testament and built an entire system around the idea that God demanded Jesus’ death to be satisfied. But the Cross is not divine punishment demanded by God—it is divine protest against the violence humanity directs at itself and at anyone who embodies God’s justice and compassion. God did not put Jesus on the Cross. Human sin did. Human fear did. Human cruelty did. The temple language is descriptive, not prescriptive; it uses the theological vocabulary available at the time to articulate a mystery far deeper than sacrifice-as-payment. Jesus does not die because God needs blood. Jesus dies because the world cannot tolerate love in its purest form—and God chooses to meet us there, not because God requires it, but because we do.

Jesus is not cursed by God; Jesus is God entering the very place humanity believes God refuses to go. And once that is seen, everything changes. The Cross is no longer the Tree of curse; it becomes the Tree of Life replanted. A living tree is cut down and turned into an instrument of death, yet God transforms that dead tree into the conduit of eternal life. Not because the wood itself has magic power, but because the One who hangs upon it is the Source of Life the first tree symbolized.

The early Church fathers recognized this transformation. They wrote of the Cross as the “Tree of Life whose fruit never decays,” the wood that heals the wound of the first tree, the branches that stretch across the world offering shelter. In Christ, the exile from Eden ends. The separation is bridged. The divine flow returns. The Cross doesn’t stand as a symbol of divine wrath but as a symbol of divine reclamation—God taking the worst thing humanity could do and turning it into the place where salvation blossoms.

This also means the Cross unmasks every system built on domination, fear, and cruelty. It confronts the powers—religious or political—that justify harm “for the greater good.” Jesus didn’t die on the Tree to reinforce the systems that killed Him. Jesus died on the Tree to liberate us from them. The Tree of Rome becomes the Tree of Life restored. The instrument of execution becomes the instrument of communion. The place of death becomes the place where the universe is stitched back together.

Resurrection is not an afterthought; it is the releafing of the Tree. The Cross blossoms. Life flows. The gates of the Garden open once more. The way home stands revealed—not through dominance or fear, but through the unfailing love of God.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The Cross is the dead tree God made live again—so the world could live again too.

PRAYER
Life-Giving God, You turn instruments of death into branches of healing. You uproot the curse we created and plant the Tree of Life in its place. Draw us into the flow of Your mercy. Heal our separation. Break our allegiance to every power that harms. Make us people of resurrection life. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 20: Halo/Circle

November 24, 2025 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read Matthew 17:1–8

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 20: Halo / Circle” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 20: Halo / Circle. Funny how halos show up in all the wrong ways. One of my favorite examples comes from Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part I. Brooks plays a fugitive hiding out as a waiter in a Jewish restaurant—only to end up serving the disciples in the Upper Room. After taking their orders and being shushed, Leonardo da Vinci barges in, insisting the scene won’t work unless they’re all seated on the same side of the table. He rearranges them, steps back, shouts “Freeze!”—and in that instant, Brooks is caught holding his serving tray perfectly behind Jesus’ head, forming an accidental halo. It’s absurd, irreverent, perfectly Brooks… and strangely revealing.

Because halos in art were meant to show divine radiance—yet over time, they’ve become props. Decorative. Harmless. A safe symbol that demands nothing and reveals nothing. But nothing in Scripture suggests that divine radiance is safe or sterile. When Jesus is transfigured on the mountain, His face blazes like the sun, His clothes turn white with unfiltered glory, and the disciples collapse in fear. Holiness does not politely glow. Holiness burns. Holiness exposes. Holiness reveals injustice and disrupts every false peace upheld by power.

Michelangelo understood this unsettling quality when he carved Moses with horns. Yes, it came from a mistranslation, but the effect was striking: true holiness is nothing like the sanitized halos we hang above our nativity sets. It is unpredictable, untamed, and always upends the status quo.

But halos also hint at something deeper—the circle. The shape of belonging. The shape of boundaries. The shape of who’s inside and who’s out. Humanity is always drawing circles: worthiness, purity, identity, doctrine, comfort. And the Church has drawn plenty of them too. We have fenced pulpits, fenced communions, fenced holiness itself.

But Jesus keeps redrawing those circles until they break open.

