“For me, to live is Christ…”

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The late Dr. George Forell, in his book The Proclamation of the Gospel in a Pluralistic World, outlines three levels of religious commitment.  

With regard to the Bible, for example, those on the first level say it is an important book but it is rarely if ever read.

A second-level view is that it is a good book. When it is read, it is often to search out axioms or moral principles for living.

A minority share the third level view; the Bible is the inspired Word of God, through which the Holy Spirit works to create a living faith in Christ. They read the Scriptures regularly and gather with others to hear the Word of God proclaimed.

Another area which Dr. Forell describes is the Church.

On one level a person says, “I was raised a Lutheran.”  “Going to church” is a matter of pedigree, a religious necessity.

On the second level, the majority, say the church is where we learn about right and wrong. For them, “going to church” is a gathering of the morally concerned. The Church is a vehicle to attempt a moral life.

The third level, a minority, sees the Church as a body of believers, the people of God, summoned through the Gospel to bring the world to the Cross, that there they might know their Savior.  They don’t “go to church”, they are the Church; the gathering of the forgiven who have been “called and sanctified” in faith through Jesus Christ. 

It is to this third level that our Lord Jesus called the Twelve and to which He calls you and me through Word and sacrament. Followers, disciples, believers, whatever words we use, are ordinary people made extraordinary by the love and grace of God. These people do not “go to church” as if it was simply one more event on the weekly calendar. For them, as St. Paul has written, “to live is Christ.”  By lives devoted to thanksgiving, praise and love of others,  they seek to show what and Who they believe is really worth living for.

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“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”

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Martin Luther found a lot to like in the 46th Psalm. As a result he paraphrased its promises and set them to music in the great hymn we know as ‘A Mighty Fortress is our God’.

It is not hard to see why Luther held this Psalm in such high regard. The focus is clearly on the mighty, saving acts of God. And this focus became central in that renewal of the Church we call the Reformation. It is still the focus of all who treasure the Gospel above all things. 

The great insight of the Lutheran Reformation was nothing novel. Martin simply brought the Gospel message to the forefront and it did the rest. And as the freedom of the Gospel went to work it created what it continues to create wherever it is heard; alarm, anger, shock, challenge, joy, freedom, assurance and, in Luther’s famous words, “forgiveness of sins, life and salvation”.  

The precise occasion of the writing of ‘A Mighty Fortress’ is not known. What is known is that it came out of Martin’s long struggle to know God’s peace, a struggle that was brought to rest when the Gospel directed him away from reliance on the commandments of men to trust in the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. The confidence and freedom that resulted from this encounter was the singular note that rang throughout the rest of his life. It continues to ring, and joyfully so, in all who find their assurance and hope in the promises of the Gospel.

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A Mighty Fortress is Our God

Martin Luther

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;

Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

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“Not by bread alone.”

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A friend once remarked to me that he would love to go back in time and live in the Middle Ages. I replied that he must be joking unless it was his desire to join a chorus of misery. After all, for centuries the vast, vast majority of people in that time and every other era in history lived daily with various forms of oppression, want, hardship, sickness and often, early death.

Even many of the poor today live in far better conditions than most of the people who have ever lived. So, given the material and other comforts humans enjoy in our country and elsewhere on this tiny orb, why isn’t the world brimming over with happiness?

The truth is that while we need a certain level of provision and comfort to live, a satisfied life is not finally a result of these things. This should be obvious to us by now but we continue to make cliches of ourselves and look to those things that cannot satisfy. How many dreary stories have we heard of those who fill their bank accounts, or try to, only to discover, in a thousand ways, that full banks often reflect an empty life.

For all our complexities, certain things about human beings are quite straightforward. Our Lord Jesus had a way of putting a laser beam on this fact with words like this;

“Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

This is a statement of fact that cuts right to the bone. After all, how many of us in actual fact, do believe and live as if  “bread alone” in all its forms is actually enough?

A full, abundant, satisfied – that is to say, authentically human life – was never meant to result from grabbing at the material. Another laser beam from the Lord put it this way;

“What does it profit a man if should gain the whole world and lose his soul?”

 or this,

“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and everything else will be added to you.”

