Tag Archives: Sacred Signs of Subversion

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

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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)

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.

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, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 13: Black/Darkness

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Read Genesis 1:1-5

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

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Read Exodus 3:1-6

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.

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).

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

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 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, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 1: The Sign of the Cross

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Read Matthew 28:18-20

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16 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 (OpenAI) and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “Sign of the Cross” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 1: Sign of the Cross. From the earliest days of the Church, Christians marked themselves with the cross. Tracing forehead, chest, and shoulders was a prayer in motion—a way to remember baptism, to claim protection in Christ, and to show where their allegiance lay. To sign yourself with the cross in the Roman world was risky; it announced to all that you belonged not to Caesar but to Christ. In times of persecution, when even a whispered prayer could invite danger, the sign of the cross was a visible act of courage. It reminded believers that their lives were not their own—they had been bought with a price.

There is also the sign a pastor or priest makes when blessing others, with three fingers pressed together to proclaim the Trinity and two bent down to confess Christ’s dual nature. That gesture is catechesis in motion—doctrine written into the very hand, tracing the cross outward as blessing. The Church used symbols like this not just for decoration but for teaching; the faithful learned the deepest truths of Christianity by what they could see and touch, even if they could not read. Both forms, whether made by the believer or bestowed by a minister, carried deep meaning: allegiance to Christ, confession of faith, and blessing in his name.

And yet, many of us—especially in Protestant traditions—abandoned these signs. We dismissed them as “too Catholic,” “superstitious,” or “empty ritual.” But that was ignorance. In casting them aside, we lost not only symbols that connect us to our baptismal identity, but also a gesture that taught the mystery of our faith in body and hand. What was once a radical embodied witness was reduced to a ritual caricature—or forgotten altogether. The loss has left our faith poorer, more disembodied, and less connected to the practices that once grounded everyday discipleship. Christianity became increasingly intellectualized, treated as a set of beliefs to agree with rather than a way of life to embody.

This is why the connection to Matthew 28 is so important. When Jesus sent his disciples out with the Great Commission, he commanded them to baptize “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The sign of the cross is, in many ways, a miniature act of that Great Commission. To trace the cross over yourself or others is to confess the Trinity, to remember your baptism, to place yourself under Christ’s authority, and to carry his promise—“I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” It is the Commission embodied in a single gesture.

That is why I have reclaimed the practice in my own life and ministry. I make the sign of the cross in worship, I trace it in blessing, and I use it in quiet moments of prayer. Each time, I am reminded that I am marked as Christ’s own, confessing both the mystery of the Trinity and the dual nature of Christ. Embodied practices matter because they root faith in daily life; they keep us from reducing Christianity to abstract ideas or empty slogans. When I trace the cross over someone during a blessing, I am not performing a quaint ritual. I am declaring that they, too, are beloved of God, sealed with Christ’s promise, and carried in the Spirit’s care.

In a world that constantly tries to claim us—through nationalism, consumerism, or ego—the sign of the cross is a small, defiant act of faith. It is a refusal to bow to lesser gods. It is a prayer that says my body, my spirit, and my future are not for sale. And it is a blessing that pushes back against fear, reminding us that Christ has already claimed the final word. What looks like a simple gesture becomes, in truth, a radical proclamation: Jesus Christ is Lord.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The sign of the cross—whether traced on yourself or offered in blessing—is a subversive act that reclaims your identity as Christ’s own.

PRAYER
Lord Jesus, you claimed me in baptism and sealed me with your Spirit. Help me to reclaim the sacred signs of faith, not as empty ritual but as radical witness. May my body, words, and life bear the mark of your cross, today and always. Amen.

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