He touches lepers.
Blesses children.
Lifts women.
Eats with outcasts.
Honors Gentiles.
Invites the excluded.
Calls disciples from the margins.

Every circle drawn to keep someone out becomes the very circle Jesus expands.

I think about my friend Mark Miller—composer, justice-seeker, prophetic soul—whose song Draw the Circle Wide has become one of my favorites. Its simplicity is its brilliance. “Draw the circle wide… draw it wider still.” In one line, Mark captures the entire Gospel. God does not shrink circles; God expands them until every person knows they belong.

And yet, halos have often been co-opted by purity politics. Holiness became a behavior to perform, an image to maintain, a glow to admire. Respectability replaced righteousness. The Church began rewarding people who looked holy—those who fit the image—rather than those who lived compassionate, courageous, Christ-shaped lives. But Jesus never once pursued respectability. He never polished His radiance. He never curated His glow. He let His holiness disrupt rather than impress.

Still, the halo’s circular shape whispers a deeper truth. The circle is one of the oldest sacred forms in human history—no beginning, no end. The shape of resurrection. Of covenant. Of completeness. Of shalom. Scripture describes God’s glory in circular imagery: rainbows, wheels within wheels, arcs of light. And Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that we are being transformed “from glory to glory”—drawn again and again into divine wholeness. The circle of holiness doesn’t just surround Christ; it gathers us too.

Put everything together and the symbol becomes clear:

Halos are not awards for the flawless.
Circles are not fences for the worthy.
Radiance is not a performance.
Wholeness is not a possession.

Holiness is not about shining above others—
it is about drawing others into the light.

Holiness widens every circle until those once pushed to the margins find themselves at home in its glow. Holiness lifts those the world overlooks. Holiness gathers, restores, and refuses to close.

And maybe that’s the real scandal of the halo: not that it crowns the holy, but that it invites the whole world into God’s radiance.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
True holiness doesn’t draw circles to keep people out—it draws circles of light to bring people home.

PRAYER
Radiant God, draw us into Your transforming light. Break the small circles we cling to and widen our hearts with Your compassion. Make us people who reflect Your glory with courage and welcome. Shape us into a community where all can find their place within Your circle of grace. Amen.

[i] Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 19: Bread & Wine

November 20, 2025 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read John 6:53–58

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk…For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself.” (1 Corinthians 11:21, 29 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Bread & Wine” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 19: Bread & Wine. The symbols of Bread and Wine pull us into one of the earliest and most persistent scandals of the Christian faith. Outsiders heard whispers of a strange meal shared behind closed doors: “They eat flesh and drink blood.” This rumor—part fear, part fascination—was enough to brand Christians as cannibals, atheists, and subversive threats to the empire. What those rumors missed, however, is what they accidentally revealed: this meal was never meant to be respectable. It was meant to unsettle a world built on hierarchy, purity, and the consumption of the vulnerable.

Jesus does not soften His language in John 6. He intensifies it. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood…” It is an intentionally shocking metaphor. Because the Kingdom of God—unlike Caesar’s world—does not devour the poor to feed the powerful. Christ offers His own life so that no one else must be consumed. The Bread & Wine are divine care, not divine demand. They feed rather than exploit. They restore rather than extract. They reveal a God who sustains humanity rather than draining it for power.

In this way, the Table becomes the great reversal. Empire feeds on the weak; Christ feeds the weak. Empire uses bodies; Christ gives His own. Empire organizes itself around dominance; Christ organizes community around nourishment, memory, and love. When Jesus breaks bread, He is not founding a new ritual. He is founding a new kind of world.

But to understand how radical this sign truly is, we must return to the first Table. It was not set in a sanctuary. It was not overseen by a priest. It was not fenced off from the wrong sort of people. It was prepared in a borrowed room. The participants were not clergy—they were ordinary friends, one of whom was preparing to betray Him, another ready to deny Him, and all of whom would scatter before sunrise. Yet Jesus fed them anyway. He washed their feet. He entrusted the remembrance of His life, death, and resurrection to those who had no credentials, no rank, and no halo of holiness around them.

