Devotional

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 11: The Serpent

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Read Genesis 3:1–7

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.” (John 3:14 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 “The Serpent” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 11: The Serpent. The serpent has always slithered uneasily through our faith. For most Christians, it’s the villain of Eden—the voice of deception, the cause of the fall, the hiss of sin itself. But in the story of Genesis, the serpent is never called Satan, never named the devil, never cast out of heaven. The text simply says, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal the Lord God had made.” Crafty, not cursed. Created, not fallen. It’s one of the creatures of the field—clever, observant, and alive. Whatever power it has comes not from rebellion against God, but from within the goodness of creation itself.

Centuries later, when Jewish and Christian writers began wrestling with evil and injustice, they started to read the serpent through apocalyptic eyes. Books like 1 Enoch and Wisdom of Solomon introduced fallen angels and cosmic adversaries. By the time Revelation was written, the serpent had been recast as “that ancient dragon…the devil, or Satan, who deceives the whole world.” The serpent of the garden became the scapegoat for everything broken. It made emotional sense—a tidy way to personify evil—but it flattened a complex story into a single villain.

Because in the beginning, the serpent wasn’t promising hellfire. It was offering knowledge. “Your eyes will be opened,” it said. Wisdom, not worship. That’s what frightened us most. The Church inherited that fear and learned to demonize the serpent, the body, the woman, and wisdom itself. Eve became the scapegoat for curiosity, and curiosity became suspect. When faith fears questions, it loses its soul.

And yet, in one of Scripture’s strangest reversals, God later commands Moses to make a serpent—out of bronze, no less—and lift it high on a pole. Those bitten by venom look up and live. The image of death becomes the sign of healing. Centuries after that, Jesus will recall the moment and say, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” What once represented sin and curse becomes the emblem of salvation. The serpent turns out to be a Christ-shaped symbol all along.

Somewhere along the way, empire took that power and warped it again. Medieval art cast serpents as devils and dragons, symbols of paganism, women, and Indigenous wisdom—all things empire wanted to conquer. But Scripture never said the serpent was evil; it said we were sinful. We listened to a serpent instead of God. We sought after knowledge and then feared what we learned. We sought knowledge to control and lost control to knowledge.

Today, the serpent still makes us uneasy. It winds through medicine’s symbol of healing, through myths of rebirth, through stories of knowledge and temptation. It lives in the tension between danger and discovery, fear and faith. Maybe that’s why we need it. Because real transformation always feels a little dangerous.

In the wilderness, God didn’t remove the serpents. God redeemed the symbol. The cross, like the serpent, became the means of our healing. And maybe that’s the Gospel’s subversive heart: we don’t conquer evil by destroying what frightens us; we find redemption by facing it. The serpent still whispers—not deceit, but discernment. Can we listen this time?

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Faith doesn’t fear what slithers in the garden. It learns what God might still redeem there.

PRAYER
Holy One, you made every creature that creeps and crawls. Teach us to see wisdom where we once saw threat, and healing where we once saw harm. Help us face the serpents within and around us, trusting you to turn what wounds into what saves. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 10: The Skull

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Read Mark 15:22–39

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties. After all, everyone dies—so the living should take this to heart.” (Ecclesiastes 7:2 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 “The Skull” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 10: The Skull. October is full of skulls—on shelves, shirts, and front lawns. Some wear them as rebellion; others treat them as decoration. But long before they became Halloween props, the Church used the skull as a reminder: memento mori—“remember you will die.” For centuries, believers looked at the skull not to glorify death but to confront denial. Yet there’s another truth here. Death may be the great leveller, but it’s also the great thief—robbing the world of breath, joy, and love. And yet, in Christ, even that thief meets its match.

I write poetry, and much of it is dark—haunted by death, decay, and the ache of being human. Some have judged that darkness as morbid, even un-Christian. But I’ve always believed art should speak the truth we’re taught to avoid. We treat death like a taboo, pretending it’s impolite to mention or too heavy to hold—as if silence could protect us from it. But denying death doesn’t sanctify life; it cheapens it. Faith, like poetry, must face what’s real if it’s to mean anything at all.

Golgotha—“the place of the skull”—stood just outside Jerusalem’s walls, a place of spectacle and shame. Rome staged executions there to remind everyone who ruled life and death. The hill itself became a billboard for fear. But in God’s strange reversal, that place of horror became the stage of salvation. The skull, symbol of mortality and defeat, became the site where Death itself was unmasked. What empire used for terror, God turned into triumph.

Early Christians didn’t shy away from this imagery. In the catacombs, they carved skulls and bones beneath the sign of the cross—art that confessed resurrection in the midst of decay. The skull became both confession and comfort: we die, yes, but Christ has been here first.

