Love Letters - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

...maybe one of the most frustrating things for me about God, and I mean genuinely something I really get frustrated with God about is that God's existence and presence is always deniable if you want it to be. It is a matter of faith. God shows up in Jesus Christ and you can look at Jesus and go, nah, I don't buy it. You can have a moment of deep and utter spiritual clarity and understand that you belong to God completely, and then the next day you can go, ah, I was just in a good mood, I don't know what that was about. We are completely capable of denying God's presence as it changes our lives because we want everything to be perfect when love shows up, it needs to feel exactly the way I expected it to feel and look exactly the way I want it to look. That's how I'll know when love shows up. Maybe this is why we have such a hard time with Christmas. I'm one of those people who loves Christmas season. I've got my Christmas playlist all queued up and ready to go, and day after Thanksgiving I put it on and I drive myself nuts all until Epiphany. Don't forget, Christmas season goes for 12 days, right? So I just go and go and go and get the tree up and do everything. And yet, each year. I'm like, that was it. Was that it? Did it happen? Was it Christmas? Was I joyful enough? Did I feel it? Did I feel it? Did it happen? I better get teary-eyed during O Come All Ye faithful, or it's not really Christmas. Did I feel the love from the right people? Did I love the right people? Call the right people, text the right people. Was the steak cooked the right way? Was it all perfect?