This leads to one of the most quietly subversive truths in the Christian story: Jesus never created sacramental authority. He never restricted this meal to a particular class of leaders. He never attached it to a hierarchy. The early Church broke bread in homes, around kitchen tables, with no formal structures and no official gatekeepers. Sacramental authority developed later—created by a Church anxious about order, purity, consistency, and control. That authority has done much good… and much harm. But it is a human invention, not a divine requirement. Ordination is a tool for service—not a fence around grace.

As an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, I carry the privilege and responsibility of presiding at Christ’s Table with the deepest reverence. I take that calling seriously. It is one of the greatest honors of my ministry to place the Bread and Cup into open hands and say, “This is the grace of God for you.” I cherish the sacramental trust the Church has placed in me. Yet it is precisely because I value that sacred trust that I must also tell the truth: authority exists to serve grace, not to restrict it. The Eucharist was never meant to elevate the presider over the people. It was meant to reveal Christ who gives Godself to all.

This matters, because Paul’s harshest rebuke to the Corinthians was not about ritual precision. It was about inequality. The wealthy feasted while the poor went hungry. The privileged ate early; the laborers arrived to crumbs. Paul’s outrage is simple: You cannot celebrate Christ’s feast while embodying Caesar’s hierarchy. A Table rooted in self-giving love cannot become a stage for self-preserving power.

Yet in many places, the Church has done exactly that—protecting the Table from the very people Jesus fed. Fencing it. Managing it. Measuring worthiness. Policing access. Deciding who is welcome to receive God’s gift and who must wait for institutional approval. When the Table becomes a throne, it stops being Christ’s Table. Bread and Wine become reminders not of grace, but of gatekeeping.

But the Spirit still whispers the truth: this meal was never meant to be guarded. It was meant to be given. Bread & Wine expose every system—religious, political, or cultural—that survives on consuming others. They invite us into a different way of living: a world where no one is devoured, no one goes hungry, and no one is turned away.

Bread & Wine are not symbols of consumption. They are symbols of communion. They teach us how to feed and be fed. They train us to become people of care in a devouring world.

Because the Table was never about power. It was always about the unconditional grace and love of God through Jesus Christ.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
God’s Table is not a place of consumption—it is a place of care.

PRAYER
God of the Table, teach us to receive Your grace with humility and to share it with courage. Shape our hunger into compassion, our rituals into hospitality, and our lives into places where others find nourishment rather than judgment. Feed us with the Bread that gives life, that we may become people who feed others in Your name. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional

SACRED SIGNS OF SUBVERSION, Part 18: Keys

November 19, 2025 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

By Rev. Todd R. Lattig

Read Revelation 1:12–18

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Jesus replied, ‘You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.’” (Matthew 16:17–19 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional *“Keys”* at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 18: Keys. Symbols do more than speak — they open doors. They hold memory, meaning, authority, and access. Few symbols in Scripture carry as much weight as keys. Keys determine who enters and who stays outside, what is revealed and what is concealed. The Church has long treated “keys” as symbols of control, but Jesus used them as tools of liberation.

When John turned and saw the Risen Christ blazing like the sun, one declaration shattered Rome’s illusion of power: “I hold the keys of death and the grave.” In a world where empire claimed authority over life and death, Jesus announces that the locks Rome depends on are already broken. Death itself can no longer keep anyone in—or out.

Keys were symbols of authority in the ancient world—held by those who controlled access, privilege, belonging. But keys also hide things: vaults, prisons, secret rooms, places sealed away. Keys are used to lock down what people want contained. And just as often, keys signal who is allowed close and who must remain outside.

But when Jesus speaks of keys, the metaphor turns inside out. He isn’t using keys to protect a throne. He’s using them to undo the locks that fear, shame, religion, and empire have placed on human lives.

In Revelation, Christ holds the keys of death—not to guard the realm of the dead, but to break it open. In Matthew, when he gives Peter “the keys of the Kingdom,” he is not delegating gatekeeping. He is delegating liberation. And notice the scandal in that scripture moment: Jesus does not hand those keys to a ruler, a priest, or a man with status. He places them in the hands of a fisherman—an ordinary, inconsistent, deeply flawed human being.

That very act unlocks the door of privilege itself. It reveals that the kingdom is not a palace for insiders, but a home thrown open for those shut out by religion or empire.

