“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”

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The partially reconstructed building in the photo is of the Temple of Vesta, located in the Roman Forum. This small, circular structure was among the most important buildings in all the Roman empire. Within it a fire was kept burning, 24 hours and day, day after day, for centuries. The keepers of this flame were a small group of women and girls who had been especially chosen. They were housed in a beautiful complex just behind the temple and for thirty years were devoted to this task. As long as the flame burned, Rome would endure.

Today the flame, to which the Romans devoted so much care and attention, has been extinguished.  The compound of the vestals and the temple over which they kept watch are in ruins. The Roman empire, seemingly destined to endure forever, is gone. 

Christians, too, have a light which requires our attention. That light is the message of the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus. From generation to generation the Church is mandated to make the stewardship of  the Word of God its first priority. Other matters may occupy our time and attention, but none are more important.  

Unlike the flame of the Vestals, however, the light of Christ is not dependent upon us in order to endure. We do not keep the light of the Word alive, the Word keeps us alive. I take great comfort in this. For while the obligation to bear witness to the Word challenges me, I know that God provides all the necessary resources to make His Word known. God has chosen to keep His light burning not in beautiful marble temples but in earthen pots like you and me. God keeps the Word, Jesus our Lord, down to earth, in our hearts, on our lips, as near as a breath, as near as the sacraments, close to the hurts and hopes of the world. And in doing so keeps us in the promise: the light of Christ will shine no matter how persistent the darkness may be.

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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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“Look carefully, then, how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, for the days are evil.”

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The clock in the photo above looks out over St. Mark’s square in Venice, Italy. On the one hand it serves, as all clocks do, to measure movement as people go from place to place. At the same time it reminds us that movement within what we call time is temporal.

Scripture and our experience in time reveal to us that life is lived against the backdrop of this critical, temporal situation. St. Paul brings this home in the verse from Ephesians.  Life is not a neutral ‘tabula rasa’ on which we simply write our experience for good or for ill. The Biblical witness makes it clear that we live in a creation in which evil militates against us. “…the days are evil”, Paul says.

There are many ways of describing this evil, to be sure. From the fiery images of the Bible’s apocalyptic writings (Daniel and Revelation) to the modern insights of evil as manifest in complex human behavior and institutions. But however we describe it, evil is a force which works, day by day, to pervert and destroy God’s good creation. Paul wants the church to keep this firmly in mind.

As people of faith, therefore, we enter the realm of the day with our eyes wide open. There is no room in the Christian faith for the naieve optimism of “Pollyanna”. We embrace with gratitude the gift of each day conscious of its untried opportunities, but we do so under the sign of the cross. We remember that like our Master, Jesus, our faithful walk in time takes place in a largely faithless world. Sometimes our lives exhibit in thought, word and deed just how close at hand and powerful evil can be. St. Paul once underscored this fact when he lamented the frequency with which he did the very things, as a Christian, he had resolved not to do (Romans 7).

Will we make the most of the time allotted to us? Of course not. That’s part of what it means to be caught in the reality we call sin. We will and do inevitably squander the gift of time in one way or another. But Jesus has overcome evil through His death on the cross. That’s the decisive thing for us. Because of Christ’s victory, we know that time itself has been gathered up in His grace!  So, Christian, “make the most of the time” – that wonderful gift – but make even more of the greatest gift of all – the boundless grace of God that forgives sinners and bears with us in love – in time and eternity!

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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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“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”

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A couple had been attending worship on and off for several months when they met the pastor at the door following the service and announced that this would be their last Sunday. The pastor asked them why. The woman replied, “You Lutherans talk about sin so much. You’re too negative. We found a church where they never mention it. It’s much more positive.”

I was not that pastor but I have heard similar remarks over the years. And something I like to point out to those who make such comments is the words ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ are to be found nowhere in the Bible. Those are not the proper categories for biblical preaching nor do they adequately address the human predicament.