In your daily pursuit of “gold and goods” these words of Christ Jesus are not simply a gentle reminder, a mild piece of advice. They are words of promise, a two-edged sword that cuts two ways;

Promise One: Seek your life through the material alone and an authentic life of love, joy and peace will elude you; 

Promise Two: Seek your life under the promises of God’s Word in Christ Jesus and the love, joy, peace – and contentment – that are in Him will bring your anxious heart to rest. For when you have Him, you have everything. The rest is icing on the cake!

“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Therefore we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.”

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As a child of the 1960’s I remember well the idealism that characterized much of that time. Words like ‘peace’ and ‘love’ were tossed around as if just saying them would bring them about. I remember tossing them around myself. But it didn’t work.The hollow fellowship of wishful thinking, adolescent  impatience and naive utopianism broke on the rocks of a sterner and more enduring fellowship – the fellowship of sin.

The world doesn’t speak like this, of course. It wants to locate the source of human dysfunction in all kinds of explanations that are more amenable to our generous view of ourselves. Sociological, economic, political, psychological, historical, genetic, and other assessments are put in the service of these efforts to identify, explain and address the chronic human tendency to subvert what is good, innocent, righteous and blessed. Some of these efforts to explain ourselves to ourselves can produce positive results. Anything that serves to restrain the worst in us or advance what is good is worthy of our attention and effort.

At the same time the human being does not ultimately retain the right to let self-assessments be the last word. For we are not a law unto ourselves. The human creature draws its’ life and definition from the Living God. This should be so obvious to us that calling it second nature would be doing it an injustice. The fact that it is not only serves to illustrate in the most dramatic of terms how deeply disconnected we from God and how deeply connected we all are in the fellowship of sin.  And given history’s ample witness to this fact, it appears that in spite of all our protests and dreaming we want to keep it this way. Or, at the very least, I want others to change. For they are the problem, not me.

God has made His assessment of the human condition; “All have sinned and fallen short…”.  Under these circumstances, faced with a creature that has stolen its’ existence, what would you or I have done with this tiny planet, so insignificant and fraught with problems? It is hardly a necessity in the vastness of the universe. Who would miss it? One diverted asteroid would make an end of the whole business.

It is only against the backdrop of the enormity of this human dilemma, our willing bondage in this fractured fellowship, that the gift of God’s grace and mercy in Jesus Christ stands out in high relief. God has met our willfulness with a will of His own, His determination to have mercy on us, declaring us righteous before Him as gift, for the sake of Christ. And the peace and love that God brings through the Gospel are not empty words. For God gives Himself there in the promises of the Gospel, sealing those promises in the Sacraments. In Jesus Christ God unites His people in an authentic fellowship of peace that passes all reason and a love that plants itself firmly in the heart, just as once it was nailed firmly to a bloody Cross.

“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

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An old visitation pastor returned to the church late one afternoon after a particularly difficult round of visits. In the space of a few hours he had been confronted with sickness, dying, marital difficulties and a host of other serious problems. As he entered the building, slowly making his way toward his study, the young office assistant came down the hallway on her way home for the day. She stopped to greet him and as she did so he placed his hand on her shoulder, looked her in the eyes and said,

“Would you do something for me?” 

“Of course”, she replied.

“Today, the burdens are too great for me”, he confessed, “and I fear for my faith. Please tell me Jesus loves me and that my sins are forgiven.”

You and I are troubled by many things and at times, we too may fear for our faith.

In our sorrows we may forget our Lord Jesus, the “man of sorrows” who is familiar with grief. 

In our bodily weakness we may forget God’s ability to help.

We may be inclined to credit our own intelligence and hard work for times of health and prosperity.

In these and a host of other ways the weakness of faith, pride, doubt and our forgetfulness of God is revealed.

This is why, in our doubts and faithlessness, the Christian is invited again and again to return to God’s promises. All of us as God’s people may be the bearers of those promises, of the Good News of what God has done for us in Jesus. Even this day you may speak the words that help another Christian to remember what God has graciously done for them, and in the telling help them trust in Him for all their needs, giving renewed strength, joy and confidence to faltering faith. 