Memento mori was never meant to breed despair but to strip illusion. Power, wealth, fame—all return to dust. To remember death is to remember our limits, to live humbly before the God who alone gives breath. But Christ goes further: He doesn’t just remind us of death; He redeems it. The cross planted on the skull of Golgotha declares that the grave has lost its grip.

Death once ruled as thief and tyrant—robbing equally, yes, but still robbing. Jesus entered its house, broke its locks, and walked out carrying life itself. Death is no longer the end. It’s the beginning of something eternally beautiful.

We live in a culture that denies death. We hide it in hospitals, numb it with distraction, and disguise it with filters and slogans of “forever young.” But memento mori still whispers truth: you will die—and because of Christ, you will live again.

To remember death is not to surrender to fear but to wake up to grace. Every breath is borrowed; every heartbeat is holy. The skull that once marked loss now preaches resurrection: the grave has been plundered, and love has the last word.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Death may be the great thief, but Christ has broken its hold and turned the tomb into a doorway of glory.

PRAYER
God of life and victory, remind me that death does not define me—you do. Teach me to live awake to every sacred breath, unafraid of the shadows, certain of the dawn. Through Christ who conquered the grave, I give you thanks. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 9: The Star of David

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Read Genesis 32:22–30

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“I am the Lord, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed.” (Malachi 3:6 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 “The Star of David” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 9: The Star of David. It’s one of the most recognized shapes on earth—two triangles interlocked into a single star. To many it names a people, a faith, a nation. Yet this six-pointed figure carries a story far older and more complex than flags or politics.

Long before anyone called it the Star of David, geometric versions of it appeared in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world—on seals, mosaics, and pottery—signs of symmetry, of heaven and earth in dialogue. In those early cultures, creation was not described through four “classical” elements the way Greek philosophers later would, but through layers of cosmos: heavens above, waters below, the fertile earth between. When the Hellenistic world eventually met Hebrew imagination, the upward triangle came to stand for fire rising toward heaven, the downward for water descending to nourish the world. Their union pictured wholeness—the marriage of divine transcendence and divine nearness.

By the Middle Ages, Jewish artists and scholars had begun calling it the Shield or Seal of David, linking it to Solomon’s legendary ring and to God’s protection. Mystics saw in its mirrored triangles the movement of divine life itself: mercy and justice, male and female, creation and redemption. Later, teachers of Kabbalah—a stream of Jewish mysticism that searched the Hebrew Scriptures for the hidden patterns of God’s presence—used the star to reflect that sacred balance. For them, it wasn’t a charm for control, but a diagram of relationship: the world below echoing the world above, both held in divine unity.

In the centuries that followed, the star continued to travel. During the Renaissance and the rise of esoteric study in Europe, Christian alchemists and philosophers borrowed it as a bridge between science and spirit. Secret societies and mystical orders, from the Rosicrucians to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, adopted it as a way of visualizing the harmony between the material and the divine. Each tradition layered its own meaning upon it—some noble, some misguided—but the geometry of faith remained. The two triangles still spoke of heaven and earth meeting, of divine and human co-laboring in the act of creation.

For the Jewish people, the star’s meaning deepened through the centuries. It appeared on synagogues and manuscripts, a sign of belonging and blessing. Yet in the twentieth century, this same symbol was twisted into something unspeakable. The Nazis forced Jews to wear the yellow Star of David as a mark of shame and isolation. What had long represented covenant was turned into a curse.

Yet even when the Nazis turned that same shape into a badge of shame, its meaning refused to die. When it later appeared on the flag of Israel, it stood as testimony: a people refusing to let hatred erase them. But that return was not without cost. The land was already home to others—Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian, and Jewish families who had lived there for generations. In the struggle for safety came displacement, division, war, and death. The star that once marked covenant now also bears the ache of exile and loss. It reminds us that divine promises are never meant to justify human harm, and that God’s heart holds the tears of all who suffer.

Still, the star’s meaning remains contested. In some corners of Christianity, it has been co-opted again—not out of hatred, but out of hubris. Some use it to press political or prophetic agendas, wielding it as a tool to hasten apocalypse or justify allegiance to empire. But the star is not a weapon. It is a witness. Its very shape tells us that creation’s balance is not ours to manipulate; it is God’s to maintain. When faith reaches for control, it tips the scales toward chaos.

The true subversion of the Star of David is not found in its mystique or in its misuse—it’s found in what it remembers. This is the symbol of a people who have wrestled with God and survived, who have clung to promise through centuries of exile and return. It tells the story of a covenant that outlasts kings and crusades. For Christians, it stands as a humbling reminder that we are grafted into a story not our own. The Star of David belongs first to those who bore the burden of God’s faithfulness long before we spoke the name of Christ.

