Showing Off Battle Wounds

There’s something about showing off scars that always makes for a good story. In 1989, the legendary motorcycle stuntman Evel Knievel was caught in a lawsuit over his own scars. During a court case against a hotel where Knieval claims he was beaten up, he took on the testimony of a police officer who stated he had not seen any scars on the former motorcycle daredevil during the night of the incident. That officer’s testimony - against a man who became as famous for his spectacular crashes as his successful jumps - annoyed Knievel so much that he asked permission to show the jurors his surgical scars in court, saying, “I’d like to take my shirt off right now…Those scars can be seen from here to that door!”
Sharing scars evokes the memory of how a person got them. They legitimize experience. Perhaps your grandfather shows you his battle wound from World War Two, where the point of a Japanese bayonet was pointed at his neck but never went deeper. Maybe a young boy at recess lifted his jean leg to proudly show his friends the scraped-up knee from when he learned how to ride a bike.
One reason why we love to show scars is that it reminds us of the past. Another reason is that it reminds us of the future: a future we hope will be more meaningful and perhaps stronger with those scars.
Take, for example, Kintsugi. The Japanese practice of mending broken pottery has become a popular metaphor for the beauty found amid pain or brokenness. Instead of discarding the seemingly useless pieces of busted works of art, gold is mixed with epoxy to not only mend the pottery piece but also bring attention to the breaks. Rather than simply being made to feel whole again, Kintsugi art reminds people there is beauty in the scars, golden scars, if you will. For this reason, the Japanese give Kintsugi its name: “gold healing.”
There are still, however, some Kintsugi artists that go even further. It is not enough to simply mend a broken object with gold. Instead, artists will intentionally leave holes or chips in pottery pieces rather than fill them with gold. Some preserve the authenticity of each break by allowing damage to stay visible after repair. Why?
When something treasured is broken and then reclaimed, an artist taps into the innermost desires of human experience. When a person who has experienced injury or trauma survives to tell others about it, the very process of overcoming difficulty often brings mending to the soul.
The reclamation of the broken gives new meaning to both beauty and healing.
So it is with Jesus.
John 20:24-29 describes another scar-sharing scene.
Thomas tells the other disciples, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”
And Thomas gets his wish. Eight days later, the resurrected Jesus appears to Thomas, saying, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve but believe.” There’s been much debate trying to answer why Jesus still has scars. After all, a resurrected body is supposed to be perfect. The glimpse Jesus gave his disciples at the Transfiguration seems to imply this.
Some say Jesus retained his scars as a way to prove that it was really him standing there and not a ghost.
Some say it was to remind his disciples that he really was crucified.
But what if those scars are left on purpose to emphasize the beauty of Jesus through his work to save the lost and raise the dead? This is what makes those scars the most beautiful part of Jesus’ physical body: Jesus’ scars are beautiful because they proclaim the truth that sinners belong to him now.
Even in the glorification of his resurrection, Jesus’ body continues to tell the story of salvation. As the Word made flesh who dwells among his disciples again, Jesus is for his disciples and for us now a walking Gospel. Even though they have healed, the battle scars of Jesus remain. They are now remnants of holes where you and I can still be found today.
“By his wounds, you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
What a story to tell.

This article was written by Aaron Boerst. Aaron serves as the pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Wales, Wisconsin. He received his Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in 2013, and has served in various ministry settings since. When not hiking or kayaking with his wife Megan, Aaron strives to be an avid outdoorsman finding inspiration in deer, turkey, bear, and pheasant hunting, as well as fishing the Great Lakes

Peace through A God Who Dies for His Enemies

The relationship with God through Christ and renewal in his image in Christ cannot be taken away or compromised through suffering.
How can Paul speak of peace and suffering together? Isn’t suffering the absence of peace? Isn’t that why suffering is the great evil – especially in our day – and avoiding suffering is the great goal of life? And to a degree unparalleled in human history, we can avoid suffering, or if we can’t entirely escape it, we can numb ourselves to it. But perhaps our war on suffering has only increased it, as war tends to do with suffering. We have no framework for processing it when it arrives. We’re anxious at the prospect of it, and imagining suffering is often worse than suffering itself. We cut ourselves off from what might cause suffering, which is often the very stuff of life that gives the most meaning, and so we end up alone, numb, or fake.
We tend to think of peace in the negative. Peace means no conflict. But God’s peace is much more than that, and it’s not really that at all in this world. The Hebrews did not only say “peace” to each other but “shalom.” The peace St. Paul talks about is wholeness, a renewal of our intended relationship with God as creatures created in his image. This relationship with God through Christ and renewal in his image in Christ cannot be taken away or compromised through suffering. Rather, through suffering, we’re conformed to the image of the Suffering Servant, who is the very image of God, who made us whole by emptying himself, who identified with our suffering by experiencing it.
We not only have peace, but “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This peace brings us somewhere new: into God’s grace, granted access through faith. We stand in this grace like sumo wrestlers in Christ, our feet set in concrete. We stand because we have been rooted. We stand with legs buoyed by pierced feet.
Imagine two scenarios. First, a little child runs out in the road. A car is driving straight at the child. Would you risk your life to save the child? Second, instead of a child, it’s someone who hurt you deeply in the past, perhaps hurt you more than anyone else, someone who has never seemed to change in the least, either. Would you risk your life to save him or her? The scenarios are different in our minds, aren’t they? Our willingness to risk our lives for one or the other is guided by the value we place on them and by how well they meet our standards.
Christ died for sinners. Christ died for us. We’ve sinned against him in countless ways directly, and we’ve sinned against our neighbors, which is also sinning against Christ. Yet Christ not only risked his life to save us, he gave his life. There’s a reason that so much of the art, music, and cinema that resonates with us draws on this theme, whether they recognize they are doing it or not.
From an early age, human beings learn the value of strength. We learn that the strong win and the weak lose. Thus, the strong boy bullies the weak one. The strong nation conquers the weak one. The strong team trounces the weak team. Even in our familial relationships, we use our strength to our advantage, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Yet Christ did not use his strength that way. Christ was strong for the weak and became weak to make them strong.
Through this, you have reconciliation with God, and that changes everything. That brings peace, real peace, even in suffering. That brings endurance, character, and hope because that brings Christ. Did you come here as a sinner today? Excellent. Christ is for you, then, and that in every way. You are justified. You are saved. You are reconciled. We come ungodly, but we leave in God’s peace, again and again, through thick and thin, with Christ.
Written by Wade Johnston. Wade Johnston has degrees from Martin Luther College, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Central Michigan University, and Erasmus University Rotterdam. He serves as Assistant Professor of Theology at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and served for ten years in parish ministry in Saginaw, Michigan. He one of the hosts of the 1517 Podcast, "Let the Bird Fly," and has authored several books including, "A Path Strewn with Sinners" and "An Uncompromising Gospel."

Christ, Our Substitute in Temptation

Your champion steps forward.
At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:12-15)
The battle is about to begin. One army faces the other. There is sure to be death on both sides. Then, one step forward. Single combat, winner takes all. A champion from one side will face a champion from the other. Everything rides on the outcome.
But look at the champion from the one side. He’s huge. He towers over the other soldiers. He’s cocky and confident. His weapons are ugly, intimidating, and deadly. He taunts his opponents; no one wants to face him. It’s like when Goliath called out to the men of Israel. No one dared to move; no one until the unlikely champion from the other side stepped forward. He had only a staff, a stone, a sling, and he was only a boy. But he was a boy who went forth “in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel.”
We are in Lent, a season of struggle, a season where we focus on the battle against sin and our spiritual enemies. The champion who stands against us is far greater than Goliath. It’s Satan, the Old Evil Foe, who means deadly woe. The prize in this fight is the soul of each and every one of us. He seeks our death and eternal destruction in hell. “Deep guile and great might are his dread arms in fight; on earth is not his equal.” He has legions of demons at his disposal, and his strength is greater than any we could muster. His cunning has been honed with thousands of years of practice to exploit every weakness of our fallen human nature so that we fall deeper into his net of sin.
Who will step forward to fight him, to fight for others? We must confess we’re helpless in this fight, as Luther says in the hymn, “With might of ours can naught be done; Soon were our loss effected.” How can we stand against Satan in combat and expect to be victorious? But also, how can we hope to stand spotless before God when we are covered in the grime and gore of this battle versus sin? Then again, how can we still be standing on that day with Satan intent on devouring us?
But you don’t stand alone. Just as David didn’t stand alone against Goliath, so you have someone who fights by your side or even fights in your place. Your champion steps forward. “But for us fights the valiant one Whom God himself elected. You ask, ‘Who is this?’ Jesus Christ, it is, The almighty Lord.”
Jesus is fighting for you against Satan in the wilderness at his temptation. He takes him on alone. He confronts every challenge. He never falls for Satan’s false promises. Above all, he never steps aside from the mission he came to complete. He kept battling Satan to the cross and even through death, and he completed the fight in victory. As it goes for your champion, so it goes for you.
During Lent, follow Jesus on his journey to the cross. Every step of the way, Jesus is fighting for you. He calls you to follow. He calls you to battle against sin and temptation. He calls you to believe the good news that your victory is certain because the victory of Jesus, your champion, is your victory, a victory that “Holds the field forever”
Written by Jason Oakland. Jason Oakland is an assistant professor of theology at Wisconsin Lutheran College after serving 17 years in the parish. He is a graduate of Martin Luther College, has an MDiv and STM from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, and is currently a PhD student at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. He is married to Kari, and they have been blessed with a daughter, Elizabeth.

Family Lenten Devotion

Keep a Song in Your Heart

Regularly reading and hearing God’s Word helps us to keep a song in our hearts.

The popular bandleader Lawrence Welk used to end his television show each week with a reminder to “keep a song in your heart.”

Regularly reading and hearing God’s Word helps us to keep a song in our hearts. But it seems harder and harder to do in our culture and world today, with all the chaos, clamor, and distractions ringing in our ears. The Psalms, and especially Psalm 137, can be of great help to us.

The context of Psalm 137 is the Babylonian Exile. After many years of idolatry and rebellion, God sent the prophets to call Israel back to the Word and ways of the Lord. But Israel still strayed and disobeyed, and so Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, Zion was left in ruin and rubble, and the people were taken into exile to Babylon.

“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept as we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars we hung our harps. Then our captors asked us for songs,}
our tormentors demanded from us songs of joy. ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
But how can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?” (Ps. 137:1-4).

They were far from home, living in a foreign country, strangers in a strange land. Everything had changed. The future was dim for them. They had all but given up hope. The last thing on their mind was singing a song of joy.

There they were in Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers, longing for home, remembering Zion, hanging their harps on the poplar trees without a song in their heart.

Or so it would seem. For though Psalm 137 is indeed about not having a song to sing, it still remains a song nonetheless. It is a song without a song - a vivid reminder of how important it is to ‘keep a song in your heart’. The psalm goes on:

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy” (Ps. 137:5-6).

The promise and presence of the Lord God himself is what brought joy to his people at the temple in Jerusalem. And now, though all of that seems so far away, the psalmist still remembers and will not forget the Lord, even amid pain and suffering and loss.

When Jesus came to his temple in Jerusalem, he was rejected by his own. On the cross, he was forsaken, abandoned, and alone. He was as far away from home as you can get. He was exiled from his Father for a time so we would never have to be. In Christ, we are promised never to be apart from our Father. Even amid our sin and separation, even in the midst of our failure and our fear, even when we don’t have a song to sing, Jesus comes to put a song in our hearts. Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia.

God may, at times, seem distant and remote and far off. But we know that joy comes in the morning while weeping may endure for a night. We can have the comfort and assurance in knowing that he is still here, in his Word, in the Sacraments, and with his people, the church. The God of the Bible still keeps his promises. He is the One who gives us a song to sing.

So keep a song in your heart!

Written by Pete Lange. Pete Lange serves as pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Eldon, MO. He graduated from Christ College Irvine in 1991, was a DCE in Kansas for 10 years, and then attended Concordia Seminary in St. Louis where he graduated in 2006. He loves Jesus and his family and likes reading, hiking, and golf.

Johann Spangenberg on Dying Well

A “good death” and “good life” are not accomplished through personal striving but are grasped by faith in the promises of God.

One of the most important Lutheran theologians of the early Reformation was Johann Spangenberg.

He was born on March 29, 1484 in the village of Hardegsen in Lower Saxony. Early on, he left to attend school in the nearby towns of Einbeck and Göttingen. He eventually entered the University of Erfurt, where Martin Luther was teaching at the time. Here Spangenberg was pulled into the movement of biblical humanism: the renewed push to study the Scriptures in their original languages. For some time, Spangenberg served as a school rector and preacher at the court of the counts of Stolberg.

Then something extraordinary happened. Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses gained a wide audience, and the faculty at the University of Wittenberg began promoting evangelical theology. Spangenberg was an enthusiastic adopter of these new teachings, and in 1524, the people of Nordhausen called him to be their pastor. There Spangenberg was able to institute evangelical reforms, including significant improvements to the education system.

In 1546, the year of Luther’s death, Spangenberg became the superintendent of all churches in the county of Mansfeld. He saw that area through the troubled years of the Schmalkaldic War before meeting his own death on June 13, 1550.

Spangenberg lived at a time when death was a far more public matter. Disease, famine, and war regularly claimed the lives of young and old alike. The infirm typically lived and died in their family home, so there was no hiding the suffering of those about to depart. Not only did people seek eternal comfort for themselves, but they also needed to know how to help others through this most difficult passage.

The art of dying well was therefore a popular topic in sixteenth century devotional literature. Spangenberg himself wrote fifteen funeral sermons for pastors to use. He also wrote a Booklet of Comfort for the Sick, the focus of this article.

A New Way of Dying

Prior to the Reformation, a dying Christian in Western Europe would seek assurance of salvation by confessing any outstanding sins and pursuing personal righteousness. To aid one in these endeavors, grace was given in the sacraments. Unavoidably, the question of whether one would be accepted into heaven came down to some version of, “What kind of person am I? What have I done with my life?”

The sacrifice of Christ was certainly believed to be essential for personal salvation, but so was a purified soul. Dying with unconfessed mortal sins would ensure a future in hell, while venial sins could be gradually obliterated in purgatory. Only the purest of the pure would gain immediate access to eternal bliss.

Spangenberg’s task was to take the theology of the Reformation and apply it to the crucial final moments of a person’s life. But if you read his Booklet for Comfort of the Sick, you will find certain passages that sound little different from what came before them, such as when he writes, “The person who has always lived a good life cannot experience an evil death. A bad death does not follow a good life.” [1]

However, if one continues reading, the connection with the gospel becomes clear, for Spangenberg’s definition of a “good life” is shaped by the gospel. “To live a good life means in this case a Christian life, not a good life in the sense of the world. To die well means to die willingly. Faith produces [the ability] to die willingly. The fruits of faith produce [the ability to have] a good death.” [2] Therefore, a “good death” and “good life” are not accomplished through personal striving but are grasped by faith in the promises of God. A person who is assured of their salvation can surrender themselves to God’s will rather than frantically clinging to their earthly existence.

Consider another passage where Spangenberg writes that Christians should spend their lives “learning to die to what is created, to those things that might draw them away from the love of their Creator.” [3] This sounds as if salvation comes through a life of asceticism: painful self-denial that amounts to legalism. But Spangenberg is not suggesting we all starve ourselves and move to the desert. Rather, he is telling us not to look to earthly things for security, but to Jesus Christ himself, who ought to be the chief subject of our love.

Spangenberg’s chief advice for assisting any dying person is to point them to the truths of Scripture, where they will find God’s promises powerfully declared. “You should impress some comforting passages from Scripture and the gospel on your memory, passages to use against all temptations.” [4] The devil will attack the Christian’s assurance at the end of his or her days, doing all he can to kill the gospel hope within them. The Word of God is the chief weapon against these attacks.

Gospel Assurance in the Sacraments

Spangenberg sees the sacraments as a key part of our assurance, not because they give us grace to perform the works necessary for salvation, but because as physical means attached to God’s unfailing word, in them we receive both Christ himself and therefore also his finished work. He points the reader first to baptism:

“In your baptism you have received a promise signed and sealed that your temptation, cross, suffering, and death do not belong to you, but they are Christ’s temptation, cross, suffering, and death. That means, as Christ has conquered all of them, and in the end he rose from the dead and lives eternally, so in the very same way you shall conquer the devil, death, sin and hell and every evil in the name of God, and awake again on the Last Day from the dead and live with Christ eternally.” [5]

The promises we received in baptism continue to aid us throughout life’s trials, even in the final struggle of death. “Remember also that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (in whose name you are baptized), has promised you to be and remain next to you—with you in all temptations, fears, and misery—and to fight and battle in your behalf against all these enemies, and bring you finally through death, sin, and hell, to eternal life.” [6]

Spangenberg also notes the promises given in the Lord’s Supper, a sacrament which reveals the extent of our inviolable union with Christ. “He has fed you with his holy body for the eternal hunger,” Spangenberg writes, “and he has given you to drink of his precious blood for the eternal thirst.” [7] Elsewhere he says in a prayer,

“For this I have received a certain sign, the true body and the precious blood of your dear Son Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine. This sign will not let me down. I will not let it be taken from me. Even if the entire world stood against me, you, my God, are sufficient for me, with your promise. It does not depend on whether I am worthy or unworthy.” [8]

The good news is that we do not stand upon our own righteousness at the hour of death, nor must we make a mad rush to cleanse ourselves of every sin. The debt has been paid. It is finished! Therefore, we can submit to death willingly and hopefully, knowing we will be raised to new life. As Spangenberg concludes,

“I lie in God’s power and am willing and prepared to live and to die according to his divine pleasure. I cannot help myself. I have not deserved it that he should help me. But I believe and hope that he will help me and save me by his grace for the sake of his dear Son, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has died for me and for the sins of the whole world and has made satisfaction for them.” [9]

How great it is to serve a God who is the resurrection and the life!

Amy Mantravadi lives in Dayton, Ohio with her husband, Jai, and their son, Thomas. She holds a B.A. in biblical literature and political science from Taylor University and received her M.A. in international security from King's College London. In addition to writing essays on theological topics, she has published three historical fiction novels and hopes to publish two more set during the early years of the Reformation. She also previously hosted the (A)Millennial podcast. Amy enjoys geeking out about history, geeking out about theology, and playing with her son.

Hope in the Crater of Faithlessness

God never delights in seeing his children struggle or suffer. But God does desire that we trust him no matter what the circumstances might look like.

Perhaps part of growing in one’s faith is recognizing that the protagonists of nearly every Sunday school Bible curriculum aren’t the best role models for children. Father Abraham is no exception, as Genesis 12 sees Israel’s greatest patriarch caught in a lie that blows up in his face and nearly costs him and his wife their lives. This is not Abram’s finest hour.

In the wake of a famine that struck too close to home, Abram decides to visit Egypt, where he intends to stay temporarily to wait out the drought (Gen. 12:10). Although Abram didn’t harbor the same level of antagonism toward the Egyptians that we might — since we know more of the story (Isa. 31:1) — as we’ll soon learn, he was well aware of their reputation. From the outset, it’s difficult to know whether or not his decision to resort to Egypt for resources during this crisis was inherently wrong. Agricultural societies were frequently devastated by famines akin to death sentences. Besides, this famine was “severe” (Gen. 12:10). This was no seasonal drought that resulted in a food shortage; this was a catastrophic famine of massive proportions.

We might sympathize with Abraham as a man deciding to keep his household alive. After all, it’s not like he was packing up and moving to Egypt; his sojourn there was only temporary. Nevertheless, the question still lingers: Did God intend for Abram to take this excursion “down to Egypt” during this crisis? The text is rather silent on this point. However, when all is said and done, Abram’s plans backfire royally, bringing him right back to where he started, which seems like enough of an answer.

What’s more, it’s worth considering all that Abram had witnessed and experienced up to this point prior to adjudicating his decision. Not too long before this respite in Egypt, Abram was a pagan living among pagans who was chosen to be the forefather of the nation that would spawn the world’s Savior. Plucked out of his homeland in Ur of the Chaldeans, God called Abram to go to the land that he would reveal to him (Gen. 12:1–3). In a staggering display of trust, he follows the Lord’s lead until he is brought to Canaan, where God himself shows up to explain more of his promise to him (Gen. 12:7–8). Even though it didn’t belong to him just yet, every acre, as far as his ancient eyes could see, would one day belong to his descendants. Abram trusted this promise and “called upon the name of the Lord.”

God never delights in seeing his children struggle or suffer. But God does desire that we trust him no matter what the circumstances might look like.

But on the heels of Abram receiving and believing in the words of God, those very words are put to the test. “There was a famine in the land,” in the land of promise, to be specific. No sooner than the Lord had pledged this land to his newfound devotee was that land threatened. Even as the promise is still ringing in Abram’s ears, it seems to have already been thrown into jeopardy. This, of course, is indicative of a pattern that is constant throughout the rest of Scripture. God rarely gives his people a promise without following it up with some sort of trial. This isn’t because he likes to see us squirm; God never delights in seeing his children struggle or suffer. But God does desire that we trust him no matter what the circumstances might look like. Even when things are at their bleakest and darkest, he wants us to call out to him. It would appear, though, that Abram would have to learn this the hard way.

As he and Sarai approach the gates of Egypt, he turns to his wife and divulges another wrinkle in their situation: “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live” (Gen. 12:11–12). Sarai’s beauty poses a real problem, so much so that Abram fears that the Pharaoh’s courtiers would take one look at her and want her for themselves, leaving him to get whacked. As it turns out, Abram is spot-on. After arriving in Egypt, some of the men catch sight of Sarai’s beautiful appearance and boast of her beauty to the Pharaoh (Gen. 12:14–15). Apparently, his harem wouldn’t be complete if it didn’t include Sarai, “the fairest of them all.”

Rather than introducing Sarai as his wife, he devises a plan to say that she’s his sister. Although technically true since she’s his half-sister, it’s not every day that you see a patriarch staking his reputation on a technicality. Some interpreters try to argue this ploy is not necessarily deceitful or ill-willed. After all, he’s not really lying; he’s just protecting information so that he can protect his household. However, there’s almost nothing positive to say about this scheme, especially when you recognize that it’s nothing but a self-serving plot that only has one benefactor: Abram. “They will kill me . . . Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me . . . that my life may be spared.” It’s hard to miss the refrain of self-preservation that peppers this plan.

Perhaps he rationalized this deception as his only option if he wanted to stay devoted to his wife and his God. Whatever the case, glaringly absent from this entire episode is any moment where Abram seeks counsel from the Lord. We never see him pause and pray for divine aid. Not once does he stop and ask for God’s wisdom. Never do we see him wait on the Lord’s word. Instead, he relies on his own wit, opting to trust in his own ingenuity over God’s ability to protect and provide. (Sarai, for her part, doesn’t say anything the entire time, at least nothing that’s recorded. Thus, it’s hard to know whether she was part of the plan or if she just went along with it because her husband was so insistent. If I was a betting man, I’d bet on the latter.)

Abram’s worst fears become a living nightmare, though, as he is forced to watch as his wife is whisked away to the Pharaoh’s house (Gen. 12:14–15). The Pharaoh couldn’t have cared less about Sarai’s honor, let alone Abram’s dignity. He’s the King of Egypt; he’ll have whatever and whomever he so pleases, thank you very much. One glance at Sarai’s beautiful face and she’s promptly fetched for his pleasure, with Abram left holding a bill of sale for a bunch of cattle (Gen. 12:16). In a twisted sort of irony, Abram’s scheming resulted in him receiving the dowry that the Pharaoh deemed worthy of paying for the right to marry his “sister.” And although some donkeys were secured in the deal, it was surely Abram who was left feeling like the ass.

Life’s troubles and trials have a way of unnerving us. And once we’re rattled and shaken, our grip on God’s promises often slips through our fingers. Notwithstanding the size of the crisis — big or small, national or immediate — failing to trust in the words of the Lord puts us on the fast track to disappointment, doubt, and despair. Presuming the worst instead of clinging to what God has said ushers us into unbelief. This was Abram’s primary problem. It wasn’t his wife’s appearance, nor was it the Egyptians’ apparent impropriety; his greatest transgression wasn’t even his deceitful scheming. It was the fact that he didn’t appear to believe that the God who called would be with him. The very man whom Paul refers to as “the man of faith” (Gal. 3:9) was certainly not earning that title at this moment.

We should consider how often we are just like Father Abraham. How quickly do we resort to thoughts of self-preservation when faced with a crisis? How often are we prone to taking matters into our own hands when it seems as if God is not? How often do we give ourselves over to doubt and distrust when God’s words appear to be so fragile? If we’re honest with ourselves, we’d have to admit that we are frequently just like the man from Ur, relying on our own ingenuity rather than God’s sovereign ability.

There is more hardship and heartache in store in the days ahead than we care to imagine. Some troubles may even be so severe that the plans of God may seem to be in doubt and disarray. But when that occurs, our hope is the same as Abraham’s, and that is because our God is the same as Abraham’s. He is the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Gen. 50:24; Exod. 3:6, 15; Matt. 22:32; Acts 3:13; 7:32), the one who keeps his word from everlasting to everlasting. Even if it means he has to intervene and intercede himself, which is exactly what God does for Abram.

It just so happens that the home of the Pharaoh is struck with a terrible “plague” (Gen. 12:17), which I like to imagine as a horrible case of food poisoning right as Pharaoh brings Sarai to his room. Somehow or another, Abram’s deception was found out (Gen. 12:18–19), leaving the Pharaoh to pick up his pride, seeing as this Chaldean visitor felt the need to concoct this plan in the first place. Regardless, after everything is cleared up, the Egyptian sojourners are sent away with a royal escort in tow (Gen. 12:20). This itself is another testimony to the grace of God, as Abram and Sarai are on the receiving end of an act of mercy they surely didn’t deserve. The Pharaoh had every right to react disdainfully. But rather than retaliate, he lets his discreditors go free.

Abram’s Egyptian excursion sees him and his household returning back to where he began — namely, back in Bethel, kneeling in front of the altar of the Lord, calling upon the name of the Lord, on the receiving end of the unmerited favor of the Lord. Only now, his prayers are more humble and honest than before. He’s learned firsthand how needy he is and how desperate he is for the Lord’s words to fill him, guide him, and settle him. It is no accident that this episode “Down in Egypt” is sandwiched between two instances of Father Abraham calling upon the name of the Lord (Gen. 12:7–8; 13:3–4). It is through his failure and fit of fainting faith that we’re able to catch a glimpse at what it looks like to live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).

We are very often confronted by circumstances that trouble us, disturb us, and frustrate what we believe. Even though we know that God’s words are true, we are also prone to distraction, which feeds our doubt. And when we give in to our doubt, we become preoccupied with the troubles and trials that are all around us and ahead of us. And the more life’s troubles capture our attention, the quicker we are overtaken by unbelief. What can we do to combat this debilitating vortex of distrust and despair? What’s the solution? Where do we turn? Rather than turning to our own ingenuity, insight, or intellect, God acts for us so that we might trust in him. He keeps his word for every feeble and fickle heart.

In the crater of our own faithlessness, the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” is there with us, embracing us in unending faithfulness. His ability to fulfill his promises eclipses our frailty, our flaws, and our failures. Although we may never be able to shake off our shortcomings or overcome our fits of fainting faith, “the God of hosts” is faithful to his word forever (Hosea 12:5; 2 Tim. 2:13). When fear, doubt, and uncertainty assails us, it is God’s faithful, dependable, and unfailing word that remains our assurance, our steadfast support, and our hope.

Bradley Gray serves as the senior pastor of Stonington Baptist Church in Paxinos, Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife Natalie and their three children, Lydia, Braxton, and Bailey. He blogs regularly at www.graceupongrace.net and hosts a semi-regular podcast, “Ministry Minded.”

Epiphany As The Other Christmas

Epiphany—is for the Gentiles, those who were once not God’s people, but who now, by the grace of God in Christ have become the people of God

Epiphany is an extension of Christmas, a sort of Christmas 2.0. It’s conspicuous place following the nativity narrative in Matthew’s Gospel presents it as the “other Christmas,” the “Christmas of the Gentiles.” At the first Christmas we find a swaddled baby in a manger visited by shepherds from the fields summoned by angels. In the “other Christmas” we find a toddler at his mother’s feet in a house visited by “Magi,” wise men from the East guided by a star. The first Christmas was announced to Israel, the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham; the second Christmas was for the world, the nations, the Gentiles, the fulfillment of God’s promise to Adam.

“Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising,” God said through Isaiah (Isaiah 60:3).

The Greek word “epiphany” means “appearing,” and in ancient times it was used usually about the appearing of a god or a great king. Lutheran theologian Charles Cortright notes that some kings thought they were gods. For example, Antiochus IV, an ancient Syrian king, took the name “Epiphanes” after he defeated the Egyptians to placard his divine prowess. But his mortality was soon exposed as the Maccabean Revolt in Jerusalem evidenced his all-too-human vulnerabilities. Notwithstanding, there were divinely-inspired biblical prophesies and imaginative pagan mythologies that set expectations for a miraculous appearing of a God-king.

The Magi had come from the east to Jerusalem guided by a star. They were probably Persian court astrologers, star-gazers, who would have looked to the stars in the sky for signs, portents, and information. Due to the Babylonian exile of Jews (otherwise known as the Diaspora), the prophecies within the Hebrew Scriptures would have informed them, too, about an extraordinary “appearing.” The Magi saw what appeared to be a star announcing the birth of a mighty king that correlated with Isaiah 7:14, Psalm 8, and Ezekiel 34. The shepherds of Bethlehem heard the birth announcement from an angel accompanied by a heavenly choir. The Persians were given the birth announcement in their own language, so to speak, and in this way anticipate Pentecost and the reversal of Babel’s alienation.

There’s an interesting reversal here! Centuries before, the Judeans had gone into exile in the East, that is, into Babylon. And now the East comes to Judah—star-gazers seeking the infant king whose birth star they had seen. They go to Herod’s Jerusalem palace — obviously the right place to inquire about a royal birth in Judah. Herod was the king so it is probably his son the star was signaling, right?

Wrong. The wise men encountered man’s king; the star pointed to God’s King. Man’s king lives in palaces, in capital cities, in grandeur. God’s King lives in a humble house, in an unremarkable village, in poverty and humility. Man’s king believes he is a god. God’s king becomes man. Man’s king exercises his power to control those under him. God’s king exercises His power in weakness to save those in His kingdom, a kingdom made up of believing hearts.

The second Christmas—the Christmas of the Gentiles—we are reminded of God’s Not-Our-Thoughts, Not-Our-Ways, hidden way. His is not the way of power and might, not the way of politics and palaces, but the way of poverty, meekness, lowliness, and strength exercised in weakness; the way where throne and cross merge into one.

The star brought the Magi to Jerusalem and Herod’s court, but it was the prophetic Scriptures that got them to Bethlehem. “Where is He who is born King of the Jews?” Herod’s councilors had to look that one up. Herod got all the priests and religious scholars and Torah lawyers together and asked them where the King was to be born. And they unrolled the scroll of the Book of the Twelve (Shorter) Prophets to find the answer. And there it was in the prophet Micah: In little Bethlehem, regarded as the “least of all the rulers of Judah” (Micah 5:2; cf. Matthew 2:6)

Bethlehem: the name means “house of bread.” It was King David’s birthplace and mother Rachel’s burial place. A little afterthought-of-a-town outside of Jerusalem where the real “power” was. But again, God chooses the lowly and the meek to shame the powerful and the wise; His ways are not our ways nor His thoughts our thoughts; His ways and thoughts subvert man’s ways with an undertow that drags the high and mighty from their thrones and humbles the proud in their conceit. “O little town of Bethlehem.” O little House of Bread. Bethlehem, Judah’s breadbox where the living Bread from heaven came to be born of his Virgin mother. And here we’ll find another correlation between Christmas and Epiphany: At Christmas he who is the Bread of Life, indeed, whose life is wrapped in “bread” (cf. “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51)), is found by all believers in a manger — a food trough, evocative of the Eucharistic paten — self-presenting as manna from heaven.

“O little town of Bethlehem.” O little House of Bread. Bethlehem, Judah’s breadbox where the living Bread from heaven came to be born of his Virgin mother

So, off the Magi go to Bethlehem, urged on by the royal pretender Herod, an Idumean (Edomite!), who wants to eliminate this threat to his throne, and the star appears again in the sky—a heavenly GPS—giving them great joy because how else would they know where to go? And it guided them to the very house where the Child was. No more manger for this little One; with his Virgin Mother and St. Joseph, he is staying with relatives in a “house,” since his Davidic family originated in Bethlehem. The Persians come prophetic gifts about which Isaiah had spoken centuries before: “A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall bring good news, the praises of the Lord” (Isaiah 60:6).

Even more unusual, these strangers from the east immediately bow down with their foreheads pressed against the ground as soon as they see the Child. They pay homage with symbolic, even prophetic gifts each bearing meaning far beyond their material value: Gold and frankincense and myrrh. Yes, costly gifts, but gifts that bespeak of divinity, kingship, sacrifice and burial. Gifts that portend of purpose for which he has appeared, as the titulus of his crucifixion proclaims: “This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” It would be the Anointed One who “is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” that the Gentile Magi worship as God, for God He is! Indeed, this is Immanuel — God with us (Matthew 1:23).

Ancient kings fancied themselves as gods for the purposes of self-aggrandisement and to promulgate fear. But this little King truly is God in the flesh, the eternal Son, the Savior, the Son of David, and therefore the world’s rightful King. His epiphany to the Gentiles is in humility and to promulgate shalom — peace, good will toward men. What the wise men saw was a little Child, perhaps a year or so old, playing at his Virgin Mother’s feet; nothing to evoke great awe as far as human eyes are concerned. But they believed the prophetic Word and the sign of the star, and through the eyes of faith they saw and worshiped the King of kings and offered him their gifts amidst a great irony, for this One is the great gift of God: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son” (John 3:16).

So with the Epiphany, God renders those who were once covenant outsiders now the insiders, as Charles Cortright put it in one of his sermons. Those who stood on the outside of Israel, are now in the presence of Israel’s eternal and greatest King, the promised Son of David. This is that great “mystery” of which the apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians, how the Gentiles are now fellow heirs with Israel of the promise of salvation in Christ. The first Christmas was for the Jews, the circumcised, the Israelites, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But this Christmas—Epiphany—is for the Gentiles, those who were once not God’s people, but who now, by the grace of God in Christ have become the people of God. Epiphany is Christmas for you and all who are afar off, even as symbolically afar off as Persia and as strongly foreign as Magi.

Written by John Bombaro. Rev. John J. Bombaro, Ph.D. (King’s College, University of London) is a missionary of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, serving as the Assistant Director of Theological Education at the Luther Academy, Rīga, Latvia.

The Worst Story in the Bible

Yes, Christmas brings joy, but no less danger

Immediately after the festivities of Christmas comes the worst story in the Bible known as “the slaughter of the innocents.” Set as the lectionary text a mere three days after the Nativity of our Lord, Matthew 2:13-23 sours the yuletide mood by turning our celebration of “the infant child, meek and mild” to the mass murder of children. This historical account, also a fulfillment of a prophecy in Jeremiah 31:15, purposes to jar readers of the Gospel that idyllic images of the Madonna with child are fleeting and there’s a cold reality to the Incarnation. The holy family is already on the run, fleeing to Egypt to escape the murder of Jesus.

It’s a tough text to read, let alone contemplate as prophetic fruition. Did God orchestrate such a monstrosity? Not exactly. The Lord does no evil and cannot sin. Instead, given the sinful disposition of fallen humanity, particularly a paranoid egomaniac like Herod who actually put his own sons to death to preserve his grip on the throne, divine foreknowledge reveals such an event as an inevitability. A man did this to mankind, not God. Rome’s proclaimed “King of the Jews,” Herod the Great, did this to his Jewish citizens. But why? What’s the effect or, at least, should be the effect of preserving the historical record of this appalling event?

