1. The gift is God’s and not ours, and the fact that any of us have any role to play at all in the Body of Christ is an amazing grace.
  2. The most counter-cultural action any Christian church could take right now would be to foster healthy and constructive conversations among its members and neighbors across their variety of opinions and perspectives.
  3. Paul is thinking of the cross and empty tomb, but the liturgical calendar places us at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, not the end: Jesus standing waist deep in the Jordan River.