To look upon this star with reverence is to remember that divine strength is found in struggle, not supremacy. Fire and water, heaven and earth—each moves toward the other until creation is made whole again. The same God who called Jacob to wrestle calls the Church to relent—to stop grasping at power and start bearing witness to grace.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
God’s covenant isn’t a competition—it’s an invitation to wrestle, to remember, and to be made whole.

PRAYER
Faithful God, who binds heaven and earth together in mercy, thank You for the symbol that still shines through centuries of struggle. Teach us to honor its meaning, to respect its people, and to seek balance in our own hearts. May every sign of faith we bear point not to conquest but to covenant. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series, Special Devotion

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Special Devotion: Collars, Robes, and Stoles

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Read Matthew 23:1–12

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” (Colossians 3:12 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 “The Collar, the Robe, and the Stole” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Special Edition: Collars, Robes, and Stoles. The collar, the robe, and the stole. In some churches, these garments can feel like litmus tests. Robe up, collar up, stole up—or even dress up—because that’s how it’s always been done. For many, they hold deep reverence, reminders of a time when sanctuaries were full and traditions were shared across generations. There’s nothing wrong with that nostalgia; it’s part of our story. But reverence can quietly turn to rigidity. When clothing becomes a credential for faithfulness, we risk mistaking habit for holiness.

The clerical collar began as a symbol of service—a visible sign that the one who wore it was yoked to Christ and bound to serve. It was never meant as a badge of rank. Over time, though, collars began to carry other meanings: authority, professionalism, even fear. For some, the collar has come to represent not safety but suspicion. The sins of the church have stained the fabric; the collar that once marked servanthood has too often been used to hide control. Yet its truest meaning remains: a quiet reminder that ministry is not ownership but obedience, not privilege but burden.

The robe began as a simple covering—worn by scholars and clergy alike to erase distinction. It was meant to conceal individuality, to say, “Before God, we are all the same.” Over time, robes became ornate, hierarchical, sometimes theatrical. They came to separate rather than unite. Still, the robe can remind us that when we stand before God, titles and talents fade. The robe isn’t meant to elevate the wearer but to lower the ego. It’s not costume—it’s supposed to be camouflage.

The stole traces back to the towel a servant would drape over their arm. Early Christians linked it to Jesus’ act of washing his disciples’ feet. It symbolized the weight of ministry—the responsibility to serve, to stoop, to bear one another’s burdens. In time, it also came to represent the yoke of Christ, reminding the one who wears it that ministry is never self-driven but shared with the Savior who said, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Over the centuries, the stole has become ornate and color-coded, a mark of office or season. But the truest stole is still the towel of service, the fabric of humility. If we wear it rightly, it should remind us that authority in Christ is always exercised from our knees—and that all Christians, not just clergy, are called to carry the same towel and yoke of humble service.

We remember the days when these symbols were everywhere—collars in the community, robes in every chancel, stoles changing colors with the calendar. But those years were not as innocent as we remember. Behind the beauty of tradition, harm sometimes hid in plain sight. Titles and vestments that once promised safety were sometimes used to silence, to cover, to control. That’s a hard truth to name, but it must be named if the Church is to heal and be a healing presence in the world.

These garments can still mean something sacred, but only if they’re worn with repentance and transparency. And as Ecclesiastes 3 says, there is a time and season for everything. If anything might stand as a stumbling block between God and another person, it should not be done just for tradition’s sake.

For some these are signs of the sacred—for others, signs of sin and evil committed in the name of God. That is why I choose to robe during Communion Sundays, high holy days, and special occasions—and remain more “me” and approachable the rest of the time. There is no one right way, but that has become my practice.

The question isn’t whether we wear them. The question is whether we live what they mean. The collar, the robe, and the stole can still witness to humility and grace—but only when they point beyond the wearer to Christ. When they become ends in themselves, they’re idols. When they become tools for service, they’re sacraments. Maybe the most subversive act of all is to remember that the truest vestment isn’t on our shoulders—it’s in our spirit. Compassion. Kindness. Humility. Gentleness. Patience. These are the garments the world still needs to see.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
[Enter Thought of the Day]

PRAYER
Christ our Servant, strip us of vanity and clothe us in truth. Whether we robe or not, let our lives reflect your humility. Make every symbol we wear a sign of grace, not power. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 8: The Lamb

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Read John 1:29-42

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered—to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” (Revelation 5:12 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 by DALL-E and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Lamb” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 8: The Lamb. Today, “sheep” is an insult. We’re told not to be sheep but to be lions, wolves, or at least sheepdogs. I have military in my family and friends who are vets, including one who fought in the Battle of Fallujah. If you remember that battle, you know it was a hellstorm. As such, in military culture, citizens are often seen as the sheep—naïve, soft, and in need of protection from predators. The sheepdogs are the ones with the grit to face the wolves.