And here is the subversive twist: keys reveal us. We lock away what we fear.We seal off what we don’t want exposed.

And the Church has often treated the gospel the same way. We’ve used “keys” to control who belongs. We’ve locked people out to protect our comfort, our respectability, our preferences. We’ve acted as if grace required our permission to move.

But the Christ who holds the keys of death is the same Christ who opens doors no one can close—including the doors the Church deadbolts out of fear.

Where does this press in today? It looks like unlocking forgiveness where resentment has taken root. It looks like opening space at the table for someone whose presence unsettles our comfort. It looks like refusing to lock people into their past. It looks like letting the Spirit open what fear has sealed.

In the end, the only keys Christ trusts us with are the ones that open what fear has closed, unlock what hatred has chained, and free those empire calls unworthy.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The keys of Christ never lock people out—they always set people free.

PRAYER
Christ who holds the keys, unlock the places we have sealed with fear. Break open every door we keep shut in the name of comfort or control. Teach us to use our keys the way you do—to open, reveal, and release. Make us stewards of liberation, not gatekeepers of grace. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 17: Crown of Thorns

November 12, 2025 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read John 19:1–5

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief…” (Isaiah 53:3 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Crown of Thorns” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 17: Crown of Thorns. Few symbols cut as deep as this one. A ring of thorns twisted into mockery, pressed into flesh, drawing blood. To Rome, it was a joke—a parody of kingship, meant to humiliate a would-be Messiah. Yet what the empire meant as ridicule, God transformed into revelation.

In Rome’s world, crowns were signs of victory and divinity. Laurel wreaths crowned emperors, athletes, and generals—the reward for strength and triumph. But Jesus’ crown inverted the script: thorns instead of laurels, pain instead of prestige. The so-called “King of the Jews” wore the empire’s cruelty on his brow. The instrument of mockery became the measure of mercy.

There is an older echo here. After Eden, the ground bears “thorns and thistles” (the sign of curse and sweat). On Good Friday, those thorns move from soil to skin. The curse is taken up into Christ’s own body so that, by resurrection, the ground of our lives might be healed. The crown is not an accessory to the Passion; it is theology in miniature—sin’s lacerations gathered into God’s redeeming love.

The Crown of Thorns turns triumphalism inside out—it’s the empire’s joke that God refused to erase. We see it easily when it wears uniforms and medals: Rome parading prisoners, dictators saluting from balconies, crowds chanting for Caesar or party or nation. We see the violence of empire in their crowns of conquest.

But Revelation refuses to leave it there. In Revelation 19:12, Christ is described as wearing many crowns—a reclamation of every false claim to power. Yet God’s reign still bears the mark of suffering love. The thorns that pierced Christ’s brow unmask the violence hidden behind every earthly throne.

And here’s the twist: that throne is not only out there. The Church, too, has learned to love its crowns. We’ve adorned altars with gold while ignoring the hungry at the door. We’ve preached resurrection while wielding respectability. We’ve mistaken influence for faithfulness, and applause for anointing. And when prophets rise to remind us who we follow, we silence them to keep the morally bankrupt content—protecting the institution while crucifying the conviction.

The Crown of Thorns exposes us all. It declares that love endures pain rather than inflicts it—and that true authority bleeds for others instead of demanding their blood. It wraps itself around the head of every believer until we remember: what was meant for mockery became the coronation of compassion—and it still pierces any gospel grown too comfortable with power.

Where does this land this week? It looks like telling the truth when a polite lie would be safer. It looks like slowing down to listen to the person everyone steps around. It looks like choosing a costly mercy over a clever clap-back. It looks like a church budget that prioritizes neighbors over nostalgia, mission over mirrors. It looks like leaders who would rather lose status than lose their souls. The crown that drew blood from Christ now draws us away from the seductions of platform, partisanship, and performative piety.

Today, we still chase crowns—titles, influence, prestige—often forgetting that Christ wore his in pain, not pride. Our culture crowns success and polish; Jesus crowns humility and presence. Even in ministry, the temptation to be admired or right can overshadow the call to simply love. The “Crown of Thorns” still asks whether we are building kingdoms of comfort or bearing witness to the kingdom of God.