“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“He does according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can stay His hand, or say to Him, ‘What are you doing?’…”

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“Thy will be done”, we pray in the Lord’s prayer. And it is. In truth, it is God’s will that finally matters for only God’s will is truly free. This means that only God’s will is pure enough, perfect enough and enduring enough to bring a holy, righteous, unalterable and gracious purpose to all things. To claim such a free will for ourselves, therefore, is nothing short of blasphemy, for it is to claim something that belongs to God alone.

The undiluted witness of the Bible is to the sovereignty of God’s Holy will over what we call history. He rules the world with gracious and almighty power.

Providentially, the Bible tells us that God wills to send the rain upon the just and the unjust, freely extending the blessings of creation to all.

Through the course of time God’s will sets up and overthrows all rulers and earthly authorities. Good and evil alike are summoned into the task of governance, for judgment and mercy, where the wicked may be restrained and the benefits of life may be protected and extended.  

Therefore, I may enter this day with the confidence that God will rule my trembling heart and tentative steps, helping me to grow in the knowledge of faith and the capacity to love. I may trust that all the circumstances of my life, even when I am tested to what  I believe is beyond my limits, are not beyond the working of God’s good, holy and gracious will.

“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

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An old visitation pastor returned to the church late one afternoon after a particularly difficult round of visits. In the space of a few hours he had been confronted with sickness, dying, marital difficulties and a host of other serious problems. As he entered the building, slowly making his way toward his study, the young office assistant came down the hallway on her way home for the day. She stopped to greet him and as she did so he placed his hand on her shoulder, looked her in the eyes and said,

“Would you do something for me?” 

“Of course”, she replied.

“Today, the burdens are too great for me”, he confessed, “and I fear for my faith. Please tell me Jesus loves me and that my sins are forgiven.”

You and I are troubled by many things and at times, we too may fear for our faith.

In our sorrows we may forget our Lord Jesus, the “man of sorrows” who is familiar with grief. 

In our bodily weakness we may forget God’s ability to help.

We may be inclined to credit our own intelligence and hard work for times of health and prosperity.

In these and a host of other ways the weakness of faith, pride, doubt and our forgetfulness of God is revealed.

This is why, in our doubts and faithlessness, the Christian is invited again and again to return to God’s promises. All of us as God’s people may be the bearers of those promises, of the Good News of what God has done for us in Jesus. Even this day you may speak the words that help another Christian to remember what God has graciously done for them, and in the telling help them trust in Him for all their needs, giving renewed strength, joy and confidence to faltering faith. 

“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“As your days, so shall your strength be.”

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A man once laughingly observed to a friend, “God has extremely high regard for my capacity to endure hardship; for hardship is pretty much all I know!”

As we stand on the threshold of a new and untried day, we do not know what this day will bring. Will it bring good? Will it bring unwelcome misfortune and hardship? Perhaps it will bring both. It’s probably best to not dwell too much on these questions as we make preparation to enter the day. Instead, God invites us to dwell on His promises.

He has promised to give strength for every need. He has promised that no burden is too great for us to bear because we have Him. He has promised to those who belong to Him that He will work all things for our good. 

With these promises going before us we may enter the day with gratitude, anticipating the opportunities it brings; the chance to provide daily bread, be with friends, share the love of family, enjoy our interests and serve others where we may.

When hardships come it may be more difficult to see our Lord at work in them. Faith may falter. When this happens we are invited to return to our baptism and kneel at the foot of the Cross, under the steadfast love of the Redeemer who gave Himself for us. There we are reminded that no trial, suffering, discouragement or hardship fall outside the vast perimeter of God’s grace.

Therefore, we may step across the threshold of each day in the sure and certain knowledge that we are held in the baptismal promises of God; and that the story that will be written, even this day, will be the story of God’s faithfulness to us – in all things.

“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”

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If you’ve ever tuned in to the History channel and wondered where the history is you’re not alone. It’s hard to see how programs dealing with pawn shops and junk pickers qualify as programming dealing with history. But these “history” programs are wildly popular. So, the producers have put their own spin on things and adopted the rather creative slogan, ‘History Made Every Day.’

Popularization is a highly subjective thing. And what is accepted as popular requires nothing more than widespread approval. This means that popularization is attached to those things that are emotionally favorable to the majority. The popular is what makes us feel good.