But Scripture flips that whole logic. God doesn’t identify with the wolf, or the sheepdog, or even the lion. God identifies with the lamb. And not just any lamb, but the lamb who was slain.

In the ancient world, lambs were synonymous with weakness, vulnerability, and sacrifice. They were common temple offerings, easy prey, and symbols of innocence. At Passover, lambs were slaughtered so Israel could remember God’s deliverance from Egypt. To call someone a lamb was not a compliment. Yet when John the Baptist sees Jesus, he doesn’t hail him as a lion, a king, or a warrior. He cries out, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

And the shock doesn’t stop there. In Revelation, when the scroll of history cannot be opened, the elder tells John to look for the Lion of Judah. But when John turns, he does not see a lion. He sees a lamb, standing as if slain. The universe is ruled not by claws and teeth, but by wounds. Power is redefined in the blood of the Lamb.

The same brilliance runs through the Gospel of John. The author shifts the timeline of Holy Week so that Jesus is crucified not after Passover, but on the very day the lambs are being slaughtered in the temple. To the historian, that looks like a contradiction with the other gospels. But to the theologian, it is perfect symmetry. The author wants us to see that Christ’s sacrifice is not accidental or delayed. He is the Passover Lamb, slain as the lambs are slain, once for all. Not historically tidy—ah, but theologically, brilliant.

That’s why the lamb is such a scandalous symbol. In Rome, strength meant domination. The empire exalted the eagle, the lion, the wolf. Christians exalted the lamb. To Roman ears, it sounded ridiculous. Paul even said so: “The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction. But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Who worships a lamb—much less one crucified as a traitor? But that was the point: what the world despised, God exalted. What the empire crushed, God enthroned. To my politically motivated friends, heed this message: God and empire don’t mix.

We’ve tamed the lamb into Easter pageants and Sunday School décor. We imagine fluffy sheep, safe pastures, and gentle bedtime prayers. But in Scripture, the lamb is not cute. The lamb is slaughtered. In Revelation, John sees a lamb “looking as if it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6). It still bears the marks of violence—throat slit, blood spilled—yet it is standing. This lamb has seven horns and seven eyes, imagery meant to startle: ultimate power and ultimate vision embodied in what looks powerless and mutilated. The lamb is grotesque, unsettling, hard to look at—and that is the point. God’s power comes clothed in weakness, God’s victory comes through wounds, and the world’s violence is absorbed, not returned.

And that still cuts against the grain today. We live in a culture that worships strength. Leaders win votes by promising to be lions. Nations stockpile weapons to prove they’re not sheep. Even the church sometimes admires the “sheepdog” more than the lamb. Yet Christ calls us not to despise sheep but to be one and to follow the Lamb. To trust that true power is not in the one who can kill, but in the one who is willing to be killed and still rise.

The question for us is whether we dare to embody the way of the lamb. Do we choose mercy over vengeance? Do we entrust ourselves to vulnerability rather than domination? Do we follow the slaughtered lamb who reigns from the throne—or the wolves and lions who claw for it?

The lamb is not weakness. The lamb is God’s power redefined.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The world crowns lions. Heaven crowns the lamb.

PRAYER
Lamb of God, you took away the sin of the world not by clawing for power but by laying your life down in love. Teach us to follow your way. Give us courage to choose mercy over violence, to trust vulnerability over control, and to live as people marked by your sacrifice. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 7: Rainbow

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Read Genesis 9:12–17

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“The one sitting on the throne was as brilliant as gemstones—like jasper and carnelian. And the glow of an emerald circled his throne like a rainbow.” (Revelation 4:3 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 “The Rainbow” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 7: Rainbow. Today the rainbow is everywhere. It arches across nursery walls and hangs on mobiles over cribs. It shows up in weather apps, corporate logos, and church banners. It’s been sentimentalized into children’s décor, commodified by brands that paint for June and rinse in July, and used to symbolize people on a spectrum of human sexuality.

We’ve also absorbed the rainbow into pop culture. Think of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album cover, where a prism bends light into a spectral arc. For a generation, that image stood for mystery, rebellion, even transcendence. In its own way, it echoes what Scripture declared from the start: the rainbow is never just decoration. It unsettles, refracts, and reveals a deeper reality.

In Hebrew, the word is qeshet—a war bow. After the flood, God doesn’t just paint the sky; God hangs up the bow, pointing it away from earth. The sign of the covenant is not humanity’s promise to do better but God’s self-limitation: “Never again.” No more cosmic destruction. And notice the scope—this covenant comes long before Israel, long before covenant law or temple sacrifice. It embraces every living creature, “all flesh,” and even the earth itself. The rainbow is God’s ceasefire with creation.

