Monthly Archives: March 2021

The Impact of God’s Love

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Holy Week is upon us. God’s plan has been exacted.

His plan for our redemption—which included the cosmic annihilation of Sin, Death, and the power of the devil—was established long ago. Its forthcoming object destined for impact was first announced in the Garden of Eden shortly after the fall into Sin.

He told the serpent that a Savior would land in his newly acquired dominion. In that moment, God established the event as the center point of history, charting the forthcoming object’s course as His Word told and retold of the inevitable arrival.

The Savior’s divine origins would prove the all-encompassing span of His reach. The momentum and trajectory of His work would be unstoppable. No human being would be spared from the blast radius of His love. No Sin-sick atom or darkly spirit feeding the flesh or its powerful lords—Eternal Death and Satan—would be safe from His terrible reach.

The worldwide flood and the rescue of eight believing souls in the ark would be a hint (Genesis 7—9:13). The testing of Abraham would provide a taste (Genesis 22:1-18). The betrayal of Joseph by his brothers, his rise to power, and his generous grace would foreshadow its contours (Genesis 37—50). The deliverance of Israel from bondage through the Red Sea would offer a substantial glimpse (Exodus 14:10-15:1). On and on from these, moments in history involving the likes of David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Job, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego would all whisper a foretelling of His impending and powerful arrival.

He would make His way into our orbit through the words of an angel to a lowly virgin girl (Luke 1:26-38). He would enter our atmosphere nine months later on a cool night in the miniscule Judean town of Bethlehem (Luke 2:1-20). He would speed toward the surface with unrelenting force, all along the way burning up the constricting stratosphere of hopelessness through the preaching and teaching of the Gospel. He would vaporize the dusty debris of blindness, deafness, muteness, hunger, leprosy, dropsy, demon possession, paralysis, mortal Death itself, and so much more (Matthew 14:15-21; Mark 8:28-33; John 5:1-15; John 11: 1-46; and the like).

And then He would strike.

On Good Friday, the Savior—Jesus Christ—would render His life as He crashed into the earth’s surface by way of the cross. He would do this with a force equal to and more than what was needed to cleanse the world of its horribleness. The initial concussion—one of inconceivable magnitude—would see the rocks split, worldwide darkness, the temple curtain brought to tatters, and the dead shaken from their tombs. The shockwaves from Calvary’s crater would move out in all directions, rolling across the landscape of creation, going backward and forward in time, leaving nothing untouched.

The devil and his own would be scorched and left dying. Humanity would be given life, reconciled, made right with God.

Shortly thereafter, the smoky haze from the Lord’s sin-killing encounter would dissipate, and the bright-beaming light of hope would begin shining through to the planet. A completely new air of existence would breeze through and into the lungs of Mankind. A tomb would be empty, its former inhabitant found alive, and all who believe in Him would stand justified before the Father and destined for the same resurrection triumph.

All of this makes for the centrifugal and centripetal astronomy of Holy Week, the Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Vigil of Easter), and Easter Sunday. I urge you to make these times in worship your own. Go to church. Be present where God dispenses the benefits of the world-altering event of His love. Hear His Word. Take in the preaching. Receive the Lord’s Supper. Be found standing in the crater of Christ’s victorious work—His cataclysmic demise and unbounded resurrection becoming your justifying right to eternal life in glory with Him forever.

Backroad Cemeteries

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It’s very early, 5:30am to be precise. I’m writing this note from Cantrall, Illinois. Again, to be precise, I’m at Camp CILCA, which is just outside of Springfield.

A summer camp I attended in my youth, I know this place well. Even better, I eventually became CILCA’s head counselor in the early nineties, having held the position for four consecutive summers. I should add that during those same years I was also the head lifeguard, music leader, sports director, and weekend maintenance assistant to a wonderful man I’ll forever consider a friend, Derald Sasse, may his soul rest in peace.