One effect is that it brings both sobriety and tension: Yes, Christmas brings joy, but no less danger. It will be risky, even deadly business to confess allegiance this newborn king. Matthew 2:13-23 doesn’t allow us to be duped by romanticized Victorian depictions of baby Jesus. The birth of Christ brings an announcement by angelic hosts of “peace goodwill toward men,” and at the same time an enemy order to destroy him, an order that results in “all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old and under” massacred by Herod’s goons. It’s sobering. Gone from our minds should be a toothless tale about cabbage-patch Jesus and his barnyard friends. The advent of our King is a gospel that comes with teeth that bite. And that’s the tension: We are right to feel delight at the coming of our Savior but also a jolt when the Son of God redefines our existence by becoming one of us to save us as well from ourselves and, indeed, our own self-governing. Such redemption and renewal isn’t going to happen without a fight, without bloodshed. This story, then, foreshadows the crucifixion.

Today’s sentimentalism and nostalgia bound up with Santa Claus and Bing Crosby is entirely misplaced as a stultifying distraction from the enduring religious geopolitical conflict initiated with the arrival of the one called “Immanuel.” Jesus poses a grave threat to Caesar and all subsequent governmental powers, evidenced through the centuries by the militancy against the Church by Islamism, Nazism, Communism and Secularism. He upsets their power-plays. Jesus threats such powers because he offers liberation from the bondage of any and all things that would lord over us and, at the same time he demands allegiance to him and his kingdom above all things. The threat of baby Jesus is for many—and the Bible doesn’t sugar coat it with the surreal hues of a Thomas Kincaid painting—such a threat that the most wonderful story in the New Testament is tethered to the worst story in the Bible to underscore the implications.

Jesus’ birth divides humanity into two distinct and impassioned camps: those who in wonder and awe celebrate it, and those who reject it either violently or with cerebral vitriol or, worse still, indifference. With him, cliché “a baby threatens no one” doesn’t hold true. This baby is so significant that, if you aren’t worshiping him as the Lord God Almighty come to conqueror his enemies, regain his usurped kingdom, and slay the dragons that plague us, then he’ll define your life and afterlife with judgment not salvation. That, too, has always been the message of prophets like Jeremiah. God was coming to visit His creation, both to vindicate his name and people, and right the wrongs of the world by powerful judgment; a judgment that would also be upon the governments of the world, manifest by baptized legions who have transferred their dependence and trust in rulers to the one who truly is the Prince of Peace.

This child, like it or not, tears down strongholds and will ultimately redefine reality on the throne of his cross and by the rule of his ascension. He is the Lord and that fact alone threatens because it destabilizes those lords to whom we are so willfully given by beguilement, including our present-day political parties and cause célèbre. We would do well, then, to adopt the posture and disposition of both the shepherds in the field and the Magi: worship Him with reverence and awe, with fear commingled with love, for this child is King and Creator.

The redemption Jesus brings explodes all schemes of exploitation, and he does so by truly “winning hearts and minds,” such that have been sanctified by his Spirit. That’s a dangerous prospect for power-brokers of all times and places. Baptized persons have their mind, will, and emotions supervened by the Spirit of Christ, fostering a fortified allegiance in love, a love that spills over into willful obedience. This is the power of the gospel. The kingdoms of this world only have the power of the law and even then it’s usually bent and abused, just like in this episode when mothers are left wailing. In part, this accounts for why Jesus suffered the like fate of those who unveil truth, expose corruption, and manipulate through gaslighting and propaganda — death, even death on the cross. But that, too, turns out to be the place where he gains his victory and neutralizes all that threaten us. Consequently, the death of the innocents and Good Friday are the other “silent nights” along with the “holy night” of Jesus’s birth.

In fact, the shadow of the cross falls over the entire story of Jesus’ life from this moment forward. Jesus is born with a price on His head. The Virgin Mary herself takes on the complexion of Rachel and the mothers of Ramah when she is told that her holy innocent, Jesus, will be “a sword will pierce through your won soul” (Luke 2:35), because “this child is appointed for the fall and rising and falling of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed … so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35). Celebrating biblical Christmas, then, should be a subversive act of allegiance, an overture of non-conformity to the world of godless governing.

For North Americans, the birth of Jesus is rarely seen as a threat because we’re told that this is just religious stuff, and religion concerns the interior life of morality and private spirituality — personal sentiments about whatever the idea of “Jesus” means to you. That fabricated “Jesus” is a threat to nobody. And such “Christians” engage in nothing risky. After all, we’re told, we must separate church and state, religion and reality. Matthew, however, knows no distinction between public-political life and private religious-life. Jesus is born into time, threatening the time of Herod and Caesar, and it happens as he’s born into a home, a family. The gospel tells a story of a prophetic figure who suffers the worst that the empires can do to him. But His resurrection and subsequent coming in power expose the limits of Roman power and indeed human power. The gospel discloses an alternative world of government by God’s righteous King, Jesus, such that denies that the final word on who or what defines humanity will be man’s self-governance and determination. The Creator-King is in control and he defines male and female, who is liberated or not, those that are justified or not. Christ Jesus creates an alternative community—the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church—and shapes an anti-imperial, anti-demographically divided, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-classism reality.

This is why Jesus’ first public words to us are “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). The kingdom is not some inner sanctuary, silently tucked away in your heart. The kingdom of God is an alternate yet concrete reality, populated with liberated people, governed by a politic of grace and Spirit-inspired obedience, where Jesus is himself both the King and the kingdom, turning the world upside down through a reign of grace.

Do you see it? See how the Exodus story is being retold here – first with Matthew’s quotation of the prophet Hosea in verse 15: “Out of Egypt I have called my son”? He is, as it were, Israel-in-person, succeeding at last in obedience where Israel had failed. Therefore, uniquely, only He is worthy to be called by God “my son” – the One with whom I am well pleased, listen to Him,” the Father says, “listen to Him” instead of anyone else. His obedience, along with his propitiatory blood atonement, will lay the foundation for our justification.

This constitutes what’s really on offer this yuletide season. Real comfort and joy, not the kind we get from Nutcracker displays with sugar-plum fairies, but the kind of worldview-changing good news about God overwhelming things like depression, loneliness, alcohol or drug addiction and abuse; things like divorce, child custody battles, inflationary financial ruin, deteriorating health, crippling guilt, shame, regret and flat-out bad governing. Christmas lets people in bondage to such merciless taskmasters know that in fact a global exodus has been accomplished; that all exiles are over, that there is a new covenant in Christ’s blood so that we needn’t fear the powerbrokers of this world. Christ has overcome the world. Open your mouth and share such tidings of comfort and joy with those who have ears to hear: Our bondage is over; the new exodus has begun; walk with me through the Red Sea baptismal waters to enter into the Promise Land of good governing. But be warned, there will be not only comfort and joy, but also risk and danger.

May the Lord comfort the souls of the holy innocents.

O HOLY NIGHT

Your heavenly Father has not purchased you with gold or with silver but with the most valuable currency in the universe; the blood of God.

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth;

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

'Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;

If this were the only lyrics of the Christmas carol, O Holy Night, it would still be my favorite Christmas carol. Many years ago, I learned how to play the violin in middle school. My father asked several times for me to play “O Holy Night” on the fiddle and much to my dismay I never learned to play it well. As I type this, I now realize that this is most certainly a reason why O Holy Night is my favorite Christmas carol because I believe it to be my father’s favorite as well.

Not only was it featured in the touching scene in a church between Kevin McCallister and the South Bend Shovel Slayer in the Christmas classic, “Home Alone,” but I hear it has been a favorite of many for quite some time. The music is great but the words written above nail me every time I hear this particular verse, “long lay the world in sin and error pining, till he appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope…”

Long lay the world in sin and error pining

Ever since the reach to be like God by our parents Adam and Eve, the world has felt the effect of sin which is death. Pining for hope, redemption, forgiveness, and peace has always been a very palpable need. Because we can die, time and the length of it feels very long. Make no mistake, the promise that God gave to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 was for sure to come to pass. The promised seed given to Abraham was always in play. God promised it would come to pass so we could take it to the bank on day one if we wanted. But even though all of this is most certainly true, we still feel the weight of this verse. How heavy the bad news for sinners is felt here.

'Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.

Then the turn. Oh, what a glorious turn the announcement of good news is! The bad news had us feel the tug for hope and then the good news that the promised seed has appeared comes crashing in like dynamite. Why does the soul feel it’s worth at the arrival of Christ on Christmas? Because the soul now sees the promised price for its redemption is present and in the flesh. Emanuel has come! He is here! Faith held to the promised seed prior to Christ’s birth but now as Simeon says in Luke 2 the soul sings here, “For my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the sight of all people…” The same gift of faith that was given and placed in the promise before Christ came, is also the same gift of faith that is given to all of us now in Christ who promises to come again. It is God’s salvation to give and God who prepared it for you.

What is the soul worth to God? God would give his only son in exchange for the whole world. Fear not little flock, your heavenly Father has not purchased you with gold or with silver but with the most valuable currency in the universe; the blood of God.

A thrill of hope

Just a few verses into this carol and I am already floored by the forgiveness that it points to for sinners like me. The thrill of Christ’s arrival can also be seen in the spectacle of the Heavenly Host singing and telling the Shepherds in the field to “fear not.” This also points to very good news, for the Law will never say “fear not” to sinners…only Good News for sinners can say such a thing to sinners. The same God that delivered on the promised coming of Christmas and Easter is the same God who promises that one day Jesus Christ will return and all of the sad things will come untrue. A thrill of hope is courtesy of Christ and specifically for this reason: Christ was crucified on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins and raised for your justification. You are forgiven. For Christ’s sake this is most certainly true.

Written by Zack James Cole. Zack James Cole grew up in the Bible Belt of the American South. He became a United States Marine in 2004 and served on Active Duty until 2009. He was deployed to Iraq twice during Operation: Iraqi Freedom. He earned his M.Div in Theological Studies from Liberty Theological Seminary. He now serves as an Associate Pastor at Suwannee Station Family Life Church in Suwannee, Georgia.

More than a Party Favor

Show me your righteousness, we can only point to Jesus

‘Tis the season of parties. If your social calendar is like mine, the next few weeks will have at least one, if not a few parties to attend. Office parties, family get-togethers, classroom celebrations, and community events are all vying for a coveted spot on the calendar. Perhaps you may have to choose which to attend and decline. Perhaps that decision depends on the available party favors. Whether it is candy or cookies, fudge or flowers, the favors of the party might drive your desire to attend, but more than likely, the party favors are not anything of great value.

Of course, the word favor can mean many things: party favors, personal favors, or one who is looked upon with favor. At some point this season, you may attend a party where the favor is mistletoe hanging from a doorway or the ceiling. For some, mistletoe is a welcome holiday tradition; for others, it must be avoided at all costs. But a moment under the mistletoe can bring hope, anticipation, and the possibility of love…or at least a kiss and the favor of another.

In the 85th Psalm, the psalmist remembers the favor shown by God to those in the past, asks for favor in the present, and waits for the favor of God to come soon; a good Psalm for Advent.

Read Psalm 85 here: https://biblia.com/bible/niv2011/psalm/85/1-13

In the 85th Psalm, the Psalmist calls the reader to:

Acknowledge the Past
Question the Present
Anticipate the Future

The first three verses of the Psalm remember the favor God showed in the past to the people of Israel. Forgiveness and atonement were provided by a God who rescued the people from slavery in Egypt, redeemed the people from disobedience, and returned a remnant to the land after exile.

The first three verses of the Psalm remember the favor God showed in the past to the people of Israel.

We, too, have seen the favor of God poured out in the past:

We remember our baptism, our personal day of favor, the day we were rescued from sin, claimed as a child of God, and covered by Jesus.
We remember the beautiful words of redemption, “Your sins are forgiven.”
We remember these words, “broken and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”

The next four verses of the Psalm focus on the present. We still need favor because we often go our own way even as we desire to be a favored child of God.

Have you ever asked God for restoration, restoration of health or a broken relationship?
Have you ever questioned whether God will be angry with you forever?
Have you ever questioned why things are so bad in your life right now?

Often in scripture, it is God’s law questioning us. The law says, “Show me your righteousness.” And we struggle to answer the call. We pray with the Psalmist, “Show us your unfailing love, Lord, and grant us your salvation” (v.7). As the psalmist encourages us to anticipate the future, we can’t help but remember the promises of God. From verse 8, “I will listen to what God the Lord will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints.”

In the season of Advent, we not only remember the Prince of Peace, who was born in a stable, but we look forward to the true and lasting peace that will come when Jesus returns and calls His saints to heaven with Him.

But to answer the question, “Show me your righteousness,” we must go back to the favor of God. When God asks, “Show me your righteousness,” we can only point to Jesus. He is the favor of God. He is God’s own Son. Only in Jesus do we find favor with God. He is more than just a worthless or cheap party favor; He is the unfailing love of God who brings steadfast love and favor to all His children. He is the best party favor anyone could ever imagine.

I think we catch a glimpse of Jesus, the favor of God, in verse 10. “Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.”

Favor is found where love and faithfulness meet, where righteousness and peace kiss, in the babe of Bethlehem. It is not found under a sprig of mistletoe or in our own inept actions. God’s favor is Jesus! God was not simply doing us a favor by sending Jesus; He was keeping a promise one fulfilled in the birth of Christ.

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” (Luke 1:26-28)

Favor is found in the baby growing in Mary’s womb. And nine months later, in the backwater town of Bethlehem, the angels announced to the Shepherds, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

The favor of God comes to you today, for in Jesus, love and faithfulness meet, righteousness and peace kiss. The favor of God comes as we are gathered under the cross, not under the mistletoe.

Here the kiss of peace takes place. Under the cross, you experience the favor of God. At the cross, Jesus restores your fortunes, forgives your iniquity, and covers your sins. God’s wrath has been set aside, and you have been forgiven and restored.

God’s unfailing love and salvation were secured and guaranteed through the open tomb where Jesus gave us His righteousness. Standing under the cross brings hope, anticipation, and the certainty of love, the kiss of peace and favor

with God.

We live under the cross this Advent as we anticipate the coming of God’s favor once again. And while we wait, we can give a kiss of peace to our neighbors and share the favor of God, for in Christ you have seen love and faithfulness meet, you have experienced righteousness and peace kiss, in Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem, your savior.

Written by Seth Moorman. Seth Moorman is the Strategy and Marketing Executive for 1517. He served as a parish pastor for 18 years at Bethany Lutheran in Long Beach California where he and his family still live. He is married to Jill, and they have two daughters, Marissa, and Mariah. Seth is a graduate of the Cross-Cultural Ministry Center at Concordia University Irvine where he received a master’s degree in theology and culture.

The Necessity of Human Forgiveness

Amy Mantravadi asks if we should forgive others even if they are not repentant

Forgiveness is one of the most difficult things required of us. You might almost say it goes against human nature. “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” That was Alexander Pope’s conclusion in “An Essay on Criticism.” [1]

Christians generally know they are supposed to forgive one another, but what does that look like in daily life? How do you forgive someone who is still sinning against you and others? Are you even supposed to do so?

This question became highly relevant for me when I was a young woman. The church in which I was raised went through a long-running dispute. There was no single instance of epic sin: no pastor embezzling funds or having an affair, no sexual abuser preying upon children. Rather, it was a “death by a thousand paper cuts” situation. A tiff here, a disagreement there; one person leaving, then five people. Eventually, it became a mass exodus as the problems grew larger and rival factions formed.

I had left home to pursue my university education, but I received updates that saddened me. I had never thought my church was perfect, but it seemed to get many things right. Splits and major controversies were things that happened at other churches. Yet, as the evidence mounted, I was forced to acknowledge that people whom I had respected were, in critical moments, choosing bitterness over love. I was forced to ask a dangerous question: “Is something wrong with the church’s theology?”

Perhaps you can sympathize with my situation, for if you have been around Christians long enough, you know they are simul iustus et peccator: simultaneously just and sinful. The church is a place full of sinners who live up to that name, even though they are justified in Christ, so some problems are bound to occur.

However, errors in theology can have more devastating effects, and I finally learned something that helped me understand how things had gone so wrong. Some people at the church were evidently teaching that you should not forgive a person who sins against you unless they first repent of that sin. When I heard this, I was taken aback. It seemed contrary to Scripture, but as it turned out, Scripture could be interpreted in multiple ways.

“Forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors,” (Matthew 6:12) is standard Christian theology contained in the Lord’s Prayer. “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” (Colossians 3:13) There are even dire warnings in Scripture, such as, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

How could anyone suggest that forgiveness ought to be withheld until certain conditions are met? Well, the Lord did say to his disciples, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (John 20:23) In a church that did not practice confession and absolution, these verses could be misunderstood. John also wrote in his first epistle, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That sentence is conditional, and it the condition which must be met seems to be confession or repentance.

Then there was the time Christ told his disciples, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him...” (Luke 17:3) Again, we see the use of the conditional ‘if.’ One could interpret this command as indicating that repentance is necessary before forgiveness can be granted.

In fact, that is how salvation was usually presented to me growing up: A person realizes they are a sinner, repents of their sins, and chooses to follow Christ. Then they are forgiven. My biggest spiritual concern as a young person was ensuring my faith was genuine enough to merit that forgiveness. I knew humans had been given free will by God to choose whether they would follow Christ, and this was proof of God’s love, for he did not want humans to be robots. A loving God would never force himself on people. He would wait to be chosen.

Soon, I began noticing this trend all over Scripture, particularly in the Gospel of John. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day,” Jesus taught. (John 6:44) On another occasion he said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit…” (John 15:16) In John’s first epistle, I read, “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

From a young age, I had known the words of Ephesians 2:8-9, that chief prooftext against salvation by works: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” However, I had paid less attention to something that came just before it. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved…” (Ephesians 2:4-5)

No, human beings do not move toward God. They are sought out by heaven and raised from the dead. Like fish in the sea, they are drawn in by the power of God’s love.

I was nearly there, but part of me hesitated. I could not ignore what I felt were the terrible implications of the awesome sovereignty of God. Then came something which pushed me the rest of the way: I began listening to a course on the history of the Reformation.

I had always known a little about the Reformation. I distinctly remember an illustration of Martin Luther in one of my school textbooks, bent over a book in contemplation, discovering that we are not saved by works, for “the just shall live by faith.” But as I listened to those lectures, I was introduced to more of Luther’s theology.

In one lecture on the 1518 Heidelberg Disputation, I found myself nodding along, tracking with each point that Luther was making. Then came the final thesis: “The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it.” [2]

Those two sentences struck me like a thunderbolt, for I knew deep in my bones that what Luther said was true, but I also realized the logical implications of his point. For if Luther was correct, we played absolutely no part in our salvation. It was completely a gift of God from beginning to end. Even faith was a gift! This meant that God’s election was a real and critical.

I was profoundly troubled, so I prayed that God would show me what was true. Over the course of several months, I read through Luther’s The Bondage of the Will, and slowly but surely, he wore me down by force of argument. I was simultaneously captured and set free by this awesome doctrine of God’s election and its implications for the salvation of mankind.

I had come to see that we must forgive those who have wronged us, regardless of their behavior, for God’s love compels us to do as he did: to move toward the sinner in love. Unlike God, we do not have the power to raise another from the dead. They may never come to repentance, and there may never be a full restoration of the relationship. But there is a divine power of resurrection by the work of the Spirit, and like the wind, we never know where it is going.

All that is incumbent on us is to lay down our pride and acknowledge that were it not for grace, we too would still be in our sins. We have been given grace upon grace, and now we must pass on that grace to others. By the power of Jesus Christ and our union with him, we can do something truly divine: we can forgive.

The First Fact of Advent- God’s Love

It is the love of God that reveals Him as the promise-making, promise-keeping God.

Jeremiah 33:14-16 reiterates an earlier divine promise — a promise offered by God on several occasions to abate human impatience and doubt. “The days are coming,” says the Lord, and indeed they are coming because God is as His word and His word is motivated by love. When this promise is fulfilled, then His love will be manifest for all to see, engendering faith and increasing love. This makes Jeremiah’s prophesy a fitting first fact of Advent: God acts for us out of love.

What we have in these verses from Jeremiah is a prophesy: A word of knowledge about the future that only God can tell and only LORD Himself knows. Fortune-tellers cannot prognosticate this way. Horoscopes offer no such insights. Farmers Almanac, palm-readers, crystal balls — none of these superstitious scams can tell the future, let alone make promises about it, much less actually fulfill promises made about the future. Jeremiah conveyed a gospel-promise from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. To be specific, it’s not actually Jeremiah’s prophetic word at all. He’s merely the messenger. The prophetic word originates from Israel’s God. And God makes this promise from a disposition of divine love, for God is love. It is the love of God that reveals Him as the promise-making, promise-keeping God.

The prophetic promise finds introduction with these words: “‘The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (33:14). Now before we get to the actual content of the promise, it should jolt us that the promise goes to the “house of Israel” at all, and that’s because Jeremiah heralds this prophesy sometime after the year 628 BC — a hundred years after the “house of Israel” was carried off into exile by Assyrians in 722 BC. Astonishingly, Jeremiah says that the LORD, who scattered the northern kingdom of Israel (consisting of ten of the twelve tribes) throughout the Gentile world, will fulfill a promise to those absorbed by the Gentiles, along with the remaining two tribes of identifiable Jews within the “house of Judah.” In other words, since “Israel” ceased to exist (having been absorbed into and rendered indistinguishable from the Gentiles), the promise being made here is for both Jew and Gentile. The upshot is that “Israel” will be reconstituted by Jews and Gentiles, and that this would be the LORD’s doing as a result of a loving promise. An astonishing prophecy.

To be sure, Jeremiah’s auditors could see no way in which it was possible for God to do anything for the “house of Israel.” They were gone; absorbed among the Gentiles, lost forever. Unless, of course, the LORD would fulfill a promise to His people as Gentiles. But that couldn’t be the case because, his auditors would have reasoned, God hates the uncircumcised Gentiles, right? Wrong. Think again, says Jeremiah. He doesn’t hate them. He actually loves them. And what’s more amazing still is that verse 24 calls these two groups “families,” indicating that they, too, should love one another because they are purposed to be family by God’s design. There’s one race: the human race, and both Jew and Gentile were created by and rightly belong to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In a reconstituted “Israel” Jew and Gentile would be one people, one family.

But it gets even more difficult for Jeremiah’s auditors to believe that God would make, let alone fulfill, any such promise. Not only was there baked-in antipathy to the Gentiles, but there was a malediction against the royal blood line of David that ran through Solomon! David’s prodigy was cursed on account of both the wickedness of the kings and people, such that culminated in the godless rule of King Jehoiachin in the early 500s BC. Speaking the word of the LORD, Jeremiah imprecates his descendants saying that no descendant of Jehoiachin would ever reign on the throne of Israel: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Write this man down as childless, A man who shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, And ruling anymore in Judah’” (Jeremiah 22:30). With Israel lost to the sands of time, Judah too was a dead end.
This curse is considered by some Jewish commentators as the reason that Zerubbabel, the hereditary Solomonic king during the time of Nehemiah, was not given a kingship under the Persian Empire. The facts regarding his life are not only recorded in Scripture, but Iraqi excavations have produced records that have direct bearing on his life, namely the famous “Jehoiachin’s Ration Tablets”[1]. These tablets, discovered at the turn of the twentieth-century, were excavated near the Ishtar Gate in Babylon, and have been dated to c. 592 BC. Archeological evidence shows that the word of the LORD through Jeremiah was fulfilled when Jehoiachin was captured, Judah and Jerusalem were destroyed along with the temple, leaving no royal heir to the throne of David. God’s word proved unassailable, accomplishing precisely what He said.
So the “branch” was cut off after Jehoiachin, the last of the Davidic kings. Neither Zerubbabel nor anyone else from David’s house would reign over Judah, much less a restored Israel. Or so it would seem until God, ever jeopardizing His credibility, promised the impossible. The impossible promise comes in the image of a new shoot, sprouting from the stump of an old tree:
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David, and He shall execute justice and righteousness. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem shall dwell securely. And this is the name by which the City of God shall be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”
This stunning promise precisely fits the situation of the truncated Davidic dynasty. David’s lineage had been decimated since the days of his egomaniac grandson, Reheboam. It was under Reheboam’s ill-fated reign that the northern ten tribes of Israel went rogue and were obliterated. In the southern kingdom of Judah, things likewise disintegrated. In succeeding generations, David’s heirs to the throne were enmeshed in scandals and geopolitical blunders. Wars ensued, and they, too, eventually and even permanently forfeited hereditary claimants to David’s throne. The royal tree of David was reduced to Jesse’s stump. Along with the loss of kings and kingdom came the dissipation of blessings associated with David’s rule. Jerusalem herself would become a byword, emblematic of divine forsakenness. Zion wouldn’t be “Jerusalem the golden,” but “Jerusalem the cursed.” Yes, it’s this impossible situation that God confronts with a word of availing hope to evidence that the fulfillment of this promise under these circumstances could only be accomplished by the LORD.
But how? What would signal the advent of Israel’s reconstitution? Nearly two centuries after Jeremiah’s incredible prophecy, Malachi augments the Weeping Prophet’s words with this addendum from the LORD: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes” (4:5). With this specificity, Jews and wise Gentiles (Magi!) could better identify the coming “Son of David” who would be “the LORD our righteousness.”
And there is the key to the prophesy: It would be the LORD who would be Israel’s righteousness. Not the people, not their attempts at keeping the Law, not the land, not their pedigree, not a pedestrian descendant of David, not even the temple. Nothing but the LORD would or could be their righteousness because “None is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). God’s righteousness would need to be manifest before all, and need to be given to Jew and Gentile alike. Instead of doing the Law, Jews and Gentiles would trust in the LORD to be our righteousness and account us as righteous for His own sake.

And there is the key to the prophesy: It would be the LORD who would be Israel’s righteousness. Not the people, not their attempts at keeping the Law, not the land, not their pedigree, not a pedestrian descendant of David, not even the temple

With Jeremiah’s prophecy, the LORD throws the spotlight on the covenant made with Abram, while he was yet uncircumcised. Look to the unilateral covenant made with ‘Abram the Gentile’ for the fulfillment of the prophesy concerning Israel-absorbed-into-the-Gentiles. Look in faith to the Advent of “God with us” (Immanuel) to bring about the impossible, and to do so out of His great love for the world. Advent begins with the fact of God’s love for the world.
All of these tragedies — the cutting off of Davidic line, the leveling of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple — occur so that readers of Jeremiah and Malachi and all the Holy Scriptures would be trained to identify the work of the LORD for our redemption and trust in His righteousness, but never look to any of these institutions as ever being able to bring the reality that God promises. The land will be upended. The temple will be destroyed. Israel will be dissolved. Even the chain of David’s descendants would need to be broken. Trust, Jeremiah pleads, trust in the promise-making, promise-keeping God of Abraham, for He and He alone can and will be the righteousness we need but can never obtain. The LORD Himself will fulfill what He has promised, the LORD himself will perform His covenant, the Lord Himself will be the King, the LORD will reconstitute Israel, provide salvation, furnish a holy temple that we might worship in Spirit and in Truth. The unlikeliness of it all tells us that God does this out of great love because nothing other than that motivation — love — could move God to accomplish the impossible.

Trust, Jeremiah pleads, trust in the promise-making, promise-keeping God of Abraham, for He and He alone can and will be the righteousness we need but can never obtain
The “righteous shoot” is the Hebrew version of an ancient Near Eastern term meaning the “legitimate son.” The legitimate king is the LORD’s agent, an agent to establish justice and righteousness before the law of God. But that’s not all, through the promised righteous king, in v.16, the LORD receives the credit for the salvation of Judah and Jerusalem. The point is driven home through a new name given to the city: “the LORD [is] our righteousness.” This realization adds to Ezekiel’s prophecy that the city of God will have the name “the LORD is here” or, put into the prophetic words of Isaiah, confirmed in fulfillment by Saint Matthew upon the adventen name of Jesus: “Immanuel,” which means “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23). Altogether, the prophecies and disclosures collapse the ideas of the “righteous shoot” and “the LORD our righteousness” into one and the same person — the Messiah. This is the onus of verse 17 — only the LORD as Messiah could fulfill the everlasting promise that follow verses 14-16: “For thus says the LORD: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presences to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.” Again, all of these promises coalesce in Jesus the Son, who is the immortal King of kings (1 Timothy 6:15), the everlasting high priest greater than Melchizedek (Hebrews 6:20; 7), the one that stands before the Eternal Throne as the sacrificed Lamb of God (Revelation 5:6).

The fact of David’s historicity and the royal “house of David” is not only preserved in the historical accounts of the Bible, but also by the findings of the renown Jewish archeologist, Dr Gabriel Barkey. Barkey discovered two separate artifacts — a stone inscription, and an amulet — both of which mention the historical “house of David” and date to the 9th and 10th centuries BC. All four Gospels assert that Jesus was either the “son of David” or a descendent of the “house of David” or both. All four Gospels are at pains to substantiate that Jesus is the Messiah, the rightful heir to the throne of David. All four Gospels and the New Testament as a whole promulgate, in their own way, the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophesy memorably encapsulated in St. John’s words, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (3:16). John the Baptist, the Elijah which was to come, he likewise identifies Jesus as the One, the Son of David, God’s Messiah, sent out of God’s great love for the Israel whom He reconstitutes in Himself.
The salvation announcements in Jeremiah 33 answer at least two questions left from the preceding narrative: First, how can people who persistently rebelled and even offered their children to Molech, become covenant partners with God? The answer: The LORD will heal, cleanse, forgive (vv 6–8) and have mercy (v 26) for no other reason than the fact that He loves us and will Himself make atonement and fulfill all righteousness. Perfect justice. Perfect righteousness. This is a fact because God is in Himself perfect love. His love in Christ refashions a new humanity — one purchased by way of a redemption that required blood atonement, an expiation of sins, and the imputation of perfect righteousness from having fulfilled the lawn a representative fashion for us. A new humanity born of His Spirit, the Spirit of the Last Adam, for new obedience within His Jerusalem — the Holy Church. A people who were not a people, become Israel. Jerusalem is saved. Judah dwells securely.
The greatness of God’s love is manifest in and through a redemption that is all about forgiveness. Love is not about feelings; it’s really about forgiveness, and that can be found at the heart of Jeremiah’s astonishing adventen prophecy. Forgiveness flows from divine love.
[1] Under the direction of German archeologist, Robert Koldewey, the Babylon excavations from 19899 — 1917 recovered nearly 300 uniform texts pertaining to the disbursement of rations from the royal provisions.
Written by Rev. John J. Bombaro. Rev Bombaro, Ph.D. (King’s College, University of London) is a missionary of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, serving as the Assistant Director of Theological Education at the Luther Academy, Rīga, Latvia.

The Clothing Of The King

The Clothing of the King Devotion

Whenever “All Hallowed Eve” (Halloween) is finished, and the demons are bound back in their prison cells, Christians proclaim the triumph of All Saints Day. The Gospel announces that those who sleep in death will arise: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). But what if we do not see this resurrection of the dead yet? What if, when we look around, all we see are many many graves of the many who have died—and we fear that we are next? Christians do not fear, for they have resurrection already in faith. We don’t wait for that. Yet, we do wait for something. We are waiting to see what we already have in faith. All Saints Day uses the famous dream given to John of the final day when there is a host in white robes worshiping God at the throne of the lamb: ‘who will hunger no more..and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:17). So it is that on this day many will sing a famous Danish hymn (with a Norwegian folk tune): “Behold a host, arrayed in white!”

God knows we need to get a glimpse of the glory that awaits since most of us don’t see much of it now. The 17th-century writer, Hans. B. Brorson, was a pastor in Jutland and saw his share of tribulation—including his mentally ill son and the death of his wife. But he knew that death cannot hold us. The resurrection is not a dream of the pious, but the reality of realities that defines our present more than the suffering we feel. Resurrection is more real than the death we feel. What will it look like, when we finally have the scales removed from our eyes and see as Christ sees? It will not only be the 12,000 of 12,000s from the tribes of Israel—but even the Gentiles—even Norwegians—who will be a huge host “arrayed in white”—“all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9). They will have palm branches in hand—or at least spruce branches—and be crying in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!” The cross is a victory—though a very strange one, and one that is seen in its direct opposite in this world—as hunger, scorching heat, and many, many tears. In his second stanza, Brorson put it this way: “On earth their work was not thought wise…On earth, they wept through bitter years…” But, God has sent his Lamb to “guide them to springs of living water and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 17:17).

All Saints Sunday is a good day to correct the many false teachings people receive, especially in America, of John’s dreams in Revelation. If you read it without a good preacher, or at least a good scotch, it can wither your little bean of faith. No wonder Luther cautioned about the book and recognized that it failed historically and struggled theologically to give Jesus Christ to sinners. But it can do it with the help of our clear promises of justification by faith alone, apart from works of the law, and by the Christ whom God put forward as the mercy seat by his blood, received by faith alone (Romans 3).

It shocked John to see this wild array in white, and he was asked by an elder there to say what was on his mind: “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” Certainly not Scandinavia! Certainly not America! John said to the elder: “Sir you know!” And the elder did know: “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white with the blood of the Lamb.”

Brorson put the answer in his first stanza: “These are the saints who kept God’s Word; they are the honored of the Lord” (Gracia Grindal translation).

How are they honored? What makes a saint a saint? Not works of the law. What then? Why are their clothes so white? Why are they radiant, and why have they beheld God’s glory—when glory kills an earthly man? They have washed their dead robes in the blood of the Lamb. But how is that done? How is sin blotted out? How is death defeated? How is the chief demon, Satan, finally chained in prison? Brorson says, “In the flood of Jesus’ blood they are cleansed from guilt and blame…” They are absolved by God’s word, through the angels—who are preachers. They are washed clean as snow by hearing this promise: “I forgive you all your sins”—and by the Holy Spirit, believing it.

So join the host arrayed in white, listen to the word the preacher gives that drowns your sins and you will say, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!...Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen!” (Revelation 7:10, 12). Then you can free your Seventh-Day Adventist friends from their bondage by saying that there is a greater host than the 144,000—who are assembled not by God’s law but by God’s absolution. All Saints Day is now not the day of remembering past martyrs but cleaning present robes in the blood of the Lamb.

Written by Steven Paulson. Professor Steven Paulson is a Senior Fellow in Residence at 1517. He holds degrees in theology from St. Olaf College, Luther Seminary and has a Doctorate from the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. He has taught at Concordia College, Moorhead, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, and Luther House of Study of Sioux Falls. He is the author of many articles and books, including three volumes of Luther's Outlaw God that launched his podcast "Outlaw God." He has added a new podcast for preaching from the lectionary called "Preaching the Text."

We Do Not Choose Our Crosses

We do not choose our struggles, but there is One who has chosen to always be with us.

I rushed my son Thomas into the public library as fast as his little legs could go. It was almost time for preschool story time to begin. For nearly two months, we had waited for this magical service to be offered again: a time to rejoice in music, movement, and books. Not only was story time fun, but it was part of our strategy for developing Thomas’ language and social skills. With the start of a new year, he was graduating to the next class. Such a big boy!

We made it just in time, but I noticed something odd. Instead of the caregivers sitting in a circle with their children, the activity center was hidden behind a movable barrier, with the adults sitting outside. I had not realized preschool story time was an independent venture where the children would enter without their caregivers. It would not have been a problem, except that Thomas is unlike many children his age: he needs extra help. As the librarian stood ushering the children inside, I attempted to explain the situation.

“My son has a developmental delay,” I said, feeling extremely awkward. “He needs me with him.”

Then several things happened quickly. The librarian explained, in a matter-of-fact way, that the children were to learn independently, even as Thomas slipped past her into the activity center. I do not remember what else the librarian said, but I recall my son looking back at me and crying, “Nonny! Nonny!” That’s his name for me. Within a few seconds, Thomas and I were both standing back with the adults. He would not be allowed to participate in story time.

As I stood there attempting to calm my son, I noticed a few of the caregivers staring at us. Then I looked helplessly at the other children sitting quietly and attentively: something my son was incapable of doing and would likely struggle with for years to come. I felt the sting of grief within my chest, and for a moment in time, I wondered why the Lord had chosen this fate for Thomas.

For I would sooner have accepted some difficulty for myself than for him. I would never have chosen to walk through what we have experienced this year, bouncing from doctor to doctor, desperate for answers. I have never felt less in control, unable to bring about the change I seek. This is what it means to bear a cross.