That makes it profoundly subversive. In a world that keeps reaching for bigger weapons—legal, cultural, economic, literal—God’s first move after judgment is disarmament. The One who could destroy chooses instead to protect. Judgment gives way to mercy, and mercy is extended indiscriminately. It is not parceled out to the deserving. It is spread across the sky for all to see.

Of course, we’ve tried to tame the sign. Some Christians insist the rainbow belongs to us, not to others. Yet Genesis will not allow us to play that game. The covenant is not a trademark. It is with all flesh. Others slap the rainbow on products without the cost of solidarity. Scripture won’t bless that either. The rainbow is not seasonal branding. It is covenant faithfulness.

And here’s the irony: some Christians burn rainbow flags in protest, claiming the rainbow has been hijacked. But in the Bible, the rainbow was already scandalously inclusive. God bound Godself to all creation—creatures, people (all races, creeds, sexes, genders, etc.), and even the earth itself. If God could promise mercy to every living thing, how dare we burn the rainbow in the spirit of exclusion?

The subversive edge of the rainbow remains sharp. If God hung up the bow, then we cannot aim ours at neighbors—especially those already in the line of fire. If God covenanted with all flesh, then we cannot make exceptions for the vulnerable, the marginalized, the inconvenient. If the rainbow encircles the throne in Revelation, then heaven itself is crowned with mercy, not wrath.

The rainbow still asks: under whose sign do you stand? Do we live under the arc of God’s mercy, or under the shadow of our own bows? Do we take up the rainbow as covenant, or reduce it to decoration? When storms rise and clouds gather, the rainbow is God’s reminder: I will not destroy you. I will protect you. I am bound to you. And if we follow Christ, our lives should say the same to our neighbors.

The rainbow is not cute. It is covenant. It is God’s weapon laid down for good, a declaration that mercy—not might—has the last word. To live under the rainbow is to disarm, to stand with every living thing, and to mirror the arc of heaven’s throne in the life of the Church.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
God hung up the bow. If we follow Christ, we put ours down too.

PRAYER
God of mercy, you stretched a rainbow across the sky and promised life to every creature. Teach us to trust that promise. Disarm our fear, break our urge to exclude, and make us faithful to your covenant with all creation. Bend our lives toward mercy. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 6: The Seashell

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Read Romans 6:3–4

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.” (Acts 22:16 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 “The Seashell” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 6: The Seashell. Today seashells are everywhere. They decorate bathroom walls and beach houses. They hang from necklaces and sit in souvenir shops as reminders of vacation days and ocean breezes. Harmless, pretty, sentimental. But in the early church, the seashell was no trinket. It became a vessel of death and life — a sign not of leisure, but of dangerous allegiance.

Why? Because baptism itself was subversive. To step into the water was not just to make a personal choice, but to renounce everything Rome held sacred. Baptism meant dying to this world and rising in loyalty to Jesus — the one Rome had executed as a traitor. It was not merely symbolic. Families could disown you. Inheritance could be stripped away. Neighbors would brand you disloyal, suspicious, immoral. To be baptized was to be cut off from your household gods, from your family name and protection, and to join a subterranean movement with a terrible reputation.

To grasp the shock, imagine the reversal today: a Christian family’s child announcing they were now an atheist—or even a Satanist. The backlash wouldn’t just be private disappointment. It would ripple socially, touching reputation, relationships, even employment in some communities. That’s the kind of upheaval baptism triggered in the first century.

That reputation was fueled by rumors: that Christians held secret “love feasts” filled with sexual immorality, that they practiced cannibalism when they spoke of eating Christ’s body and drinking his blood, that they upended the household order by welcoming women and slaves as equals. To go under the water was to step into that reputation. You were no longer respectable. You were part of a sect Rome saw as both treasonous and depraved. Baptism was treason, and the seashell — often used to scoop and pour the water — became bound up in that act of rebellion.

The shell carried other echoes too. In Greco-Roman culture, shells were tied to fertility and birth. Venus was often pictured rising from the sea on a scallop shell. Christians didn’t directly borrow that imagery, but they reframed it. The shell whispered of a different kind of fertility — one that required spiritual death to this world and rebirth into a new humanity brought forth from the waters of baptism.

As time went on, the seashell became a pilgrim’s badge. Those who traveled to holy sites, like Santiago de Compostela, carried a scallop shell as a mark of their journey. It was practical — used to drink from streams — but also deeply symbolic. To wear the shell was to announce: I am not traveling for leisure, but for transformation. My life is a road of discipleship.

