Good morning girls and boys! I’m so glad you’re here with us this morning. I hope you’re having a fun summer. I am. We just finished our first session of Bible Wizard Camp, where we look at the Harry Potter Books and think about what they have to do with love and God and faith.
If you know the books and the movie, you might remember a really strange mirror in them. It’s called the mirror of Erised—Erised is desire spelled backwards– and when you look in it, you don’t just see yourself. You see your greatest desire. When Harry looks in it, he sees his parents because he didn’t grow up with them and really wants them. Ron sees that he’s head boy and a quidditch champion.
At camp we made a mirror, but it’s not a mirror of Erised- a mirror of Desire. No we made a mirror of Evolsdog. Do you know what Evolsdog is spelled backwards? God’s love. When we look in the mirror we see the one that God loves. No matter what bad things I’ve done or good things I haven’t done, I know that I can look in the mirror and see someone that God loves so much, just as I am. The Bible says nothing can separate us from God’s love.
In the scripture today that Pastor Clista reads, you’re going to hear about Jesus’s disciple Peter. They’ve taken Jesus away, arrested him, and when a girl says, hey, aren’t you one of his friends, does Peter admit it? No, he says he isn’t. Then he does it again and again. I wonder how you think he would feel about himself, if he looked in the mirror.
Probably not too good.
But that’s the amazing thing about God’s love. It is so big that even as Peter was not standing up for Jesus, God was still loving him. I want to be a person who does the right thing, and I try, but it’s good to remember that even when I fail, when I look in the mirror I see who God loves.
Let’s pray. Dear God, thank you for loving us no matter what. We love you too, God. Amen.