I stayed here at CILCA this weekend, having spoken last night at the camp’s annual banquet at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Springfield. I received a kindly invitation last fall from the current Camp Director, Reverend Joshua Theilen, to be the banquet keynote speaker. I was certainly glad to accept. And of course, the topic being something along the lines of Christian engagement in the public square, I was certainly ready to drive down and prattle on about such things. I pray my words last night were of benefit to the people in attendance.

Interestingly, I’m staying in the Christian Growth Center here at the camp, which back in my day, was the only building on the camp property with air conditioning. The funny thing is, in all my years here at CILCA, I never once spent a night in this building. I maintained it. I helped clean the rooms for various groups that came through. I fixed broken windows and repaired faulty electrical outlets, but I never actually enjoyed the fruits of my labor. And yet, here I am twenty-five years later. Life is weird that way, I guess.

As soon as I finish typing this note, I’ll be hopping into the Jeep and heading back to Michigan. To get here to Illinois, I took the backroads. I’ll probably do the same thing going home. I like driving the backroads. While they’re pleasantly uneventful, there’s plenty to see. Driving along through the sleepy farmlands provides more than enough opportunities for thoughtful observation. Thinking back to these travels a few days ago, I can think of at least two things I remember pondering.

The first thing I spent some travel time thinking about was the Old Testament reading from Genesis 22 appointed for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, which tells the story of God commanding Abraham to take his son, Isaac, to a yet undisclosed place and sacrifice him. I’d call this event dreadful if I didn’t already know its substance and ultimate conclusion. As a father, could I follow through as Abraham did? And yet, if the listener is paying attention as Abraham speaks, the comfort of trust in the promises of God is woven into the narrative. Once Abraham and Isaac arrived at the place God commanded, Abraham told the servants who journeyed with them that he and his son were going to go and worship God and then return to them.

That moment is a clue as to what Abraham knew would happen. He would unreservedly follow God’s commands already knowing something of God.

God promised Abraham that Isaac would be the one through whom the Messiah would come. God assured Abraham of this. Abraham knew that God doesn’t break His promises, and so no matter what approached from the horizon, Isaac would be fine. Abraham trusted this. If you doubt this analysis, then take a look at Hebrews 11:17-19. The writer to the Hebrews acknowledges this as he digs a little deeper into Abraham’s faith, describing him as knowing full well that if he was indeed forced to follow through with the frightful deed, God would give Isaac back to him alive. He’d have to. God would reverse Death, and preserve Isaac’s life.

This is a very rich moment, both emotionally and theologically, especially as we prepare to wrap up Lent and rejoice in the Easter celebration of Christ’s resurrection. I suppose that thinking about these things probably influenced the second thing I remember pondering along the way.

While tooling along through the farmlands of Indiana and Illinois, I noticed something familiar to each of the little towns along the way. They all have conspicuous cemeteries.

Now, you might be thinking that just about every city or town in America has a cemetery. Believe it or not, they don’t. But these backroad towns do, and each is noticeably prominent, often pitched on a hill at the edge of the city, perhaps adorned with an elderly oak tree or two. And if the cemetery isn’t standing guard at the edge of town, it’s situated somewhere along the town’s main street, making it impossible for anyone to miss while passing through. In either, the collection of headstones is a community of both old and new, and from a reasonable distance, against a setting sun, their mutual silhouette looks almost city-like.

I remember when I was a kid in the seventies and eighties, my friends and I would hold our breaths when passing a cemetery. The lore was that by breathing, there was a chance we might make a wandering spirit jealous. Another version of the myth claimed that you might accidentally inhale a spirit and become possessed. Silly, I know. Good thing I know better, because now that I’m far from those youthful fooleries, I passed a particularly lengthy cemetery on Saturday evening near Lincoln, Illinois as I was making my way to Cantrall from Morton, Illinois, where my parents and sister live. Had I held my breath as I passed, I might have ended up unconscious and in a ditch. Or worse, in a cemetery.