Put together, baptism and pilgrimage gave the seashell a dangerous beauty. It was never just decoration. It was a summons. The seashell told the world that you had died to Rome and risen into Christ. That your loyalty no longer lay with emperor, household, or inheritance, but with the crucified and risen Lord. That you were willing to walk the long road of discipleship, even when it meant being despised.

Today, we’ve tamed the shell into a souvenir. Pretty, harmless, something to match the curtains. But the shell still asks its ancient question: what does your baptism mean? Do you remember that in those waters you died — not just to sin, but to empire, to family idols, to all lesser loyalties?

And as the band Demon Hunter reminds us, the world is crowded with lesser gods — idols demanding our loyalty, false saviors promising security, belonging, or power. Baptism drowns them. It puts them to a watery grave. To rise from the water is to declare that none of those idols rule us anymore.

Because Rome still has its names today. Sometimes it waves the flag and baptizes nationalism as faith. Sometimes it hides in markets that tell us our worth is what we consume. Sometimes it creeps into families that demand loyalty to prejudice instead of love. Sometimes it sits in churches that bless power instead of bearing the cross.

To carry the shell is to reject those false lords. It is to live as if your life is a pilgrimage — marked not by comfort, but by costly transformation. To say with your whole being: my baptism was treason to the powers of this world, and my life is now hidden with Christ in God.

The seashell is not a trinket. It is Christ’s rebellious mission in your hand.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The seashell is not a souvenir. It is a summons.

PRAYER
God of new birth and long journeys, remind us of our baptism. Remind us that we have died to old loyalties and risen to follow Christ. Give us courage to walk the pilgrim’s road, to bear reproach, to seek justice, to love mercy, and to trust that you go before us. May every step of our lives echo the vows we made in the water. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 5: Ichthys (Fish)

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Read Matthew 4:18–20

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“For ‘In him we live and move and exist.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” (Acts 17:28 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 “Ichthys (Fish)” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 5: Ichthys (Fish). Today the fish is everywhere. It’s on bumper stickers, etched into business cards, printed on T-shirts. For many, it’s become a logo more than a creed, a kind of Christian branding that invites parody as often as reverence. (Who hasn’t seen the Darwin fish with legs mocking its message?) What was once dangerous has become kitsch. And yet beneath that overfamiliar outline lies a story Rome itself would have found shocking.

In the first century, Christians lived in a world far more complicated than the straw-man Rome we sometimes imagine. Rome wasn’t blindly anti-religion; in fact, the empire welcomed a multitude of gods. Egyptian Isis, Persian Mithras, Greek Dionysus—their cults thrived openly. Jews were even granted exemptions to avoid sacrifices that violated Torah. Rome wasn’t looking to stamp out every foreign faith. What Rome demanded, however, was loyalty. Religion was fine as long as it didn’t undermine social order or civic devotion to the emperor.

That’s where Christians drew suspicion. They refused to burn incense before Caesar’s statue. They insisted on saying “Jesus is Lord”—a direct contradiction of “Caesar is Lord.” Neighbors whispered about their secret agapē feasts, communal meals of fellowship and prayer. But to outsiders, “love feasts” sounded like sexual orgies. Add in the scandal slaves ate alongside free men and women were leading congregations—erasing sacred household and societal hierarchy—and suspicion grew that Christians were destroying morality itself.

Then came the Eucharist. In hushed gatherings, believers repeated Jesus’ words: “This is my body…this is my blood.” Outsiders concluded they were cannibals, devouring human flesh and blood. Some rumors even accused them of killing infants, flouring their bodies, and eating them in grotesque rites. Writers like Minucius Felix preserved these accusations, proof that many Romans truly believed Christians were monsters.

And above all, the heart of their devotion was a man crucified as a traitor. Crucifixion was the most shameful punishment, reserved for rebels, runaway slaves, and insurrectionists. To worship one Rome had executed in this way was baffling at best, treasonous at worst. To gather in his name was to declare allegiance to a condemned enemy of the state.

From Rome’s perspective, Christians weren’t harmless eccentrics. They were politically suspect, socially disruptive, morally perverse, and religiously dangerous. In many ways, they were the “illegals” of their time—their worship unauthorized, their gatherings unsanctioned, their very existence beyond the boundaries of law and order. The Emperor Trajan’s letter to Pliny the Younger made the policy clear: don’t go on a witch hunt, but if someone is accused of being Christian and refuses to prove loyalty to Caesar, punish them. Even Pilate, infamous for cruelty, was removed from duty when he went too far—Rome was pragmatic, concerned with order. And this little sect seemed like chaos incarnate.