If positive and negative are not adequate categories for addressing our situation, what categories do we use? The Bible speaks of death and life.  These are the terms that get to the heart of things. Any church that is not willing to deal with you on these terms is simply not taking you seriously.

The Christian message is not a religious self-help course, offering tips for living to those who need a bit more optimism or a more positive attitude. Christ Jesus has met us at the point of our deepest need, forgiving our sin, our willfulness, and defeating death so that, in Him, we might have authentic life and a real future.

Many years ago, one of my seminary professors, Marc Kolden, attended the funeral of the politician Hubert Humphrey. A famous TV preacher took to the puplit and began to wax eloquently about Hubert’s life. He never let things get him down. He was always on the upswing, always positive. Prof. Kolden looked over at the casket and said to himself, ‘Well, Hubert, is that positive attitude of yours going to get you out of that casket?’   Exactly.

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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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“All flesh is grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord abides forever.”

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For many Easter is past. The bright flower of the festival has faded into the ordinary routines of daily living. For what was observed was a day, and nothing more.

But the real Easter endures. For what is Easter if not the promise of God’s eternal victory in Jesus Christ; a victory that begins now in faith and is brought to perfection in the life to come?  

The wedding service contains these words, “By your promises bind yourselves to one another…”. Marriage begins with a promise and lives on that promise, “…until death parts us.” Other aspects of life together may not stand the test of time; children, career, friendships, health may all fail us, but the promise is meant to endure. Sadly, for many, the promise also fails, withers, fades.

God’s promise does not fail. “…the Word of the Lord abides forever,”  proclaims the Scripture. Easter Sunday – and  every Sunday – bears witness to the God who keeps his promises. This simple truth has been the bedrock of assurance for millions. It can be that for you, too.

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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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“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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Some years ago I was speaking with a young medical student following a funeral. He asked, “Why is death stronger than life? Why isn’t it the other way around?” In response I quoted him the text for today. We die because we sin. No matter how flourishing a life we may have lived, we all have sinned and death is our future. Pretty simple.

The inevitability of death can result in all kinds of effort to rationalize, to attempt to put a positive construction on death, to put the proper ‘spin’ on death and thereby diffuse it of its sting and power. We like to say things like, ‘Well, at least he didn’t suffer’ – if, in fact, that is the case. Or, ‘She had a long life and did everything she wanted to do’, and so on. Or, keeping fashion with the latest in the rhetoric of death denial, nowadays you don’t even die…you simply ‘pass’. Whatever that means.

But can we really believe that these assessments are an adequate response to something that robs us of everything – including life itself? They sound much more like the remarks of those who are powerless and don’t know WHAT to say in the face of the sobering and irrefutable truth that the world is a graveyard.

The Christian faith does know what to say. The Scriptures do not gloss over death and treat it like a minor bump in the road on our inevitable way to some spiritual never-never land. The culture may deny it, sanitize it, rationalize it, try to make the best of it and so on, but St. Paul called it what it is: “…the wages of sin…”. So I quoted St. Paul to the young medical student, who didn’t care much for what St. Paul had to say about sin and death.

I also reminded him of the free gift. I told him that God in Jesus Christ has forgiven sin and defeated death on the cross and that it is because Jesus lives that we may look forward in trust and hope to everlasting life.  My young friend wasn’t so sure about that either but he did concede that it was quite a promise. I said, “Indeed it is. And it’s for you.”

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“I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.”

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Before the formation of the ELCA in the late 1980’s, I was a pastor in the American Lutheran Church. In those days we had district presidents, a rather straightforward institutional title that always rankled those with episcopal pretensions. My ‘DP’ was Cecil Johnson. With a name like Cecil you just know he was a down-to-earth fellow who reeked of common sense and good judgment. And he did. Cecil had recommended me to the folks at Concordia Lutheran Church in Fertile, Minnesota.