And yet, having said this, the fact that every town has its cemetery is a reminder that at some point, my body will end up in one. There’s no avoiding it. Read the poets. Christian or not, they get the inevitability of Death. Percy Shelley called Death the veil that is finally lifted during the deepest sleep. John Donne described Death as mighty and dreadful, and yet without pride, portraying it as simply doing what it does almost boringly even as it is unstoppable. Robert Browning describes the knowledge of unavoidable Death as motivation for living life fully. Emily Dickinson, of course, is famous for portraying Death as unstoppable, being the carriage that will one day arrive for all. And when it knocks at your door, you will be unable to keep from opening it.

Since I’ve suddenly shifted to considering the poets this morning, I’ll admit to appreciating Lord Tennyson’s description of Death:

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

Tennyson doesn’t describe Death fearfully. Instead, he sets it before his reader as something of a story’s ending. It’s the sunset to an eventful day. It is an open sky with a view to the evening star. It is a clear call of his name, and a drawing to a vessel setting sail into the open sea, a place that he loved.

I don’t know what influenced Tennyson’s perspectives on things, but I’ll say his consideration of Death is comforting. It evokes the Lord’s even more so reassuring words throughout the Gospels.

Now, don’t misunderstand the Lord’s position on Death. Jesus knows full well it’s a big deal. He knows it isn’t pretty. He knows Death is an ugly ordeal, that it’s a terrorizing power. Following His lead, Saint Paul describes it as the worst of all enemies of Man. But pretty much all of the biblical writers go out of their way to make sure we know that through faith in Christ, we don’t need to be afraid of Death. We don’t need to be fearful because Christ has defeated it. Like Abraham, we can face off with its dreadfulness with the promises of God well in hand. And so the Lord can say to Lazarus’ sisters that whoever lives and believes in Him, will live even though he dies. Saint Paul can mock Death, courageously poking at it with the Word of God’s promises, asking, “Where is your sting?” Job can speak so joyfully that even in the midst of Death, at the last, he will stand and behold God with his own eyes of flesh.

I like Tennyson’s description because he has this similar verve. It’s almost as if he’s equipped with the knowledge of faith, which we as Christians know by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel enables us to see Death for what it has now become for the believer: a turning from one page to the next.

And the next page holds an unending chapter that is far better than any that came before it.

I like that. And again, the season of Lent is certainly teaching this very point, making sure we’re ready to fully embrace the significance of the Lord’s resurrection—His conquering of Death—all for us!

To use Tennyson’s imagery, Easter is the clear call. Easter doesn’t allow for moaning of the bar. Easter sets sail for the unending horizons of eternal life through faith in the One who was crushed and killed for our iniquities, and yet was found alive on the third day, having wrestled Death and won.

Here in a few moments I’ll be packing up my car and making my way back to Michigan. I’ll be passing many of those same cemeteries I encountered on the way here. I won’t be holding my breath when I pass, just as I won’t be looking on them as fearful markers signifying hopelessness. I’ll observe them as Abraham looked upon Isaac. God is faithful to His promises. He is our hope in the midst of Death. Through that lens—the lens of faith—each of the tombstones whizzing past me will herald particular truths. The first is that unless the Lord returns first, I will die someday. There’s no way of getting around that fact. The second is that even as Death would come calling, it is not my master. Christ has won my eternal life. I am not consigned to the grave forever, but rather with my last breath, I will set sail into the joys of eternal life with my Lord at the helm.

Guilt

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The season of Lent is a powerful time in the Church Year. Throughout its forty days, if there’s one thing in particular it draws out and defines with its penitential crispness, it’s the authenticity of human guilt.

Guilt is an incredibly palpable thing, isn’t it?

It’s thick. It’s strong. It’s voracious.