We live in an age which demands the popularization of practically everything and which values only that which is popular. This can also extend into the Church and its expressions. And this, in turn, can lead to a serious dumbing down, even dodging of the substantive issues of faith. Dwindling congregations and shrinking budgets can lead church leaders to sell the birthright of faithfulness for those things that simply make us feel good. 

As the Lord Jesus approached the end of His earthly ministry  the crowds began to thin out. Why? His message began to sink in. He was not going to be the popular prosperity preacher they were hoping for. Instead He was intent on embracing death and the Cross. What a downer. How negative. He was no longer “emotionally favorable to the majority.” 

But anyone who lives in the real world, with their eyes open, knows that popularized religion is inadequate in dealing with the struggles, crosses and losses of our lives. At the same time to begin at the Cross is not to advocate a religion whose goal is to simply make us feel bad. That is no better than its opposite. Rather, we root our proclamation and life in the realism of the Cross because there we are brought up against our actual limits and the goal of our lives in this world.

In His determination to go to the Cross Jesus was not endeavoring to be popular. In a world like this He knew there could be no other fate. The Truth of God is not welcome here. So, as the crowd moved on in its endless search for the next big thing, our dear Lord Jesus went alone, to His death. We will too, one day. We preach the cross so that all may know that they do not walk in the real world alone. The Living God is as near as the very real hurts, longings and disappointments we feel.

Therefore, I do not want a church or a preacher who panders to the popular, who simply gives me back to myself. I want a church and a preacher who tells me that because Jesus went to the Cross and was raised for me, to think and pray and feel and hope my way through the dark, hard and cold places in life is as easy as breathing – and dying.

“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“See what the love the Father has given us that we should be called the children of God; for that is what we are.”

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You and I are called many things in this life; daughters, sons, wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, friends, the list goes on. But who are we really? Are we nothing more than the sum total of these variously defined and shifting roles or is their something about us that is ultimately defining?

For the Christian there is one designation that brings everything else we may be into cohesion, and that is our identity, sealed in baptism, as children of God.

The late Alvin Rogness writes of this beautifully in this excerpt from his book, ‘The Word for Every day.’

 YOU’RE MINE

“In the foothills of Montana’s Rockies a little stream is born. It trickles its fitful path down the hillsides, and flows into the plains. Growing broader and deeper, it becomes a river – the Missouri.

“Montana says, “River, you’re mine.” But on it flows, declining to be cradled long by its parent state. Coursing on through the sister Dakotas, it hears again the claim, “River, you’re ours.” Heedless, it pushes on, angling its way between Nebraska and Iowa, but not before each of these neighbors has reached out for possession, “River, you’re mine. Like a restless eel, it slips away, down to join the great Father of Waters, the Mississippi. And as it joins its flow with the larger, the Mississippi says,”At last you have come to me; now you’re mine.”

“Still it flows silently on. At last its currents become slower, fuller, until down into the great Gulf of Mexico it comes to rest in the bosom of the ocean. In the rhythmic heaving of the deep, it hears the ocean’s whisper, “River, you’re mine. “You’ve always been mine. It was I who sent the storm clouds into the mountains to give you birth. It was I who pulled you steadily, irresistibly away from all others back to me. From me you came, to me you return. Only I can really say, ‘You’re mine.’”

“Into a home a little girl is born. Bending tenderly over the cradle, a mother whispers, “Baby, you’re mine.” The years go on, and soon the baby has become a lady. A lover takes her by the hand, and a deeper voice echoes the mother’s whisper, “Sweetheart, you’re mine.” Then one day she stands looking into the deep eyes of her own baby, and her mother ears seem to catch the unspoken claim of her child, “Mother, you’re mine.” 

“But the years refuse to linger, and all too soon her hair becomes silver. Life grows fuller, deeper, slower, and one day she glides through the narrows into Eternity’s ocean. There, in the bosom of her heavenly Father, she hears the voice of God, “My child, you’re mine. You’ve always been mine. It was I who gave you life. It was I who drew you, through my redeeming love in Christ, away from all others back to me. From me you came, to me you return. Only I can really say, ‘You’re mine.”

“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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