Prior to Concordia Lutheran I had been an associate pastor in two very large congregations. Now I was the only pastor in a congregation of 650 members, in a town of just under 900. You do the math. I had a captive audience for better or for worse. Cecil was voting for better. He leaned over to me at the installation pot-luck following the service, while several cubes of red Jello wobbled on his spoon, and said in his adroit, fatherly manner, “Go slowly here, Mark. Take your time.” Then he gave me an excellent piece of advice which has served me well for many years. He suggested that I spend a lot of time the first year with shut-ins and the older members of the congregation. Get to know them. Get to know what they care about. Ask them about the congregation, the community, their faith. I took his advice and got to know some of the finest people I have had the privilege to have known in all my years of ministry. And in getting to know them they taught me something about the church and it’s business.

What I learned on those many afternoons while sipping coffee with those old Norwegians – and a few misplaced Swedes – was that faith in Jesus Christ and His promises was the marrow in their lives. And they had not come to this faith because some clergy person stuck his\her finger in the air and blathered on from the pulpit about politics, being relevant or the indelible wonderfulness of now. The message that gripped them was the old, old story of Jesus and His love and forgiveness delivered in Word and sacrament. The faith they held gave voice to their favorite hymns; Beautiful Savior, The Old Rugged Cross, Abide with Me, I Know that My Redeemer Lives, A Mighty Fortress.

During the years I was their pastor I had to bury some of these folks. Often, in those last days before the end, sitting by their bedsides, we would sing those old hymns accompanied by a guitar, read passages from the Bible, share the sacrament. It was during those hours of ministry that they taught me something essential about the hymns of the church; if they can’t be sung at our deathbeds they probably shouldn’t be sung at all.

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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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“I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

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Linda and I stepped out of the elevator and this is the scene that greeted us. The rooftop restaurant looks out on the Roman Forum and Capitoline Hill.  The beautifully set tables announced that a gathering was imminent.  And sure enough, just a few minutes after this picture was taken, every seat was filled. A large family and some friends were gathering after a First Communion. Wine began flowing, food was served. The setting was spectatcular, the atmosphere joyful, full of life, a celebration. It was great to be there, even if we were on the outside looking in.

Thank God for these moments. Respites when we may gather with others for celebrations; brief truces in the wider conflicts, struggles and pressures of living, little glimpses of God’s promised future.

When our Lord Jesus Christ gathered with His disciples for what we know as the Last Supper, He was giving them, and us, a foretaste of the future. “I will not drink of the cup again”, He said, “until I drink it with you in my Father’s kingdom.” In other places, Christ Jesus described the coming kingdom as a marriage feast that knows no end. In every service of Holy Communion the future comes to meet us, full of joy and promise.

Some day, we will all be gathered at the banquet of the Lamb. Fellowship with the Living God will be the occasion for us. The endless drone of the world’s melancholy will finally give way to the joyous harmonies of eternal Easter, the glorious celebration that Christ has prepared for His people.  We will enter the banquet hall of the kingdom. Every place will be set and the feast that knows no end will begin! 

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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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“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,…”

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There was a time when many young people grew up in a well ordered supportive world. Family members were close at hand. Uncles, aunts, grandparents and cousins hovered around our lives. The ‘bleachers’ of the community were full of family and friends, cheering our successes and lamenting our failures. To be sure, people were no better or worse in the ‘good ol’ days’ but when compared with today many, many more children grew up in the midst of the strong, supportive structures of family, church and community.

For many young people today that world is largely gone. The bleachers are empty. Families are scattered everywhere. Ours is no exception. Our immediate family members can be found in Hawaii, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.  In such an environment it is not hard to understand the bewilderments of so many young people, their cynicism and uncertainty about the future. Where do they find an enduring set of values by which to order their lives, something worth living for? 

When many young people look at  the church, the community that points to the magnetic figure of Jesus, and His call to follow Him into loving service, they are often disillusioned by the time and energy poured into pursuing wealth and comfort by those who sit in the pews.

An old story tells of a young orphan boy who was taunted for his faith; ‘It seems your God has forgotten you”, someone said to him. “No”, he replied, “God has not forgotten me. But God’s people have.”