The crown meant to humiliate became the symbol of divine courage. The glory of God shines not from gold but from grace. The King of Love reigns not by escaping pain, but by transforming it. And when we wear that way of the cross—quietly, steadily, without theatrics—the world encounters a different kind of power: a sovereignty that serves.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The only crown that endures is love—and love still wears thorns.

PRAYER
Christ of the Thorns, strip from us the crowns we make for ourselves—titles, comforts, and the applause we mistake for faith. Take the thorns of our world into your mercy and teach us the courage to love when it costs something real. Let compassion be our coronation, humility our glory, and service our song. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 16: Chi-Rho(☧)

November 7, 2025 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read Philippians 2:9–11; Colossians 1:15–17

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional *“Chi-Rho (☧)”* at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 16: Chi-Rho (☧). Before the cross became the global emblem of Christianity, the early Church marked its allegiance with two Greek letters—Chi (Χ) and Rho (Ρ)—the first two of Christos. It was a quiet confession in a dangerous world, simple yet profound: Christ is Lord.

Then came Constantine. On the eve of battle, he claimed to see a vision of the Chi-Rho in the sky, accompanied by the words, “In this sign, you will conquer.” The next day, his soldiers marched beneath the symbol—and Rome’s empire was never the same. The Chi-Rho that once whispered resistance was soon stamped on shields, coins, and crowns. The sign of surrender became the seal of state power.

What began as a declaration of divine humility was twisted into divine endorsement. The confession “Christ is Lord” was repurposed to mean “Christ backs me.”

But Revelation unmasks the lie: every empire that borrows Christ’s name to bless its violence becomes the beast it claims to slay. In John’s vision, the Lamb conquers not by killing but by being slain—power turned inside out. The Chi-Rho once carried that same defiance long before Constantine ever marched beneath it: Christ conquers not by the sword, but by surrender.

The mark of the true Christ can never adorn the weapons of empire. The Chi-Rho reminds us that faith is not endorsement of empire; it is its undoing—a sign of the Lamb who reigns by losing, and wins by love.

Today, symbols of faith are still co-opted. Crosses fly on political flags. Fish become bumper stickers. Scripture verses are printed on ads to sanctify the sale. The same empire impulse lingers—to use the sacred as a stamp of legitimacy.

After all, is not “In God We Trust” stamped on our currency? The empire still prints piety onto its power, mistaking divine allegiance for divine approval.

Yet for me, the Chi-Rho still carries sacred weight. I wear it tattooed around the symbols of Holy Communion—a frame around the cup and the bread. It reminds me what the emblem truly means: not victory over others, but union with Christ’s self-giving love.

The Chi-Rho was never meant to crown conquerors. It was meant to cradle the cup and the bread—the sign of surrender that saves. The real victory is still love lived out despite the fact it costs something real.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The sign of Christ isn’t meant to mark our victories, but to unmask our idols.

PRAYER
Christ of the Cross and Cup, strip our symbols of pride and power until only love remains. When the world wields your name for its gain, let your Spirit reclaim it through our surrender. Write your sign not on our flags, but on our hearts, that we may conquer only by compassion. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 15: Alpha & Omega (ΑΩ)

October 29, 2025 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read Revelation 1:8–11

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“I am the first and the last; apart from me there is no God.” (Isaiah 44:6 NLT)

**Caption:** Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional *“Alpha & Omega (ΑΩ)”* at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 13: Alpha & Omega (ΑΩ). The phrase Alpha and Omega has been embroidered onto church banners and stitched into altar cloths for centuries. But when John’s community first heard those words, they didn’t sound decorative—they sounded defiant. John wrote in rough Greek, not to flatter the empire’s tongue, but to commandeer it. His audience were diaspora Jews and Jewish-Christians scattered through Asia Minor—not exiles like John on Patmos, but people living under Roman rule, constantly watched, never quite trusted.

To Rome, they seemed unpatriotic. They refused to burn incense to Caesar or join festivals that honored the emperor as divine. To them, it was faithfulness; to Rome, it looked like rebellion.