The Example of Peter

Jesus Christ once told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). Many of us know this verse by heart, but do we remember the original context in which it appeared?

Peter had just made his great declaration, “You are the Christ.” (v. 29) But when Jesus immediately followed this up by predicting that he “must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again,” (v. 31) Peter rebuked him, unwilling to accept the idea that this one he called Christ would suffer such a cruel and ignominious end. Jesus replied, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (v. 33)

While we do not know exactly how much time elapsed between this exchange and Christ’s statement that his followers must deny themselves and take up crosses, they occur in consecutive verses in the Gospel of Mark, and not without good reason. For in predicting the manner of his death, Christ was revealing the way of life for his disciples, and it would not be a path of immediate victory. They would be forced to suffer, even as he would.

When the time of Christ’s great suffering came, Peter failed the test, denying his Lord three times. In the critical hour, he was unwilling to take up a cross and follow Jesus. For three long days, Peter lived with that guilt, until he saw the risen Lord and grasped the truth that was there all along: yes, Christ would submit to death on a cross, but in doing so, he would become the death of death.

A few weeks later, Peter and some fellow disciples met Jesus at a beach on the Sea of Galilee. In a reversal of the earlier denials, Jesus asked Peter three times, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Each time, Peter replied in the affirmative, only for Jesus to command some variation of, “Tend my sheep” (John 21:15-17).

Peter had fled from the cross at Golgotha, but now it was revealed what his cross would truly be: for the rest of his life, day after day, he would lay down his life for the Lord’s flock. He would endure persecution and mockery, illness and poverty, struggling to pass on the faith he had received. Then, when he had come at last to old age, he would be dragged up another hill, and the metaphor would become literal.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” (John 21:18-19)

Yes, Peter would die upon a cross, and it would not be one of his choosing, for they would carry him where he did not wish to go. But Peter would endure it for love’s sake. Never would he bear that cross alone.

We can be reasonably certain that Peter was crucified during the reign of Emperor Nero. It is attested by many early witnesses, including Eusebius: “It is recorded that in his [Nero’s] reign Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and that Peter likewise was crucified…” [1] If a legend is true, the only choice Peter had in the matter was to be crucified upside down. He endured the same wretched death as his Savior, but long before that, he loved God’s sheep to the end.

When this was prophesied to Peter on the beach, he looked at the Apostle John, a younger disciple who seemed destined for great things. “Lord, what about this man?” Peter asked (John 21:21).

It was a natural question—perhaps one we would all have asked. I felt the same question in my heart as I stood in that library, the eyes of strangers upon me, clutching my son. “Why me? Why us? Why do they sit in comfort, while we stand here suffering?”

But Jesus provided no answer to Peter any more than he provided one to Job. “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” the Lord inquired. “You follow Me!” (v. 22)

The Way of the Cross is the Way of Life

This is one of the hardest truths of Christianity. It is not for us to choose our cross, for we would select a trial we imagine we could handle, or one by which we assumed we could justify ourselves. The cross our Savior asks us to bear is one we can only endure by his power and grace. We need not seek out difficulties, for they will surely come. Our only task is to rely on the power of God and allow his love to flow through us. For Paul wrote, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Cor. 13:3)

When we attempt to choose our own crosses and seek righteousness through our endurance, we are what Martin Luther rightly names as theologians of glory rather than theologians of the cross. There is no point in “self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body” (Col. 2:23). Most likely, our crosses will not be some feat of glory, but it may very well involve caring for the ones God has placed in our charge. In making our peace with the providence of God and surrendering ourselves to the work of his hands, “we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” (2 Cor. 4:7)

Taking up a cross is not about proving yourself to God, but finding God proved true. It is not about making yourself righteous but being united with the righteous one. Flesh with flesh, spirit with spirit, we die and rise with him (Rom. 6:4, Gal. 2:20, Col. 2:11-14). The cross is salvation to us not because we overcome, but because he has overcome for us. Only with eyes of faith do we understand that even our cross is grace: not that we produce some work of ourselves, but that works were prepared for us beforehand that we might walk in them (Eph. 2:8-10).

When Christ gives you a cross, he gives you himself. It was the great desire of Paul’s heart “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:10-11). To take up my cross and follow him is for my pride to be put to death and to believe by faith that the suffering I will endure, evil as it is, will turn out for my good (Rom. 8:28-30).

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” [2] But only that cross to which Christ calls us can become for us a source of life. Let us speak not of redemptive suffering, but the redeemed suffering we share with Jesus Christ, who has defeated death and the devil, allowing us to share in his resurrection. For the inevitable sufferings we experience in this life are producing for us a weight of glory as we become sharers in the life of God himself through the mediation of the Son and ministry of the Spirit (2 Cor. 4:17). Upon the cross of Jesus Christ, the evils and sufferings of this life are transfigured into a beauty beyond compare, for that is the power of God’s water and Word, body and blood: they birth us anew, making us what we were not. Thus, we pray with the saints of old that “walking in the way of the cross, [we] may find it none other than the way of life and peace.” [3]

[1] Eusebius of Caesarea, The History of the Church, trans. G.A. Williamson, Penguin Classics edition (New York: Penguin Books, 1989), 62.

[2] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 89.

[3] The Book of Common Prayer. https://diocesela.org/the-bishops-blog/daily-prayer-the-way-of-the-cross/

Written by Amy Mantravadi. Amy lives in Dayton, Ohio with her husband, Jai, and their son, Thomas. She holds a B.A. in biblical literature and political science from Taylor University and received her M.A. in international security from King's College London. In addition to writing essays on theological topics, she has published three historical fiction novels and hopes to publish two more set during the early years of the Reformation. She also previously hosted the (A)Millennial podcast. Amy enjoys geeking out about history, geeking out about theology, and playing with her son.

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When You Have Him

God is the end of living, the destination, the point of it all.

This article was written by Mark Anderson

Upon his return home, the prodigal son was restored to his place in the family. The benefits of his father's prosperity were his once more. For some, this state of affairs may be the focus. The once destitute young man, struggling under the weight of his losses and missteps, now enjoyed prosperity, comfort, and security. He had "arrived."

What if it could be said that every person has "arrived"? What if every person had a good education, financial security, and access to anything and everything they desired? What if this state of affairs caused all war and conflict to cease and injustice to end? Would personal problems dissipate in exchange for happiness' embrace? Would we then have arrived, really arrived?

It would be tempting to think so. Who does not desire to be free from material want, the threats of insecurity, ignorance, injustice, and conflict?

As beneficial as they are, if these things were to be universally defined as the goal of living, the whole world would have missed the mark.

How well you manage life and accomplishment in this world is not the final point of living. This is one dimension of the parable of the Prodigal Son. He squandered his life away in the far country. But even if he had used his inheritance to make it, to arrive, to become a success in the far country, he would still have missed the point of living. Why? Because he would have still been estranged from his father. The point of his living would still have been defined by accomplishment, or lack of it, under the law.

We do not have God to be successful, to be healthy, to have peace, or to avoid squandering our lives in this way or that. The church, frequently tempted in this direction, often finds itself shipwrecked on the rocks of a shallow, prosperity gospel, the gospel of the God who is the means to an end. But God is not a means to an end. God is the end of living, the destination, the point of it all. Having God, we have enough. The fact of the matter is that God hasn't promised us anything else. God could have overwhelmed us with material prosperity and not made a dent in the celestial treasury. It would have cost him nothing of himself to establish us as creatures for whom material comforts would have been enough. But God wanted more for us.

There are few images in all of Scripture more poignantly beautiful than that of the joyful father, running to meet his child with open arms. The resulting restored benefits and renewed status of his son were signs of the father's deep love for him, but this was always the case. In the Gospel promise, given in Word and sacrament, God bestows himself in such a way as to open his heart in reconciling love for you, restoring you to himself. When you have him, know him, and are known by his merciful, forgiving love, you can truly say you are satisfied. Then you may say with the psalmist, "Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days" (Ps. 90:14). For amid life's hurts and hopes, joys and sorrows, wins and losses you are held in the embrace of your living, loving Lord. And when you have him, you have everything.

Pastor Mark Anderson’s life experience has ranged from being a touring rock musician, to serving as an Air National Guard chaplain. He is a graduate of Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota and Luther Seminary. He is the author of Life in Christ: A Pastor’s Perspective. Pastor Mark is currently developing an online ministry focusing on pastoral ministry in association with Luther House of Study in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Mark and his wife Linda enjoy traveling and to date have racked up 27 countries. They live in Coto de Caza, California, and have three grown children.

Summertime Blues?

God's faithfulness is constant and consistent. It knows no season. His love for us doesn't fade with the summer sun.
Ah, summer, that glorious season of sunshine, vacations, and lazy days by the beach. It's a time when the world slows down and schedules become more flexible. And while many Christians embrace this change of pace, there's one thing that often gets left behind: attending church. It seems that summer becomes the ultimate excuse for some to skip out on the weekly gathering of believers. But here's the wild and untamed truth: God remains faithful, regardless of our disregard for church, worship, fellowship, and all the good things that come with it.
Let’s not forget the now famous words of Martin Luther, who said, "A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all." Yes, we have the freedom to enjoy the pleasures of summer, to revel in the beauty of creation, and to savor the moments of relaxation. But at the same time, the church is the place where God's promise can be heard. It’s the location of God's specific encounter with sinners. It’s where the Holy Spirit speaks through the church's proclamation, makes dead sinners alive, and produces faith. In other words, the church isn’t just a building or a Sunday morning routine. It’s the very place where God meets us, where his promises are declared, and where the Holy Spirit works to change our hearts. It’s a sacred space, a refuge for the weary, and a constant, consistent source of strength and renewal.
And that is the heart of the matter. God's faithfulness is constant and consistent. It knows no season. His love for us doesn't fade with the summer sun. He remains steadfast and true, even when we let the distractions of this world pull us away. In the words of the apostle Paul, "If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself " (2 Tim. 2:13).

God's faithfulness is constant and consistent. It knows no season. His love for us doesn't fade with the summer sun.

So let’s not use summer as an excuse to neglect the gift of community and the blessings that come with gathering as the body of Christ. Instead, let’s embrace the wild and audacious love of our God. Let’s cling to his faithfulness and love not just on Sundays, but in every aspect of our lives, whether we're lounging by the pool or sweating it out on a hiking trail. Let’s remember that faith is not a seasonal affair, but a daily gift renewed by the Holy Spirit through the forgiveness of sins.
At the same time though, let’s remember that the church is not confined to a building or a specific time of year. The church is present as the body of Christ wherever two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus. It’s in the comfort we receive from conversations with other believers over backyard barbecues, in the moments of prayer shared with loved ones, and in the acts of service and kindness we extend to those in need.
Yes, summer may beckon us with its allure of leisure and relaxation, but our faith is not confined to the seasons. It is a living, breathing trust that follows Jesus, loves our neighbors, and proclaims the Gospel wherever and whenever the Holy Spirit opens our mouths to speak.
So as summer unfolds, let’s not use it as an excuse to neglect the rich blessings of church, worship, and fellowship. Instead, let’s cling to God's forgiveness, life, and salvation in every season, every moment, and every adventure. And may our lives be a testament to the faithfulness of our God, who remains with us, no matter where we find ourselves on this wild journey of faith and life.
Embrace the sunshine, the laughter, and the joy that this season brings, but never lose sight of the One who gives us life and purpose. For in Jesus Christ, our faith remains steadfast, our hope remains unshaken, and our love remains unyielding.
And may this summer be a time of deepening faith for all of us, a time of genuine connection with other believers, and a time when we enjoy the radical grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Written by Donavon Riley. Donavon Riley is a Lutheran pastor, conference speaker, author, and contributing writer for 1517. He is also a co-host of Banned Books and Warrior Priest podcasts. He is the author of the book, "Crucifying Religion” and “The Withertongue Emails.” He is also a contributing author to "The Sinner/Saint Devotional: 60 Days in the Psalms" and "Theology of the Cross".

A Reason to Sing

Sing of Jesus’ Easter victory for you, and watch Satan flee with his worries and cares!

Imagine for a moment: you stand on the shore looking out over calm waters. You stare in near disbelief as someone starts to sing, “The Lord is my strength and my defense, he has become my salvation” (Ex. 15:2). Why are they singing? Less than a day before, you stood on the opposite shore. Not long before that you had been in Egypt, but the Lord had raised up Moses to lead you to the Promised Land. As Moses led on to the shoreline of the Red Sea, you noticed Pharaoh who had been so eager for you to leave his country approaching with his army to bring you slavery or death. You cry out to the Lord. You cry out to Moses. What does he say, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” (Ex. 14:14).

Then things start to happen. The angel of God and pillar of cloud move from leading the people, to following them in order to separate Israel from Egypt. Then the wind starts to blow; all through the night it howls. Soon a path of dry ground appears through the water. With water on the right and water on the left, you walk on dry ground through the sea with the rest of the people. But as Egypt begins to follow, it was clear to all: “The Lord is a warrior” (Ex. 15:3). For Egypt, “both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea” (Ex. 15:4). The waters came back together to swallow up the strength of Egypt. Where is the strength of Israel? “The Lord is my strength and my defense.” Moses leads them in singing, and this is their song.

But why sing? Is it just a response of praise? It certainly is that, but consider also this thought from Luther:

The devil, the creator of saddening cares and disquieting worries, takes flight at the sound of music almost as he takes flight at the word of theology. This is the reason why the prophets did not make use of any art except music; when setting forth their theology they did it not as geometry, not as arithmetic, not as astronomy, but as music, so that they held theology and music most tightly connected, and proclaimed truth through Psalms and songs. [LW 49:428]

The Lord had just delivered Israel from slavery and plagues in Egypt. But as soon as they see Pharaoh’s army, they tremble in mortal fear. Immediately after this account, they struggle to find water and grumble against the Lord. How quickly the enemies and hardships make them forget: “the Lord is a warrior…your strength and defense…the Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still!”

How often does the devil come at us in the same way? Adversaries, hardships, challenges confront us. We quickly gauge our own strength and resources, and we know they’re not enough. We worry and fret, complain and grumble, sometimes flat out lose it. In those moments, the last thing we’re thinking is “the Lord is a warrior…my strength and defense…the Lord will fight for me; I need only to be still!”

But that’s exactly what we need to hear! Just as Moses sings to Israel and with Israel, he invites us to sing too! Notice how Moses sings: he repeats the great works of the Lord’s deliverance to his people. The Lord delivered his people from slavery and from the army of Pharaoh. The Lord has led them through the waters. Who has ever done such a thing? “Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?” (Ex. 15:11) What people have ever seen such a thing? This miracle, which is referenced over and over again in the Old Testament, is the greatest act of deliverance of the Lord for his people.

At least it is the greatest act of deliverance until the Lord takes on human flesh to “become my salvation.” The Lord is the God who always keeps his promises, and the greatest promise he kept was Jesus. “The Lord is a warrior,” and that warrior is Jesus. He’s the one who separated our sins from us which is greater than separating the waters of the sea. He broke the power of Satan who is far greater than Pharaoh. He swallowed up death with all its might which is greater than horses and chariots. He freed us from hell which is worse than any slavery. Jesus won the victory at the cross; the proof is in the empty Easter tomb. Jesus is “the warrior…my strength and defense…he fights for me; I need only to be still!”

What greater reason can there be to sing! Sing of the Lord and his work for you; remember who is your strength! Sing of Jesus’ Easter victory for you, and watch Satan flee with his worries and cares! Sing, praise, proclaim: “The Lord is my strength and my song, he has become my salvation!”

Written by Jason Oakland. Jason Oakland is an assistant professor of theology at Wisconsin Lutheran College after serving 17 years in the parish. He is a graduate of Martin Luther College, has an MDiv and STM from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, and is currently a PhD student at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. He is married to Kari, and they have been blessed with a daughter, Elizabeth.

Your Shepherd and Your Lamb

This is the Christian word: grace. Such grace is found only with this Lamb who is also our Shepherd.
“For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:20-24).
“He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.” We can’t say that about ourselves. We could say the opposite, though. There’s no sin we didn’t commit, no deceit not found in our mouths. Perhaps you might object on technicalities: “I’ve never done this or that.” We can play that game if you want, but let’s move from deeds to the mind, to the heart. Still want to play?
“When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” We prefer “an eye for an eye” to “turn the other cheek.” We want vengeance when wronged. We remember. We stew. We keep a list. We want our pound of flesh. Sometimes we call it justice, but we mete it out much better than we receive it.
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” Why, then, do we live to sin and die to righteousness? Why are we still here? If you were Christ, if I were Christ, there’d be no point showing up. We’d have burned our bridges and worn out our welcome. But Christ isn’t like us. Christ is the Shepherd for the straying. That is what he is. Remember that.

This is the Christian word: grace. Such grace is found only with this Lamb who is also our Shepherd.

The English have a proverb: “The noblest vengeance is to forgive.” Don’t you just want to punch the English? But Christ did just that. He did the unthinkable. We can find many of Christ’s teachings in the works of the noble pagans, of Buddha, of Confucius, but not this one: the forgiveness of sins, free and full, unmerited. This is the Christian word: grace. Such grace is found only with this Lamb who is also our Shepherd.
The word for “example” here actually comes from the Greek word used for handwriting class. I had Sister Karen for handwriting. God bless Sister Karen. I don’t know how many times I wrote the same letters repeatedly as she looked over my shoulder. I still remember how proud I was when she said I wrote “like a girl.” While the other boys might have found that funny, the next year I was the only boy to test out of handwriting. Guess who you get to hang out with when you test out of handwriting because you “write like a girl”? You hang out with the girls. There are worse existences for a sixth-grade boy.
Handwriting class with Christ is not like class with Sister Karen. It’s not laboring away with someone watching over your shoulder. It’s not going through the motions again and again hoping for praise. No, handwriting class with Christ is like your early years, when you loved to learn new letters and drew them for fun, carefully watching your parents and imitating them, delighting in your efforts, and confident that they delighted in you. Messing up wasn’t a reason to quit; it was simply reason to grab a new sheet and start over. Handwriting class with Christ is a joy because it is with Christ and for Christ. This handwriting class gives peace even in suffering and hope even in trials, because you know where you stand with your Father and you know the result of his plans.

With such a Father, straying could always find a home.

When he was dying, Fyodor Dostoevsky supposedly asked his wife to light a candle and give him the gospel. She gave him his New Testament, which had been with him throughout his life, including Siberian prison. He called over his children and told them to read the parable of the prodigal son. He told them never to forget that story. He loved them, but could never love him as much as that Father did. He told them no matter what they ever did, no matter how bad it might be, they could always return to this Father, just as he had. There was no room for despair with such a Father. With such a Father, straying could always find a home.
You have the same Father. And that Father gave his Son to make you his child. He gave his Son to be your Shepherd and your Lamb. No, you cannot perfectly live like him, but you can die and live in him with his righteousness now your own.
There was a time for Christ to keep silent, as he bore our stripes, as he received wounds that would become our refuge, but that time has passed. He’s silent no more. Now is the time to hear him. Hear your Shepherd’s voice through his called servants, through his Christians, through me. Have you strayed? All the better. Those are the sheep for whom he calls. Hear him. Hear him and die, and then live.
Christ is your Shepherd, and Christ is your Lamb, and he is all this for you, no matter what. Amen.
Written by Wade Johnston. Wade Johnston has degrees from Martin Luther College,Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Central Michigan University, and Erasmus University Rotterdam. He serves as Assistant Professor of Theology at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and served for ten years in parish ministry in Saginaw, Michigan. He one of the hosts of the 1517 Podcast, "Let the Bird Fly," and has authored several books including, "A Path Strewn with Sinners" and "An Uncompromising Gospel.

More Than You Can Handle

God wants his word of promise to be the only thing we bank on, the only thing we have confidence in.
Of all the so-called “Christian” mottos that I wish would die a cruel death and disappear forever, number one on that list is, God won’t give you more than you can handle. The motivation behind this slogan is understandable, perhaps. This saying is something you might whip out whenever a friend is enduring an especially rough patch of life. “God won’t give you more than you can handle” is, in that context, meant to be an encouragement. “You can make it through because you’re made of tough stuff!” In fact, one very famous Houston-based preacher put it like this: “God will not give you more than you can handle. If you have a big challenge today, that means you have a big destiny.” As uplifting and encouraging as that may be, though, “God won’t give you more than you can handle” is, perhaps, the most untrue thing you could say to someone who’s suffering.
You won’t find that message anywhere in the Bible. While you might be quick to reference 1 Corinthians 10:13, that verse actually has nothing to do with suffering and everything to do with temptation. “God won’t give you more than you can handle” simply doesn’t hold water, both biblically and experientially. There have been a slew of seasons in my own life where it felt as though God was pouring it on, where I was given way more than I could handle. I’m sure you could say the same. This, I think, is one of the reasons we have the Bible — namely, so that we can see that this experience of being “so utterly burdened beyond our strength” (2 Cor. 1:8–9) is not at all rare or uncommon to the faith. Rather, it is part and parcel of our faith in God. And there is probably no better example of this in all of Scripture than the Old Testament character of Gideon.
Before getting to Gideon, it’s crucial to understand the circumstances in which he served as a judge over Israel. For seven years, Midianite raiders ransacked Israel’s farmlands (Judg. 6:1–5). This would become a cruel annual holiday, of sorts, with Israel’s farmsteads regularly being “laid to waste” by enemy invaders, leaving them with nothing and bringing them to their wits’ end. The people’s cries “to the Lord” are answered in the form of a prophet, sent by Yahweh with a rather uncomfortable message (Judg. 6:7–10). In short, Israel’s current state of affairs were self-inflicted. The ravaging of their homes and their lands was a direct result of their rebellion against the One True God. It is in this state of desperation and devastation that God raises up the most unlikely deliverer.
When we are introduced to Gideon, he’s participating in the covert operations to which Israel had resorted (Judg. 6:11). This is a sign of things to come with Gideon, who, as we’ll see, is “a most unheroic hero” (Dale Ralph Davis). As Gideon threshes wheat in a winepress, the “angel of the Lord” appears in front of him and strikes up a conversation with him — and right away Gideon reveals the doubtful dude he is. “Please, sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?” Gideon hopelessly inquires. “But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian” (Judg. 6:13). Greeted by a messenger from heaven who seeks to encourage him with God’s presence, his gaze is focused on all the apparent evidences of God’s absence. “The Lord’s not with us!” he exclaims. “Look around, he’s forgotten us! He’s forsaken us!” This, of course, was more than just Gideon’s opinion; this was the common sentiment within Israel, he just gave voice to it.

To every one of Gideon’s protests, the angel offers the same promise: “Yahweh is with you.”

The angel disregards the questions and goes right on affirming Gideon’s calling: “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” (Judg. 6:14). Gideon protests yet again, this time pointing to the apparent weakness, obscurity of his family (Judg. 6:15). “You’ve got the wrong guy,” he moans. But, yet again, the angel repeats the same set of words (Judg. 6:16). To every one of Gideon’s protests, the angel offers the same promise: “Yahweh is with you.” Indeed, from the very beginning of this conversation, the angel has made it clear what force would propel Gideon to fulfill such a daunting task — namely, the “with-ness” of the Lord.
Calling Gideon a hero is a bit of a misnomer because all of his bravery originates in the word of promise given to him by the angel. He had no valor of his own of which to speak or in which to trust. It was precisely the presence of the Lord that would enable Gideon to realize a sweeping triumph over Israel’s oppressors. And yet, despite all the assurances of divine presence and power, Gideon’s doubts remain. His first response to the angel’s words was to ask for a sign (Judg. 6:17–18). Apparently, a heavenly word from a heavenly messenger was not sufficient to quell his fears; he required something more, something “miraculous” even.
The angel agrees to wait around while Gideon prepares a meal for him, complete with roasted goat and freshly baked bread. When the last pinch of garnish is in place, the meal is brought before the angel, who proceeds to touch the table setting with the staff that was in his hand, vaporizing everything! In a flash, a fireball consumes the entire entrée — even the angel has disappeared (Judg. 6:19–21). Suddenly, Gideon has an epiphany: “Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord” (Judg. 6:22). He realizes that his dinner guest was no mere messenger from heaven. This was “The Angel of the Lord,” Mal’āḵ Yahweh, a pre-incarnate appearance of the only begotten Son of God (Judg. 6:22–24). Now the weight of Gideon’s calling comes into full view. Though he was a weak and insignificant nobody, he’d been summoned by God himself to bring about Israel’s deliverance. And he wouldn’t set out to accomplish this feat on his own. He had God’s word of promise: “I will be with you.”
The Lord, then, gives Gideon his first test, charging him with destroying the altars of Baal and Asherah that had been erected in his own hometown (Judg. 6:25–32). What’s fascinating about Operation Idol Destruction is that it plainly identifies where Israel’s biggest problem was. Word on the street was Midian was mobilizing its forces for yet another raid. But prior to dealing with that threat, God’s first assignment for Judge Gideon was Gideon’s own backyard. Israel’s biggest enemy wasn’t Midian, it was Israel’s own idolatry and iniquity. What would it matter if they were free from enemy oppression if they were still enslaved to sin? Nevertheless, with the Midianites marauders on the move, the time had come for Gideon to march out and face them (Judg. 6:33–35).

Make no mistake: “fleecing God” is not a sign of faith.

This brings us to Gideon’s second request for a sign from God with his infamous request concerning the fleece:
Then Gideon said to God, ‘If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.’ And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. Then Gideon said to God, ‘Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew.’ And God did so that night; and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew (Judg. 6:36–40).
Notwithstanding what you’ve been told about this moment, make no mistake: “fleecing God” is not a sign of faith. This isn’t a “go and do likewise” event. Actually, this is another example of Gideon’s weak and faint-hearted faith. Even after all the assurances he’s already been given, with Yahweh himself coming down to single him out as Israel’s chosen deliverer, Gideon doubted. The Lord’s unconditional promise did little to galvanize Gideon’s courage, as he responds to God’s calling with a series of conditional requests: “If you will save . . . If there is dew . . . Then I shall know” (Judg. 6:36–37). Gideon is searching for the assurance he’s already been given.
Perhaps the most stunning part of this whole “sign of the fleece” ordeal is the fact that God answers Gideon’s requests without reprimanding him. This whole scene is an unmistakable example of God’s grace. “And it was so . . . And God did so” (Judg. 6:38, 40). To each of Gideon’s quaking petitions, God graciously answers. Ours is a God who is unashamed to condescend to our places of doubt and dread in order to remind us of his word of promise for us. Yes, even if that means he has to take on flesh.
With that, you might be given to think that God was through with testing Gideon. With such a “Herculean task” ahead of him, what good could possibly come from putting more of a strain on his already weak and wobbly faith? “God won’t give you more than you can handle,” right? Try telling that to Gideon as he strolls through the Israelite encampment with 32,000 men alongside, knowing full well that Midan’s forces more than tripled that number. This is when God has the gall to tell him, “That’s too many guys” (Judg. 7:2). An allowance is given for those who were “fearful and trembling” to walk away and return home without any judgment (Judg. 7:3; Deut. 20:8). Suddenly, 32,000 is 10,000. “That’s still too many guys,” God tells his judge (Judg. 7:4–8).
Don’t get distracted by the details here. The point of this scene isn’t for us to see how Gideon whittled his battalion to a “mighty 300.” This isn’t Leonidas and his Spartans the night before Thermopylae. In short, this entire sequence is yet another test of Gideon’s faith, setting the stage so that God’s strength might be the only thing remembered (Judg. 7:2). This, of course, was way more than Gideon could handle. It’s as if God was putting his faith through the wringer to find its breaking point.
After 31,700 armed men walk away, Gideon’s timidity is bolstered by yet another offering of assurance. This time, God tells him to disguise himself and venture down to where the Midianite army is encamped. “I want you to hear something,” the Lord tells him, “and if you’re too afraid to go by yourself, you can have your servant tag along” (Judg. 7:9–11). Gideon takes the offer and goes down to the Midianite barracks, where he’s immediately inundated by a vast, sprawling army that looked “like locusts in abundance” (Judg. 7:12).

The victory over Midian had nothing to do with Gideon’s military prowess or Israel’s courage. Rather, it had everything to do with a God who proves himself strong and mighty and faithful wherever we are weak.

But God knew what he was doing, as he leads Gideon and his partner to a tent where two enemy soldiers are talking about a dream one of them had:
“And he said, ‘Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.’ And his comrade answered, ‘This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp’” (Judg. 7:13–14).
God was using pagan superstition against them, as these Midianite infantrymen understood this fearful dream to be nothing short of a fateful omen which spelled their doom. Gideon, though, walked away immersed in the great faithfulness of his great God and led his 300 comrades to victory (Judg. 7:15–22). Gideon and Israel were made to share in the triumph Yahweh had given to them. Indeed, the victory over Midian had nothing to do with Gideon’s military prowess or Israel’s courage. Rather, it had everything to do with a God who proves himself strong and mighty and faithful wherever we are weak.
Whatever ability or aptitude, power, or potential we think we have, that’s what God aims to expunge. “You think it’s about pedigree?” an affronted God might ask. “Let me have Gideon from the weakest and the least of the tribes. You think it’s about your abilities? Let me show you what I can do through a weak and wobbly servant. You think it’s about numbers? Let me show you what I can do with a mere 300, armed with nothing but trumpets and torches!” God has a fondness for whittling down whatever we might rely on that’s not him. His agenda is concerned with ushering us to the point where he and his Word are our only hope. And more often than not, that means giving us way more than we can handle so that we are forced to fall on him.
God wants his word of promise to be the only thing we bank on, the only thing we have confidence in. He wants our full weight of trust to rest on him alone. We don’t need to doubt him. We don’t need more “signs.” We have all the signs we need in his Word of abundant assurance. “We have Christ and the Spirit,” writes Alexander Maclaren, “and so have a ‘word made more sure’ than to require signs” (2:1.234). But even when we doubt, God doesn’t chide us or belittle us. “He does not ridicule us for our fears,” Davis writes, “he never mocks us because we are fragile” (106). Rather, he meets us in the midst of our doubting and questioning and trembling with the promise that he is with us and for us.
The words of the angel are still true: “The Lord is with you,” sinner and sufferer. This is no platitude. This is no fable. This isn’t even something that was merely said in the past. This is the present-tense good news of God for you. In grief, in confusion, in sorrow, in weakness, in loss, in it all, “the Lord is with you.” You and I don’t have to try to get through life’s harrowing days on our own. When you are weak and faint-hearted; when you feel like you’ve been given way more than you can handle, God’s word of promise is still true: “I will be with you.” “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

Written by Bradley Grey. Bradley Gray serves as the senior pastor of Stonington Baptist Church in Paxinos, Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife Natalie and their three children, Lydia, Braxton, and Bailey.

The Thin Line

May you believe, in this thin-line world, that this Jesus is for you, not against you.
“I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). So declares Jesus.
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies!” (Rom. 8:11). So declares Paul.
And in my morning prayers, on one hand with the Psalmist I cry: Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things! (Ps. 98:1) But then again, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice!” (Ps. 130:1).
There is always a thin line between such opposites. A thin line:
Between good and evil.
Between gain and loss.
Between joy and sorrow.
Between hope and despair.
Between life and death.
In John 11, we meet two sisters who are tired of the thin line between life and death. Their brother Lazarus is suffering, near death, and they call for their friend Jesus. And do you remember what he did? Nothing. For two long days (how long did it seem for Mary and Martha?), he didn’t do anything. Jesus didn’t answer and he didn’t come and so Lazarus died.
After her brother’s death, Jesus finally shows up and Martha goes out to meet him. Did she push him? Did she flail away, fists pounding his chest? Did she lose herself in his arms? If only you had been here, O Lord! (John 11:21) I know that refrain. I know that song. And Mary? She does not even come out to meet him. What’s the point: dead is dead. Dead is stinking dead.
There is such a thin line between life and death. And do you know what Jesus did? He spoke a promise. He spoke a word. He declared life in spite of death; he declared victory in the face of the grave.
In John 11, Jesus continues to the place where death seems so final, to Lazarus’ grave. He lets us in on a conversation with his Father. “Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me’” (John 11:41-42). He breaks through that thin line and his dead friend lives.
May you believe, in this thin-line world, that this Jesus is for you, not against you. That he is alive. That he lived and moved and died and lives again so that you would have a way to live. A way between good and evil, gain and loss, joy, and sorrow, hope and despair. A way between life and death.
“I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). So declares Jesus.
It’s a thin line, And what is more, you know that what is good for you is also good for your neighbor. They live in the same thin-line world, and the same living Lord Jesus who meets your needs is there for them.
The Spirit of the living Christ Jesus abides in the baptized, and in him, you know the real story. You have not received a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption as Sons. You are his and he is yours. Christ's life and death and resurrection say so.
In such a thin-line world, this is how you get to live.
In such a thin-line world, this is how you get to die.
Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Written by John Bortulin. John Bortulin is a Lutheran pastor, a husband to Sarah, and a dad to five fantastic daughters. Together they enjoy time in gyms and on ballfields, traveling, laughs, and an occasional week at the family cottage. In addition to serving a loving and patient parish, John serves the broader church in the areas of worship, missions, and ministerial education.

Worship is a Terrible Word

Sunday morning is about receiving, not giving.

Worship is a terrible word for what happens on Sunday mornings in church. Worship is an English word that means "to show worth to." The word, therefore, implies that we are the primary movers. It makes God sound like an egomaniac who needs our praises to boost his fragile ego. I am being a little dramatic, but when we imply that we do something for God rather than the other way around, it is dangerous, no matter how subtle.

Sunday morning is about receiving, not giving. God is the primary mover as he enters our world and shakes things up. We go to church on Sunday to receive his good gifts. He doesn't need our prayers, songs, praises, or anything else from us. In short, he does not need our worship, but we need his grace. So he speaks to us. He feeds us. He absolves us. He washes us. He is the prime mover.

Think about going to grandma's house for Thanksgiving dinner. If you have a bad grandma, Thanksgiving is about her. She sets the table, cooks and bakes all day, and finally presents the turkey while the guests praise her. Imagine now that she sits down on a chair slightly higher than the other seats at the table, and the guests present themselves to her, bow, and kiss her ring. That would be a terrible Thanksgiving and a terrible grandma.

I am willing to bet that your experience with your grandma is the exact opposite. She didn't care about the praise. She didn't demand thank you cards. She only wanted two things: for you to enjoy the food she made and for the family to get along for at least one afternoon! Why do we think that God would be the bad grandma and not the good grandma?

And yet we still worship. God even demands us to do so. We praise and worship God for the very same reason we thank and compliment Grandma at Thanksgiving. Not because she needs it or even desires it but because it is the natural response to such gifts. So we praise and thank God on Sundays. But here is the thing about our God, he is even more gracious than Grandma. Those hymns you sing? Those petitions you pray? Those creeds you confess? God makes our worship responses about us. Who benefits from hymns, prayers, creeds, and even offerings? We do! God doesn't need your worship, but you do. And so do the people in the pew next to you who hear the gospel proclaimed in word, song, creed, and prayer.

Worship is finally trust. We trust that God is doing something for our good. We take him at his Word. We come into the presence of a holy and perfect God who has every right to flick us away as the ungrateful sinners we are. But he doesn't. And we know that. We know that he will not destroy us but will embrace us as a loving Father. He washes us because we are dirty. He feeds us because we are hungry. He absolves us because we are guilty. He speaks to us because we need to hear his love again. He is the prime mover in worship.

This is how he made us. We are speakers, drinkers, and eaters. No matter what culture you come from, if you gather together for a family reunion, you will do three things: speak, eat, and drink. From the very beginning, this is how God interacted with humanity. Adam and Eve listened to God and then ate what he provided. They were to take him at his Word when he commanded them to eat from the Tree of Life but not from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Listening, eating, trusting. All there in Eden. No wonder many have called the two trees in the Garden the first church.

Notice then that Satan attacks our worship. He attacks our speaking and listening, our eating and drinking. He wants us to worship anything but the true God because if we worship something other than the true God, we trust a false God. So what are your false gods? What do you trust? Follow your money (offerings), follow your calendar (holidays and events), follow your music, your reading, your speaking, your eating, and your drinking. There you will find what is important to you, and it may just be a rival god. It is the thing that is your number one, the thing that gives you your identity, the thing that you trust above all else. The problem with those rival gods is that they cannot save you. They cannot love you back. They will take your time and your offerings, your identity, and your trust, but they can never love you back in the way Christ can and does.

