Rev. Todd R. Lattig | Life-Giving Water

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

A solitary flame burns in a cracked desert at dusk, glowing gold against deep shadows, symbolizing God’s purifying fire that refines without consuming. — 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).

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)

A photorealistic image of a large skull pierced through by a wooden cross, surrounded by other skulls in a dimly lit stone catacomb. A single candle burns nearby, casting warm golden light that contrasts the darkness, symbolizing death overcome by resurrection. — 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).

A biweekly devotional

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Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 12: Fire

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 10: The Skull

A biweekly devotional