It’s not unlike what happened when Colin Kaepernick first sat during the national anthem in quiet protest against racial injustice. A fellow player and veteran approached him, suggesting that kneeling would be more respectful—the way soldiers kneel when a comrade falls. Kaepernick listened, adjusted, and took a knee out of reverence and grief. Yet politicians and fans twisted that gesture into a sign of hatred for the nation. What began as lament was painted as treason. And it wasn’t without cost. Kaepernick lost his job.

That’s the kind of pressure early Christians lived under. A quiet act of conscience—refusing emperor worship—could be recast as rebellion. A choice of faith could cost livelihood, community, and belonging.

To the synagogue communities, they were heretics whose loyalty to Jesus jeopardized the fragile peace with Rome. They lived “in place but not at home,” faithful to a kingdom no one could see.

Into that tension John heard Christ’s voice:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega.”

Rome boasted of being the beginning and end of civilization; Christ stole the slogan and crowned it with a cross. It was not cultural borrowing—it was defiant translation. The language of empire was turned against itself. The Word that spoke creation now rewrote the alphabet of power.

Every time empire said, “This is the end,” God began another sentence. The persecuted became the punctuation marks of God’s story—the commas, pauses, and ellipses where new life breaks in.

And still, the same dynamic plays out. When conscience collides with comfort, society calls dissent dangerous. Yet Christ, the true Alpha and Omega, invites us to speak hope against the empire’s tongue—to reclaim the words and symbols others have weaponized.

So when a believer stands for justice, when a worker refuses to bow to exploitation, when a community insists on love over fear, they echo John’s act of resistance. They take the alphabet back from Empire.

And like Colin Kaepernick, they may pay a price. But faith’s grammar remains: the first and the last belong to God. No power—political, religious, or cultural—gets the final word.

After all, is it not so that every Advent, we remember: the Word became flesh, entering human language to subvert human power. The alphabet of empire will always be rewritten in love’s script.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Christ is the first and the last—not as owner of time, but as author of new beginnings. Every ending empire writes, God edits into resurrection.

PRAYER
Eternal Word, you speak through every language and every silence. When conscience costs us comfort, keep us steadfast. Teach us to reclaim the words and symbols the world misuses, and to write your mercy into the margins. Amen.

Devotional

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 14: Anchor

October 24, 2025 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read Hebrews 6:13–20

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Then they cut loose the anchors and left them in the sea.” (Acts 27:40 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Anchor” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 14: Anchor. Among the earliest followers of Jesus, the anchor was a secret cross—etched into tombs and catacombs to mark hope when hope was dangerous. To believers hunted by empire, it meant endurance. It meant, Hold fast. Christ has you. The symbol was born of storms and shipwrecks, of faith that refused to drift.

But over the centuries, that holy weight became decoration. The anchor moved from the catacombs to jewelry, from graves to church logos. It became a brand for stability and success—a symbol of safety rather than surrender. Somewhere along the way, we stopped asking what we’re anchored to.

The truth is, not every anchor holds holy ground. Some keep us safe; others keep us stuck. Faith calls us to discern where we’ve dropped anchor—in Christ or in comfort. Many believers cling to the harbor, mistaking calm waters for faithfulness. But safety and stagnation are not the same thing. Hope isn’t about hiding from the waves; it’s about trusting God when they rise.

The same can be said of churches. Congregations often pride themselves on being “rooted,” when in reality, they’re anchored to nostalgia. They drop anchor in the wrong waters—refusing to drift with the Spirit, to change course when God calls. Some cling to the past as if Christ can only be found there. But an anchor set in the silt of yesterday will corrode the hull. God’s mission is steady, but God’s movement is constant.

Even anchors have more than one use. A sailor knows that how you anchor determines whether you survive the storm.

A full drop holds the ship still. Sometimes that’s necessary—when chaos swirls, when faith must simply endure.
A partial drop, or drag anchor, slows the drift without stopping it—allowing guidance and motion at once. Some seasons of faith require just that balance: grounded yet open to God’s next wind.
A sea anchor doesn’t touch the bottom at all; it steadies the ship’s direction in the middle of raging waves. That’s the anchor of trust—it doesn’t stop movement but keeps us facing Christ.
And sometimes, as in Acts 27, the only faithful act is to cut loose the anchors entirely. When the Spirit says move, the ropes that once held us safe must be left behind.