A terrible task-master, guilt binds its victims, keeping them in chains, all the while haunting every square inch of its chosen domain. As a pastor, I’ve learned to recognize guilt in people—and not because I exist in some sort of sphere of unimpeachable innocence, but because I know and have met my own dreadfulness of thoughts, words, and deeds. I am very familiar with guilt’s shape and stamina, and like you, I can be found wrestling with it, too.

As a pastor who is fully prepared to admit this, that means I’m a lot harder to fool when it comes to guilt.

It’s so often easy enough to see it peering back from its victim’s eyes like a shadowy knight in the watchtower of a guarded fortress. It can be sensed in a person’s physical presence. It disturbs human posture and is betrayed by facial expressions. On the phone or in person, its grip alters the human voice. By email or text message, it chooses certain words and repeats certain phrases that reveal its in-dwelling.

Guilt is by no means shy in these regards. It isn’t necessarily concerned by the possibility of its own notoriety. Admittedly, however, it would prefer to dwell in the peace of secrecy, hoping its host will deny its existence and thereby miss the telltale traces of its acidosis. This is true because it knows that to deny its presence is to preserve and protect the master that planted it—Sin. The denial of Sin’s guilt is the embracing of wickedness. It is to justify it, and to find the license for willfully employing it.

But again, for guilt’s host to be aware of its existence is just as acceptable, too. It quite enjoys its castle adorned in the paraments of hopelessness, fear, anxiety, and depression.

Whether it’s outright disavowal or fearful seclusion to avoid being found out, guilt is happy to live in the pitch black darkness of either. It will do anything to protect its domain, anything to smother the approaching lantern of Truth’s messenger, anything to prevent the invasion of a better, chain-shattering, Lord.

From purely a human perspective, Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a great place for seeing the examination of these two natures of guilt. For example, Queen Gertrude says so frankly of strong denial, “The Lady doth protest too much, methinks” (III, ii). This is hinting that to so boldly defend one’s absolute incorruptibility—to make excuses for or justify one’s bad behavior—is itself evidence of self-deception in relation to guilt. Further into the play, Shakespeare takes aim at the futility of concealing guilt for fear of being found out, saying that eventually it “spills itself in fearing to be spilt” (Act 4, Scene V). In other words, the continued filling of guilt’s ever-swelling balloon can only last for so long before it bursts, ultimately spattering its gore across the landscape of a person’s life. Things will get messy. Little episodes will become big. Plans will come undone.

So, what to do?

There’s a reason Jesus said on occasion, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:15). He knows that the Word of God—namely, the proclamation of the Gospel—brings what’s needed for Sin. This cure is also, by God’s design, a medicine for the ousting of paralyzing guilt. The first pill in its prescribed regimen of truth is big and hard to swallow, and yet it delivers directly to our insides the very important knowledge-filled remedy that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

The course continues along in a way that moves from concern to sweetness, first urging us not to deny or be fearful of our guilt (1 John 1:8). Both are self-deceptions leading to eternal harm. Instead, we are invited to confess our truest selves and our failings, knowing that God is faithful and just, and He will wash the guilt away (1 John 1:9). His faithfulness is embodied by Jesus, who did not come to condemn us, but to save us (John 3:17). Through faith in Him, we have full access to the throne of God’s grace in every time of need (Hebrews 4:16), being certain that God will receive us—that He will not shame us in our guilt, but rather will help us by taking it away (Isaiah 50:7; Psalm 103:12).

This wonderful routing of guilt from the fortress of Man is on full display in the person and work of Jesus Christ—His cross and empty tomb. It’s there that we see our guilt being heaped upon His shoulders. It’s there that we see our fear and shame infused with His divine body. It’s there that our hope is born, and by faith in His sacrifice and victory, the gates of fault’s domain are kicked open and guilt is dragged to its eternal demise.

You don’t have to be afraid to say you’ve done wrong. God forgives. And by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in His people, offended Christians are prepared to forgive in return.