Perhaps we should have another name for Sunday mornings? I prefer "Divine Service" – it is God's service to us and, yes, our divine service of worship to him and those around us. Whatever we call it (and worship is a fine word when understood correctly), it must be about Christ for us.

I wrote On Any Given Sunday: the Story of Christ in the Divine Service to introduce, expand, and explain this idea that when we gather on Sunday morning to worship, God's gifts are present for us. This book has two parts. The first part is a story of a young couple who go to church. Each part of the Divine Service is related to their lives and struggles. The story of Christ is their story. It is Christ for them. The second part explains in more depth each aspect of the classic Divine Service used by countless Christians from every era and culture. Perhaps this book will be a good refresher for your understanding of worship or a primer for the new Christian trying to figure out what is happening in church on Sundays.

Either way, I hope you will give it a read because there is so much at stake on any given Sunday. Are we the prime movers, or is Christ? Is this about him or us? When we answer that question correctly, we find Christ for us. It is an encounter with the almighty God. It is a family reunion of all the faithful. Heaven and Earth are crashing together. God speaks and hosts a meal. It is the story of Christ told in poetry and prose. It is also your story because it is Christ for you.

Written by Michael Berg

Michael Berg is an assistant professor of theology at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, WI. He is married to Amanda and together they have three daughters: Abigail, Noelle, and Sophia. Michael is a graduate of Martin Luther College, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, the International Academy of Apologetics, Human Rights, and Evangelism, and Biola University.

Stones Fit for Skipping

The Lord knew how it felt to be a rejected stone.

Ever skip rocks as a kid? Remember searching for the perfect stone? When we moved to Milwaukee, we didn’t waste much time heading to Lake Michigan, and it didn’t take long for the kids to start looking for stones. They’d pick up one and drop it, pick up another and give it a try. They were determined to find stones fit for skipping, and, not to brag, but they’ve played a lot of ball, so they can throw. It was fun to watch.

What kind of stone are you? One God should pass by, pick up, or toss aside? One the world looks at and says, “That’s the one,” or one for which it has little use? Are you fit for skipping or do you just keep sinking?

More than a decade ago now I developed a habit that I sometimes regret. As part of remembering my baptism, I will often take my time in the shower to give God all the stuff on my mind, heart, and conscience, with the water reminding me that God has washed all my sins away. Unfortunately, since I am a stubbornly pessimistic person, one prone to holding onto the negative, this has morphed at times into my morning shower becoming complaining time. I complain about myself. I complain about my life. I complain about whatever. Rather than stepping out of the shower joyful and renewed, I end up grumpy and defeated. When I get stuck in a rut, this only makes things worse.

I’m guessing you’re sometimes at least somewhat like me. You get down on yourself, on life, and on whatever else, and not without good reason. You don’t feel fit for skipping. You feel lost in the background. You feel picked up and tossed aside. And so we wonder, “What good is a rejected stone? What good is a rock no one wants to skip?”

Peter knew that feeling well. His name meant “stone” or “rock.” Christ had given him that name. And yet how often had Peter failed to live up to it? How often had he not been corrected? How often had he denied the Lord, failed to listen, or chosen the wrong path? Peter knew what it was to be an unworthy stone. Do you know what never happened, though? The Lord never tossed him aside. The Lord never declared him unworthy, even when he declared him foolish. The Lord knew how it felt to be a rejected stone.

St. Peter tells us: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” And because this is so, things have changed drastically for us. St. Peter explains, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

Do me a favor. Take a moment and think on all the stuff you’d say in the shower. What makes you unworthy? What makes you unskippable? What makes you worth picking up and tossing away? Think on it, and then let it wash away, because it is washed away. Like it or not, as much as you’d like to grumble and wallow, it’s gone. You’re not that stone. You’re not that rock. You’re something new. You’ve been picked up and you will never be tossed aside.

Christ doesn’t find stones fit for skipping, but he does make them. He makes them with water for water. You’re his stones, and that should set us all skipping, even when we face waves, even when the world doesn’t see what Jesus does.

Jesus told his disciples that he had picked them up and wouldn’t let them go. He promised them: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

Leave the nonsense in the shower, because none of it makes sense in Christ. Leave all those words for the drain. Hear the words the living stone speaks to you, because his word is truth, and his word endures forever.

What matters isn’t what you think, what the world thinks, what anyone thinks. What matters is what this living stone thinks, the cornerstone, Jesus, the One who saves, because “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved,” and he has put his name on you in waters better than Lake Michigan, in waters of new life, every day, for all your days. You are stones set for skipping. Amen.

Written by Wade Johnson. Wade Johnston has degrees from Martin Luther College, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Central Michigan University, and Erasmus University Rotterdam. He serves as Assistant Professor of Theology at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and served for ten years in parish ministry in Saginaw, Michigan. He one of the hosts of the 1517 Podcast, "Let the Bird Fly," and has authored several books including, "A Path Strewn with Sinners" and "An Uncompromising Gospel."

Why We Need Preachers

Luther's emphasis on the need for sinners to have preachers who can provide them with the comfort and support they need for their faith in Jesus Christ and life is as relevant today as it was in his time.

As Martin Luther famously wrote, "the sin that you see in your flesh, this you should not observe in your neighbor's flesh. You should see your own sins, and make a plank of them, but look at your neighbor's sins as motes in comparison with yours" (Luther, "First Sermon on the Nativity," LW 52:17).

Luther recognized that all people are sinners, and that each person must confront their own sins before they can effectively address the sins of others. This is particularly true for preachers, who are called to proclaim the gospel of Christ to a world full of sinners.

Luther saw the role of the preacher as that of a messenger, chosen by God, sent to proclaim the good news of Christ's salvation to all people. As he wrote in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, "Preaching is not the performance of the law or the doing of good works; rather, it is the proclamation of the Gospel, which gives us Christ." (Luther, Commentary on Galatians, LW 26:7).

The preacher is not sent to scold or shame the congregation into good behavior, but rather to announce the message of hope and forgiveness that is found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps just as important, or even more importantly for preachers, is acknowledging the fact that they are also sinners, and so they too need the Gospel message that they proclaim. As Luther wrote in his Treatise on the Ban, "Even the person who preaches the Word of God must recognize that he is also a sinner and must stand under the judgment of God's Word" (Luther, LW 40:235).

The preacher is not sent to scold or shame the congregation into good behavior, but rather to announce the message of hope and forgiveness that is found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This understanding of the preacher as both messenger and sinner allowed Luther to emphasize the importance of humility in preaching, and to remind preachers that they are not above the people to whom they are preaching. This points both preachers and listeners to the importance of preaching in the context of the church community. As he wrote in his Small Catechism, "The Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith." (Luther, Explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles' Creed).

When he opens his mouth to speak God’s Word, the preacher is not just addressing individuals, but is speaking to the entire community of believers. Because preaching is a communal activity, the church becomes a place where sinners can find support and encouragement on their journey of faith.

"Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Rom. 10:17). This means that the church, as the community of believers, must have preachers who are well-versed in the Scriptures and can clearly communicate the message of salvation through Jesus Christ. Luther writes, "Since faith comes by hearing, the Word of God should be preached publicly" (LW 26:18).

All this raises the question, If God sends us preachers, what makes a good preacher? According to Luther, a preacher must first be someone who has been called by God. In his Treatise on the Ban, he writes, "Those who are to preach must be rightly called, so that they may know that they are not preaching by their own authority, but by the command of God" (LW 40:25). This calling is not something that can be self-appointed, but must come from God through the church. Additionally, Luther believed that a good preacher must be someone who is constantly studying and meditating on the Scriptures. In his preface to the Book of Romans, he writes, "Let him who would become a good preacher diligently read the Scriptures and be certain that he has grasped their meaning" (LW 35:361). A preacher who is not well-versed in the Scriptures is like a musician who cannot read music or a chef who cannot cook - they simply cannot do their job effectively.

Luther also recognized the importance of preaching as a means of combating the forces of evil in the world. In his Treatise on Good Works, he writes, "The devil is a proud spirit and cannot stand to be mocked or opposed. Therefore, when we proclaim the gospel of Christ, we are striking at the root of his power and depriving him of his prey" (LW 44:34). This understanding of preaching as a means of spiritual warfare is echoed in the words of the apostle Paul, who wrote, "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds" (2 Corinthians 10:4).

But most of all, Luther believed that a good preacher must be someone who understands the plight of sinners and can empathize with their struggles. In his Sermon on the Mount, he writes, "For the sake of the sinners who are weak and wavering in their faith, we must be able to come down to their level, so that we can lift them up and carry them along with us" (LW 21:155). This understanding of preaching as a communal activity underscores the importance of the church as a place where sinners can find support and encouragement on their journey of faith.

In a time when so many people do not know Jesus Christ, and so many Christians don’t have a preacher, Martin Luther's writings on preaching offer us valuable insights into the role of the preacher in the life of the church and the importance of the communal nature of preaching. Luther reminds us that preaching is not just about delivering a message but also about forming relationships and creating a sense of community among the faithful through the proclamation of the good news that gives sinners their Christ. Luther's emphasis on the need for sinners to have preachers who can provide them with the comfort and support they need for their faith in Jesus Christ and life is as relevant today as it was in his time.

Written by Donovan Riley. Donavon Riley is a Lutheran pastor, conference speaker, author, and contributing writer for 1517. He is also a co-host of Banned Books and Warrior Priest podcasts. He is the author of the book, "Crucifying Religion” and “The Withertongue Emails.” He is also a contributing author to "The Sinner/Saint Devotional: 60 Days in the Psalms" and "Theology of the Cross".

A Near-Death Experience and a Nagging Question

Jesus is the only answer to the nagging question. He is the only way to make sense of this unsettling story in Exodus 4.

There’s an unsettling story near the end of Exodus 4 that I doubt you were taught in Sunday School. Here’s what happened. God had just visited Moses in the burning bush and told him he knew his people’s oppression—enough was enough! God would rescue his people from slavery, and he would use Moses to do it. So Moses was sent back to Egypt, but on his way, “the LORD met him and sought to put him to death” (Ex. 4:24). Huh? Didn’t God just call him? Why did God suddenly go on the hunt? Moses, however, was spared. Moses’ wife, Zipporah, took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it. “So he let Moses alone” (Ex. 4:26a). No wonder we weren’t taught this story in Sunday School—it’s scary and confusing! God’s out-of-control behavior plants a nagging question in the back of our minds. We can’t help but wonder, “Could this happen to me?”

What’s behind the uncertainty is our constant craving for control, which betrays our desire to approach God through the law. The only way to make sense of this story, we assume, is to find the action, the work, or the law that we can perform to save ourselves. But, to use Dr. Steven Paulson’s adjective, our God is an “outlaw” God. He will not let you find that key of obedient law-keeping to unlock the door of his mercy. No, instead, God swallows the key and flings the door wide open in Jesus. No law can keep you safe from an “outlaw” God, and this story isn’t asking you to find one.

Think about Moses’ near-death experience in this way: what stood between Moses and God’s wrath was the blood of an intercessor. Dr. Reed Lessing, in his book, Deliver Us: God’s Rescue Story in Exodus, makes the point that this event in Exodus 4 gives us a foretaste of the Passover in Exodus 12: “Moses experienced Passover before Passover” (pg. 71). The fact that Moses was redeemed by means of blood anticipates God’s gracious provision for his people during the tenth and final plague, where the blood of an intercessory lamb redeemed Israel’s firstborns from the Destroyer.

Moses and Israel both needed the blood of an intercessor, and so do we. Both stories in Exodus point us to a greater, more personal reality. Jesus is the final and ultimate Passover Lamb, who stands between us and God’s wrath. His blood, which was shed on the cross, “cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). To quote the song “Lion Man” by Ghost Ship, “Weep no more, the wrath is on the tree. Weep no more, there’s no more left for me.” It was the Father’s loving and gracious will to put his Son to death. Not you. Never you. Because of Jesus, you are forgiven and will live!

Jesus is the only answer to the nagging question. He is the only way to make sense of this unsettling story in Exodus 4. Instead of having you look for some law to save you, God, through the stories of Moses’ near-death experience and the Passover, is graciously depriving you of your ability to save yourself, removing your fear, and drawing you closer in faith to himself. Your salvation is not left up to chance or possibility. It is certain, inked in the blood of Jesus, your Intercessor, and Passover Lamb.

Written by Jake Allstaedt. Jake Allstaedt serves as the pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church in Williston Park, NY. He received his Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in 2011. His passions include exploring the depths of God's grace, playing guitar, good coffee, White Castle burgers, and old school video games. Jake and his lovely wife, Christina, have one adorable little son named Roman.

Leaving an Unimpressive Legacy: The Story of Mark

What greater legacy could you claim than that of Mark? Listen to the Word. Learn from Jesus.

What do you know about Mark? Most would not have a whole lot to say about him. If you know one thing about Mark, it's probably that there's a book of the Bible with his name on it. Mark wrote the second of the four Gospels. That means he's an evangelist who wrote an account of Jesus' life and ministry in the church's earliest days. That's Mark's claim to fame.

There are some other things we learn in the Scriptures about St. Mark the Evangelist. We know his name is John Mark, and he's a cousin to Barnabas. He also traveled with Paul and Barnabas as a helper on Paul's first journey. But Mark quit after just the first stop to go back home to Jerusalem. Not exactly a moment for the highlight reel! When it comes time for their second missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas fight over whether to take Mark along. Paul won't take the quitter along, so Barnabas goes on a completely different journey just so Mark can go with him. Years later, we find out they have reconciled as Mark accompanies a few of Paul's letters. Paul also specifically requests Mark come to see him before he is executed in Rome.

With a fair degree of certainty, we can say a few other things about Mark. Mark includes a detail in his Gospel about a young man who was seized in connection with Jesus' arrest in Gethsemane. This young man was forced to shake out of his clothes to get away and run away naked. Who else would know that except Mark himself? Mark is reported to have spent a lot of time with Peter, and many think Peter is the one who informs Mark as he writes his Gospel account. It is also said that Mark founded the church in Alexandria in Egypt and was martyred for his faith reportedly on April 25, which we now celebrate as the Feast of St. Mark.

But why should we take time to remember this guy? It's true he did some impressive things if all the historical sources are accurate. But that's not really the reason we remember him. Admittedly, writing a Gospel is a big deal, but hold that thought for a minute. Consider only the picture of Mark we see in the Scriptures. He's not someone who is famous or eloquent. He's not a bold leader. Often instead, we see his faults. He runs in fear, and naked at that! He gives up on the journey. He's the cause of a fight. When we hear about the good things he does, they're pretty small in comparison to others. Mark is the student, the courier, and the helper. What's so memorable about that?

But then again, how many of us are among the famous and influential, the bold and eloquent, whose godliness shines as a beacon for others? How often aren't we painfully aware of our own many faults? How often don't our own contributions seem so meager in so many different areas?

Here Mark is worth remembering. Jesus gave Mark the great honor and privilege of recording one of the Gospels. But Mark doesn't use his words to tell us about himself; this isn't his story. He wants nothing more than for us to see Jesus in his words and to see him as the Savior. Jesus is the Authority, the greatest Power, the Messiah, and God himself come to save sinners! Then Mark rushes forward from one account to the next in a race to the cross because, of all places, that is where this powerful Jesus won salvation for sinners.

Mark heard the Word. He treasured the Word. He learned of Jesus. He pointed to Jesus and to salvation. Now whether you are remembered like Mark or not, whether Jesus allows you some great honor or not, no matter your accomplishments or your failures, what greater legacy could you claim than that of Mark? Listen to the Word. Learn from Jesus. Treasure him and his promises to you. Let that truth shape your life, and then point others to Jesus when he gives you the chance.

written by Jason Oakland. Jason Oakland is an assistant professor of theology at Wisconsin Lutheran College after serving 17 years in the parish. He is a graduate of Martin Luther College, has an MDiv and STM from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, and is currently a PhD student at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. He is married to Kari, and they have been blessed with a daughter, Elizabeth.

If Christ Has Not Been Raised, We are the Most to be Pitied

Paul is writing as a man who has already lived a life of law-keeping while denying the resurrection.

“If Christ has not been raised… we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:12-19).

There are those who say that even if the claims of Christianity are false, it is still a better way to live. I have heard this more and more as debates over the future of the West and Western culture have increased over the last few years. On the one hand, it is easy to understand what someone is saying when they make a statement like that. They mean that living as if there is a God who requires certain good behavior is better than living like there is no god at all. However, this requires you to believe that the paramount good of Christianity is some sort of morality or ethical standard. It is certainly true that the God of Scripture puts forward moral demands; this is easily seen in the Ten Commandments, among other places. And yet Paul tells us if the resurrection of Jesus did not actually happen, "we are of all people most to be pitied." Why?

Paul is writing as a man who has already lived a life of law-keeping while denying the resurrection. He knows what it is to have the commands of Scripture apart from the crucified and resurrected Messiah. Paul boasts that no one has excelled in that life more than he had:

Paul knows that striving after the law will not make you a good person who lives in a better way. It made him a persecutor of others. The law does not make people good. Instead, it names them as lawbreakers and sinners. Without the death and resurrection of Christ, we will find ourselves manipulating the law to be found righteous. We will pretend to live up to a divine standard when we have not. A resurrection-less Christianity is a gospel-less Christianity and, therefore, reliant on our confidence in the flesh. And so, a Christianity without the gospel is worse than no Christianity at all. If Christ has not been raised, we are left with a religion of moral imperatives that will set neighbor against neighbor. A religion of holy wars and ruthless judgment. A religion that had Paul rounding up his neighbors in the name of righteousness.

If Christ Has Not Been Raised, Our Hope is No Hope At All

Paul thinks the consequences of Christ not being raised are worse for those who believe than those who never did if it were to be true Christ was not raised.

Pascal's wager pines that evidence alone cannot prove there is a God, so the logical thing to do is take a leap of faith and trust there is one. Pascal argues if you are right, the consequences are ineffable and joyous, and if you are wrong, well, you don't have much to lose; the worse thing is you lived a life in pursuit of truth, tried to be a good moral person, and just happened to be wrong—but you’re dead now and don’t care. With all respect to Pascal, who lived in the early days of the Enlightenment while the inertia of Christendom was still very much at speed, his "wager" leaves much to be desired.

We do well to ask if a better theologian like St. Paul would agree with Pascal. He would not. Paul offers a different type of wager, one almost in reverse: "If Christ is not raised, we are the most pitiful people on earth (I Cor. 15:19)." A modern paraphrase might be, "If Christ didn't rise from the dead, then we've been living a lie, and deserve the world's mercy since our faith would offer none." That last part, "since our faith would offer none," appeals to what Paul has said in the previous context. There, he tells us that if there is no resurrection of the dead, "then Christ also has not been raised," and "we are still in our sins." If Christ has not been raised, he says, we are blasphemers, the great sin against God! (15:15). He stacks up more consequences if Christ is not raised: your faith is "futile," and those you love who have died are just bones or corpses. He says that preaching would be an empty activity (vs. 14) and our very faith—from which we gain hope—would be a lie; it would be vanity (vs. 14).

He sounds a lot like the Preacher of Ecclesiastes, who found much of life hebel or vanity: a meaningless cycle of cause and effects that don’t essentially change human reality or prospects. For the author of Ecclesiastes, the great enemy is death, who cancels out all gains, levels all hierarchies, and perpetuates injustice and hopelessness in the world by stopping any meaningful human progress.

For the book of Ecclesiastes, the consequences of not having assurance in a resurrection of the dead are—at best—a life lived only focused on the here and now, a here and now that will inevitably disappoint with futility, injustice and impending death.

So, with all respect to Pascal, his wager does not take into account the appropriate way that being wrong for being faithful would be catastrophic. But let's play out the wager’s logic for a moment so we can see what Paul finds so concerning. Pascal is essentially arguing that living as if Christianity is true is still better than not doing so because faith has benefits: it gives you hope, a relationship with God, and hopefully transforms your morals and thus makes you a better citizen. But most important for him is you appear to play the best odds. And, argues Pascal, if you died and all your faith which you held to be true was false, you wouldn't know, you wouldn't care, and you would have lived a life in hope and service to human society. Of course, he says, if you are wrong, the consequences are that you remain in your sin and under God's judgment. So, choose God—you have nothing much to lose.

But the Bible doesn't think this way in either the Old Testament or the New. The writer of Ecclesiastes is agnostic about life after death. He believes in God, but he does not have enough progressive revelation to have assurance of the resurrection of the dead (Ecc. 3:18-19). What he is confident of is that "I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity, a striving after the wind”(1:14). For the book of Ecclesiastes, the consequences of not having assurance in a resurrection of the dead are—at best—a life lived only focused on the here and now, a here and now that will inevitably disappoint with futility, injustice and impending death. Life under the sun has no real purpose or meaning without a resurrection. All human effort, striving, art, love, and success, all pain, suffering, and injustice come crashing down in the infinite leveling power of death. There are no lasting advantages to all of life’s gains. Worse still, each new generation renews the cycle, on and on forever—until and unless the dead are raised. What Ecclesiastes hopes for is something “new” under the sun, something from outside that bursts in and defeats death, and clearly shows the way to new life.

Paul thinks the consequences of Christ not being raised are worse for those who believe than those who never did if it were to be true Christ was not raised. This is the exact opposite of what Pascal argue because for Pascal the outcome is a wager. For Paul, it is a matter of purpose. Why does Paul think this way? Because being a Christian is hard and requires sacrifice. Not for our own justification, which Christ does alone, but because, in Christ and through the Holy Spirit, we are made into a new people, given new hearts, and commissioned for eternal work. We give up a lot of pleasure and make many sacrifices to "take up the cross" and follow him, imperfectly but with devotion. Some Christians even are persecuted and martyred for the name. If Christianity were not true, we would waste so many pleasures and opportunities this fleeting life offers and engender countless dangers that would be unnecessary. In other words, Christians would be living a lie.

For Paul, and therefore for us, Christ being raised is the central and most important new thing in all creation.

But worse still—and this is where Paul is most concerned–Paul draws us to the cosmic consequences of no resurrection. If Christ is not raised there is no forgiveness of sins, there is no hope, and we are all bound for hell since we are all stuck in our sin. This life would only be a life of collecting evidence for the prosecution to convict us in the Heavenly Court. Lacking our own righteousness, we would be left in the guilty state our father Adam gave us. For Paul, and therefore for us, Christ being raised is the central and most important new thing in all creation.

Again, look at what the writer of Ecclesiastes says at one point:

“…there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘see this is new?’ It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after (Ecc. 1:9b-11)."

Interestingly, Ecclesiastes, Hinduism, and Buddhism find some common ground in a broad observation. All three ground human suffering and pain in a cycle of unending and unfixable repetition. "Samsara"—the cycle of reincarnation or rebirth into life is a great problem that must be overcome in Hinduism and a form of suffering in Buddhism. For Ecclesiastes, the seemingly fated reality of life as meaningless gives rise to human meaninglessness. In other words, even other religious recognize that without something—or Someone—new to break-in and redeem, renew and restore creation, life has no true meaning.

But now hear what the New Testament says about God’s work in Christ:

Revelation 21:5: And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also, he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."
Ephesians 2:15: by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace…

Ephesians 4:24: put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Hebrews 8:13: In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

And when Isaiah, looking forward to Christ's work, prophesied, he said:

Isaiah 43:18-19a: Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Isaiah 65:17: “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.

Far from being a minor consequence if we are wrong, the resurrection of the dead through the work of Jesus Christ is our hope, our faith, our joy, our worship, our message—the very new thing that God has done to renew the creation, to break the grip of sin and death, and to give meaning to life, suffering and every good thing. The reason to cast a “wager” on God is not because if you are wrong and find out your faith wasn’t real, you’d have nothing to lose. No, it is better to not speak of wagers, probabilities, possibilities or odds. Instead, the empty tomb and the testimony of eyewitnesses is enough of a firm ground to lay our hearts and for faith to take root.

Written By Bruce Hillman. Bruce Hillman is a Scholar in Residence at 1517. He Holds a BA in History and Political Science from Quinnipiac University, an MDiv. from the Lutheran Brethren Seminary, and an STM in Patristics from Drew University; He is the former Lead Pastor at Hillside Lutheran Brethren Church in Succasunna New Jersey where he served for 16 years. His research involves Augustinian studies, Early Christianity, Postmodernism, and hermeneutics. In his free time, he enjoys gardening and cooking. He is an avid student of both British and Japanese cultures and traditions. Other areas of academic interest include: Karl Barth, the question of certainty, Ancient Near-Eastern Wisdom Literature, Asian Christianity, church and culture, and philosophies of truth.

If Christ has not been raised, the Dead in Christ are Lost

If it’s all a fiction spun by disappointed disciples, if it’s a mere symbol for the idea of an inner awakening, if it’s not a fact that Christ has been raised, then our grief and loss have no end, and we have no hope.

When I was a kid, I loved long words. In first grade we read Dr. Seuss’ Hop on Pop, and I was excited to be able to read not just “No, Ned, no! Don’t sit on that!” but also the big words on the last page: Timbuktu and Constantinople. Imagine my delight later in my growing-up years to learn what I was told was the longest word in the English language: antidisestablishmentarianism. It was just a string of letters, but I know now that it has a history as long as itself.

In the early years of the American republic, many states still had laws bidding citizens to follow certain religious practices — even after the passage of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. My childhood longest word referred to those who fought against (“anti” and “dis”) the notion that we should have to divest our government of all religion (“establishment”). One of the greatest proponents of disestablishing religion was the tobacco farmer, slave holder, third president, and fervent ultra-rationalist, Thomas Jefferson.

Often Jefferson’s aversion to religion has to be found by implication in his other writings, though it was well enough known that in the 1800 presidential election, he was accused of atheism. But when he died he left behind evidence in his library, what’s now known as “Jefferson’s Bible,” that reveals not atheism but deism. Jefferson did a cut-and-paste job on the Bible, eliminating anything that, to him, smacked of superstition. He glued the remaining passage in the equivalent of an 18th century Moleskin journal. What didn’t make it into his expurgated Bible were the miracles, Jesus’ ascension, and most importantly, the resurrection.

What’s left is a presentation of Scripture as the founding documents of a moral system and was meant to help rational people achieve the amendment of their lives and the betterment of society. It was out-and-out deism with God as a helpful idea at best. And it’s a perfect example of Paul’s great subjunctive in 1 Corinthians 15: “If Christ has not been raised.” If it’s all superstitious tripe. If it’s all a fiction spun by disappointed disciples, if it’s a mere symbol for the idea of an inner awakening, if it’s not a fact that Christ has been raised, then our grief and loss have no end, and we have no hope.
When the believers in Thessalonica expressed to Paul the anxious questions about death and resurrection, he was quick to remind them that the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith marked them as different from those who, like Thomas Jefferson, only had their five senses as a foil to death and loss. The deep hole of grief left when a loved one dies has nothing in the material world that our rational mind can use to counter its depth and breadth. The world can only regard death as the logical conclusion of either a well or ill lived life.
But the resurrection brought Paul something new he hadn’t previously known. On the road to Damascus, he encountered no memory or symbol of the Jesus that was. He met instead Jesus with a voice who was risen from the dead, the presence of the one Stephen proclaimed when Paul played coat-check attendant at the first Christian martyr’s death. Of course, unlike the Sadducees, as a Pharisee, Paul saw resurrection as a possibility. But it was this man whom he considered a blasphemer rightly crucified who was raised. And that made all the difference.
Where faith is present, death can be regarded as nothing more than a long nap.
Not only is the resurrection a fact, but because it is Jesus, God-with-us, the Good Shepherd, the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, the Suffering Servant who is raised, there are far-reaching consequences. For the Risen One is this Lord and Savior who promised in John 12:32, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” If Christ is risen, then his promises did not end at Calvary. If Christ is risen, then those for whom he died remain right where he kept them: in the spear wound in his side. If Christ is risen, then those who have fallen asleep in him, that is, those who trust him to accomplish what he promises, are certainly not lost.
In Ephesians 5:14, Paul tucks a bit of a hymn into his letter that adds to 1 Corinthians’ assertion that the dead are not lost: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Where faith is present, death can be regarded as nothing more than a long nap. If Christ is raised, then the grave is no more to be feared than my armchair and ottoman where I take a quick twenty-five winks after work and wake recharged in time for supper and an evening of Netflix. Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, has permanently grafted us alien branches to his vine. His Triduum sleep is ours; just so, his waking and tearing off his graveclothes is ours as well. To add yet another metaphor, the Christ remains the shepherd even of sheep that are lost to death, and if he is raised then he is also able to snatch his lambs from the grave’s wolfish maw.
“Lost. Schmost,” says Jesus. “The waters of your baptism my be a past-tense event, but the promise attached to them lasts forever.” If Christ is raised, then baptism is a present-tense reality, and you’re already as good as raised right now. It’s been established, and no disestablishment naysayer to the resurrection (not even Thomas the Deist) and the resurrection’s certain promise can take it away.
Written By Ken Sundet Jones. Ken Sundet Jones, Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, loves teaching undergrads. He was born in Heidelberg, which must be why he likes Luther so much. He was shaped by the Sturgis motorcycle rally in his hometown and by summers at his grandparents’ cattle ranch. His doctoral dissertation covered 16th-century German evangelical funeral preaching. And he knows how to do knitting and Scandinavian flat-plane woodcarving.

If Christ Has Not Been Raised, Preaching is Useless

This week we are taking a closer look at 1 Corinthians 15:14-19 and what we lose if Christ has not been raised from the dead.

Iam a preacher—and I think often about how disheartening it all seems (whether you are giving a sermon or getting one!) It really does seem like preaching is past its time—we have more efficient means of communication in a modern world. Maybe preaching really has become obsolete since there are many ways to get basic information about the truths of Christ without forcing people to get up and go to some place – like a church – and listen to someone drone on about how great it is to be a Christian.

Even so, Paul’s point in First Corinthians chapter fifteen, is weightier than musing about the need of preaching. In this verse, Paul uses a wonderful grammatical tool called a “conditional contrary to fact” that is meant to shock his congregation into reality. It is no different than using a cattle prod to sting the beasts into their proper stall. Paul is never meek nor mild when he gives the gospel. A “conditional” is a sentence with an “if…then” format. This sort claims that whenever the first “if-thing” is true, then the second “then-conclusion” necessarily follows: if the weatherman is right, it will snow tomorrow. But at this point Paul applies his cattle prod—the shock—that makes the first conditional into a great, big falsehood: “If Christ has not been raised…” if Jesus is still lying in the tomb with the stone over the opening and his death bandages still wrapped on him, if he is nothing but dry bones by now, if all we have nearby Golgotha is an empty tomb with no raised body, if the debt of the world’s sins is covered apart from the real resurrection of Christ, then our preaching is in vain. Christ has been raised from the dead and to preach otherwise is the ultimate lie.

No need for a word from the living God any more! In similar style, modern Christians try to tell themselves that if they just believe in the “cross” of Jesus, that is enough.

The fact that so many people want this falsehood to be true at first seems astonishing. Why do so many—especially Christians like those in Corinth—want Jesus to be un-raised? Who would ever want a dead God? Well, it turns out a lot of people want Jesus never to come out of his tomb, starting with Peter and Judas. Those two wanted Jesus dead in the worst way. Jesus out of the tomb—to “have been raised”—in the past tense, is their horror. Jesus knows every single bit of the betrayals of him, in detail. It is as if he has a journal with notes about every single thing said – or not said – that led to handing Christ over to his enemies to be cursed on the tree. Once you have a curse on the tree, you do not want him coming back. Even the ones who had less obvious betrayals did not want Jesus raised—like Thomas who finally had to wiggle his finger in the resurrected Jesus’ side, or Paul himself. Paul didn’t want the resurrected Christ either; in fact, his whole calling in life was to enter synagogues and ensure his fellow Jews discredited the rumors of Christ’s resurrection.

Some flee from the bodily resurrection while still trying to squeeze some meaning out of Christ. These we call gnostics and they crop up all over the place throughout all of time. They think that preaching is meant to hand over “secret” thoughts about how to become united with God. Gnostics ditch bodies – including Christ's risen body – with their desire to become immortal by having sudden, immediate visions of beauty, goodness and truth. No need for a word from the living God any more! In similar style, modern Christians try to tell themselves that if they just believe in the “cross” of Jesus, that is enough. If Christ’s cross is simply a payment for the debt of my sin to either his Father or the law itself, isn’t that enough? Why do I have to bother listening to a preacher tell me that on the third day Christ rose from the dead? But this tidy theorizing leaves out the essential fact that if Christ is not raised, he has fulfilled nothing and overcome nothing. If he has not been raised, there is no power against sin and no atonement between the sinner and God.

In fact, the resurrection of Christ was impossible to believe.

Paul knew that in any church and in any true preaching there were three words that make up the Gospel. These three are promises (of first importance):

1. that Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scripture
2. that he was buried because he was dead as a doornail
3. and that he was raised on the third day according to Scripture (1 Cor. 15:3-4).

Paul also knew that the hardest one to believe is not the 1) cross and not 2) the tomb—but 3) the resurrection. In fact, the resurrection of Christ was impossible to believe. That goes directly against the only things that make what we call “facts”: reason and feeling. It is actually not too hard to believe Jesus died on the cross (even though it is harder to think he did it for your sins). That addition gets personal and feels uncomfortable, but it is still do-able. It is also hard to think about Christ in his tomb because that means God himself died, which is a tricky thing to believe! It is even possible to believe that Christ descended into hell and was stomped on by Satan just like any old sinner—although that is also frightening to dwell upon.

Yet, what neither reason nor feeling allows at all is that the Father reached into his Son’s tomb and pulled him out. Why is it impossible to believe? Because we can use reason and feeling to grasp a death on the cross or even burial in a tomb, but we have never seen or felt an actual, real, complete resurrection from the dead. We have seen many deaths and many burials and they seem permanent. So our minds supply little illustrations that take the place of resurrection—like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. We can even imagine a man overcoming drunkenness and becoming sober, or a woman committing her life to God. What we can’t believe—because we have never seen it or felt it—is that on the third day, the Father raised him just by saying, “Come out my Son!”

Jesus Christ’s death – with your sins upon him and his burial in the tomb – are no help to you at all unless Jesus actually, really, factually, personally rose from the dead and came to say something to you.

At least at this point we could agree with Paul that if Christ were not raised – that is, in my own little theoretical, ideal, dream world (though in reality he was raised) – then preaching of any sort would truly be in vain. I prefer that old English word here: preaching would not only be “useless” but “vain”; like Solomon in his wisdom musing about the meaning of life: vanity, vanity, all is vanity! Especially preaching is vanity! Why listen to that junk over and over? Well let me tell you why preaching like that is not in vain: empty, useless, pointless, meaningless. It is because Jesus Christ’s death – with your sins upon him and his burial in the tomb – are no help to you at all unless Jesus actually, really, factually, personally rose from the dead and came to say something to you. A dead God can deliver nothing to you. No life, no salvation, no atonement can be yours unless the living God delivers them to you. He sent your preacher to you, in order to say to you what must be a direct, personal, in time-and-space, here-and-now word delivered to you and you alone: “I forgive you.” Without that word, you have no belief; you have no faith. In fact, there is no “you” except for a devastated prisoner left in a jail run by the devil (who plays lies all day long on a speaker system, or if you are lucky, on a video feed).

Thus, if Christ has not been raised – and only then – our preaching forgiveness to you is vain. That would make your forgiveness smoke and mirrors. It would then be a dream, which is the same as to say it would be a lie. If Christ has not been raised, you are forced to live in a fake world with fake faith in fake dreams. But! You will be happy to learn that Christ has, in fact, been raised from the dead! Wherever Jesus’ resurrection is preached, you will no longer live in fake-land. For the first time in your so-called “life,” you will be rushed into reality, and where there is reality, you will also be saved. Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation—which is a real, true, eternal life in which there is not one little speck of death.

If Christ Has Not Been Raised, You Are Still In Your Sins. What if sin was truly removed and what if the one who took it from us had the power to conquer it’s curse and spit in the face of death?