We anchor our souls to many things—success, certainty, ideology, even religion itself—and call it faith. But the anchor of Christ is different. It steadies us without trapping us. It roots us in hope, not fear. It keeps us facing God, not chained to the shore.

The anchor is a paradox. It holds us fast, but it can also hold us back. The question isn’t whether we’re anchored—it’s where.

Hope that clings to control is not hope at all. True hope lets go when God calls. The same Jesus who calmed the sea also walked on it, showing us that faith isn’t about finding still water—it’s about trusting who stands above it.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Hope isn’t found in what keeps us still, but in the One who holds us fast when we move.

PRAYER
Steadfast God, anchor us in your love, not in our fear. Teach us when to hold and when to release. Keep us facing you in every storm and free us from the false anchors that weigh us down. May our faith steady the world not through control, but through trust. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 13: Black/Darkness

October 22, 2025 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read Genesis 1:1-5

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.” (Exodus 20:21 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL-E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Black / Darkness” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 13: Black / Darkness. From the first page of Scripture, darkness gets a bad reputation. We read that God speaks light into being—and assume darkness was evil. But Genesis doesn’t say that. It says darkness covered the deep, and God called light into existence. Darkness came first, not as sin or failure, but as the fertile soil of creation. The cosmos was conceived in shadow. Before there was form or breath or blessing, there was black. The light was not God’s escape from the dark—it was God’s revelation through it.

Still, we’ve long feared what we can’t see. We’ve turned darkness into a synonym for sin, ignorance, and danger. “Light equals good,” we were told; “dark equals bad.” That language shaped centuries of theology—and violence. Women were accused of signing Satan’s “Black Book,” while the Bible condemning them was bound in black leather.

Colonizers called Africa the “Dark Continent,” as if God had never walked its soil. Even our stories and art absorbed the bias: bad guys in black hats, good guys in white hats; villains cloaked in shadow, heroes clothed in radiance. In Renaissance paintings, Jews were rendered in dusky tones, caricatured with shadowed faces and exaggerated noses/features and shadowed, while Christians were depicted as fair, radiant, and pure. Skin, soil, and soul alike were graded on a false scale of brightness. Racism, misogyny, and empire baptized metaphor as truth—and the Body of Christ learned to fear its own shadow.

Our suspicion of darkness didn’t stop at color. It crept into the mind. We label people with depression or anxiety as “in the dark,” as though despair is a sin instead of a symptom. We tell them to “look on the bright side,” when Scripture tells us even the darkness is light to God. We shame those whose minds move through midnight, when in truth, many prophets did too. Elijah begged to die beneath a broom tree; Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth; Jesus sweated blood under a moonless sky. To call these experiences “unholy” is to forget how holy shadows can be.

We’ve also turned on artists who dwell in shadow—the ones who name what others hide. Goth culture, heavy music, black clothing, and the haunting beauty of lament get written off as “darkness” and, consquently evil, as if Christ doesn’t speak fluent minor key. Yet those who linger there often see what polite piety refuses: the ache beneath our veneers, the longing in our loss. When the Church fears them, it only betrays its fear of truth. The Gospel was never meant to be sanitized—it was meant to shine in the dark.

Science and Scripture tell the same story: apart from God, all is night. The cosmos is mostly black—endless silence between small burning stars. Light is the rare thing; darkness is the default. Earth itself drifts through that night eternal, kept alive only because one star still burns. So it is with us. Without the Son, our souls freeze in their own shadow. But when Christ enters the darkness, we see what light really is.

Darkness, then, is both tomb and womb. It buries, but it also births. The tomb of Jesus was no less dark than the womb of Mary—yet both held the miracle of life. Faith does not demand we flee the dark; it invites us to trust God there. “Children of light” are not people who refuse to touch the night—they are those who enter it carrying flame. We are called into the world’s pain, prejudice, and mystery, to bear witness that God is not absent in the shadowed places. God is already there, waiting to be seen.