So they needed a way to recognize each other. That’s where the fish entered. Before Christ, the fish was a common symbol—tied to fertility in Greco-Roman cults, abundance in Jewish tradition, and ordinary life in markets and meals. No one blinked at a fish scratched on a wall. But Christians flipped it. In Greek, the word for fish—ichthys—became an acronym: Iēsous Christos Theou Yios Sōtēr (“Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior”). A simple doodle in the dirt carried an entire creed. Ordinary to the empire, explosive to believers.

Back then, that fish was rebellion. It meant: I belong to the traitor you crucified. My allegiance is not to Caesar but to Christ. And I am not alone. It was a secret sign of solidarity, a whisper of defiance under empire’s nose. Today, slapped on bumpers, it often says little more than “shop at my store.” But reclaiming the fish means more than nostalgia. It means living its spirit—courage in quiet ways, loyalty that refuses to bend, solidarity that confounds the powers.

The question is not whether we put a fish on our car. The question is whether our lives bear the mark of subversive allegiance. Where are we quietly refusing to burn incense to Caesar today? Where are we carving out little signs of solidarity with Christ—and with all who are crushed by empire’s demands? That’s what the fish still asks of us.

Because the empire is always watching. Sometimes it wears togas and laurel crowns. Sometimes it drapes itself in flags and slogans. Sometimes it cloaks itself in Scripture verses and cross necklaces, waving the Bible in one hand while pushing a partisan agenda in the other. Sometimes it hides behind markets and consumer brands. But in every age it whispers the same command: conform, compromise, give your loyalty here. And in every age, the fish whispers back: Christ alone is Lord.

So maybe the real challenge is not to slap a symbol on the back of our car, but to etch it into the choices we make. To refuse the sacrifices empire demands: silence in the face of injustice, complicity with violence, indifference to the poor. To live in such a way that if someone scratched a fish in the dust at our feet, we’d know exactly what it meant. And we’d answer in kind: I’m with you. You’re not alone.

That is the rebellion of the fish. That is the allegiance that endures.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The fish isn’t cute. It’s code for rebellion.

PRAYER
God of courage, you called the first disciples from their nets with a word of summons and a sign of faith. Give us that same boldness to follow Christ, even when our loyalty looks suspect to the world. Teach us to bear witness not with slogans, but with lives marked by quiet faith, stubborn hope, and radical love. Amen.

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

Devotional, Special Devotion

When Leaders Become Idols

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Read Galatians 1:6-10

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“You must not have any other god but me.” (Exodus 20:3 NLT)

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

Images carry memory. They do more than decorate; they shape what we remember, how we interpret it, and what we pass on. In the wake of someone’s death, images become especially powerful. They can comfort us, stir hope, or even rewrite legacies. Yesterday, Charlie Kirk was laid to rest. His death is a tragedy. No matter where one stood on his views, his life bore sacred worth because every human life does. As Christians, we grieve that worth is no longer among us, and we entrust him, like all of us, to the mercy of God.

But as I watched the days following his death unfold, the images being shared caught my attention. One came from an individual Christian’s page: a meme depicting Charlie standing with Jesus. The caption reads, “Lord, I could have led more to you.” To which Jesus responds, “Son, you have no idea how many you just did.” It is sentimental, heartfelt, and born of grief—a way for friends and followers to express hope and consolation.

And yet, this is terrible theology. At its most basic level, it implies that Charlie’s most successful method of leading people to Jesus was being shot. Few pause to consider what such words actually mean. More troubling still is the assumption beneath the image—that Kirk’s daily mode of operation was genuinely bringing people to Christ. We can grant that he may have sincerely believed that he was. But sincerity alone does not make something true. Nowhere does Jesus, Paul, or any of the apostles call us to partisanship as the divine message of Christ. Quite the opposite. And yet, the public fruit of Charlie’s message so often pointed people not to the kingdom of God, but to a political movement wrapped in loyalty to a President and a party.

That message also leaned heavily on “us versus them” thinking. Instead of Christ’s call to love our neighbor, it sharpened lines between insiders and outsiders, friends and enemies. Misunderstanding was pushed into fear, and fear was turned into fuel. But Scripture tells us plainly, “There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18). When the gospel is twisted into a weapon of division, it ceases to be good news at all.

A second image came from Reformed Sage, a Christian business and influencer brand. Their meme declared, “Charlie Kirk, martyred for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, now wears the crown in glory. His work has just begun.” Unlike the personal meme born of grief, this one was not simply comfort—it was propaganda, framing Charlie as a martyr and rallying followers to double down in the culture wars.

Here lies the danger. Images like these reveal how easily leaders can be mythologized, sanctified, even idolized. When we place leaders at the center, we risk confusing the faith once delivered to the saints with the culture wars of our age. Paul told the Corinthians, “One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’… Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:12–13). Our allegiance is not to personalities, no matter how charismatic or influential. The first commandment is equally clear: “You must not have any other god but me.”