First Corinthians chapter 15 is one of my favorite chapters in all of Scripture. It is rich with both theological content and personal meaning. The chapter itself begins with one of the most important things a Christian could ever ponder. These set of verses answer that burning and sometimes controversial question: what is the Gospel? The Gospel, it says, is the proclamation of the truth “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3-4).

Paul goes on to provide a list of witnesses to the risen Christ for the purpose of illustrating that Christ didn’t just rise in his heart. Christ didn’t just rise spiritually. And finally, Christ didn’t rise metaphorically. Rather, Christ was killed on that cursed tree, and three days later he rose from the dead, in his body, as the first fruits of our real and bodily resurrection.

Now, there are two things to take note of here. The first is obvious—that as Christ has been raised, truly raised in his body, so shall we be raised, in our bodies, just as he promised. The first is linked intrinsically to the second. That is, that if Christ did not rise from the dead, we are still in our sin. Or as the preacher would say, you are still in your sin.

So what does it mean to “still be in your sin”? Sin is the separation from God that we both inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve, and that we confirm daily, hourly, minute by minute, in our own state of sin as well as our active sins against our neighbors. As the liturgy helps us confess, we sin in thought, word, and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We do not love God with our whole heart (or left to our own devices, any part of it), and we do not love our neighbors as ourselves. Thus, we justly deserve God’s just and eternal punishment. That punishment is death – eternal death – and this death is the real enemy.

Sin is the separation from God that we both inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve, and that we confirm daily, hourly, minute by minute, in our own state of sin as well as our active sins against our neighbors

Death is what Christ came to mock. And death is what vexes us all. Christ’s death is his final act of taking on all our sin—truly taking it from us and making it his. In this final act of defiance, his final suffering and crucifixion grabs from our wicked clenched fists the last remnants of sin that we stubbornly hang on to and lays that sin on his own back. The same back that is whipped by the guards. The same back that is pressed against the tree as his hands and feet are stretched and nailed securely down. The same back that slumps on the cross as muscle, tendon, and ligaments give way and fail to hold him up any longer. This back takes all our sin and dies in our stead. This is the sacrifice of Christ. This is the vicarious atonement. This is what makes him the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who takes away your sin!

So what then of his resurrection? That is a good question. I previously noted that Christ’s real enemy was death. Death was the curse that was wrought because of sin, our sin. Death is our ultimate fear. Death is the universal condition that links all mankind. Death is the enemy, and sin leads to death—both in this life now and forever. But what if sin was truly removed and what if the one who took it from us had the power to conquer it’s curse and spit in the face of death? What would this mean for you and for me? Would it mean that we who are in Christ no longer had anything to fear? Indeed it would!

This is what it means for Christ to take our sin. If anyone else would have attempted such a feat, they would have failed. Why? Because only Christ is the eternal Lamb of God who was and is and is to come. Only he who spoke the words “let there be” could also truly conquer sin, death, and the power of the devil. Only he who was in the beginning could confidently say that in three days he would rise again. Only he knew that he had to give his life freely and that no one could take it away from him. And only he had the power to fulfill the promise that his death would finally take our sin and his resurrection meant that death lost the finality of its sting over us.

So, Paul poses a mind game for us here in First Corinthians. He asks us to ponder the importance of the actual and real bodily resurrection of Christ by saying to us, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” Because if we are in our sins, death is still an enemy with power over us. Without Christ’s resurrection, death still has the power to curse, destroy, and wreak havoc and fear over our lives. And this is why the first seven verses of this chapter are so important. They show us, undoubtedly, that Christ did rise from the dead. That he appeared to “Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me (Paul) also, as to one abnormally born” (1 Cor. 15:5-8).

As we celebrate Easter, we are called to remember and confess that he is Christ. He is risen. And if he is risen, our sins are no longer ours. When we fall asleep, he will come again and with a trumpet sound to wake us on that last day to be with Him! O, sin what of your curse? “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:55). The true victory of Christ’s bodily resurrection was all for you. Have no fear. Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Hallelujah!

By Scott Keith. Scott Keith is the Executive Director of 1517 and Adjunct Professor of Theology at Concordia University, Irvine. He is a co-host of The Thinking Fellows Podcast and a contributor to 1517 and Christ Hold Fast. He is also the author of "Being Dad: Father as a Picture of God’s Grace." He earned his doctorate from Foundation House Oxford, under the sponsorship of the Graduate Theological Foundation, studying under Dr. James A. Nestingen.

It is Finished

Dear hearers of the word of God, you are finished. You cannot be the same now. All that is ended, over.

It is finished, completed, fulfilled. In our world with all its half-finished tasks, its jobs which never seem to stay done, those words ring strange in our ears, perhaps even a bit presumptuous. How can it be finished? Does not the world go on, with its comings and goings, its joys and its sorrows, loves and hates, living and dying, its giving birth, and yes, even its violence and killing? How can it be finished? Yet that is the claim of this word of Jesus from the cross. There was one task, at least, that got done. It is finished.

What is finished? Nothing less, I think we must say, than all our business with him whom we call God. For the fact is that since the beginning we have not gotten on very well with God. Oh, I suppose you might say that we have tried in a way. We have flattered him with some of the best names we can think of: Divine, The Supreme Being, The First Cause, The Almighty, The omnipotent, omniscient and all the other “omnis.”

We have built some of our most beautiful buildings in his honor, done heroic things in his name – as long as it seems to suit our purposes. We have undertaken great moral crusades, made sacrifices and laid many a burden on ourselves to do him justice – or at least we tell ourselves we have. But through it all, as the Scriptures amply testify, there has been an undercurrent of resentment against a God who really undertakes to come into our lives, to intrude upon us.

“The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and his Anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us” (Ps. 2:2–3). “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matt. 23:37). Since the beginning when we listened to the voice of the tempter, “You shall not die, you shall be as God,” we have been trying to do away with God. And now, at last it has happened. The truth about us is exposed. God’s Son is dead. It is finished – our business with God.

But that, of course, is not all of the story – thanks be to God! When Jesus uttered that last cry, it meant that not only our business with God is finished, but also God’s business with us, God’s way with us, God’s seeking us is finished, consummated, perfected. Since the beginning he has been seeking us, trying to get through to us, to reconcile us to himself, to say his “I love you, nevertheless. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.”

Now he has said it, done it. Wonder of wonders, this is the moment God has planned for. “He was delivered up,” St. Peter said, “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). He came to bear our sins in his body. He took it all the way to death. He speaks in his last word to us. He completes his way with us. He spares nothing that we might see the light. So in John’s Gospel, from which these words come, this is the moment of the supreme glorification of the Name of God. Jesus said, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all to me” (John 12:23). Before his crucifixion he prayed, “Father, the hour has come, glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee…!” (John 17:1). And now it has happened. The Glory of God has been manifested.

And so it is finished. The Scriptures have been fulfilled. And what does that mean for us? Shall we arise from this dreadful place, this death, and live? That, I suppose, remains to be seen. It awaits the message of Easter Morn. But it does mean that we are finished. Our old way with God has reached its goal. And that means that we are finished. It means, dear hearers of the word of God, that you are finished. You cannot be the same now. All that is ended, over.

All the selfishness, the refusal to believe God and to take him at his word, the prejudice, the hatred, the protecting of self, the fear of death – all that has no point, no purpose, no future. You are through. God has put an end to that. He has decided to have done with the old because he is creating something new. So hear this word from the cross: It is finished, and that is final. Hear it and know that it is not just an end, but a completion, a consummation, that in that end is a new beginning. Nothing remains now but to await the dawn of a new day, the Easter Morning, the resurrection, the new life of faith in God. God has made an end to the old so the new can begin once again. He has reached his goal. It is finished. Repent, and believe. Amen.

Written by

Gerhard Forde

Gerhard Forde was an American Lutheran Theologian.

Mandating the Promise

By mandating the promise, Christ states something stronger than just an invitation.

Grammar is important, but it doesn’t determine your theology. Luther famously made this point in his dispute with Erasmus over free will: just because God commands you to do something (this is an imperative in grammar) doesn’t mean you have the power to do it. Grammar alone cannot establish the existence of free will.

With the distinction between law and gospel, this is important to recognize as well. When learning how to hear law and gospel, preachers and students of Scripture will often take a text and file it either as law or gospel. “You shall have no other gods” is a law statement. “Peace be with you” is a gospel statement. It’s helpful to do this when studying a text for writing a sermon, teaching a bible study, or comprehending Scripture as you read.

But grammar alone can’t tell you whether God is commanding or promising. There’s more to be considered. One thing is that law and gospel reside in their use: we have to consider how a text lands in one’s conscience. The Holy Spirit might use the story of Christ’s passion to convict the sinner; he might also use the same story to unburden the afflicted.

When it comes to the Lord’s Supper, it’s especially clear that grammar alone doesn’t tell us everything about the law and gospel. The Ten Commandments are the briefest expression of the law (and the first one briefer still). But when it comes to Maundy (mandate) Thursday, we have a command which “mandates” the promise of the gospel: “take and eat,” “take and drink.” Christ also addresses the apostles, “Do this for the remembrance of me.” The church recalls Christ’s institution of the Lord’s Supper on this day of Holy Week.

Theologically, when Christ mandates the promise, he’s not just telling you to do something. He’s not even making a suggestion. Christ wants you to receive his gift. It’s for you, for the forgiveness of sins.

And, as Luther says in the Small Catechism if you believe these words, “given and shed for you,” then you are worthy and well-prepared. Only sinners are worthy of the Lord’s Supper, and if it’s the forgiveness of sins that you seek from Christ, then you qualify. Eat and drink your salvation!

By mandating the promise, Christ states something stronger than just an invitation. An inherited story (probably apocryphal) from the late Jim Nestingen illustrates this well. There was once a pastor serving a rural congregation in the Midwest. It had plenty of farmers. As Jim told it, one eccentric Norwegian bachelor farmer refused to take communion. In the old days, Lutherans didn’t administer the sacrament as often as we do today. And people often feared the unworthy reception of Christ’s body and blood (see 1 Cor. 11:29).

The pastor eventually gets irritated with the constant refusal. He knows that guilt keeps this man away. The pastor also knows that Christ isn’t just inviting sinners to his Supper as if it was only optional – something that might or might not happen based on what people decide to do.

So, one Sunday, the pastor distributes the sacrament. The bachelor farmer remains in the pew as usual. Now it’s time to try a different tactic. The pastor goes down into the congregation and stands before the farmer. He addresses the man by name and says, “This is the body of Christ, given for you.” Now the pastor opens the man’s mouth and places the wafer on his tongue! Next, the same with the wine: “This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.”

Now come the tears – tears of joy at the great gift now received. What Jim was teaching with this story is that when Christ mandates the promise, he isn’t waiting for you to decide by free will to take him up on his kind offer of forgiveness. Jesus mandates the promise of the gospel so that people actually hear it because they’d never believe it on their own.

This is the importance of Maundy Thursday, the church’s recollection of the Last Supper. Christ gathers his apostles to serve them his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins – most of all, their own impending betrayal of Christ. But Jesus also commands them to “do this.” They must now say these words and distribute Christ’s body and blood for his remembrance. Indeed, Paul tells us that in the Lord’s Supper, we proclaim the death of Christ until his return (1 Cor. 11:26).

Christ sends his servants to give you the promise. First, it was the apostles, the sent-ones. Now, it’s the pastoral office set apart to serve the gift. And if you have a good pastor, he will know that Christ isn’t just suggesting that you take the Lord’s Supper. Nor is he threatening you with the gift of his body and blood. Jesus is handing over the promise to the sinner, who has no choice in the matter. Christ arrives this Maundy Thursday – and whenever the sacrament is given – to deliver his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

Written by

John W. Hoyum

John W. Hoyum is a graduate of Bethel University (2015) and Luther Seminary (2018), both in St. Paul, Minnesota. He now resides back home in the Pacific Northwest, serving as the pastor of Denny Park Lutheran Church in Seattle. He is also a PhD student in systematic theology at the University of Aberdeen. He spends much of his time thinking about the Reformation, Christian dogmatics, and the relationship between philosophy and theology. He writes about these topics when he can

We Do Not Know the Man

What is undoubtedly true, however, is that St. Peter wasn’t left outside. He wasn’t left weeping. He was restored, as am I, as are you.

Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. 75 And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly (Matt. 26:69-75).

“Your accent gives you away.” Who? You. Your accent gives you away. You are one of them, aren’t you?

“Your accent gives you away.” Perhaps not much else does—not your thoughts, not your words, not your deeds. But your accent gives you away. You must be one of them.

“I do not know the man.” Too often we’ve said it, perhaps without words, but sometimes with them, too. “I do not know the man.” Oh, if we were to watch our life on rewind, how clear that statement would seem. “I do not know the man.” If we did, would we live and think like we do, would we struggle just to keep up appearances, to maintain a veneer?

We sit outside. We look in. Isn’t that the story of our lives. We are spectators. We are bystanders. We saunter about the periphery. We hide in the courtyard. Meanwhile, the Lord is inside, suffering, enduring, submitting; a Sheep silent before its shearers; a Lamb going uncomplaining forth. He can leave the griping to us. We’re good at it.

How often couldn’t the rooster crow? Would we even hear it, though? We’re busy. Our ears are full of other things. Our attention darts about feverishly in a frantic search for we know not what.

God sends us servant girls. He’s sent them for years. Again and again they confront us. I suppose I am our servant girl today. What good has it done, though? Here we are. Here I am. Here you are. We do not know the man. We stand outside, while Jesus suffers, endures. All we have is our accent to give us away.

More than once in my ministry I’ve heard someone say, “I don’t go to church because it’s full of hypocrites.” More than once in my ministry I’ve thought it myself. My favorite professor, now in heaven, told us what to say to such an excuse, however. He told us, “When someone says, ‘I don’t go to church because it’s full of hypocrites,’ you tell them there’s always room for one more.”

We all have reason to be outside and stay there. That’s where sinners belong. We have reason to weep, and weep bitterly. We belong with Peter. If our guilt ever truly sank in, if we really learned how to blush, our tears could fill Lake Michigan. And yet God won’t have us outside. God won’t have us weeping forever. That’s why the Lord is inside. That’s why he suffers and endures.

I went to Rome over spring break. That’s what you do with theology professor money. I was struck by the Basilica of St. Sebastian and the catacombs beneath. Peter’s footprints are on display there, the words “Quo vadis?” beneath them. “Quo vadis?” means “Where are you going?” When persecution struck Rome, St. Peter fled. Jesus met him on the way and asked where he was going. St. Peter then went back into the city to suffer and endure with his fellow saints.

Let me share here what Luther purportedly said after scaling on his knees the Scala Sancta, the holy steps in Rome that Christ is said to have climbed to stand before Pilate. Luther looked down and mumbled to himself, “Who knows if it’s true?” What is undoubtedly true, however, is that St. Peter wasn’t left outside. He wasn’t left weeping. He was restored, as am I, as are you. He died in faith. He went to heaven. In fact, some of my favorite jokes have him standing at the gates.

“Your accent gives you away.” Peter’s accent was regional. His dialect betrayed him. Not so for you. What gives you away isn’t some extra twang or emphasis on certain syllables. What gives you away is grace. I know you are his, not because of your works, not because of your stellar resume or impeccable track record. I know you are his because of his grace, and that grace accents the words we sing, the sermons to which we listen, the prayers we pray, the confessions we make, and the absolutions we receive and give.

Here we are, a lousy bunch of hypocrites, but we are here because Christ has brought us inside and taught us to speak. He has given us accents. And while we too often may seem like we do not know him, he knows us. He knows us and he loves us. That’s why he was inside, suffering, enduring.

Christ has no accent. He is the very Word of God. That we are not. We stand with Peter. We are saints, but we are also sinners. We will remain such on this side of the casket. And yet we are not what we were. We are something new, if very new. We are his. He has said so. That is the Word of God’s word to us. And so we are inside. Our tears are wiped away. We have an accent, and it only grows as we listen. “Your accent gives you away.” Amen.

Written by Wade Johnston

Wade Johnston has degrees from Martin Luther College, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Central Michigan University, and Erasmus University Rotterdam. He serves as Assistant Professor of Theology at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and served for ten years in parish ministry in Saginaw, Michigan. He one of the hosts of the 1517 Podcast, "Let the Bird Fly," and has authored several books including, "A Path Strewn with Sinners" and "An Uncompromising Gospel.

Forgive Your Parents

Unprompted, without any warning, for no reason at all, without any instigation say, "I love you." And that will wash over your parents like a beautiful absolution.

This message was delivered to the students, staff, and faculty of Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, WI.

I think that you students, the next time you go home, should forgive your parents. There is nobody that does more damage to children than parents. It is true that there is nobody who loves more unconditionally than parents, but there is also nobody that does as much damage to children as parents. And even though I have never met or never will meet most of your parents, I will speak for them and tell you that they are carrying a lot of guilt. They are carrying a lot of guilt for the times they lost their cool. They are carrying the guilt for the things they should not have said but were caught up in the moment. They are carrying the guilt for things they should have said but didn't because they didn't have time. They're carrying a lot of guilt for the things they said and did that harmed you, that malformed you, that messed you up. They're carrying a lot of guilt, and the worst thing is that the more they try to be better parents, the busier and more stressed they become. Sometimes they even become worse parents as a result.

You students should go home and forgive your parents. And for those of you who are not students, I'm willing to bet that some of you still have a mother you haven't called in a while. Yes? Now, you students should not go home and say, "Mom, Dad, I forgive you." That would be weird and come off as extremely arrogant. So what you should do is this: you should, unprompted, without any warning, for no reason at all, without any instigation say, "I love you." And that will wash over your parents like a beautiful absolution. And their sins will be swept away, like a cloud, like the morning mist.

This is how God operates, with this kind of love, an unconditional love. Take a listen to the prophet Isaiah.

Remember these things, Jacob, for you, Israel, are my servant. I have made you, you are my servant; Israel, I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you" (Isa. 44:21-22)

When did Israel ever deserve anything but condemnation? When did we ever deserve anything but wrath? And yet here is God with tender words for his ancient people and you too. Notice all the "I"s in the text. God is the subject of the sentence. "I have made you. I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses. I have redeemed you." God is the subject of the sentence. Then he commands, "Return to me," which is the plea of all parents to their children. He says, "Return to me." A command that is actually a gracious gift. He still is the subject of the sentence.

But we, your spiritual parents, have done a disservice to all of you in the church. We have misled you. We have allowed this insidious thought to fester in your hearts about repentance. We got really smart, and we said, "Let me do some etymology," that is, the study of the history of words. We taught you that the word "repent" means "to turn." You are to turn from sin and towards God. So far, so good. But we left you without any gospel. We let this fester like cancer in you. We wanted to be good parents. We tried so hard. We wanted to give you free grace. "But you gotta turn to God," we said. We didn't mean to, but we left you with the impression that you had to first turn from sin, and then God would forgive you. We made you the subject of the sentence. And we let that cancer grow and eat at your faith. And either you went further away from God, falling into despair. Or even worse, you became arrogant and said, "I have repented. I have returned to the Lord." As if the prodigal son was supposed to go to everybody and say, "Look at me."

Here is the truth: God is always the subject of the sentence. Even when you try to be the subject of the sentence, God is always the subject of the sentence. God turns you. God repents you. Notice the "I's" in the text. God repents and turns you. It's a part of faith. And if it takes disease, it'll take disease. And if it takes failure, it'll take failure. And if it takes bankruptcy, it will take bankruptcy. If it takes some harsh law, it'll take harsh law. But he'll turn you. He'll repent you to him. He'll turn you back to him, and then he will turn you to others in love and forgiveness. Even your parents.

Michael Berg

How God Loves Us: The Meaning of "So," John 3:16

“So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.

I was this many years old when I understood “For God so loved the world” anew. It was a TIL moment, as the kids on Reddit and Twitter say. Today I learned to read the word “so” in a new way.

I don’t know when I first became aware of John 3:16 but it must have been in junior high when I was in confirmation classes in my home congregation. For the sake of good order, let’s call it a solid fifty years that I’ve read the “so” in everyone’s favorite verse to hold up on poster board in Super Bowl end zones as meaning “so much.” I’m certain that at some point in my vainglorious career as a Bible camp counselor I stood at a campfire worship service and said, “Want to know how great God’s love is? Here’s how much: sooooooo much,” stretching my arms out like Jesus hanging on the cross.

It’s true that God’s love extends so far as to pour himself out as a libation for my sin. But that reading doesn’t make sense in the context of John’s theme of double knowledge. He consistently shows his readers that there are two ways of knowing or understanding both our world and what God is up to in it. In response to Nicodemus’ undercover dark-of-night query of him, Jesus sheds light on the truth of his own purpose. Leave the thinking about the extent of God’s love to Mark and Jesus’ three passion predictions. Here, Jesus clears up our problem of seeing through a glass dimly to say clearly that God’s love is all about incarnation.

In the immediately preceding verses (John 3:14-15), Jesus points to God's care for the Israelites in the wilderness by providing a bronze serpent to be lifted up. God gives not an idea but an actual thing to rescue them from a deadly asp invasion. “So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how. The Greek word John uses that we translate as “so” is “outos” (pronounced hoo-toes), which means “in this way” or “thus.”

God loves you in this way: not by remaining a far-off pie-in-the-sky in the sweet-by-and-by fever dream of a god who might or might not love you, or by being an idea of a supreme sovereign who rules from on high, or even by being a wielder of justice. No, God loves you by invading your dimwit life of lifting yourself up as your preferred solution to the world’s problems. God comes bursting as the real thing, as a living, breathing cruci-fiable body.

If God comes to you so embodied that he can be lifted up on Golgotha like the desert serpents, you no longer need to wonder what God might be up to in your own darkest nights of the soul. Here he is. In this particular person Jesus of Nazareth, you have the embodiment of God’s love. That means you have a God you can believe in. Jesus lays himself out in a way you can trust him.

Like he does so many times in John’s gospel, Jesus follows this verse with a circular discourse, this time about living in either darkness or light. The question at the fore is whether you can count on a God who makes all the big eternal omni stuff available to you in the down-to-earth package John told about in his prologue. Will you be stuck in the dark or enlightened about Jesus’ identity? Darkness is done, for the Word has pitched a tent among us. He dwells with you and for you.

Try putting that on a candy heart in February. You'll need a mighty big heart, because it’s a story as big as heaven itself. But once you have the “how” down, Jesus will also go on to demonstrate the “how much.” That’s something waiting off stage to be performed on Good Friday and Easter. For now, rest assured that one itinerant first century preacher has been the very mind of God from the foundation of the world, and in his love, he’s come for you.

Written by Ken Sundet Jones. Ken Sundet Jones, Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, loves teaching undergrads. He was born in Heidelberg, which must be why he likes Luther so much. He was shaped by the Sturgis motorcycle rally in his hometown and by summers at his grandparents’ cattle ranch. His doctoral dissertation covered 16th-century German evangelical funeral preaching. And he knows how to do knitting and Scandinavian flat-plane woodcarving.

How God Uses Art to Preach His Word

In the Reformation, as in the tabernacle, God gave skill, artistry, and craftsmanship to put his Word in images so that through art, his Word would be revealed.

When it’s family game time at our house, a simple game called Story Cubes is one of the regulars to hit the table. Each player takes a turn rolling the nine six-sided story cubes, or dice. The dice feature different images on each of their sides. Roll the dice. See the pictures. Craft your words. Tell a story.

Story Cubes provides a great example of how images can give birth to words and how words then unpack the images. When we turn to the Scriptures, we find the same pair of God’s gifts – words and images – at work in the lives of his people. In the beginning, God spoke his creative Word, and whatever he said – whether it was light, vegetation, or animals – those things were created, or imaged, into existence. His creations became living pictures of his handiwork.

Words and Images in the Old Testament

In the book of Exodus, when God instructs Moses to build the tabernacle, he establishes it as a place where he would dwell in the midst of his people. The tabernacle was a place where many things happened all at once. It was a place of God’s presence, peace, and promise. A place of sacrifice, thanksgiving, and praise. A place of redemption, atonement, and holiness. It was where God’s Word was sung, prayed, proclaimed, and heard, and it was also a place rich in artistry. When Israel would go to the tabernacle and later the temple, it was a feast for ears, as well as the eyes. God’s house was a house of his gifts of theology and artistry, both of which revealed and reflected his steadfast love.

To be sure, the tabernacle was a place of sacred theology. It was God’s dwelling place; heaven on earth. Which meant it also was a place of great beauty, artistry, and craftsmanship. The lampstands needed metalworkers. The altars needed stone masons. The curtains needed sowers. The tables needed carpenters. The tent structure needed an architect. The ark needed goldsmiths. And so on. God called artists, Bezalel and Oholiab, filled them with skill, and used their creativity, imaginations, and craftsmanship to serve his people and point them to his promises (Ex. 35:30-35).

Behind all of this craftsmanship stood the greatest architect and artist of them all, the Lord himself, working his promises through his Word and revealing his Word in the images surrounding the tabernacle. Words and images. Images and words. When both are held captive to the Word of God, they work together to reveal his promises to his people.

Words and Images in the Reformation

The same was true centuries later during the time of the Reformation. It’s easy to think of the period of the Reformation solely in terms of its rich theology. You might think of Martin Luther’s rediscovery of the gospel and the restoration of the clear preaching and teaching of the doctrine of justification, or the comforting words that sinners are declared righteous by grace through faith in Christ. It’s true there would be no Reformation without God’s Word. And yet, the 16th century also provided a reformation of the arts in service to the gospel for God’s people.

Over the centuries, the church had turned God’s good gift of images and artistry into idolatry. The hearts, eyes, and minds of God’s people turned away from Christ-crucified and towards focusing on and relying upon relics, statues, and other images for comfort. The church had fallen into the same sinful trap Israel had fallen into with the golden calf.

In the days of Moses and the exodus, God’s people had Bezalel and Oholiab. In the days of the Reformation, God continued his work of inspiring artists and craftsmen to put their skills and vocation to use in service of the gospel. Artists such as Albrecht Durer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Lucas Cranach the Younger (one of Cranach’s sons) placed the Word of God in the form of images to teach, proclaim, and reveal the beauty of the gospel for God’s people.

The Reformation’s rich, biblical theology gave birth to a renewal of sacred art. This artistry revealed the gospel preached from the pulpit and written with the pen through pictures.

Luther used woodcuts to teach various parts of his Small Catechism, including his explanation of the Ten Commandments through the illustrations of applicable bible stories. Luther’s German Bible also contained various images depicting the story of God’s saving work on behalf of his people.

One of the most famous images of the Reformation was Luther’s coat of arms, also known as Luther’s rose, which Luther explained in the following way:

“There is first to be a cross, black and placed in a heart, which should be of its natural color [red], so that I myself would be reminded that faith in the Crucified saves us. For if one believes from the heart he will be justified. Even though it is a black cross, which mortifies and which also should hurt us, yet it leaves the heart in its natural color and does not ruin nature; that is, the cross does not kill but keeps man alive. For the just man lives by faith, but by faith in the Crucified One. Such a heart is to be in the midst of a white rose, to symbolize that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace; in a word it places the believer into a white joyful rose; for this faith does not give peace and joy as the world gives and, therefore, the rose is to be white and not red, for white is the color of the spirits and of all the angels. Such a rose is to be in a sky-blue field, symbolizing that such joy in the Spirit and in faith is a beginning of the future heavenly joy; it is already a part of faith, and is grasped through hope, even though not yet manifest. And around this field is a golden ring, symbolizing that in heaven such blessedness lasts forever and has no end, and in addition is precious beyond all joy and goods, just as gold is the most valuable and precious metal.”

Some of the best artwork in the Reformation era not only taught or illustrated parts of Scripture, but also proclaimed the gospel in picture form. What ears heard in the preaching of the gospel, eyes could also see in the form of sacred artwork. Not only do God’s Word and promises ring true, but they are also beautiful when displayed.

Perhaps one of the most famous artists of the Reformation was Lucas Cranach, purveyor of the Cranach studio in Wittenberg, Germany. Two of his workshop’s most famous paintings are the altarpiece in Wittenberg and Weimar. In the Weimar altarpiece, Cranach is painted below the cross with the blood of Christ pouring onto his head, a visual proclamation that what Christ did on the cross he did for Cranach and for all. In the Wittenberg altarpiece, Cranach makes a cameo again, along with several other Wittenberg citizens and some of Luther’s own family, as Luther stands in the pulpit, pointing his hearers to an image of Christ crucified at the center of the painting.

While Luther was known as a man of the written and spoken Word, Cranach was known as a man of the illustrated and artistic Word. What Luther taught and preached, the truth of the gospel of justification for sinners, Cranach illustrated in his artwork. What Luther did in service to the church in the Reformation using words, Cranach did in service to the church using God’s gift of art and imagination. Cranach and other artists in the Reformation did what God called Bezalel and Oholiab to do back in Exodus by placing Scripture’s teachings before the eyes of people.

In the Reformation, as in the tabernacle, God gave skill, artistry, and craftsmanship to put his Word in images so that through art, his Word would be revealed.

None of this should be surprising. After all, God is the greatest artist, architect, and craftsman. As J.R.R. Tolkien says, we make in the image in which we are made. And if all of that wasn’t enough, God’s handiwork goes one step further. God the Creator joins his creatures in a fallen creation to save us. God the artist steps into his broken painting to restore what was lost in paradise. God the Word becomes flesh, the very image of God incarnate. And in Jesus, you, along with your words and imaginations, are redeemed, restored, and set free to be of service to God’s people.

Written by Samuel P. Schuldheisz. Samuel P. Schuldheisz is Pastor at Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church in Milton, WA. He and his wife, Natasha, have two children, Zoe and Jonah. His reading, research, and writing interests focus on The Inklings, Imaginative Apologetics, and the intersection of theology and literature.

Every Day is a Sabbath

Every day is a Sabbath for Christians. Every day is the day the Lord has made. Every day is a day to find rest in Christ.

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way. Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” And they had nothing to say. When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 14:1-11).

A Sunday School teacher with little use for the miraculous was explaining to his class that the Israelites must have passed through the Sea of Reeds instead of the Red Sea. As this teacher told the story, stressing that the exodus surely had a natural explanation, one of the boys kept saying, “That’s amazing.” Finally, the frustrated teacher made a big point about how the Sea of Reeds is only a few inches deep. Nonetheless, the boy replied again, “That’s amazing.”

“What’s amazing?” the teacher asked, indignant. “Any of us could walk through such shallow water. It’s no miracle.” The boy answered, “All the Egyptian army drowned in only a few inches of water!”

The Pharisees and experts in the law had lost sight of God’s clear Word like the Sunday School teacher. They wanted to stand above the Word instead of under it. They had softened parts and added to others. They’d molded the texts into their own image and understanding.

And then there just so happened to be a man with dropsy in their midst, at a meal to which Jesus had been invited. Was it a coincidence? He could have been planted there to test Jesus. We don’t know. Either way, his presence presented a dilemma. It was the Sabbath, the day of rest. To heal or not to heal, that was the question.

So what did Jesus do? He put the question to them, especially to the lawyers, the teachers of the law. “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” And notice what they did. “They remained silent.” This was a particularly difficult case.

You see, many thought dropsy was a physical manifestation of a spiritual ill, that it betrayed some hidden sin. In other words, many believed that bad people got dropsy. And so the question wasn’t only whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath, but whether it was lawful to heal a sinner, a public sinner, on the Sabbath.

Hopefully, you know the answer. What’s the Sabbath about, if not healing for sinners? What’s the Sabbath about, if not about God’s mercy? Isn’t that why we’re all here? But it wasn’t that obvious to those gathered. “They remained silent.” And so Jesus answered His question for them. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”

Every day is a Sabbath for Christians. Every day is the day the Lord has made. Every day is a day to find rest in Christ. Every day is a day to learn his Word. And every day is a day to put that Word into practice, especially for those in need.

It should have been a cut-and-dry matter. It was good and right for Jesus to heal the man, and those gathered should have expected nothing less. Even more, they should have been seeking healing from him, too; they should have been seeking his mercy.

It may sound simple, but the church has a long history of making it more difficult than you’d think in both the Old Testament era and in the New. And so Jesus reminds us again every day is a day for mercy. Mercy for sinners. Mercy for me. Mercy for you. Mercy for all with flesh and blood, no matter it’s condition. Amen.

Written by Wade Johnston. Wade Johnston has degrees from Martin Luther College, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Central Michigan University, and Erasmus University Rotterdam. He serves as Assistant Professor of Theology at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and served for ten years in parish ministry in Saginaw, Michigan. He one of the hosts of the 1517 Podcast, "Let the Bird Fly," and has authored several books including, "A Path Strewn with Sinners" and "An Uncompromising Gospel.

1 John 5:13-21: The Front Porch of Our Father’s Home

In the substructure of our world, deep in the dark corridors of hell, there is a room full of scribal devils whose one job is this: to make up words.

Linguistic Lucifers, we might call them. Dictionary devils.

It is to their diabolical minds that we owe the rhetoric of racism, the sterile descriptions of what abortionists do to living babies in the womb, the political slang of totalitarian states. They make up words to mask evil and sugarcoat lies.

Also on their resumé are words that sound true and logical and obvious, but when merely touched, burst into nothing more than smoke and vapor. One of their most successful creations of this variety is the word “secular.”

In the myriad of ways in which I see that word used, I hear posited a fundamental impossibility: that there are spaces in this world from which religion is excluded. The “No Religion Allowed” cubicles of politics, education, work, entertainment, and more. “Sure,” they say, “religion is fine inside the temple or mosque or church, but it is entirely alien to these secular arenas of life.”

I’ve got a word for that: Hogwash.

In a world suffused with the glory of God, polluted with legions of demons, and peopled by men and women who bear the imprint of the divine image, a “secular sphere” is as possible as a sea void of water or a fire absent flames. “Religious humans” is another way of saying “humans.”

We live in a world that is 100% religious in every way. There is no minuscule element of existence that is non-religious. In our divinely saturated cosmos, the only question is this: which God or gods or dark demonic forces hold sway over our hearts, inform our understanding of the purpose of life, guide our morality, and provide our methods of forgiveness in these inescapably religious lives.

Mercy: Our Constant Need

“We know that we are from God, and the world lies in the power of the evil one.” So writes St. John (1 John 5:19).

If the whole world sways to the music of the evil one, we would do well to let the holy dance of prayer be ever on our lips and hearts. John tells us that “we know that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us,” and that “we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15).

In other words, we have a God with ears.

So we see a friend sinning and pray for him (1 John 5:16). That’s one example that John gives. And it’s a beautiful one. Unlike the Pharisee who stuck out his chest and boasted—boasted!—to God that he was not “like this tax collector” (Luke 18:11), we see a friend and co-opt the prayer of the tax collector himself. We pray, “God, be merciful to my friend, and to me, for we are both sinners.”

We are prone to make prayer more complicated than it needs to be. If the whole world lies in the power of the evil one, then we all lie in need of divine mercy. So pray for mercy.

When you pass a coworker, pray in your heart, “Lord, have mercy on her.” Last week I saw a father and son walk into the gym together and I prayed, “Lord have mercy upon them.” When I see a sad face, a troubled smile, a heavy silence weighing upon someone, I ask the Lord to shower them with mercy. Family? Yes. Friends? Yes. Strangers? Yes.

Mercy is our constant need so let mercy be our constant request.

Life on the Front Porch

This world is what George MacDonald delightfully named, “the front porch of our Father’s home.”

It’s often very dark on this porch. That’s what we would expect since the world is under the sway of dark forces.

It’s also very lonely. In the darkness, we feel isolated, like we’re the only one feeling “this pain” or “that heartache.”

Clothed with the mercy of Jesus and filled with his love, we live on this porch with a keen perception of reality. John says Christians have “understanding” or know “him who is true” (1 John 5:20). Part of that understanding or knowing-him-who-is-true is also having his light to bring some illumination to this “front porch.”

That light takes the form of love. We love others who are caught in the web of religious lies that crisscross this porch. We speak the truth to them in love, beckoning them to flee from idols and to come to Christ who is “the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20-21).

That light takes the form of wisdom. With ears full of the wise words of God, we filter out the half-lies and full-deceptions of the father of lies—and his minions—clinging to the ancient truths.