The Church has always been a place where the lost are found, where the hopless find hope, where those disillusioned or crushed by the brokeness of their earthly families find the love and support of God’s family. Not only are we surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses, cheering us on from the halls of heaven, we also have a role. People caught in the dislocation, alienation and mass estrangement of our time are searching for a place to stand; where an authentic life of faith, hope and love is really possible. The church can be such a place. 

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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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“As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

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It took some doing but after several miles on a winding, hilly gravel road past wineries and olive groves Linda and I arrived in the locale pictured above. This is the Abbey of Sant’ Antimo, nestled in a remote valley deep in the hills of southern Tuscany. The current church was commissioned in the 8th century, according to tradition, at the order of Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor. The first building for Christian prayer and worship was constructed here on the site of an old Roman villa in the 4th century.  Today, the stewards of this place are a small group of monks (the Canons Regular of the Augustinian Order) whose purpose is to engage in a ministry of worship and sacraments for all who visit the church. 

 We arrived just in time for noon prayers. Only moments after we took our place for the sparcely attended service, a small group of monks silently made their way to the front ot the sanctuary. For the next twelve minutes the ancient tones of Gregorian chant echoed through the stone arches as they have, daily, for centuries. Then, as quickly as they came, the monks left.

 As a Lutheran Christian I could not help but think back to Martin Luther’s years as a monk. He was also an Augustinian but of a group called the Order of Hermits. He spent many years in that life, praying, studying, seeking solice and salvation. This was among the prescribed avenues through which holiness could be developed and salvation finally achieved.

 You probably know the story. Prescriptions for spiritual advancement and peace eluded him until, finally, he heard the promise of the Gospel; we are made right with God by faith alone, and not through our efforts, works or sincerity. Christ is our righteousness. Our confidence is in Him alone. The new-found freedom that resulted led Luther from the seculsion of monastic life to engagement with the world; marriage, children, community responsibilities, the struggle of reform.

 In your baptism, Christ Jesus has called you to the vocation of living. Family life, occupational pursuits and the whole host of life’s obligations and responsibilities are not secondary to what some call “full time Christian service.” There are  times in the life of every Christian when pulling back is necessary for prayer, reflection and renewal. But the Christian life is finally not one of retreat from life but engangement with life.

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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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“For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another.”

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“You can have it all,” the saying goes.  How many times and in how many ways is this promise pushed at us from all corners of life?  It is a false promise, of course, but one to which we are terribly vulnerable. Why? Partially because of our wants, or to put it a bit more forcefully, our appetittes. And when our appetites for things, for experiences, for money, for security, etc, drive us we begin to see life as a quest for aquisition, for having what we want, for personal fulfillment. How many lives have been shipwrecked in the pursuit of “having it all” is beyond calculating.

 One area of life where the impact of this false promise has been devastating is the family. Raising children means parents putting their own fulfillment aside for the sake of their children. They may not recognize it but such commitment is actually the key to their fulfillment. If a couple continues to defend their right to personal fulfillment after marriage they probably should not be parents. Their candidacy for marriage itself may be called into question.

 The basic problem with this false promise is the premise, what it says about life. A meaningful life does not begin with me and what I want.  Service and not fulfillment is the basis for a meaningful life. “Having it all” is the fairy tale that seduces us into the fantasyland of fulfillmenrt on our terms. The more you seek it the more it will elude you.

 Sadly, the “having it all” mentality can also find it’s way into churches, where a gospel of personal fulfillment replaces the faith and freedom of the Gospel. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus came among us to serve and not to be served. A reading of the gospels reveals the extraordinary power and freedom this kind of living produced. It is this liberating life of love and service that God wants for His children. 

 In Christ we have been set free from the insatiable pursuit of the self and it’s wants. At the same time we have been set free for true fulfillment which cannot be pursued for it’s own sake. When love and service become our aim, fulfillment is thrown in. 

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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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