There’s something almost tender about the way we learn to write.
Many of us can remember those early days tracing letters, following dotted lines, trying to stay on the pattern. It wasn’t about creativity yet. First came formation. As the sermon puts it, “We didn’t just look at the letters. We traced them until they shaped how we write.”
That simple image opens up something deeper in 1 Peter 2:18-25. Peter says that Christ left us “an example.” That word in the original, ὑπογραμμός (hypogrammos), carries the idea of a pattern to trace, something to follow closely, response by response.
Because the truth is, we are all tracing something.
We like to think our reactions are just “who we are,” but the sermon gently challenges that. Our responses are shaped over time by culture, by habits, by what we practice without even realizing it. “The question is not if we follow a pattern, but which pattern will we follow?”
That question matters most when life gets hard. For instance, when we’re criticized or misunderstood or deeply disappointed. Those are the moments when the pattern we’ve actually been tracing shows up most clearly.
Peter points us to Christ, not as a distant example to admire, but as a pattern to follow. “When he was insulted, he didn’t return the insult… Instead, he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.” That’s not weakness, but a different kind of strength shaped by trust.
We must remember that this is not a call to accept harm or remain in abusive situations. Faithfulness does not mean enabling harm. It does mean learning to respond in ways that reflect Christ, even under pressure.
Like a child learning to write, we won’t get it perfect right away. The lines may be shaky. The strokes uneven. But over time, what we trace begins to shape us.
That’s the invitation. Not perfection, but intention. Not reaction, but formation.
If we keep tracing the world’s patterns, we will look like the world. But if we trace Christ’s pattern, however slowly, imperfectly, and faithfully, something different begins to take shape in us.
If you’d like to explore that invitation more deeply, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to listen to the full sermon.
We’d love to see you in person at Lincoln Park-Lynnwood United Methodist Church, 3120 Pershing Street, Knoxville, TN. Come as you are. We’re not in the judging business. We’re in the welcoming business.
