Watch this week’s service on YouTube by clicking:
Join us for Sunday morning worship at CUC is at 10:00 AM
with the He/SheBrews Café following in the Van Roon Community Hall
- It was with heavy hearts that we learned of the death of our friend George Wiebe this past Wednesday. George and his wife Donna have been active in the life of Charleswood for over fifty years. Please remember Donna and her family in your prayers this week.
- For news and events, please have a look at Life & Work on our website: Life and Work
Dear Friends
Welcome to worship for Sunday, May 10, 2026.
As the prayer in our baptism service reminds us, water has long been held as a sign of grace.
It is the gift with which creation begins. Primordial. Primeval. Pre-existent. Genesis 1 verse 2 tells us that the earth was covered with water before God begins to sing creation into being in verse 3. Eden is described as having no less than four rivers flowing through it. When creation required a new beginning in the days of Noah, water was the agent of both sin and redemption.
The parting of the waters in the Red Sea provided the passageway of Israel from Egypt to Sinai, from slavery to freedom, from desperation to promise. Later it was a lack of water that caused a crisis of faith. When water flowed from a rock in the wilderness that faith was restored. The prophets asked that justice should roll down like waters and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream.
In many ways the story of Jesus begins in the water. Before his ministry even begins he visits John in the Jordan and receives a baptism of repentance. Beneath the surface first he emerges a beloved child of God. In his time, he would call fishermen to leave their boats, walk on water, and calm storms over the sea. Water as a sign of grace.
It is no less so for you and me. When we walk along a lakeshore and let the gentle waves wash over our feet. When we dip a paddle into a calm bay and propel a canoe forward. When we sit on a dock and our toes stir the water into ever expanding ripples. Raindrops refresh. Tears heal. Water as a sign of grace.
Water is in every way a sign of life, essential for our very survival, 60% of our own bodies. When the recent Artemis space mission reactivated conversation about life away from earth, it always comes back to water. Mars may once have had water but what good is that now. The moon may have water molecules deep beneath the surface but to what end can that support life. Our earth by comparison teems with water. Where there is water there is life and where there is not, well, there isn’t.
We are also well aware of the peril of water and of its destructive force. Water has the power to take life as well as give it. We can drown if not prepared to manage water’s nature. Floods wreak havoc on human habitation. Drought destroys. Polluted water is denied its life giving, life changing agency. Perhaps that is symbolic of faith as well. Faith, like water, must be treated respectfully, cautiously, and at times in moderation. In all things water is a sign of grace if, and only if, it is a sign of life.
So, we gather at the font. To be reminded that life itself is a gift of grace and nothing can symbolize that better than the element that was there in the beginning.
Grace and peace,
Michael
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