Truths such as this: this front porch, on which we spend 10 or 21 or 70 or 90 years, is a blink in eternity’s eye. In the short lives we have, let us know and rest in Jesus Christ, who is the Resurrection and the Life. In him, we know that we will move from the front porch into the Father’s resurrection mansion.

Truths such as this: though we sin in this life, when we are in Jesus, all our sins are and will remain forgiven, drowned in the sea of his cruciform suffering.

And truths such as this: to find human flourishing, true joy, lasting peace, and a clear way forward through a world awash in false religious thinking, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, be baptized, and find in the Father’s Son the answer to all our deepest longings and needs.

Little Children

From the beginning to the end of his letter, John really wants one thing: for us to be in Jesus. To walk in his light. To be filled with his life. To have fellowship with the Father through his incarnate Son.

Every other issue and question and problem comes back to Christ. He is the center around which everything revolves. All is bound up in him for he is the full revelation of who God is and what God thinks of us.

We are the Father’s children. Brothers and sisters in Jesus. We are walking through this passing world, ready to leave the front porch, and step inside. There, awaiting us, is our Father and our Savior.

So, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Be filled to the full by the true God, Jesus Christ, our Life, Love, and Lord. Amen.

Written by Chad Bird. Chad Bird is a Scholar in Residence at 1517. He has served as a pastor, professor, and guest lecturer in Old Testament and Hebrew. He holds master’s degrees from Concordia Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College. He has contributed articles to Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Modern Reformation, The Federalist, Lutheran Forum, and other journals and websites. He is also the author of several books, including Night Driving & Your God Is Too Glorious.

The Spirit Never Stops Testifying to Christ: 1 John 5:5-12

Through water, blood, and word, the Spirit never stops pointing us to Christ, and even more, giving us Christ.

Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:5–12).

I remember sitting in my grandpa’s study, going over our little catechism book, and studying the Apostle’s Creed. I was in middle school, and I spent many weekends in Grandpa’s basement study as he and I ate donuts and discussed the things of God.

There were a few Christian friends in my public school, and when we talked on occasion, they would often talk about the Spirit, and talk about all the things the Spirit did. Growing up in a small, casual, Lutheran church, I was beginning to wonder if there were things of God that were untapped. I wondered if there were things that God did for other people, that I could see him do. Most specifically, that third person of the Trinity that I knew so little about: the Spirit.

My grandpa talked about Jesus all the time: Jesus this and Jesus that. But what about the Spirit? I asked Grandpa all the questions about all the things I heard the Spirit could do. He listened, and answered my questions with the calm certainty of a pastor with decades of experience:

“One thing for certain, when you are trying to discern what the Spirit is doing,” he said, “The Spirit is always pointing us to Christ.”

It was a paradox that frustrated me. I asked you about the Spirit, and now we’re back to Jesus again.

This frustrating truth I was taught back then has been sinking into me for almost 30 years, and with each year, I understand the truth of it better. The Spirit is always pointing us to Christ. When we read Scripture “by the Spirit,” the Spirit will help us see Christ in that passage. When I struggle with my faith, the Spirit points me to Christ, because the strength of our faith isn’t in our effort, but in the object of our faith, who is Christ himself.

“This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree” (1 John 5:6-8).

The Spirit is the one who testifies because the Spirit is truth. But according to this passage, the Spirit isn’t the only one who can’t seem to stop pointing us to Christ. God gives us three witnesses that testify.

Water

The Gospel of John, chapter 1, speaks of John the Baptist, who came to testify about Christ. He was sent ahead to do this. Then to his horror, Jesus asked John to baptize him. Apparently, his testimony wasn’t simply shouting to make way for the Messiah while living in the desert. He was also meant to baptize Jesus. This water would be a witness–like evidence with memory.

“And John bore witness: I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (John 1:32-34).

Something as simple as water–a substance on earth that both gives and takes away life is the means by which God uses to save his people as they cross from death to life. In our baptism, we die to our sins and take on the perfection of Christ (Rom. 6:4-7).

In the moment of Jesus’ baptism, God is spoken of as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in an incredible picture of the Trinity. But Jesus’ baptism wasn’t done for the purpose of removing his sins – since Jesus had none – but instead sanctifies the waters of baptism for us.

It is here that Jesus reveals himself to be fully God, with the full saving power of God. His baptism was a testimony of his divinity.

Baptism testifies that on account of Christ, our sins are forgiven. It is a testimony or evidence of our salvation that God gives our anxious hearts. When our hearts put God on trial, asking him if he loves us, really died for us, and is really powerful enough to save us, baptism is one of the pieces of evidence he puts forth for us to hang onto.

Blood

As the water testifies that Jesus is God, the blood testifies to his humanity. Songwriter Andrew Peterson poetically writes of the resurrection:

“His heart beats
His blood begins to flow,
waking up what was dead a moment ago”

Jesus really lived a human life. He really died and he really shed blood. This wasn’t just a spiritual exercise. The crucifixion wasn’t hypothetical.

At the last supper, with Jesus and his disciples, Jesus “took the cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:27-28).

The blood of communion testifies that on account of Christ, our sins are forgiven.

The Spirit works through water and blood to point us to Christ and provide evidence of his work for us. But God also combines water and word with his effective Word, to not only testify to but also create faith in Christ. God’s words are never hollow. Just as in creation, when God says something, it is created. And so when God testifies, his word is also active. It takes action. He binds his word proclaiming our salvation with the mean of water and blood and therefore makes them active with the full force of his truth of salvation. He does not lie. His word is never hollow because what he says, is.

Through water, blood, and word, the Spirit never stops pointing us to Christ, and even more, never stops giving us Christ. Because it is in Christ that we might have eternal life.

Written by Gretchen. Gretchen loves writing about rich theology rooted in real life. She is a mom to six kids that range in age from preschooler to teenager. She works as a homeschool mom, writer, and speaker. She’s the author of Ragged: Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritually Exhausted. She is also the co-host of the weekly podcast, "Freely Given." She enjoys knitting, reading many books at the same time, and embarrassing her teenagers in public. She and her husband, Knut, live in Minnesota on the family farm.

1 John 5:1-4: Faith, Love, & the Family of God

The reason that God’s commandments are not burdensome is that Jesus has fulfilled them.

hildren look like their birth parents. “He has his daddy’s eyes.” “She has her mommy’s ears.” When I compare my baby pictures with those of my 3-month-old, the resemblances are uncanny. As kids grow older, the similarities become more pronounced, moving from simple outward appearance to words and actions. Our vocal intonations, the way we walk and carry ourselves, our build, our posture, our smiles, how we interact with others—all of these serve as indicators of our family of origin. We are the way we are less by personal choice and more by virtue of the traits we inherit. You can always tell a Smith, an Anderson, or a Larson at a glance because they are born with a particular set of DNA. The same is true spiritually. For those born (or rather born again) into the family of God, we too bear a striking resemblance to our Heavenly Father.

Chapter 5 of John’s epistle opens like this: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 John 5:1-3).

Obedience isn't the entrance fee we pay to get into the family of God.

According to John, entrance into God’s family comes by faith alone. Yet, this faith is never truly alone since it always results in love and obedience. Unlike the apostle Paul, who was at pains to distinguish sharply between saving faith itself and the good works that result from it, for John faith and love are so tightly connected that he can’t speak of one without implying the other. This by no means blurs the lines between the two, but it does highlight one particular strand of our spiritual DNA: Those born into God’s family obey God and love their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. As we have already heard, “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

There’s an important caveat here, however: Obedience isn't the entrance fee we pay to get into the family of God. John has already shown that our spiritual heritage is a product of God's great love in Christ and not our own efforts (3:1). Notice also the lack of an imperative in verse three. The translation is not “For this is the love of God, that we OUGHT to keep his commandments," but rather "This is the love of God, that we KEEP his commandments.” Can you see the difference? It’s promissory in nature. We aren’t able to birth ourselves spiritually by demonstrating the requisite amount of love. To be born of God is passive, grammatically and theologically. We cannot bring about our own spiritual birth any more than a newborn can deliver itself. We need someone else to do it for us, outside ourselves or extra nos.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this passage, however, is John’s audacious claim at the end of verse 3: “And his commandments are not burdensome.” God’s commandments are not burdensome. As a self-confessed, card-carry Lutheran I must admit that John is making me a bit nervous. How can this be? Isn’t the law a schoolmaster (Gal 3:25)? Doesn’t the law bring knowledge of sin (Rom 3:25)? Doesn’t the very commandment which promised life prove to be death (Rom 7:10)? How can it be that–for the Christian–God’s commandments are not burdensome, nor are they too severe, nor are they a source of great difficulty or trouble?

In his commentary on 1st John, R.C.H. Lenski re-frames the question in this way, and in so doing he provides a key insight: “Is it a burden to believe in the Son of God who died in expiation of our sins? Is it a burden to be called one of God’s children?” [1] The reason that the law is not burdensome isn’t that its demands have lessened. It’s also not that Christians have been injected with some kind of spiritual super-soldier serum which enables us to perfectly obey. And it’s certainly not that our affections are so reversed that we now happily do God’s will with a jaunt in our step. No. The reason that God’s commandments are not burdensome is that Jesus has fulfilled them.

Whenever we read commandments–any place where God’s Word says “do this” or “do not do this” or “thou shalt” or “thou shalt not”–we should place a mental check mark at the end of that Bible verse to remind ourselves that its requirement has already been met. The law has already been fulfilled, fully and completely. Because of Jesus and his perfect obedience, there is no such thing as an unfulfilled command in all of Scripture. The demands of the law were high, but the sacrifice of God’s one and only Son was higher still, as Martin Luther notes: “The severity of the Law was so great that it drove Christ to the Cross.” [2]

John wraps up this section of his letter with verse 4: “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world–our faith.” In the end, faith wins, triumphing over all other warring factions both in our own hearts and in the world around us. The moment we are born and delivered in the birthing room of God’s family, we are already victors. The great cry “it is finished” is the new watermark which overlays every page of our lives.

So, dear brother and sister in Christ, take heart. You are a beloved child of your Heavenly Father, forgiven and free. And that means you too have overcome.

Written by Luke Kjolhaug. Luke Kjolhaug is the current pastor of Elim Lutheran Church in Osakis, MN. He is a husband, father, and mediocre basketball player. He also impersonates a theologian from time to time. Luke holds undergraduate degrees from Wheaton College and the University of Minnesota, and earned his MDiv. from Lutheran Brethren Seminary (Fergus Falls, MN). You can find him on YouTube at Foxhole Theology, where he is a founder and contributor

1 John 4:15-21: Staying In Love

The love mentioned in 1 John 4:15-21 fourteen times (!) is a love that needs no apology but is determined at all times to sacrifice for the other.

enny Cavalleri: Love means never having to say you’re sorry. Me: Only if you’re God.

Of all the dumb lines from movies (that have been hailed as genius), this line from “Love Story” might take the taco. Anyone who has loved another person knows quickly that love often means having to say you’re sorry. Real-life examples include (but are not limited to): “I’m sorry I didn’t wash the dishes.” “I’m sorry I was grumpy with you.” “I’m sorry I said that.” “I’m sorry I hurt you.” That’s the kind of love we’re used to in this life. But the love we’re going to discuss today is of a whole different sort. The love mentioned in 1 John 4:15-21 fourteen times (!) is a love that needs no apology but is determined at all times to sacrifice for the other. It is a love not based on emotions but resolve. It is a love that does not fade with time but is eternally dependable. The love we are talking about is “agape” love. In our brief but weighty passage, John tells us the source of this love, the power of this love, and the fruit of this love.

The Source of Love (vs. 15-16)

“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:15-16).

“Where does love come from?” According to John, it comes directly from God. In fact, like no other place in Scripture, John identifies God as synonymous with love (“God IS love,” he writes in both vs. 8 and 16). But that agape, self-sacrificial love that God identifies with is not primarily a feeling; it is a person. Specifically, John says the source of this love is manifested in the person and work of Jesus Christ. If you want to know what God’s love is like, you can only find out by looking to Jesus (vs. 15). This is what John means when he connects our confession that Jesus is the Son of God (vs. 15) with coming to “know and believe the love that God has for us” (vs. 16); to abide in this love of God is simply another way of saying, “To believe Jesus is who he says he is.” Who is Jesus? The second person of the Trinity who forgives you all of your sins and declares you righteous in his sight. He is the One who lives perfectly for you, dies substitutionally for you, raises victoriously for you, intercedes compassionately for you, and prepares a place zealously for you. He does it all for you because he loves you! Can you believe it?!

The Power of Love (vs. 17-18)

At first blush, upon hearing such remarkable declarations, one might think, “Simple enough.” But the reality is, it is far easier said than done to believe the Lord of heaven and earth really does love sinful old you. As Martin Luther writes in his commentary on this passage:

God is love. These are simple words, but they are words that require faith in the highest degree - faith against which everything that is not of the Spirit of God fights. Conscience, the devil, hell, the judgment of God, and everything resist, in order that we may not believe that God is love but may believe that God is an Executioner and a Judge.

The fact is, to believe God is love and thus loves you is a miracle. Yes, it’s a miracle, and like all miracles, that means it is powerful.

“By this is love perfected (completed or finished) with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (1 John 4:17-18).

How powerful is it to believe God loves you? It is powerful enough to take the greatest sinner who’s ever lived and fill them with fearless confidence to stand before the all-seeing, all-knowing God in judgment. Why? Because the beloved knows that God does not judge them from what he sees of their performance but solely on what he has seen from Christ’s performance. [1] As John writes, “Perfect love (Christ) casts out all fear.” To the degree that one can accept they are so loved, the weed of fear is cut out, and Spirit-empowered, fruitful love for the neighbor grows.

It is far easier said than done to believe the Lord of heaven and earth really does love sinful old you.

The Fruit of Love (vs. 19-21)

“We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:19-21).

John’s point here is that since we are free (on account of Christ) from worry and fear over our standing with God, we can now look around and find ways to love and serve our neighbor. In fact, John says it’s impossible for one to say they “love God” and “hate their brother.” This all makes perfect sense. If we recognize how much God has loved sinners like us (in spite of our many shortcomings), then the result is that we’ll begin to extend such agape love to those around us. [2]

It sort of works like this:

A while back, I attended a very nice banquet held in honor of my church network’s President, Reverend Joel Egge. After many nice tributes, President Egge got up and talked about all the people he was grateful to for bringing him to where he was in life. At one point, he had his wife Barbara get up next to him, and he shared a simple but profound story. He said it was the night before his wedding to Barbara some 50-plus years ago. They were sitting next to each other, and he said something he probably shouldn’t have: “I’m just not really sure that you love me.” Shocked, she said, “Well, Joel, we’re getting married tomorrow. I should hope you know I love you.” Realizing he was in the dog house, he said, “Barb, what I mean is, as you get to know more and more of the real me, as you see more and more of the mess that I am, it’s hard for me to believe that anybody could really love what they see.” Barbara said, “Well, Joel, I guess you’re just gonna have to get used to the idea that I love you just because I love you.” He said, “She was such a picture, and always has been, of God’s love toward me.”

Yes, it was believing that he was indeed “loved just because he was loved” that propelled him to a life of love and service to the neighbor. The same is true for you. Never forget, “God does not love because of our works; He loves because of His love” [3]. You’ll be amazed at the power such truth can unleash in your life; in fact, it has so much power that in those times when you sin and fall short, it just might cause you to say you’re sorry and mean it.

Written by Erick Sorenson. Erick Sorensen is in charge of Church Partnerships in the Development Department at 1517. His B.S. in Organizational Leadership is from Biola University, and his M.Div. is from Lutheran Brethren Seminary. Erick has served as a pastor in Southern California, New York City and New Jersey. In addition to his work in Development & Relations, Erick is co-host of the 30 Minutes in the New Testament podcast. He has three loud and active boys and they live in Rancho Cucamonga, CA.

1 John 4:7-14: Love, self-hate, and the search for God

To say that whoever loves has been born of God is also to say that those who are born of God are recipients of love. They do not have God because they love but because they are loved.

ith brevity and simplicity, John writes one of the most profound philosophical sentences ever to be conceived: "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Not only does this statement tell us something about the nature of God's identity and personality, it remains an indispensable part of God's attributive qualities. And yet, exciting as the philosophical consequences of such a statement are, philosophy is not what John hopes to communicate to his spiritual family. While a statement like "God is love," is an endlessly rich mine in which to harrow insights into God's being (and should be the object of study and meditation), it is not what John wants his readers to take away from his letter. No, instead, John wants you, me, and his little congregation to see something else: that God's love is a gift that works in us, like a spring that rises up from sun-baked sands and transforms into an oasis where trees offer shade, birds build nests, and weary travelers find rest and refreshment.

"Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God," John says (1 John 4:7) . He does not mean romantic love or affection, even if these kinds of love are never totally separate from the agape love he has in mind. Agape love is the love of God for his beloved; it is the love of the cross, in Greek, a love that is likened to a fountain that cascades water in complete abandon, without thought or consequence to efficiency, sustainability, or need. Agape love is indulgent love, love that never ceases but fills up and overflows with a gushing, silvery bloom. It is eternal and enriching, gentle but resistant to closure. To say, "whoever loves has been born of God" is to say that there is an absolute and necessary connection between faith and love, that faith comes with love, or it is not faith. Just as the sun cannot be the sun without giving off light (and yet the light and the sun are distinct), so too, John is telling us that faith and love come as partners. That is fitting since love must always attach itself to something, just as being called a "husband" means you are connected to a "wife."

To say that whoever loves has been born of God is also to say that those who are born of God are recipients of love. They do not have God because they love but because they are loved. The whole passage is an exhortation of the receipt of love and what love does for our neighbors and us. Because God is love, he loves us and pours his love into us through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. And that love works in us a generosity (we become like that fountain), and we too gush and gurgle with the love of God. John tells us that this overabundance working in and through us should receive others so they might share in the springs of life and abundant grace. John wants his readers to know that God's love works in them by transforming their deserts into jungles. But how does this love do this?

When we look out into the world today, we see people looking for love. It's every song on the radio, every argument in politics, whether for policy changes or identity recognition; our culture is starved for love. The self-esteem movement, depression, anxiety, drug use, sex, consumerism, body dysmorphism, eating disorders, injustice—all of these familiar aspects of modern life betray an insecurity both with the self and each other. These vices and struggles become surrogate lovers that seek to cushion and suppress the existential needs and inner dissatisfaction we experience. St. Paul, when writing to the Romans, knew this well, "I do not understand my own actions (Rom. 7:15)" that is, he does not understand himself. That is an astonishing observation. There exists within him a self-alienation. Paul goes on to say that he is not able to master full control of his actions, but the more frightful observation is when he recognizes the impassibility of his own self. He sees that he is unwholesome, not so much separated from his full self but unable to know it, and therefore alienated in some sense. Nothing is more intimate than the inner spaces of our own minds and hearts, so deep and shuttered from others than even our own lovers cannot grasp them. They do not know our secrets, our regrets, our most passionate hopes, and our most haunting fears. Only God knows—and this is the problem, the great and terrible problem.

We are observant enough to know that to the extent that we can see some aspect of our inner selves—some good intentions are there. But we also surprise ourselves with the nasty things we are able to think and do. "Where did that come from?" "Why did I say/think/do that?" And across our mind and heart's horizon, there exists an inner darkness, an impenetrable cloak that we cannot see past but that we know is also us. This is what we cannot understand about ourselves. We look at that inner darkness, and we cannot measure its limits. And the evil that comes out of it terrifies us because we know that evil is produced and a part of us; it is undeniably us!

If the nausea produced by this realization were not bad enough, we know that God sees that inner darkness without hindrance. He sees. God knows how bad I really am and that I am much worse than I can imagine. What does that even mean? How can I live with that? And how disappointed God must be in me. If the darkness he sees into is so much worse than the small darkness I can see, then I am not just alienated from my own self and from my neighbors who cannot see this darkness but also from God. How could he not recoil at the sight of me? How could he not be shocked into disgust?

This line of thinking not only leads to the collapse of self-esteem but also to fear of God (and John will speak in the following verses how love and fear are opposites). What begins to emerge is that our self-knowledge turns to self-revulsion or pride. We lose a healthy ability to love ourselves properly, we turn to fantasy, unhealthy self-soothing compulsions, reckless living, catastrophizing or apathy, and our spiritual lives begin to dry up. We become thirsty for God, but he seems far off. We can contribute this distancing to our sin, to the inner darkness but what tends to follow is a warped series of beliefs. Often they tell us that to be loved by God, we must hate the inner darkness with a profound hate to show God we mean to be on his side. So, we hate ourselves as an offering to some sadistic god—because that is what God has become to us even if we do not understand this change. God will love me if I demonstrate my intense hatred for this darkness. "See, God, I hate it too!" But really, it is just self-hate and fear masquerading as love and piety. In time, God seems to be far away, and we descend into self-hate as a form of self-love.

John is calling on you to embrace God's love for you, not to find any security in your love for God.

But friends, St. John has some good news for you. God is love. He is not sadistic. Furthermore, John adds this: "In this is love: Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). What is love really like? It is not based on righteousness. God does not love because we love him. He does not love us because we hate the inner darkness. He does not love because we are worthy; he does not love because we are obedient. God does not love you because you hate sin, and he does not love you because you repented with your whole heart. He does not love you because you try to bring your best or because when you are at your worse, you feel truly sorry.

God is love. "We have not loved God," John says. We have not created and do not create any conditions that cause, coerce, convince, contrive, call, or woo God to our side. We have not loved God. But God himself is love. He loves us first. He loves us when we are in total darkness. He sees us at our worse and elects us. This is where the language of predestination is happily graceful. God "elects"/chooses us in Christ while we are sinners. If he chose us when we were sinners, he will not cast us out if we fail to be what we could never be anyway. Fear—as John will go on to say—is what hinders love. When we fear that the God of love is a sadistic God of hate who extracts from us more than we could ever hope to give, our only recourse is to work to convince him that we really are not as bad as we seem. But we are worse than we can know: I do not understand my own actions. Yet our God is a self-donating God. The God who gave his Son for us. In Christ, we find new life, life in the Spirit that abides in us, life that is gifted not groused.

John is calling on you to embrace God's love for you, not to find any security in your love for God. When you embrace the truth of your belovedness, you will be an oasis for others. As we rest secure in Christ, the life-giving agape that we draw from daily should become an offering to our neighbors. God loves us because God has chosen to love us in Christ and not because we have conquered our inner darkness, made a more successful repentance, or hated our sin as an attempt to earn God's respect. We are loved because God is love. And in that love, the Son is given, the Spirit abides, and the Church (you and me) are offered up as sanctuaries to a world in search of love. So, we do love God, but only because he first loved us. And his first love is unconditional, unsullied, and demonstrated in the cross of Christ.

Written by Bruce Hillman. Bruce Hillman is Lead Pastor at Hillside Lutheran Brethren Church in Succasunna New Jersey. He Holds a BA in History and Political Science from Quinnipiac University, an MDiv. from the Lutheran Brethren Seminary, and an STM in Patristics from Drew University; his research involves Augustinian studies and Early Christianity. He is co-founder of Fifth Act Church Planting, having served on their board.

1 John 4:1-6: The Only True Confession

Do you confess Christ as God in the flesh, born, died, and raised to new life for you? Any answer of yes will do

or those of us who worry about where we stand with God, John appears to have made things simple at the end of 1 John 3:

“And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us” (1 John 3:24).

In other words, “if you have God’s gift of the Spirit, then he abides in you.”

Simple, right?

“Not so fast,” say anxious Christians from all time, everywhere. I don’t only need to know how God abides in me (through God’s Spirit); I need to know how to verify the “if.” Meaning do I have God’s Spirit at all? How do I know what is his Spirit and what is not? Without proof of the Spirit, this syllogism sounds more like religious hot air than truth. A quest without end. An empty mantra without substance.

Fortunately, John continues:

“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God” (1 John 4:2).

We know God abides in us by his Spirit. And how do we know the Spirit? If it confesses Jesus Christ as God in the flesh. This isn’t revolutionary; it’s the heart of the Christian message. The Apostle Paul would agree: “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). To confess Jesus is to have God’s Spirit.

That’s it. All you need to know that he abides in you is the confession of Christ as God in the flesh. And so here we are again. Simple, right?

All you must do is confess. Confess and be saved. It seems so small and clear, yet we know from experience that this is the hardest of confessions to believe. If we had our way, we would choose a different type of confession. One that allows us to continue to trust in ourselves rather than in God. One that would have us put faith in a spirit of falsehood where the only thing we abide in is our own dominion. This is, as this series has already stated, a confession of the spirit of antichrist, or a spirit that severs Jesus, as Martin Luther says.

Christ as a good moral teacher severs Jesus.
Christ as an aid to our own righteous deeds severs Jesus.
Christ as a man who died but didn’t raise again to new life severs Jesus
Christ as God, but not fully human severs Jesus

While we are perhaps willing to claim Jesus and his goodness, to sever him from his true nature is to also reject him as the fulfillment of God’s promises. To quote Luther again, it’s to take the shell without the kernel.

So how do we get such a confession? It must be sown into us, handed over, spoken into our ears, washed over us, placed on our tongues.

And so without faith, we choose such antichrist confessions. We make Jesus into a helper not a savior. We disunite him from his true nature. Even in our attempts to prove our salvation on account of Christ, we do this. We fret and worry that a confession of Christ is not enough. That we must show proof of our dedication and devotion rather than trust the greatness of our God.

Christ in the flesh is the only confession that severs us from our own sickly righteousness. Only he speaks loud enough to overpower and overcome the antichrist confessions we choose to cling to.

So how do we get such a confession? It must be sown into us, handed over, spoken into our ears, washed over us, placed on our tongues. For if the Spirit is given by God, so too is the confession of God’s Spirit, the kernel that is Christ. You cannot separate the two.

Do you confess Christ as God in the flesh, born, died, and raised to new life for you?

Any answer of yes will do. Even if that yes is “I believe, help me in my unbelief.” Even if your yes is drowned in the chorus of the Apostles’ Creed recited every week. Even if your only confidence is the yes given to you in the waters of your baptism or the yes eaten in bread and the wine of Christ’s very flesh.

On account of Christ, then, you have a confession of Christ. You have been given God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Truth (1 John 4:6). And it’s with this confidence that John encourages us to “test the spirits” for the kernel of Christ (1 John 4:1). Where Christ in the flesh resides, there is no wrong question, no limit to kicking the tires or double-checking for falsehood. And where you see only shells of Christ, return to the kernel! For it’s the kernel, Christ himself, which saves. Remember, the “yes” given to you means you are justified, you are forgiven, you are redeemed. You are from God. In you, he has sown the only true confession.

Written by Kelsi Klembara. Kelsi Klembara is the online editor for 1517. She holds an MA in Reformation Theology from Concordia University Irvine. She lives in Dallas, Texas, with her husband, Doug, and her two sons, Otto and Simeon.

1 John 3: 13-24: The Given Life

Jesus is the anti-Cain: a giver, not a taker.

According to Genesis 4, the firstborn son of Eve was Cain. Upon his birth, she cries out in joy, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord!” (Gen. 4:1) Cain was a gift, but Eve’s joy was temporary. It would be taken away by this man. You may remember Cain. He is famous for killing his brother, Abel. After this first murder, God approaches Cain in search of his dead brother. “The Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9) Cain answers with a devastating question. A question that undermines everything God created us to be and is the dismissive rebellion against all God created us to do. Cain had rebelled against God in his faithless offerings. He rejected his responsibility as a brother and neighbor in this loveless murder. He had no faith; thus, he had no love.

Cain was a taker. He took his life into his own hands. But life is meant to be defined by giving, not taking. God has created us to live by faith and in love. Faith receives life from God the giver (James 1:17); it does not seek to take God’s authority for itself. Faith, believing that God will provide all we need for life and salvation (daily bread and the forgiveness of sins), lives by prayer and in love. Faith prays, trusting God to provide. Faith loves, giving what God has provided to those in need. God gives this life to us by grace. We are created to give what we have in love to our neighbor in need. It is a life that is given and a life that, as a result, gives.

Taking leads to death: death of faith, death of love. When I do not trust God for my life, everything depends on me. I take responsibility for myself away from God. As a result, I must use others as a means to an end. I must use their lives to reach my goals, my purposes, and my glory. If they benefit me, I will use them up and throw them out. If they get in my way, I will remove them. After all, I am not their keeper. Either way, I take from them in order to survive on my terms. But survival isn’t life. Survival simply prolongs death because taking always leads to death.

But this is not so for you, for you are baptized. This means that you have been given new life as a gift! St. John gives us this wonderful promise:

“We know that we (i.e., the baptized) have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death” (1 John 3:14).

Baptism, St. Paul reminds us, gives us death and resurrection (Rom. 6:1-11). You have been united with Christ in his dying and rising. He takes but only that which is killing you: your sin. He takes it upon himself and gives you everlasting life. He gives you the life of faith. He gives you the life of love.

Love gives graciously. Our entire faith could be defined by this phrase. Our salvation depends on it. John writes how Eve’s greater Son, the Son of Promise (Gen. 3:15), was the man truly given to Eve and to all her descendants to offset Cain’s murderous taking. This Son is Jesus, and he is given not to take life but to give it. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us…” (1 John 3:16a).

Jesus is the anti-Cain: a giver, not a taker. He is the Good Shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. He is the Great High Priest who gives his life as a substitution for ours when he atones for our sins on the cross. He is the resurrection who gives eternal life. He is the incarnate God whose true body and blood are given to you directly through bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper for the giving of forgiveness. All this, Jesus gives you by his grace alone. Love gives graciously.

Your death is in the past. You belong to Jesus Christ.

And this graciously given love gives new life. Life not formed by Cain who takes and kills, but life lived in love. Yet, it lives in a world that, unsurprisingly, hates, attacks, and seeks to take this life-giving gift away (1 John 3:13). But the life of faith sees things differently. We have been given the eyes of Christ. They see differently than Cain. Cain sees in the world people to use or remove. Cain only sees those who want to take from him. But Christ sees beggars in need of his gifts. He has given you his eyes so he can use your hands to provide for them. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:16-18).

Cain sees his brother and takes his life. Christ sees his brothers and sisters in need and gives them the treasures of heaven. Christ sees his children in need and gives your hands to feed them with the fruits of the earth; the fruits he has graciously placed in your hands. As Luther reminds us while explaining the First Article of the Creed in the Small Catechism, our entire life is a gift. All we have is a gift. For all of this, it is our duty to “thank and praise, serve and obey him.” That is, we are to use our gifts, received by faith, for the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. “This is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ (receive the gift by faith) and love one another as he commanded us (give of ourselves in love)” (1 John 3:23).

This gift of the life of faith is a joyful life! However, when we hear this call to love, the old Cain crops up in our conscience and seeks to murder that joy. Our hearts will condemn us for our taking, that is, for our selfishness, our lack of love, and our greed. Our hearts will condemn us. But, even here, God gives more grace! “By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” (1 John 3:19-20) That is to say, when we do not live in love, God knows. But he is greater than our hearts. He still gives to those in need despite us. What is more, he gives forgiveness of sins! He gives Jesus’ blood to atone for our sin (1 John 2:2). He is greater than your heart in his love and in his forgiveness for you.

This world is full of Cain’s descendants, all seeking to take life, to take away the word of promise, and to take away love. And, because of this, they are dying. But you are baptized! Your death is in the past. You belong to Jesus Christ.He is your keeper! He is the Father’s gift to you who gives you salvation. He loves giving to you so much that he bids you pray in confidence, knowing that what you ask in prayer, he will give graciously to you (1 John 3:21-22). He does not take anything from you but sin and death. He is the great giver who gave his only Son to die for you. His blood is a gift that conveys salvation, for it speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Heb. 12:24).

Written by Bob Hiller.

Bob Hiller is the senior pastor of Community Lutheran Church in Escondido/San Marcos, CA. He is a baptized husband, father, and pastor. He is the content editor for The Craft of Preaching, a preacher on You Are Forgiven Radio, and a contributor to 1517. He is also a cohost on White Horse Inn.

John 3:1-12: Doppelgangers of Jesus

Hope is found precisely while we’re dead.

We were sitting on the couch in the family room of my grandparents’ home in Shamrock, TX. It was the year of our Lord, 2000. A Christmas tree, winking with lights, festooned the corner. The snapshot captured all four of us, lined up, from gray-headed to diapered. My granddaddy was 83 years old, my dad was 59, I had just turned 30, and my baby son, Luke, had made his grand arrival in our lives a couple of months prior.

This was Luke’s first Christmas and—although we didn’t know it then—my Granddaddy’s last.

Four generations of Birds in that family photo. I can see myself in the faces of my father and grandfather, at various ages. And, during Luke’s twenty-one years, I caught glimpses of the same resemblances. I wonder: what would Luke have looked like at 30, 40, or 52 (my current age)? Maybe a little like me, maybe a little like my father. Familial doppelgangers.

After all, for better or worse, there’s plenty of dad in the children men father.

The day a father buries his son might be warmed with sunshine, with birds singing in nearby branches and soft clouds gliding through the heavens, but it won’t matter. The day will always be ugly, dark, and storm-laden. When old Adam laid his youngest son, Abel, to rest, he who had been slaughtered by Cain, that was a day without light.

I suspect it was then, and only then, that Adam tasted the full bitterness and toxicity of the fruit he had swallowed from that forbidden tree. God had told him that henceforth Adam would have to work stubborn soil by the sweat of his brow; he’d not said Adam would have to dig a grave in that same hard soil. But there stood the father, shovel in hand, head hung low.

One of the clearest messages emerging from Genesis 3 and 4 is this: the devil lies in order to deprive us of life with God.

Who murdered Abel? Cain, of course, but the heart that made that bloodshed possible, the proclivity to evil embedded within Cain, all the eldest son’s unrighteous deeds—they all had their genesis in Adam’s own earlier rebellion. So sin began, so sin spread. As an old hymn puts it: “from sire to son the bane descends.” There stood a bereaved father, bereft of both sons, counting the cost of listening to the lies of the evil one when he hissed, “Did God really say….?”

There is an unforgettable lesson here. One of the clearest messages emerging from Genesis 3 and 4 is this: the devil lies in order to deprive us of life with God. He is, as Jesus tells us, “a murderer from the beginning” and “the father of lies” (John 8:44). Now don’t miss that connection: mendacity and murder, untruth and unlife.

Not blades or clubs or guns, but lies are Satan’s weapon of choice.

It was only in retrospect, many years ago, when I realized how this worked in my own downward spiral into lust and rebellion and death. I began to lie, first off, to myself. Then, having perfected self-deceit, I began lying to my wife. Then, having sharpened that skill, I cast my net farther and began lying to still others. Lying became my chosen medium of communication.

And in lying, I died. And in dying, brought the pangs of death-like suffering into the lives of others. All the while, he who had been a murderer from the beginning, the father of lies, was sitting back, smacking his lips, having just sunk his teeth fang-deep into my soul.

Now here is where God outsmarts the devil. When we find ourselves dead in sin, punctured from head to toe by the fanged lies of the evil one, it might seem as if all hope is lost. Or, if there is hope, it’s found only in a long and painful road to recovery, making all the wrong things right, keeping your nose clean, proving you’re a changed person, and so forth.

Absolution through self-improvement. You know the drill.

But, no, hope is found precisely while we’re dead. That hope is found in finally speaking the truth about ourselves, saying, “I am a sinner.” One of my profs, Ken Korby, would tell us, “The only time a liar speaks the truth is when he says, ‘I am a liar.’” That is the tinder into which the spark of hope falls; and, soon, a fire of joy blazes. Why? Because, as John affirms, if we say we have no sin, we not only lie to ourselves but, even worse, call God a liar.

But when we speak the truth, “I am a sinner. I am a liar. I am a rebel. I am Cain,” well, then, that makes the Lord smile. Nothing makes God happier than forgiving sinners. Our advocate with the Father, Jesus, who is the propitiation for the sins of the world, says, “Father, looks like we have ourselves a forgiven child of our family. He says he’s Cain, but no, this one is Abel. He is righteous, by faith in me.”

I don’t think I will ever get over the astonishment of knowing that, according to Jesus, when we do the will of the Father, we are his brother, sister, and mother.