As Christians, we must take care not to canonize public figures whose legacies are complicated. Christianity does not need celebrity martyrs or culture-war champions. It needs Christ. When our symbols glorify leaders more than the Lord, we risk exchanging the cross for an idol. When our grief turns into rallying cries for ideology, we risk forgetting that the only crown that matters is the one Christ bore on Calvary.

So how do we respond? First, with compassion. We mourn Charlie’s death and pray for his family and loved ones. We affirm his life mattered, as all lives do. Second, with discernment. We refuse to let images, however sentimental or stirring, distract us from Christ’s call to love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly. And third, with courage. We must not confuse loud platforms with faithful witness. The measure of the gospel is not the number of followers one amasses, but the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23).

Let us grieve as Christians who hope, but let us also guard the gospel entrusted to us. Christ alone is Lord. No leader—no matter how loved or influential—can bear that title.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The gospel is not advanced by platforms or politics, but by lives that bear the fruit of Christ’s Spirit.

PRAYER
Merciful God, you alone are worthy of our allegiance. Teach us to honor life without idolizing leaders. In our grief, give us compassion; in our confusion, give us discernment; in our witness, give us courage. Keep us centered on Christ alone, who is the way, the truth, and the life. Amen.

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

Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 4: The Dove

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Read Matthew 3:16–17

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“When the dove returned in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak, Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone.” (Genesis 8:11 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 (OpenAI) and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Dove” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 4: The Dove. The dove is perhaps one of the gentlest symbols in the Christian imagination. It brings to mind peace, purity, and soft images of God’s Spirit descending. Yet to reduce the dove to sentimentality is to miss its scandal. When the Spirit came upon Jesus at his baptism, the dove didn’t settle him into comfort. It drove him into the wilderness. That same Spirit would later drive the apostles into the streets, Stephen into martyrdom, and Mary into a life of risk and scandal as the mother of God. The dove is not tame. It disrupts.

Consider Jarena Lee. In the early 1800s, Lee felt the Spirit’s undeniable call to preach. Yet as a Black woman in America, she was told by both culture and church that she had no place in the pulpit. Richard Allen, the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, at first refused her request. But when the Spirit fell on her, she stood in a service and proclaimed the Gospel with such power that even Allen had to recognize it. He later licensed her to preach, making her the first authorized female preacher in the AME. Jarena Lee bore the dove’s fire in her bones. She defied expectations not because she wanted power, but because she could not silence the Spirit.

Allen himself embodied the dove’s disruption. Refusing to let racism define his worship, he led Black believers out of segregated pews and founded the AME Church. In a society that saw Black people as second-class citizens, Allen claimed space for the Spirit to dwell fully and freely. His act was not “nice peace” but subversive peace: the Spirit carving out dignity and justice where empire denied it.

Or think of Joan of Arc. A teenage peasant girl claimed that God’s Spirit had spoken to her. She defied the gender roles of her age, donned armor, and led armies under the conviction that God had chosen her. She was betrayed, condemned by church and state, and burned at the stake. Whatever one makes of her visions, Joan bore witness to the dove’s untamable power: God’s Spirit breaks boundaries and refuses to be caged by the categories of empire.

Centuries later, Martin Luther King Jr. embodied the dove in America. His peace was not passive or sentimental—it was disruptive. He resisted violence by marching, preaching, organizing, and calling out systems of racism. He was beaten, jailed, and eventually assassinated. But King’s peace, Spirit-driven, shook the foundations of American life. It was a dove that disturbed the comfortable and comforted the afflicted.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood against Hitler and the Nazi machine. Guided by conscience and Spirit, he resisted the church’s capitulation to empire and was executed for it. Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, stood with the poor and denounced government brutality. He was gunned down at the altar while celebrating Mass. Both men embodied the same Spirit—the dove that does not promise safety but calls the Church into costly witness.

The dove, then, is not a sentimental bird floating over baptismal waters. It is the Spirit that disrupts our empires and overturns our assumptions. It moves us into wilderness places, into pulpits we were told not to enter, into streets where justice must be proclaimed, into confrontation with powers that oppress. The dove is peace, yes—but peace that resists violence, peace that refuses domination, peace that stands with the condemned, peace that costs everything.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The Spirit is no tame dove. It disrupts, resists, and calls us to costly peace.

PRAYER
Holy Spirit, descend on me anew. Forgive me when I settle for comfort instead of courage, for safety instead of witness. Teach me the peace that resists violence, the love that refuses domination, the faith that stands with the condemned. Drive me into the wilderness if you must—but do not let me escape your call. Amen.

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

A biweekly devotional

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