We are not meant to fear or curse the dark, but to step into it—bringing warmth, justice, compassion, and truth. The task is not to make the world brighter by our own brilliance, but to reflect the One whose light no darkness can overcome.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The dark mind, the dark room, the dark season—these are not proofs of God’s absence but invitations to find God’s hidden fire there.

PRAYER
Light of the world, enter our darkness. Teach us not to fear what we do not understand. Expose the lies that have shamed your shadowed children. Kindle mercy where fear once burned, and help us carry your light with humility into every night we meet. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 12: Fire

October 19, 2025 Rev. Todd R. Lattig Leave a comment

Read Exodus 3:1-6

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“For our God is a devouring fire.” (Hebrews 12:29 NLT)

Image: AI-generated using DALL-E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Fire” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 12: Fire. Fire has always drawn us close and frightened us away. It gives warmth and light but devours whatever it touches. From the beginning, fire meant awe. It danced through the wilderness as a pillar of flame. It blazed in the bush that burned but was not consumed. It fell from heaven at Elijah’s prayer and flared again at Pentecost in tongues of light. When Scripture speaks of fire, it’s not talking about destruction—it’s talking about presence. God’s fire refines. It burns away falsehood but never life.

But humanity has always been quick to claim the flames for itself. If God’s fire reveals truth, ours often hides cruelty. The same Church that sang “Come, Holy Spirit” once lit pyres in God’s name. Crusaders burned villages, inquisitors burned heretics, colonizers burned cultures. Even now, Christians still burn bridges and books, ideas and identities. We’ve mistaken zeal for love, wrath for holiness, and torches for testimony. The world smells the smoke and wonders why we call it worship.

We have baptized arson. We’ve turned the language of fire into slogans for vengeance and purity, using the flames of judgment to scorch those who think, love, or live differently. When we use “holy fire” to destroy, we mirror Cain, not Christ. We forget that the fire of God’s presence is the same fire that stood between enslaved Israelites and their pursuers, the same light that filled a frightened upper room with courage. Divine fire liberates—it doesn’t lynch.

Scripture’s fire is not that kind of fire. When Moses met God in the desert, the flames blazed yet left the bush whole. When the Spirit came at Pentecost, the disciples were set alight but not destroyed. That’s the pattern of divine fire: it consumes what poisons but preserves what’s pure. It doesn’t burn to punish; it burns to reveal. It’s the fire of covenant, of purification, of presence.

Human flames are never so merciful. Nebuchadnezzar built a furnace to destroy faith, but the fire bowed before the fourth figure who walked among the exiles untouched. Elijah mocked Baal’s prophets as they begged for their god to answer with fire, but only the Lord’s flame fell—and it didn’t just consume the offering, it consumed the stones, the water, and the pride of the people who’d forgotten who they were. Again and again, the fires we build to destroy are conquered by the fire that saves.

“Our God is a devouring fire,” the writer of Hebrews says—but devouring only what does not belong to love.

There is also the fire we fear to face—the one that burns within. The anger, grief, and longing that threaten to undo us are not always enemies. Sometimes they are the sparks of transformation, begging to be tended. God’s refining flame is not distant; it works in the marrow of our being. It burns away self-deception and pride, purges our need to control, and leaves behind only what can survive in love’s heat. The saints called it purgation; we might just call it growing up. Either way, it’s holy fire.

We’ve all felt both sides of the flame. There’s the heat that sanctifies, and the heat that scorches. The Church must ask which one it carries. Do our words kindle life or ash? Do our hearts burn with compassion or contempt? Because every time we ignite hatred and call it holy, we commit arson against grace.

The subversive truth is that God’s fire cannot be managed or weaponized. It isn’t ours to control. It is the fire of the bush that refuses to go out, the fire that melts our golden calves, the fire that burns in the eyes of prophets and poets who refuse to let the world grow cold. To stand near that flame is dangerous—but not because it destroys. It’s dangerous because it changes us. It burns away the false self until only love remains.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The only fire God blesses is the kind that burns without destroying.

PRAYER
Consuming Fire, burn within us, not against us. Kindle what is holy and burn away what is cruel. Melt our hardness into compassion, our fear into courage, our pride into light. Make us flames that warm rather than wound and let your holy fire be known again in love. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

A biweekly devotional