That’s what happened in my life: my undoing, which took years of lies upon lies, was immediately and irrevocably redone through three simple words of truth spoken by my Father through Jesus, his Son: “You. Are. Forgiven.” The devil’s lies, which I had swallowed and then died, were no match for the Lord’s truth, which resurrected me and suffused me with divine life. From a Cain to an Abel, from unrighteous to righteous, in Jesus.

See what kind of love the Father gave to me, and to you, that we should be called children of God; and so we are (cf. 1 John 3:1). I don’t think I will ever get over the astonishment of knowing that, according to Jesus, when we do the will of the Father, we are his brother, sister, and mother (Mark 3:35).

When we have family reunions, Jesus always shows up, not as a guest but our next of kin.

Our family member, Jesus, is also a destroyer, for he “appeared to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Of course he did. Do you think he who is Truth itself is going to sit idly by while the father of lies wrecks his people? No, Jesus came to cast fire upon the earth, to leave as an ash heap all that the devil had done to pollute our world with lies and death.

He did this by speaking the truth, all the time, in every circumstance, knowing that eventually, such truth-telling would get him killed by a world of liars, inspired by the father of untruth. The cross was the result of refusing to lie. One little lie would have saved Christ’s life. But he did not come to save his own life but ours. And the only way to do that was to let liars—you, me, the Jews, the Gentiles, all of us—have our way with him.

All our lies, lawlessness, murder, adultery, you name it, came to rest, like billions of buzzing flies upon a carcass, when God hung dead upon that cross. He died. But not he alone. So did our lies, lawlessness, murder, adultery, and every sin that can be named. Here was the place where life and death came together to die.

Therefore, when that dead Brother of ours walked out of the tomb, alive again, grinning from ear to ear, he opened his mouth with this incredible truth.

Jesus said, “Peace to you.”
“What, to me, the sinner who got you crucified?”
“Yes, peace to you.”
“You’re not mad at me.”
“Not at all, brother. I love you.”
“So…we’re good, you and I?”
“Good? No, better than that: you are my sibling, a fellow beloved child of our Father.”

That is what we are in Jesus: siblings of our Savior. And if that seems awesome, well, hide and watch cause you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. “We are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

One day, O glorious day, a grave in Shamrock, Texas, that now holds the body of Lee Roy Bird, my grandfather, will explode and that man will be alive again, his body glorious, gazing upward at his descending Lord. One day, O magnificent day, a grave at the United States Naval Academy, that now holds the body of Luke Gabriel Bird, my son, will explode and that young man will be alive again, his body dazzling and perfect, gazing upward at his descending Lord.

My brothers and sisters, we shall be doppelgangers of Jesus, you might say, for we shall be like him, as we see him as he is. That family resemblance of the resurrected will be obvious. We shall stand, a great and noble throng, with angels and archangels, to uplift our voices to the Lamb of God, Destroyer of Death, Truth-Teller, Son of the Father, our Brother in resurrection.

Come, Lord Jesus. Make it so.

Written By Chad Bird

Chad Bird is a Scholar in Residence at 1517. He has served as a pastor, professor, and guest lecturer in Old Testament and Hebrew. He holds master’s degrees from Concordia Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College. He has contributed articles to Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Modern Reformation, The Federalist, Lutheran Forum, and other journals and websites. He is also the author of several books, including Night Driving & Your God Is Too Glorious.

1 John 2:25-29: The Promise He Made to Us

When God makes promises, he is incapable of not keeping them.

A promise is a very unique kind of thing, especially when God is in the business of making one. I might make all kinds of promises. And sadly, I often break my promises because I’m incapable of doing what I say; or because I’m ultimately unwilling to keep my word. But when God – the unchanging and all-powerful creator of all things – makes a promise, we encounter something rather different. People make promises they can’t keep all the time. But when God makes promises, he is incapable of not keeping them.

A promise is a statement about the future, and when God makes promises, they differ from all other such statements. We talk about possibilities sometimes. It’s possible that I could get this dream job I’ve been looking for. It’s possible that I could convince this wonderful woman to marry me. It’s possible that I might take a trip to Europe next year. Possibility is tantalizing at first. But it is the language of uncertainty: it might happen, or it might not. And in human life, that’s half the thrill. The possibility that something might not happen is motivating and energizing. It’s encouragement to try hard to carry out what’s possible. What’s possible is much better than what’s impossible, of course.

Promises – when God speaks – are also different from imperative statements. You should do this. You should do all kinds of things. But the question hiding in these statements is obvious: I’m supposed to do this, that, or the other thing. But will I? The imperative is the language of the law – the demand that we do, or do not, do something. But the law leaves us with an unanswerable question: will I do as God commands? If we can really hear what the law says, the answer is usually no. Only the self-righteous among us think the answer is maybe. And if you think the answer is yes, then you haven’t even begun to see what sin and death really are.

And this, of course, leaves us in a terrible conundrum. If we’re left with only imperatives and possibilities when it comes to God, then we are in the driver’s seat of what happens in the end. Salvation is on the line, and I’m the only one who can determine the outcome – if everything goes according to plan. I’m not all-powerful like God, so maybe it won’t. This isn’t a reassuring place to be.

This is troubling not because of what I might eat for breakfast tomorrow. This isn’t even troubling because of who I might marry. Imperatives and possibilities are frightening when it comes to salvation because the outcome lies with us. And if I bank on myself, the outcome is an open question. I can only hope that I choose the right thing. The outcome of my salvation resides with me, not God, if this is true. When we’re talking about salvation, this difference between promises and possibilities – between law and gospel – becomes incredibly crucial.

When John writes his letters, he has a series of questions he wants to set straight. One of them concerns false teachers, which were common from the very beginning of church history. John says that he writes “these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you” (2:26). Paul’s letters say much the same thing: false teachers are everywhere, and we should be on guard against them.

Because the promise of God is sure and certain, you don’t need to seek after new and enticing teaching.

John wants to reaffirm his readers in the teaching of the gospel they had already received and give them guidance about how to deal with those who only pretend to preach the gospel. He wants them to rest in the teaching they’ve already heard. We don’t know much about those teachers John warns against, but that doesn’t matter much because we should always be wary of false teachers. And because John also wants to deliver assurance, what he writes is timely and timeless. It’s written there for us, just as much as the original recipients of his letters.

John comes right out and tells us what he’s sure about: “this is the promise he made to us – eternal life” (2:25). God is the promiser and the content of the promise is everlasting life. God promises everything to the sinners to whom he speaks. While John wants to help us discern false teaching, he doesn’t want to make us anxious or paranoid. God has made a promise that he intends to keep, and that promise is eternal life with Christ. We must indeed test the spirits (4:1), but this doesn’t negate the fact that “the anointing that you have received from him abides in you” (2:27). Indeed, the promise God makes to you can’t fail. It’s trustworthy by its very definition.

And because the promise of God is sure and certain, you don’t need to seek after new and enticing teaching. Hang on to the promise God has already made. After all, God can’t lie – he can’t go back on a promise. The teaching you have is everything you need: the hope of eternal life. Christ on the cross, forgiving your sin, is the only thing that now determines your future. Neither possibility nor imperative can change what Christ has already done for you. The task, for now, is to take your rest in this unbreakable promise of God instead of seeking new possibilities elsewhere.

Written by John W Hoyum.

1 John 2:15-24: Antichrist Destroying Faith in the Promise

The smallest amount of Holy Spirit-created faith defeats every antichrist belief we hold.

And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:17)

In the beginning, God told our first parents that to reject his word would result in death, and so it has. Ever since mankind dismissed the word of their maker, all of creation has been dying, and God hates it. He hated death from the moment it entered the world. So much so that he declared war on it in the form of a promise. The promise that he would send his Son to destroy death by dying. God would become the world’s rejection of his word and die their death. But three days later, he would rise again in victory over the grave. I doubt I am telling you anything you don’t know, but I must because “the world is passing away,” and eternal life is on the line.

When John says, “the world is passing away,” he is telling us something we see with our natural eyes: everything dies or is dying. When he tells us not to love the world or the things in it (1 John 2:15), he does not mean to say we should love people or creation but that we should not cling to what is passing away. What we cling to is what we worship. The desire to be God is how we got here and yet that desire remains our chief temptation. The desire to be our own savior causes us to once again reject the word that God has spoken.The will of this God who hates death is not difficult to know. It is what he has wanted from the beginning: for his words to be heard and believed and for the promise of eternal life through the sacrifice and victory of Jesus Christ to be trusted in. This is the will of God that results in abiding with him forever. Because of this, we can see that death is an antichrist work.

The will of this God who hates death is not difficult to know. It is what he has wanted from the beginning: for his words to be heard and believed.

John says many antichrists have come and gone (1 John 2:18) and that they left the faith because of unbelief (1 John 2:19). What does it mean to be antichrist? To be antichrist is to be your own christ. It is to deny the word of the Father and the work of his Son. As John writes: “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.” (1 John 2:22)

Unbelief has always been antichrist. It was an antichrist in Eden who first tempted us to doubt God’s word and fed the desire of the world to be our own gods. To be antichrist is to not trust God’s word. To not believe his promises. To call the Father a liar and his Son unnecessary. To believe that death has not been defeated. To believe that abiding with God forever is a lie in the mouth of a myth. And while this is the position all sinners are born in;the smallest amount of Holy Spirit-created faith defeats every antichrist belief we hold.

In an antichrist world that is passing away because it has refused to hear or trust the promises of God, there remains good news. Good news that was first spoken in Eden, then respoken through the prophets, declared to the Virgin Mary and delivered in the work of her Son, Jesus Christ. The good news that the deadly work of all that is antichrist has been conquered by Christ himself. That sin has been taken away, and death has been destroyed in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The world may be passing away, but for us who have been granted antichrist-destroying faith in the person and work of Jesus, something better has been promised. “And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life” (1 John 2:25).

Written by Daniel Emery Price

Daniel Emery Price is the Director of Content for 1517. He is also an author, church and conference speaker, and co-host of the podcasts 40 Minutes in the Old Testament and 30 Minutes in the New Testament. Daniel has served as a church planter, pastor and worship leader and currently lives in Northwest Arkansas, with his wife and daughter.

1 John 2:1-11: Lovers and Liars

Walking in the light doesn't entail a spotless moral record but rather an honest appraisal of who we are.

In a world hellbent on exacting a pound of flesh, the very idea of forgiveness is controversial. In theory, it sounds wonderful, but in practice, grace and forgiveness tend to elicit polar responses. In 2019, the world witnessed one of the most powerful examples of this firsthand when Texas police officer Amber Guyger was convicted of the murder of Botham Jean. During the ensuing trial, the victim’s younger brother, Brandt, took the stand to deliver the victim impact statement, which is an opportunity for family and friends to describe in painful detail the extent to which the offender’s actions affected them. Instead of dwelling upon the mistakes of his brother’s murderer, however, Brandt shocked the courtroom with these words: “I can speak for myself: I forgive you. And I know if you go to God and ask him, he will forgive you. I personally want the best for you…Again, I love you as a person, and I don’t wish anything bad on you.”

Instead of condemnation, Brandt spoke absolution. As you might expect, the backlash was immediate and furious. How could he do this?! Wasn’t he letting the perpetrator off the hook too easily?! Wasn’t justice–not grace–supposed to reign supreme?! Didn’t he have a right to be angry and to make the police officer suffer for her wrongful actions?! By forgiving her, wasn’t he just excusing bad behavior and thereby minimizing the severity of her sin?!

There’s this idea out there that forgiveness = permissiveness. The more we emphasize forgiveness, the more we’ll see a corresponding rise in sin. If we tell people that their failures will not be held against them, we’re essentially giving them a hall pass to do whatever they want. Forgiveness unchecked leads to licentiousness, right? The Apostle Paul formulates it this way in one of his letters, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” In the same breath, though, Paul puts the kibosh on that idea in no uncertain terms: “By no means!” (Rom. 6:1-2).

The Apostle John would agree. 1 John 2:1-2: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” John has just introduced his famous metaphor of light and darkness, which permeates not only this epistle but his Gospel as well. God is light, and Christians are called to walk in that same light rather than darkness. Walking in the light doesn't entail a spotless moral record but rather an honest appraisal of who we are. To step into the light is to expose ourselves, warts and all, to God–the source of all light. We can confess our failures and shortcomings without fear because “the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from sin” (1 John 1:7). We can have confidence before God because, in his great mercy, he meets great sin with even greater grace. But, knowing the natural proclivities of the human heart and–in particular–the hedonistic leanings of his pre-Gnostic audience, he puts up another guardrail here. Forgiveness does not give us permission to sin, says John. Rather, when we inevitably do sin, we have this sure promise that Jesus stands between the Father and us as our advocate, bearing the penalty for our sins in his own body on the Cross. He casts our sin into the heart of the sea and buries the skeletons in our closet once and for all.

John continues: “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked”(1 John 2:3-6).

For the second time in this letter, the word “liar” surfaces. John’s lingua franca is metaphor and antithesis, and he adds another layer here. Just like Christians who claim to have earned their “holiness blackbelts” are liars (1 John 1:10), so are those who claim to know Jesus and yet ignore his commandments. As has been said by many before, Christian obedience may not be the root of faith, but it is the fruit of it (Gal. 5:22-23). A faith that is living and active has legs, which is to say, it naturally results in good works. As Martin Luther so famously put it in his introduction to Romans, “[Faith] does not ask whether there are good works to do, but before the question rises, it has already done them.” Wanton, persistent disobedience to God’s law is an indication that our hearts are out of alignment. When we are turned by the gear of God’s love, the gear of our love for neighbor begins to turn in like manner. A slippage reveals a disconnect in the link, and it tells us we are not actually abiding in God. Is it possible to know God without obeying him? John’s answer is a resounding no.

Beloved people love people. The corollary for this truism is that hatred for fellow brothers and sisters in Christ has no place in our hearts.

He continues with these words, “Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” (1 John 2:7-11).

John’s waterfall of antitheses continues to cascade. New and old. Light and dark. Love and hate. In one sense, the love commandment is nothing new (see Lev. 19:18 & Deut. 6:5). In fact the golden rule isn’t even uniquely Christian, as the #loveyourneighbor yard signs so unanimously proclaim. God’s law is written on our hearts (Rom 2:15). However distorted the human conscience post-fall, to one degree or another we all recognize the importance of treating others well.

In another sense, though, it is new. With the coming Jesus Christ—fully God & yet fully human—the diamond of the Father’s love reveals new facets. Because the righteousness of God has already been fully satisfied in his Son, our motivation for loving one another is fundamentally altered. No longer are our actions fueled by a zeal to prove ourselves or to earn God’s blessing. Because “we have an advocate” (1 John 2:1), and because “the blood of Jesus…cleanses us from ALL sin” (1 John 1:7, emphasis mine), we are unleashed to love out of freedom rather than guilt. As one author puts it, we are freed to run the race without looking down or counting our steps. Beloved people love people. The corollary for this truism is that hatred for fellow brothers and sisters in Christ has no place in our hearts. Since we all stand naked and exposed in the spotlight of God’s law and since we are all equally cleansed by the blood of Christ, what right do we have to withhold love from one another? What right do we have to ration mercy when God Himself withheld nothing from us? If we claim to abide in God and yet harbor resentment, we are hypocrites, plain and simple. In the life-giving atmosphere of God’s unconditional love, the poisonous gas of hatred (which functionally amounts to murder, see Matt 5:21-22) must be expelled.

Our hope is not in our love for him, but in his love for us.

So what hope, then, is there for us? What hope is there for sinner-saints who daily bask in the air of God’s love and yet wander around lost in the clouds of our own poisonous, death-dealing hatred? What hope is there for those who vacillate between light and darkness? What hope is there for hypocrites who fail to obey God’s law, who fall short of the glory of God? What hope is there for those who deserve only condemnation and death?

Perhaps the most important part of our passage comes in v. 5: “whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.” “Perfected” can also be translated “finished,” as in “It is finished” (John 19:30), the climactic moment of Jesus’ work on the cross in John’s Gospel. In fact, the same Greek word is used in both instances. In Christ, the love of God has been perfected. Accomplished. Finished. He alone obeyed all of the commandments. He alone perfectly loved not only His brothers and sisters, but his enemies. He loves them to death, actually. He alone lived the sinless life we could not, stepping boldly into the light of God to reveal a spotless lamb without blemish or defect.

In the final analysis, then, our hope is not in our love for him, but in his love for us. May we live our lives in alignment with that love.

Written by Luke Kjolhaug

Luke Kjolhaug is the current pastor of Elim Lutheran Church in Osakis, MN. He is a husband, father, and mediocre basketball player. He also impersonates a theologian from time to time. Luke holds undergraduate degrees from Wheaton College and the University of Minnesota, and earned his MDiv. from Lutheran Brethren Seminary (Fergus Falls, MN). You can find him on YouTube at Foxhole Theology, where he is a founder and contributor.

1 John 1:5-10: The Reality of the Light

God is consistently rooting us in reality—both what is seen and unseen—because that is where he is.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus is Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:5-10).

Since childhood, I have found a retreat in daydreaming. I would play make-believe all day long in vast, intricate stories that I would invent in my head. My youngest daughter, who is now nine, is known by my loved ones as my “mini-me” in almost every way. However, I don’t think my imagination was a tenth of hers. When she was five or six, she would pretend to be a puppy or a kitty for weeks at a time. When she went through her puppy phase, I had to take her to the doctor because she got a bad chapped sore below her mouth because her tongue was hanging out so often. There were times this girl was so deep in her imagination that I honestly wondered if she could even tell the difference between reality and imagination.

I remember reading something from Madeline L’Engle where she said she couldn’t exactly tell the difference between reality and imagination until she was seven or so. That calmed me a bit. “She’s a little Madeline. She’s part of the next generation of storytellers,” I thought. So I just waited. One day when my daughter was seven or eight, she was in her little world, and I started to pretend alongside her—I entered that world with her in play, probably to get the princess to do a chore or something. I must have really sold the royal request because she looked at me, “Mom, you know this is pretend, right?”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. She knows the difference.”

I have since learned in my study of spiritual disciplines that both logic and imagination play a huge role in the practice of Biblical meditation. Some even put forth the idea that the practice of our faith and the practice of our imagination are intricately connected. Do we believe what we see, or what could be? Do we believe in the God of the possible or the God of the impossible? Believing in what is unseen and having the imagination to consider the breadth and depth of God’s love and what he is capable of, involves our imagination. C.S. Lewis calls this a “baptized imagination.”

Using our imagination can sometimes be a way to understand the depth of truth that is beyond our sight.

However, living in the reality of being both a sinner and saint, we know there is both the sanctified imagination and the fallen imagination. When our imagination gets twisted and oppressed by sin, the result is often anxiety, lust, covetousness, and general dissatisfaction with the truth. This is where I have struggled. It’s when we start imagining what could be if things were different—what could be if we had our own way. We imagine not the potential of God, but the potential of us, if we were not weighed down by the things God has given us.

When we read of Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness, we see Satan put forth various “realities” before Jesus to see if he can trip him up. Jesus sees through the lies. He is rooted in reality. Put whatever imagined scenario before him; he is not swayed from the truth.

If we want the truth, we must first acknowledge our limitations to see it.

We must not limit what we define as reality to the physical world—or what we see or feel. In other words, if we want the truth, we must first acknowledge our limitations to see it.

The Bible does not define understanding truth in terms of physical or spiritual. It defines those who live in the light and those who live in darkness. This always reminds me of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned and hid in the shadows. The shadows and the darkness is where we hide from God. We leave reality and enter a blank space away from reality. (Or, as Augustine proclaimed, a place that doesn’t exist.)

Here in the darkness, we create and imagine these faux-realities to justify ourselves. We weave stories about how we did not know; we couldn’t help it, it wasn’t our fault. We try to tell a tale that will justify whatever we did.

Like Adam and Eve, God calls us back to the light. He calls us back into his presence so he can deal with our sin. Where are you? What did you do? Speak the truth. Come back to reality. God deals in truth. He can do no other. He is truth itself.

Even when God refers to himself as “I Am” to Moses, the very words are steeped in reality. I am what is. After breaking the tablets with the 10 Commandments, when Moses returns up the mountain to ask for a new set, God responds by telling Moses about the reality of who he is. “The LORD passed before him and proclaimed ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex. 34:6-7). That word for “faithfulness” is synonymous with and often translated as “truth.” He is unending love, and he is truth.

That’s what it’s like to be called to the light. We come out of the bushes, like Adam and Eve. We climb back up the mountain with the broken law like Moses and tell God what we have done. This is what it is to walk in the light and walk in the truth. Tell God what you have done. Stop making up stories to justify yourself, and plant yourself in the truth that you have sinned against God. When we are in the truth—we are in God.

Because God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. That is the nature of reality.

1 John 1:5-10 describes this cyclical tension that we find ourselves in over and over again in this lifetime. We sin; we need God; God is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us. If we deny any of that, we are lying to ourselves. We are not practicing the truth.

This practicing of the truth is what Martin Luther refers to as “calling a thing what it is” in his Heidelberg Disputation. It is what it means to be a theologian of the cross. We cannot deny our sin or make any attempt to justify it. It must be Christ’s blood and his blood alone that can cleanse it.

This act of calling a thing what it is is like the Old Testament’s repeated calls to remember who God is and what he has done; it is like God asking Adam to name the animals. To paraphrase, God told Adam to “Call that thing what it is.” God is consistently rooting us in reality—both what is seen and unseen—because that is where he is. That is what it means to be with him. Calling us to live in the light is calling us to face the reality of our sin and is calling us to live in his mercy, his forgiveness, and his unfailing love.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Gretchen loves writing about rich theology rooted in real life. She is a mom to six kids that range in age from preschooler to teenager. She works as a homeschool mom, writer, and speaker. She’s the author of Ragged: Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritually Exhausted. She is also the co-host of the weekly podcast, "Freely Given." She enjoys knitting, reading many books at the same time, and embarrassing her teenagers in public. She and her husband, Knut, live in Minnesota on the family farm.

1 John 1:1-4: Not "My" Jesus

There is power in the name of Jesus, and we love to manipulate power for our own ends.

That’s not my Jesus,” she said to me after my sermon. I had just finished preaching on the Canaanite (or Syrophoenician) woman from Matthew 15. Do you remember that account? Where a Gentile woman comes to Jesus, begging for help for her daughter. But Jesus refuses to help this woman, telling her, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” My dear friend appreciated the end of the text, where Jesus showed her mercy. But she did not approve of the Lord’s initial treatment of the woman who needed help. “My Jesus wouldn’t talk like that,” she said.

I have seen this sentiment more and more on social media, this language about “my” Jesus. Many people, from the left and the right, conservative and liberal, present Jesus in one way or another. They all have their verses, and they all have their reasons. When Jesus is presented in a way one side or the other doesn’t like, the response is often the same, “That’s not my Jesus.”

Everyone, it seems, gets to have their own Jesus. Jesus has become a mascot of sorts. He is a representative of causes. A wax nose to fit any face. Boston University Professor of Religion Stephen Prothero captures our society’s proclivity towards making Jesus in our image when he writes, “The American Jesus has been something of a chameleon. Christians have depicted him as black and white, male and female, straight and gay, a socialist and a capitalist, a pacifist and a warrior, a Ku Klux Klansman and a civil rights agitator… This American Jesus has not been solely a Christian concern…he has become an athlete and an aesthete, a polygamist and a celibate, an advertising man and a mountaineer, Hindu deity and a Buddha to be” (p. 8-9).

Everyone gets to have their own personal Jesus (nod to Depeche Mode). But why? Enlisting Jesus is a power move. An effort in self-justification. If you get Jesus on your side, you win. Or, at least, you can use Jesus to prove that the other side loses. We use Jesus to make ourselves winners and turn “them” into losers. There is power in the name of Jesus, and we love to manipulate power for our own ends.

Using the name of Jesus to win friends and influence people is nothing new. Jesus (the real one) warned us that this would happen. “Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray” (Matt. 24:5). It is as though Jesus is warning us that many would come using his name, quoting his words, and using them for their own ends.

False Jesuses have been preached since the time of our Lord’s ascension. So how are we to discern who the true Jesus is? How do we know which teachers of Jesus we should listen to? Who will give us the real Jesus? Pastor Matthew Richards captures our frustrations in the title of his wonderful book, “Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?”

Into this morass of “Jesus-deceptions” and false teachers walks St. John with his first epistle. Many scholars suggest that 1 John is a general epistle, that is, a letter written to be read and shared in a number of congregations. These congregations are filled with saints who are dear to him but who are being attacked by false teachers. As we will learn through our series in this letter, these false teachers have arrived with new and exciting teachings from “Jesus.” They have ways of knowing God that go beyond the Jesus preached by the apostles. Their Jesus offers special access to God to the spiritual elite. None of this earthy, fleshy, bloody Jesus. A spiritual Jesus that frees you from suffering and dirt.

The catch, of course, with this new Jesus is that you cannot access him while in the midst of a church that sticks to the words of the apostles. You need to move beyond their preaching, and their writings. Separate from those carnal Christians and join the elite spiritual force!

The beloved apostle will have none of it! He begins his letter (which is really more of a sermon), going directly at the “Jesus” of the false teachers by reminding the churches of why his preaching of the true Jesus is trustworthy. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us…” (1 John 1:1-2).

In other words, John is saying, “They have their Jesus whom they have encountered in secret, quiet places. But he is a false Jesus. We apostles preach to you the God in the flesh who, after walking out of a grave, appeared to us. We touched his wounds. We saw his scars. We heard his words. He cooked us breakfast. Then, he sent us to preach his salvation to you! It is public knowledge. He is a proclaimed, physical Jesus who reveals himself to you through our preaching. Any other Jesus is no Jesus. And, the preachers of no-Jesus are frauds and anti-Christ.”

If you want to know Jesus, the best people to ask are those who knew him during his earthly ministry. The good news is that he has sent them to write for us what we need to know for life and salvation! To know this Jesus, you only need the word. To go beyond what is written is to go search for a new and false Jesus (cf. 1 Cor 4:6). The writings of the apostles are among the greatest treasures that the Holy Spirit has bestowed upon the church. They are written by those eye-witnesses of the true Jesus of Nazareth, Mary’s Son. They followed him during his ministry, were immersed in his teachings, saw/heard/touched him after his resurrection, and then recorded all of it for us so that we might know the true Jesus.

What is more, these words are written to take away “my” Jesus. “My” Jesus, or any Jesus that is presented apart from what we are given in the Scriptures and would take us away from the true Jesus and the fellowship of believers. John and the other authors of the New Testament write so that “you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things as that our joy may be complete” (1 John 1:3-4).

There are countless Jesuses out there. But, there is only one true Jesus who can save you. Only one Jesus put on your flesh, suffered and died as a sacrifice for your sins, rose from the grave for your justification, and is coming again to raise you from the dead and bring you into his new creation. This may not be “my” Jesus. But he is the only Jesus who is for you!

Written by Rev. Bob Hiller. Bob Hiller is the senior pastor of Community Lutheran Church in Escondido/San Marcos, CA. He is a baptized husband, father, and pastor. He is the content editor for The Craft of Preaching, a preacher on You Are Forgiven Radio, and a contributor to 1517. He is also a cohost on White Horse Inn.

An Impossible Standard...Attained!

In Jesus, the most totalizing summary of the law becomes the gospel of the one made perfect through obedience.

n Luke 6:17-36, Jesus preaches the law with all of its force. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” he says. In Matthew, the line at this point in the sermon says, “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Since the Lord taught on the law many times, both are correct. Be merciful. Be holy. Not just pretty good or basically decent. Holy in the way the Lord your God is holy. Be perfect. Not simply trying hard, not just “making good progress.” Perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. These are the King’s standards. From the beginning, God created humanity to image forth his likeness perfectly. Anything else would be to “miss the mark” or, simply, sin.

Since our first parents fall in Eden, the obligation to be perfect and perfectly merciful remains binding. It has been neither abrogated nor downgraded. It is this standard from Eden, reiterated by Moses and confirmed by Jesus (e.g., Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37-40), which condemns Jew and Gentile alike. Humans were to have “dominion,” that is, be kingly and reign on Earth as our Father does in heaven. We were meant to mirror (i.e., image) God’s kingship without flaw or fault. Consequently, as Luther noted, there can be no venial sins. All sins are mortal because each and every sin constitutes a thought, word, or deed of high treason against the world’s rightful sovereign.

So Luke and Matthew posit a standard of perfection. The law, in the mouth of Jesus, demands perfection. This is an impossible standard, a standard that only condemns. There is no wiggle room.

To be sure, there seems to be something attainable. Jesus admonishes, “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’” This is what is called the ‘law of retribution.’ It wasn’t—as some still suppose—something that entitled you to take your pound of flesh when wronged. No, it set a limit on retaliation. You could not exact more than was taken from you: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Retaliation could not become revenge. You were not entitled to escalate a conflict. You were to approximate mercy. All of which is well and good.

But then Jesus takes our understanding to an astonishingly new level. Don’t even take what you’re entitled to, he says. Don’t even resist one who is evil. If someone slaps you on one cheek—which was a strong insult in Jesus’ day—offer him the other one as well. If someone tries to sue the shirt off your back, give him your coat, too. Give to beggar and borrower alike. And be merciful, just as your Father is merciful; be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Impossible, yet required. This is the standard, and it has always been the standard: divine perfection. At the same time, there is nothing human beings lack more. We need perfection. And yet who can attain it? Let alone deliver it to sinful, needy humanity?

What hope can there be in the face of the law, the standard for which is impossible? That is, who has been merciful to their enemies when being slapped in the face? Put differently, who is capable of pardoning those who stand justly condemned? Indeed, who can attain perfection, even under the harshest of conditions, and so in every way do that which is pleasing to the Father?

Christ Jesus can and did.

“Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Heb. 5:8-9).

Perfect obedience. Perfect atonement. All the perfection we need, Jesus attained.

Jesus Christ imaged forth the perfect likeness of the Father, and he did so as our representative (because he is Christ, the King of all nations) so that his perfection could be accounted to us and, at the same time, bear our sin and offer up himself as a blood sacrifice to make atonement for our treasons. Only Jesus could say, “I always do the things that are pleasing to [the Father]” (John 8:29). Always, even unto death upon a cross: “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). Always obedient. Always perfect. All the righteousness we need freely given. And not merely obedient in the positive (active) sense, but doing so under the most extreme conditions imaginable: “the Lamb of God bearing, for the taking away, the sin of the world” (John 1:29). “Him who knew no sin [God] made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Perfect obedience.

Perfect atonement. All the perfection we need, Jesus attained. Jesus attained all, even down to the particulars of Luke 6:17-30.

We fail to turn the other cheek to smiters, but Jesus offered his cheek to those who abused him; he offered his back to those who whipped him. He carried his cross down the lonely road of sorrows. He walked the extra mile—the Via Dolorosa—with his enemies. He gave his tunic to those who gambled for it. He took no revenge on those who falsely accused him. Instead, he prayed for them. “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” He gave to those who begged of him. And he still does. He is merciful as his Father is merciful. He is perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect.

In Jesus, the most totalizing summary of the law becomes the gospel of the one made perfect through obedience.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Rev. John J. Bombaro, Ph.D. (King’s College, University of London) is a missionary of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, serving as the Assistant Director of Theological Education at the Luther Academy, Rīga, Latvia.

What is the Purpose of a Worship Service?

The worship service is less like servants entering the throne room to wait on the king’s needs and more like a father joining his family around the dining room table.

Why go to church? What’s the purpose of participating in a worship service? For many, the answer might be, “Because it’s the right thing to do.” For others, the answer could be, “Well, that’s what we’ve always done on Sundays.” Still, others might answer, “To glorify God.”

While some of these answers have kept some people participating in and attending worship, decades of dwindling church attendance show that these are not sustainable reasons to participate in a church worship service regularly. So let’s look at three good reasons from Scripture.

The first reason is to meet with the creator of all things in a sure and knowable way. How can we be sure God is there? He promises to be.

He promises to be there most assuredly in his Word and sacraments. That Word that is synonymous with his presence is his name. We worship in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because, as Jesus says, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt. 18:20).

This brings us to the second reason and an important distinction. Paul writes in Galatians 3:14, “that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.”

The second reason to participate in a worship service is to receive the Holy Spirit and the faith we need to believe in God. By that faith, we receive the forgiveness of our sin through his Word and sacraments.

The important distinction to be made is how we “participate” in the worship service. We are not the primary actors in a worship service. God is. We are recipients of God’s mercy and grace. He always makes the first move. He calls us to worship in his presence and gives us what we need: faith to believe him and the words to say back to him in petition and praise.

While we meet with the creator of all things to offer praise and thanksgiving and to pray for others, we don’t do those things to bring God down or to serve him in some way. The worship service is less like servants entering the throne room to wait on the king’s needs and more like a father joining his family around the dining room table. He comes to us to be with us, to serve us by giving us his gifts in Word and sacrament.

This brings us to our third reason. Because we are primarily passive receivers, any of our active participation, our response to God first loving us, is for our neighbors. God does not need our praise to validate himself.

Rather, as we sing the hymns, speak the words of the liturgy, and receive the sacraments, we are doing what Paul urges the Colossians to do: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16).

By participating in worship, we teach and encourage our neighbors, who teach and encourage us. We proclaim the truth of the Gospel to one another. We stand alongside each other as confessors of the Christian faith. Together we receive forgiveness as fellow sinners dining with the author and perfecter of our faith at the communion table.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Kyle is a husband and father. He serves as Director of Faith Formation at Calvary Lutheran Church in Brookfield, WI. He graduated from Concordia University Texas with a B.A. in Religious Education with an emphasis in Worship and the Arts through the Director of Christian Education program.

Word and Water: A Baptism Conversation with FLAME

FLAME uses Scripture and church history to argue that baptism is a gospel gift, not our work.

had an extra spring in my step while walking to school this past May. Christian hip-hop artist FLAME’s newest album, Word and Water, had just dropped at the end of April, and I couldn’t wait to share it with my students. I am not an expert on rap or hip hop, but as a high school theology teacher, the content of FLAME’s latest offering is almost custom-made for my students. In 12 tracks, Word and Water dissects the gospel gift of baptism – a topic many of my students are not well versed in – clearly and compellingly.

Since I’m not an expert, I asked my students about the album, and regardless of their faith background, they found the beats and rhythms very enjoyable. I even asked Charles, a rapper in his own right, to listen through the entire album as we discussed the musicality and the theology. He was blown away by both the quality of the songs and the skillfully laid-out arguments. We even dug through the Bible, the Lutheran hymnal, and Luther’s Small Catechism – all resources FLAME relied on while creating the album – to pick apart the lyrics. It was wonderful to see the light bulb go off for Charles as we looked at Scripture and FLAME’s lyrics. FLAME uses Scripture and church history to argue that baptism is a gospel gift, not our work. I was able to sit down with FLAME to ask him more about his latest album: Word and Water.

Sarah: How did this project get started?

FLAME: Word and Water is part of a series. I wanted to bring clarity in the same way that I was brought clarity about some of the difficult spaces in Christianity. I’m slowly unpacking reformational ideas that really serve the church. The first project was Extra Nos, which is just a Latin phrase that means outside of us. The second was Christ For You, unpacking the Lord’s Supper. The latest installment, Word and Water, is unpacking baptism. I want people to lean in on the grace, the goodness, and the sweetness of God’s message for us.

Sarah: The title Word and Water grabbed my attention. As a Lutheran, when I talk about baptism, I’m always thinking, “water and the word.” Did you intentionally flip the phrase?

FLAME: Absolutely. I knew it would be a challenge for people like myself, who did not come up in the Lutheran framework of thinking, to think that we are highlighting water or that we are saying that there’s some type of magic or spiritual properties in the water itself. I wanted to remove that barrier and say, “this is founded upon God’s word in connection to the earthly element, which is the water.” I assumed the questions and pushback in advance and made a title that was fitting for the sake of clarity.

Sarah: Your first track was a hymn, God’s Own Child I’ll Gladly Say it, LSB 594. How does this baptismal hymn help us understand that baptism is a gift that even children can receive? Why is this biblical view so difficult to grasp?

FLAME: It’s so weighty! In the generic American church, we think about baptism as an outward sign of an inward change or an outward sign of inward grace. We’ve been coached into thinking about baptism as something that we do to demonstrate our commitment to God. With those ideas in mind, you cannot have a place in your thinking for infants because cognitively and mentally, they’re not even functioning as an adult. That’s the way we have it framed in our thinking.

We’ve been coached into thinking about baptism as something that we do to demonstrate our commitment to God.

Reapproaching the Scriptures is not only a mental exercise; it’s an emotional exercise. People feel like they’re turning on what their family or pastor told them. It feels like a betrayal. So there’s a psychological component to it that you have to overcome.

My challenge to people is to be aware of the process. It will be very difficult and mentally taxing. It can even feel spooky. You might ask yourself, “Am I being tricked or deceived?” Don’t let it hinder you from seeing what God’s word has to say on the subject.

That was my experience. I went through all those emotions. I even prayed, “Lord, am I a part of a cult? Am I being deceived?” I was literally so nervous. I was scared because it was so foreign to me. But once I gave myself permission to simply look at the Bible passages on baptism, it helped. Get a concordance, find all the Scriptures on baptism, and then read them. And that’s what I did. The concordance is a great tool. If you want to know what baptism is, see what the Bible says on baptism.

In Acts 22, we see Saul converted to Christianity, and his name was changed to Paul. Jesus told him to go and to be washed for the forgiveness of his sins. It is all over the Scriptures. When you look at the text on baptism and as it relates to infants, infants can have faith. I would invite anyone to go read Psalm 22. I would invite anyone to read Psalm 71. You’ll see specifically where it says that David was given faith at his mother’s breast. He had received faith even before he was born. The Scripture says that God had given him that gift in the womb. And then you skip to the New Testament. You see John the Baptist leap in the womb with the Holy Spirit.

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There is much biblical precedent for realizing that infants can have faith. And if no one highlights those texts for us, we’re going to go with pop culture or handed down tradition about baptism, as opposed to seeing what the Bible actually says about this gift of faith that God gives infants.

We’re going to see that the work of baptism is God’s work. We’re going to see that God uses physical means. He uses water, regular water, and he couples it with his promise to save.

When those two things are joined together, the earthly element and God’s promise, it’s a sacrament. Can we have God’s word without the sacraments? Yes, but God gave us baptism for a special reason, to assure us.

We have five senses, and sometimes we need these touch points of comfort and assurance.

Sarah: That is so comforting! This teaching comes from Scripture, not from you or me. When we try to take this gift and use our logic and reasoning to make sense of it apart from Scripture, we fall into some problems, right?

FLAME: Luther helped us understand that we have to use logic and reason as a servant, not a master. If you’re placing all the weight on what makes the most sense, you’re going to get yourself into a lot of trouble. You’ll find that those are the arguments people use against Christianity in general, they say, “How can there be a God?” They’re being led by logic and reason as a master.

Luther helped us understand that we have to use logic and reason as a servant, not a master.

Logic and reason are a gift from God that we use to make sense of things. When Scripture conflicts with what makes sense, we must humble ourselves and embrace what’s revealed.

Think of something like a Virgin birth. Logic would demand that we not accept that, but the Scripture confesses it. So here we say, “All right, logic, you’ve done your job here; you must bow your knee.” That’s a helpful principle to keep in mind as you process these things.

Sarah: Word and Water does a job of showing how this concept of baptism as a gift is not a new idea in church. How did digging deep into church history help with your understanding of baptism?

FLAME: Church history was one of the things that really helped part of my skepticism. I wondered, “Is this a novel idea that Lutherans have come up with?” And as I traced this, not only in the Scriptures, I was able to trace it through those who were closer to Jesus himself. And that was important to me.

It wasn’t too far removed from Jesus himself that we had people writing about baptism as a means of grace to bring people into the faith, to keep them into faith, and to see them safely home. So when I tracked it down through church history, I said, “I have to contend with this. I can’t ignore it.”

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Sarah Crowder is passionate about sharing the Gospel with freshmen students as a teacher at Faith Lutheran High School in Las Vegas, NV. Sarah graduated from Concordia University Wisconsin in 2000, and recently completed a MA in Theology with a focus on Reformation Studies from Concordia University-Irvine in May, 2020. She has been married to her husband, Jason for nearly 20 years, and is the loving mother to Katie and Brendan.

Not Drunk As You Suppose

That on Pentecost God’s Spirit should function through a dozen seeming inebriates should be no surprise when this same God saves through the ignominy of the cross.

Luke’s account of the Holy Spirit’s arrival in Acts 2 is literally wonderful. The wonders spill out: Flames dance on the disciples’ heads without a single hair being singed. So great a panoply of languages are heard by the crowd that the local mavens point to the church as an exemplar of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Those who come to faith are brought to a baptismal festival bigger than a mass Moonie wedding.

Lost among all the spiritual glitter is one further wonder we easily pass over. When the spectators speculate that the disciples spirit-led speech is mere drunken babbling, Luke reports Peter’s defense. “These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning!” (Acts 2:15) It could be understood that it’s a wonder that the gathered soon-to-be apostles are sober. Perhaps Peter doesn’t believe in the “It’s-five-o’clock-somewhere” rule and thinks the tippling could reasonably be expected to begin only later in the day.

The odd detail is in keeping with the whole of his sermon. “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah” (Acts 2:38). In other words, “Your eyes deceive you. If you can’t discern gospel exuberance from being hammered, you’re also going to mistake the truth about Jesus. Let me set you straight.”

Peter’s odd statement points to a wonder even bigger than the pentecostal star power. It reveals a God who works under the sign of the opposite. Our Lord is the God who looks nothing like what our sinful through-a-glass-darkly vision leads us to expect. That on Pentecost God’s Spirit should function through a dozen seeming inebriates should be no surprise when this same God saves through the ignominy of the cross.

The mere fact of Peter being the one to proclaim the Pentecost gospel is itself a sign of the opposite. Among the twelve he’s the doofus who kept getting it wrong. He chastised Jesus for his passion prediction and got called Satan for it. He rashly skipped across the ripples like his rocky namesake to join his water-walking rabbi but sank as soon as he saw the irrationality of it. He thrice denied knowing Jesus to save his own skin. No HR office would think to hire him as the Spirit’s press secretary.

All of which makes Pentecost not the festival of glory we commonly make it but a cruciform string of details that elicits the same response from us as from the gathered crowd of Parthians, Medes, and other bling-entranced cretins. They ask, “What shall we do?” as if Peter’s preaching has given any indication that there’s any doing left to them. Even after they’ve been given the truth, they’re still as muddled about Jesus as they were about 9:00 a.m. blitzedness.

“What shall we do?” is a question continually asked of theologians of the cross. The gospel is never about the doable. The disciples had watched the interchange between Jesus and the rich man who asked what he should do to inherit eternal life. After seeing the guy leave unwilling to detach from his 401k, they asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus’ retort is that the doing and the saving is God’s not theirs (Matthew 19).

The song of the world could easily steal its title from The Police’s “ De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.” The world and the law embedded in it relentlessly demand that we do, do, and do, more and more. As Martin Luther said in the Heidelberg Disputation, “The Law says ‘Do this,’ and it is never done.” The law’s thirst is unquenchable. But the gospel in turn draws out belief in what’s already accomplished.

In Heidelberg, Luther distinguished between a theologian of glory and a theologian of the cross, arguing that the former calls something what it is not, but the latter calls it what it is. The Jerusalem crowds call the disciples drunkards, but Peter knows they’re actually filled with the new wine of faith. They see Jesus’ naked humiliation, crucifixion, and death fifty days earlier as defeat and shame, but Peter declares it is salvation itself sealed by the resurrection.

Peter proves himself that spring morning to be the first true pastor and preacher, because he turns away from the visible glory of accomplishment, action plans, strategy and tactics. He’s had Spirit fire doing a jig on his head, and he sees clearly. When the crowds ask for a job description, he says it’s not about doing but about being done to instead. Linguistically, “Be baptized” is passive voice; it’s done to you, not by you.

Then, for all his clear-sightedness, Peter fumbles his job by telling the crowd to “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” He makes the classic preacher’s error by not shutting up once the gospel is declared. He keeps talking and quickly shifts back to being a theologian of glory.

Yet Peter’s proclamatory peccadillo can’t undo the baptism done to the three thousand in Jerusalem. They must have felt a certain drunken exhilaration, yet they all had to go home. No Kaaba in Mecca nor even a raised ebenezer for them. Whatever emotion they felt, however thrilled they were to be included under the Spirit’s gathering embrace, the ushy-gushy feelings would dissipate, but the fact remained. They had been made into the body of Christ, not by their doing but by what the Lord had done for them at Golgotha.

Jesus’ doing is the thing that lasts. It’s what is the same yesterday, today, and forever.It’s what allows us to say in present tense, “I am baptized.” It’s what makes the church born of Pentecost preaching into the church of the cross not the church of bright, shiny tchotchkes. It makes believers into unprepossessing saved sinners who look like the suffering servant of Isaiah 53.

As despised and uncomely as mid-morning drunks, the church revels in the cross and never reels against the woes that betide its members. Nine o’clock glory always fades to some kind of hangover before quitting time, but the Spirit’s fervor for you begun on Pentecost brings the undying delight of being attached to the vine. We’re not tipsy like the world supposes; we’ve lost ourselves to something better.

Want something you can do? Try simply enjoying what’s already been done for you.

Written by Ken Sundet Jones

Ken Sundet Jones, Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, loves teaching undergrads. He was born in Heidelberg, which must be why he likes Luther so much. He was shaped by the Sturgis motorcycle rally in his hometown and by summers at his grandparents’ cattle ranch. His doctoral dissertation covered 16th-century German evangelical funeral preaching. And he knows how to do knitting and Scandinavian flat-plane woodcarving.

Reforming Worship

The relationship between faith and prayer or belief and worship is mutual. Faith produces prayer and prayer expresses faith.

In the winter of 1959, Lutheran theologian Hermann Sasse wrote a piece entitled, “Liturgy and Confession: a Brotherly Warning Against the ‘High Church’ Danger.” In the context of the twentieth century, Sasse identified an effort to unite Christians through a return to the liturgy of the early church. During this period, substantial liturgical reforms were undertaken among Lutherans in particular, and this meant a wholesale reconsideration of the Lutheran liturgical heritage, the reforms of the mass by Luther, and the theology of worship. In the twentieth century, Lutherans were sometimes caught praying the Roman “Hail Mary” and the eucharistic prayers asking God to receive the church’s sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ. They were heard calling down the Holy Spirit to consecrate the elements with an Eastern Orthodox epiclesis. Sometimes they would offer prayers for the dead as in the Roman mass. Lutheran pastors were seen donning more elaborate vestments and adding a greater solemnity and reverence with gestures and actions originating in Anglicanism. Sasse questions the motivation behind this massive surge in re-forming the liturgy. Is it reason enough for our practice today that the early church said particular words, made particular gestures, or prayed certain prayers? Is it reason enough for our practice today that many or even most Christians share a particular form of worship? Is it reason enough for forsaking Luther and the Lutheran tradition in order to achieve greater outward unity?

Sasse’s answer, I think, ought to be a guiding light for us as we consider how we worship today. Sasse argues that the task of the church is to “confess,” to “speak back to God what he has said.” As such, confession takes three forms: the confession of sins, the confession of faith, and the confession of praise. All three find their home in the church and one cannot be found without the others. Because God has addressed his church with the word, the church is bound to speak back to God and she does this by acknowledging her sin, confessing God’s mercy, and singing her Lord’s praise.

The church has long recognized the relationship between these three with the aphorism, “Lex orandi, lex credendi” – which can be understood as “right prayer expresses itself in right belief.” But Sasse claims with Pope Pius XII that the inverse is and must also be true, “Lex credendi, lex orandi” or “right belief expresses itself in right prayer.” In other words,the relationship between faith and prayer or belief and worship is mutual. Faith produces prayer and prayer expresses faith.

Because of this relationship, when it comes to the way we worship, Sasse argues that if we are going to reshape or reform our liturgy or worship practice, a reformation in what we believe is also necessary. It is not enough to simply look into history and discover the practices of early churches and repristinate them for the modern world. Historical inquiry only acknowledges half the equation: how the early church prayed or how people pray today. We also have to ask what was believed and what is confessed by the church through any particular worship practice.

An illuminating example of this is the confession of Luther in the Smalcald Articles, which forms a sort of theological last will and testament for Luther. Of special note is Article II, concerning the office and work of Christ, where Luther lays out the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone. This teaching he calls the article upon which “stands all that we teach and practice” and if there is any concession on justification, “everything is lost…” (SA II.1.5). Immediately following this, Luther writes against the mass as the “greatest and most terrible abomination…” (SA II.2.1) because it contradicts the chief article concerning the work of Christ. The Roman form of worship (prayer) cannot be tolerated because it stands against the article on justification (belief). It makes the worship service about man’s sacrifice to God instead of God’s gift to mankind. The language that Luther consistently uses is that it makes the Divine Service a sacrifice (sacrificium) instead of a gift or sacrament (sacramentum). In this we see that justification and worship are one flesh and what God has joined, the papacy has sundered.

This sundering of the relationship between justification and worship tends to be the single greatest error when we gather to discuss or reform worship. For Luther, worship is not chiefly about us but “for us.” It is the space and time where God is calling, gathering, enlightening, and sanctifying his people through the gospel (SC II.3). Worship is for receiving the goods of the gospel, for reading, hearing, and chewing on the word of God. It is to “put aside the work you do // so that God may work in you” (LSB 581, stanza 4). The article on justification is not simply the most important article, it is the basis and boundary of the church’s theological reflection, its faith and practice. It ought to norm not only what we confess, but how we worship. In light of this, the questions of history, modernity, tradition, unity, relevance, and catholicity are all secondary to the question of the gospel.Is Christ being delivered, is Christ the center, are his gifts being received, and is he alone being glorified?

Many modern liturgical reforms – whether they seek to make worship more modern or more ancient – fail to seriously consider these questions. Between reverence and relevance, traditional and contemporary, awe and entertainment, the ability to rightly judge worship has largely been lost. Sasse concludes by noting that Luther was such a great reformer of the liturgy because he possessed the measure on which it could be judged, namely, “the holy Gospel, the saving message of the justification of the sinner by faith alone… on this article depends not only our salvation, but also the church and the liturgy of the true church.” As such, for Sasse all our work in the liturgy ought to begin and end with the prayer of Luther, “Lord keep us steadfast in your Word.”

Written by Philip Bartelt

Philip Bartelt is currently studying to obtain a Master of Divinity at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Concordia University, Irvine, studying theology, biblical languages, and philosophy. Philip is husband to his beautiful wife, Jaclyn, and father to their daughter, Anastasia.

Everything Your Kid Needs to Know

The list of things our kids need to know when they leave the house is much simpler than we might believe.

A few months ago, a friend of mine posed a question on facebook asking “What do kids need to know before they leave their parents home?” Here are some of the things that immediately came to my mind:

How to change the oil on a car.

How to make an egg.

That they are loved beyond measure.

How to apply for a job.

What a budget looks like.

How to foster healthy relationships.

The list could go on and on.

As my oldest gets closer to high school age, I find myself asking this question more often. I’ve seen how fast the past 13 years have gone, and I’m certain the next six will not slow down.

If I were to make a list of the things I would want to make sure my kids could do and regurgitate before they leave our house it would fill notebook after notebook. But before I could even begin compiling a complete list, I would need to find an algorithm for every possible circumstance the future may hold.

Unfortunately, that knowledge is not something I am privy to. Experts and regular people may have theories about what the future holds, but we can’t know every situation our children will find themselves in. We don’t know what the culture will be like when they are entering retirement. We don’t know what the job market will look like when they are compiling their resumes to search for their first jobs. We have no idea if vehicles will still need an oil change. There is no guarantee that our financial structure will be the same as we know it now. My husband and I have knowledge of how to purchase a house in the markets we have lived through, but what will that look like in 2055?

But even with all the unknowns it's still an important question to ask ourselves, and while we can’t answer for every situation, I think there is one answer that grounds and aides them no matter what life will throw at them:

Our kids need to know they are forgiven and free because of the work of Christ.

As my children grow, I want them to process everything through the knowledge that they are forgiven and free because of the work of Christ. This truth is useful for them in conjunction with a long list of other questions they will surely face that includes questions like:

How should I respond when I’m pushed around?

How do I pray?

What should my relationship look like with my parents?

What can I be certain of?

What are my responsibilities to those around me?

How should I view work?

But this simple answer still leaves us with the questions, “How do I teach this?” and, “What does this mean for their lives and mine?”

Martin Luther put together the Small Catechism so that parents would have an easy to use tool to teach their children “everything they need to know,” especially concerning the forgiveness and freedom found in Christ.

While I won’t attempt to explain everything Luther’s Small Catechism holds here, I want to highlight some of the key tenants that flow from his teaching on the 10 commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, confession and absolution, and the sacraments. Having a resource that has stood the test of close to 500 years will hopefully alleviate some of the stress that comes with teaching our kids “everything they need to know.”

The 10 commandments help us answer the question: “What does it mean for our relationships that we are forgiven and free?”

The first three commandments tell us about our relationship with God and the other seven tell us about our relationship with those around us. Reading through these 10 things to do, we quickly come to an understanding of our failings. Each explanation of each commandment reminds us we can not love and serve our neighbor apart from Christ. Yet because of the forgiveness we have on account of Christ we get to love and serve our neighbor.

The Apostles’ Creed helps us answer, “What work did Christ do to give us forgiveness and freedom?”

The contents of the Apostles’ Creed show us both the lengths Christ went to redeem us and what God does throughout our lives. As Luther states, God has called us, enlightened us, sanctified us, and keeps us in the true faith just as he does for all who believe. The Apostles’ Creed points us and our children back to the work of Christ, something we all need to be reminded of over and over again.

The Lord's Prayer answers, “What does it mean that we are forgiven and free in the way we approach God?”

We get to address God as our Father, who loves us. When we don’t know what to pray for we ask that “his kingdom come and his will be done.” We ask that we have all we need to support our bodies and life. We ask for the forgiveness that sustains us day to day, and that we would not be tempted to hurt our neighbor.

The explanation of the sacrament of Holy Baptism answers the “how” behind our forgiveness and freedom.

Teaching our kids they hold a certainty that their sins are forgiven, that they have been rescued from death and the devil, and that salvation is theirs all because of something Christ has done will serve them their whole lives. Knowing that their forgiveness and freedom is founded in something done for them rather than in something will bring them comfort on the days they have doubts.

The explanation of confession and absolution answers, “In light of our forgiveness and freedom, what should we do when we hurt or harm our neighbor?”

Our children need to know that the Christian life is not one of perfection, it is one filled with sin and therefore filled with both confession and the words, “You are forgiven.” Our children need to know how to confess their sins and what they should hear after they confess. The implications of confessing sins to one another and being reminded of that forgiveness will reach far and wide in our lives and our children's lives and relationships.

The explanation of The Lord’s Supper answers, “Where can we go to receive forgiveness of sins?”

When our children move through life, mature, and confess to those around them they may or may not receive forgiveness. But this doesn’t limit the forgiveness Christ offers them, and so knowing they can receive forgiveness through Christ’s shed body and blood given in bread and wine, gives them a place to rest in the work of Christ.

The list of things our kids need to know when they leave the house is much simpler than we might believe. The knowledge that they are forgiven and free on account of Christ will have an impact on every part of their lives regardless of what happens on the roads they walk.

Written by Katie

Katie is passionate about highlighting Christ for us in the Scriptures and encouraging others to live in the freedom we have on account of Christ in her writing, speaking, and coffee dates. She co-hosts the podcast Freely Given with Gretchen Ronnevick. Katie lives in Minnesota where fields of grain meet woods and water. She shares her home with her husband Dallas, 4 kids, and a sturdy lab named Moose. She graduated from Bethany Lutheran College in 2007 (B.A. Communications).

A 25 min study by Chad Bird. Click the link entitled "Christ's Ascension Through Hebrew Eyes

Christ's Ascension Through Hebrew Eyes

How God Made Mary a Theologian of the Cross

The point Luther made, again and again, was that distance between God and sinners is collapsed when the crucified Christ himself comes to sinners through a preacher.

or Luther, a theologian of the cross is brought into a relationship with God not by being lifted up into heaven but by being driven down into the depths in order to undergo a particular experience. As Luther wrote:

“...He is a God who looks into the depths and helps only the poor, despised, afflicted, miserable, forsaken, and those who are nothing, there a hearty love for Him is born… There the Holy Spirit is present and has taught us in a moment such exceeding great knowledge and gladness through this experience.” (LW 21:314)

In Mary’s song, for example, Luther grasped that God turned the world with all its wisdom and power into foolishness and gave us another wisdom and power. This is the meaning of Mary's song, recorded in Luke 1:46-55, when she proclaimed that:

“God has regarded me, a poor, despised, and lowly maiden, though He might have found a rich, renowned, noble, and mighty queen, the daughter and great lords he might have found the daughter of Annas or Caiaphas, who held the highest position in the land. But He let His pure and gracious eyes light on me and used so poor and despised a maiden, in order that no one might glory in His presence, as though he were worthy of this, and that I must acknowledge it all to be pure grace and goodness and not at all my merit or worthiness.” (LW 21:314)

Mary’s proclamation expressed the stark experience of God stripping her of any claims to her own righteousness. In her song, Mary said as much, when she declared that, her low estate was regarded by God, not thereby rewarding her for anything she had done, but because “He has done great things for me…” (Luke 1:47).

This is important to pay attention to because Luther’s work to exposit the Magnificat of Mary was not simply to argue a theological point. His approach to the text was pastoral, not polemical. Luther was writing specifically for the young son of his elector, Frederick. Luther exposited the words of a young woman for the sake of a young man who would soon enough become an elector, bearing the daily experience of “honor, power, wealth, knowledge, a life of ease, and whatever is lofty and great.”

In his exposition of the Magnificat, Luther located the greatest temptation for an earthly ruler: to worship one’s self rather than God, look to the heights rather than into the depths, etc. As he warned:

“…it is not without reason that the Scriptures describe so few kings and rulers who were godly men. On the other hand, no one is willing to look into the depths of their poverty, disgrace, squalor, misery, and anguish. From these, all turn away their eyes. Where there are such people, everyone takes to his heels, forsakes and shuns, and leaves them to themselves; no one dreams of helping them or of making something out of them. And so they must remain in the depths and in their low and despised condition. There is among men no creator who would make something out of nothing.” (LW 21:300)

Luther addressed the sinner not in order to provide a description of a type of theology but instead to confront, in a particular way, the individual person's experience of temptation and sin. The preacher is meant to identify the double work of God: first, that God does a strange work, killing the sinner so that he can accomplish his second, proper work of raising him from death and making him alive in Christ through faith.

This is the reality of God's work for his sinners. His strength lies hidden under apparent weakness. His wisdom hides under apparent folly. His proper work is concealed under his alien work. The future glory of the Christian is hidden under his present sufferings.

The point Luther made, again and again, was that distance between God and sinners is collapsed when the crucified Christ himself comes to sinners through a preacher. For this reason, Luther emphasized the experience of suffering and death, and how faith trusted Christ's promise to never abandon or forsake us. In his formulation of this experience, Luther was expressing nothing other than how God makes a theologian of the cross.

Contrary to the piety of his day, Luther saw that Mary was not the source of goodness and blessedness. She was a sinner, the enemy being overcome so that God could accomplish his work in and through her.

Mary does not point to herself as the well-spring of great and good things for which she had been regarded and blessed by God. Instead, her song summarizes, “In all those great and good things there is nothing of mine, but he who alone does all things, and whose power works in all, has done such great things for me.”

So when God comes to sinners he reverses the direction of suffering, working backward from Christ’s cross to our own and from his suffering to our suffering, to lift it off of us so that he may bear it for us. This is a theme that runs through all of Luther's preaching and teaching including in his commentary of the Magnificat where it's recorded that Mary was brought into a relationship with God through the particular humbling experience of being chosen to be the mother of our God and Savior, Jesus the Christ. As a theologian of the Cross, Mary uses her song not to answer the question, “How do I find a gracious God?”, but instead to preach about how a gracious and loving Father found her.

Written by Rev. Donavon Riley

Donavon Riley is a Lutheran pastor, conference speaker, author, and contributing writer for 1517, Christ Hold Fast, and LOGIA. He is also a co-host of Banned Books and Warrior Priest podcasts. He is the author of the book, "Crucifying Religion." He is also a contributing author to "The Sinner/Saint Devotional: 60 Days in the Psalms" and "Theology of the Cross".

Pray...Even in the Dark

Darkness is not your only friend. Jesus loves you, and he will be with you.

One of William Shakespeare’s most complicated characters, Hamlet, once made a timeless and disturbing declaration. You have probably heard it. He asked himself: “To be or not to be? That is the question” (Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1).

Don’t worry, this article won’t turn into a Shakespearean master class. But please appreciate the humanity of Hamlet’s question and the depth of his struggle. These are the very attributes that make Hamlet one of Shakespeare’s most complete characters, and one of the most tragic.

Hamlet was the Prince of Denmark. One day he was traveling back to the kingdom he grew up in. That’s when he heard the awful news. His father, the king, had died. And while Hamlet was supposed to be the next king, his uncle stepped in and took the crown. In plotting his revenge, Hamlet caused the death of various people. The love of his life dies. And then, (not to spoil the end of a 400 year old story), in the final sword fight, Hamlet is stabbed with a poisoned sword. At the end of the play, Hamlet dies.

In the middle of this mess, Hamlet struggles with his own sanity. Depression grips him. Having everything taken away from him, he wonders if life is worth living. He considers ending his own life. And there, in the middle of a graveyard, he holds a skull and says those timeless words: “To be or not to be?”

That is the question, isn't it? Maybe you don’t care for Shakespearean plays, but Hamlet’s inner conflict has a way of holding a mirror to our own struggles with depression. That was the brilliance of a writer like Shakespeare. His characters were almost too real. In the darkness of your own depression, perhaps you also have have asked a form of the question: “To be or not to be?”

The writer of Psalm 88 wrestled with that question, too. The Bible tells us that his name was Heman the Ezrahite, and as far as we know, this is the only psalm he ever wrote. It might be the darkest psalm anyone ever penned.

Out of the darkness of his life he begins by crying out to the Lord, “O Lord, the God who saves me, by day I cry out. At night I cry before you. May my prayer come before you. Turn your ear to my cry” (Ps. 88:1-2).

What a cry it is! Heman admits, “My soul has had its fill of troubles…my life has arrived at the grave” (Ps. 88:3). He is “treated like those who go down to the pit” (Ps 88:4) Then come these darkest of words: “I am turned loose with the dead. I am like the slain who lie in the grave, like the ones you do not remember anymore” (Ps. 88:5).

Heman isn’t saying that someone else put him here or that some bad circumstances are to blame. He says to God, “You have put me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the depths. Your wrath presses against me” (Ps. 88:6-7).

Then Heman pauses.

Sometimes psalms have these moments in them where the word “Selah” comes up. It could mean that it was time to sing the refrain of the psalm, or it might be telling the musicians to play a musical interlude. But here, this “Selah," this “interlude,” seems simply to tell us to pause and think.

So what are we supposed to be thinking about during this pause? Two things. The first is that Heman’s life has become so bitter, so tumultuous, so dark that he would rather die than live. He is, at this point, like Hamlet walking through the cemetery, asking, “To be or not to be?”

The second reason for Heman’s pause is to get you to ask, “Have I ever been there?” Has your job finally pushed you to the point of ending it all? Has your relationship made you walk to the brink and wonder if this life is worth living? Do our country’s conflicts make you think you are out of touch with our world today? Or in the darkness of night, when guilt corners you, when there seems to be no way out, do you wonder if life is worth living?

Now I know that Christians don’t normally talk about the dangers of suicide. Maybe we avoid the topic altogether. But God purposefully brings it up through Heman’s psalm. Sometimes we feel so overwhelmed, so lost, so forsaken, so betrayed that we feel like giving up on life. We feel like the end would be preferable to living.

Pastors and church leaders are not immune to this either. In fact, pastors across America have been taking their lives at an alarming rate since the COVID epidemic began. In their dark moments even they can ask that question: “To be or not to be?”

Jesus had every right to ask that question. Looking down at a world violent with sin, seeing the depravity sin had caused in the world, watching us flounder, he could have asked, “Should I go and be their Savior — or not?” He didn’t have to come at all. By all rights he shouldn’t have. But for Jesus, coming to be your Savior was never a question.

Jesus’ empty tomb declares your salvation!

He came to be your substitute. Jesus came to be the world’s miracle-worker. Jesus came to be the Light that shone even in this sin-darkened world. Jesus came to be the care-giver for souls trapped in the darkness. And when that darkness tried to convince us that life isn’t worth living, Jesus came to be your life.

Jesus walked into the darkness of death and hell on the cross. It wasn’t a mission of suicide. It was a perfect sacrifice.

In his moments of loss, Heman asked in his psalm, “Is your mercy declared in the tomb, [Lord]?” (Ps. 88:11). And in Jesus’ death and resurrection, we see that it is. Jesus’ empty tomb declares your salvation!

Heman had a brother called “Ethan the Ezrahite.” And Ethan, as far as we know, only wrote one psalm as well. It comes right after Psalm 88. And while Heman wrote about the dark struggles we fight within our souls, Ethan writes in his psalm, “I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever…Your mercy is built to last forever” (Ps. 89:1, 2).

One brother, Heman, writes from the depths of our woes, “By day I cry out. At night I cry before you” (Ps. 88:1). Then his brother, Ethan writes, “How blessed are the people who know the joyful cry. Lord, they walk in the light from your face” (Ps 89:15).

Remember? God the Father made you to be his. Jesus made you to be a fellow child of your heavenly Father. Jesus won you back on the cross to be a citizen of heaven.

So the question will come up again. Maybe you will be struggling with someone in a relationship. Maybe you will lose your job. Sickness without cure may inflict you. Betrayal might send you into darkness. And in those moments you might just be tempted to ask, “To be or not to be?” Should I go on living or should I just end it all right here.

If you do have those thoughts, please, speak with your pastor. Share your struggles with a Christian counselor. And in addition to that, in that darkness, go to your Lord in prayer. Jump back into his Word. Because in his Word, Jesus tells you who you are.

Remember? God the Father made you to be his. Jesus made you to be a fellow child of your heavenly Father. Jesus won you back on the cross to be a citizen of heaven. The Holy Spirit strengthens you every day to be his light in this sin-darkened world. That is who your God has made you to be.

Darkness is not your only friend. Jesus loves you, and he will be with you — right there with you — always. He promises.

Written by Steve Kruschel

Steve Kruschel served as a vicar in Lapeer, Michigan. After graduating from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 2009, Steve was assigned to serve Grace Lutheran Church in Geneva, NE, and Trinity Lutheran Church in Grafton, NE. He served those congregations for 9 years He currently serves as a pastor at St. John's Lutheran Church in Two Rivers Wisconsin.

What the Women at the Tomb Reveal about God's Redemption

Every part of Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene in John 20 was incredibly intentional and personal for God to systematically redeem what was lost.

The gospel writer’s detail of the women present at Jesus’ tomb is a most perplexing twist to the resurrection account. Many Biblical scholars argue that the fact that women were the first to see and proclaim the empty tomb builds credibility for the authenticity of the resurrection. If the disciples were lying, they wouldn’t have invented women as the witnesses. After all, even in a court setting, the testimony of women held less weight. No one making up a story would pick an “unreliable” witness.

But the women’s presence at the tomb is significant for more than just apologetic reasons because the fact that women were the first witnesses points us back to Eden. God, the great real-life storyteller, intentionally picked them as characters to remind us of the very purpose of the resurrection.

In our competitive human nature, these women are often used to make statements about men and women—pitting the works of one group against the other group. The men hid. The women showed up. We still want to compare and contrast the sexes even in redemption. Whose fault was it? Who did better? Like siblings, we make our defense for who our father loves more, and why he should love us the most. We believe it’s at the resurrection account that women can finally say “girls rule, boys drool!”

I’ve heard various explanations along this line, trying to make sense of why Jesus talked to the women first. If the men weren’t so scared, they could have seen Jesus too. Or, The women were the faithful ones, and they were rewarded for their faithfulness by seeing Jesus first.

But once again, God is not comparing us. He’s pointing to himself.

It’s not about us—any of us.

It’s logical to assume that in a highly politically charged environment where people are being crucified, men would be seen as more of a threat, and be in greater danger than women going about their chores. There are many possible reasons the women were there and the men were not—even fear. But the fact that men were absent is not even entirely correct. Peter and John were there. John 20:1-10 says that Mary Magdalene [and likely the other women from the other gospel accounts] ran back to the disciples to tell them that Jesus’ body was not there, and Peter and John raced each other back to the tomb.

They were there—and they didn’t see the angels. They didn’t see Jesus.

The angels appeared to the women. Jesus appeared to the women—not to Peter and John. This was an intentional, ordered meeting. Jesus wasn’t five minutes late and just happened to miss Peter and John. He wanted to see Mary first. It was the proper order of things.

To understand this proper ordering, we have to go back to Genesis 3. In the garden, it was Eve who gave the fruit to Adam. They both sinned against God, and God sought them out, and spoke a word over the serpent, the woman, and the man—in that order. He cursed the serpent, and prophesied how the woman’s offspring would strike him down. He told the woman that her labor pains would be intensified, and her desire would be for her husband, yet he would rule over her. Then he spoke over the man. God said the ground would be cursed, and the man would eat from it by means of painful labor, and his work would be among thorns and thistles, and he would eat by the sweat of his brow.

The serpent, the woman, the man. Once sin broke the world, God spoke to these three to condemn this sin and then offer his promise to defeat the serpent. Then he covered his children and led them away from the garden, away from the tree of life. They would need to die to be resurrected.

When Jesus took our sins to the cross, and died our death, he went down to hell, to show the curse had been broken. Then he went to the women, to show the curse had been broken. Then he has the women tell the men before he showed his living body to the men, to show the curse had been broken. Piece by piece, thread by thread, the resurrected Jesus unwinds the curse from the garden.

Every part of Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene in John 20 was incredibly intentional and personal for God to systematically redeem what was lost. Even her name—Mary. That’s all he says in greeting. All over the gospel accounts we find Marys from the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha (another derivative of Mary), or a Mary sometimes referred to simply as “the other Mary.” How many Marys were there?

If you look up the name of “Mary” in any baby name book, you’ll find the definition: “bitter, rebellious, favored one.” That last descriptor, “favored one” comes from the Biblical account of Mary, the mother of Jesus, when the angel calls her “favored one.” But before that time, the name “Mary” was just known as rebellious or bitter. Why would so many parents in the New Testament name their daughter’s bitter, or rebellious?

In truth, it was a family name, passed down through the generations from “Mara,” from the book of Ruth, when Naomi returns to Bethlehem, the “house of bread” and tells everyone to call her “bitter,” because the Lord had dealt bitterly with her. She was removed from her home, she lost her family, and she was bitter. But even further back we find Moses’ sister, Miriam, whose names means “bitter waters.” Another woman who lost her home, lost everything.

These are each daughters of Eve, the mother who lost her home, lost her sons, lost everything.
She was bitter.

She gave the fruit to her husband, and in doing so, she lost everything.

Jesus was surrounded by Marys, the daughters with the family name passed down to them: bitter, rebellious. Each marked by the fruit that was handed to the man.

In John 20, The two disciples leave the tomb before Jesus reveals himself to Mary while she weeps outside the tomb. He simply says, “Mary.” He calls to the woman, as she is next in line to see her redemption.

And then, instead of going straight to the men, he does something unexpected. He tells Mary that she can tell the men. The woman, first marked by handing over the fruit, now gets to hand over the news of the gospel. The curse unwinds. The kindness of such an act is profound. A daughter who was rejected for what she gave to man, now both receives and gives better news – a better fruit.

It’s not about the women. It’s not about the men. We are not competing for our Father’s affections. Jesus’ intentionally ordered post-resurrection words reveal that no curse is too big, no sin too large, for our God to redeem.

The women were not an afterthought. They were not an accident. Their presence at the tomb was not a mistake. They were not more faithful. Like you and like me, they were part of the story of the fall, and therefore also a part of the story of redemption, as God systematically tears apart the curse of sin thread by thread.

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