Let this Gospel be of comfort to you. Better yet, be empowered by it to put away the need to hide your guilt. And whatever you do, don’t deny its existence. Besides, God already knows it’s there, and He desires for us to own this truth, too. Even better, He doesn’t want to leave us in it. He would have us look to and know the One He sent for our rescue—Jesus Christ—and in Him discover the mettle for coming clean, for real repentance, for the real receiving of the mercy won for us on Calvary’s cross. It is by confession of Sin and faith in Christ that guilt’s shame is turned back on itself and made into nothing.

Lent is teaching us these things. Lent is leading us to Good Friday and Easter—those eternal moments on the mortal timeline that seal the deal on this wonderful news.

My First Inclination

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I must admit that what first came to mind for writing this morning was very short, and had I shared it as the temptation was nudging, it would have been less than helpful. Although, now that I’ve taken a moment to think through why I would’ve written it so crisply, I’m prepared to go ahead and share it, anyway, followed, of course, by an explanation.

My first inclination this morning was to write something akin to:

   Jesus loves you. He died on the cross to save you. I’m guessing you believe this, yes? That means you’re not who you were before faith. You actually want to be a better person—a more faithful person. With that, be nice to others, being kind enough to give your fellow Christians the benefit of the doubt in conflict. And whatever you do, don’t impose your opinions onto them and then get angry when you discover they disagree.

   That being said, however, if you are able, go to church. Don’t wait for an invitation. Certainly, if someone does happen to invite you, firstly, don’t get mad at them; and secondly, take a moment and consider that perhaps your unhappy response might have more to do with you than the person’s genuine concern for your wellbeing. Also, consider that it doesn’t do you much good to call yourself a Christian while actively avoiding being with the Creator who made you one. It’s kind of like saying two plus two equals five. The world seems to deal in that kind of nonsense. I mean, right now it’s calling a woman a man and a man a woman. Remember, you’re in the world but not of it. And besides, you know better, anyway. You’re a Christian. You have the truth of God’s Word. Live by it, never forgetting that Jesus lived, died, and rose for you. And why? Because He loves you. That love changes you.

   There.

   I began with the Gospel, and I ended with it. You’ve been given all you need to be and do everything I just described.

   A blessed Lent to you.

See what I mean? Without some context, that probably would’ve had some of you wondering if perhaps there was a medication I’d forgotten to take this morning.

Admittedly, last week was a rough one—enough to leave me short-of-breath for the one just beginning. Just to give you an idea, one of the week’s easier moments involved sitting through a phone call with someone I’d never met before in my life screaming profanities at me so loudly that his voice became distorted and I found myself needing to pull my ear away from the receiver. Again, this was one of the easier moments the week brought to my doorstep. What really made the week so rough were the conflicts that seemed to erupt between Christian people I know—a handful of them occurring within our own community.

For the most part, each instance seemed to be nothing more than people seizing the opportunity to be mean.

It seems it’s becoming far easier for folks—even Christians—to verbally lunge at one another, to think the worst of a brother or sister in Christ, and then to go for the jugular without any concern for context, responsibility, relationship, history, authority, and a whole host of other factors that play into the lives that comprise a community of faith.

Maybe it’s different for you, but I certainly don’t wake up in the morning wondering how I can tick people off. And yet, I think sometimes people believe I do.

How does such an assumption get any traction among God’s people?

Another example: When an invitation is extended to come back to church, and then the recipient lashes out as though the invite were an unjust accusation or attack on his or her character, how does such a thing—a genuinely kind nudge to be with Jesus—become an affronting word to be received as spiritual assault and battery?

I just don’t get it.

Well, actually I do. I know how it can become this. And you do, too. I assure you that the deeper we go into Lent, the more we’re going to be confronted by the cause, the more we’re going to journey to its borders.

Sin is being unmasked handily in Lent.

The spotlight of Lent is allowing Sin’s inescapable domain to be seen for what it is—a wasteland steeped in terrible desolation. Nothing good grows within its borders. Its seeds planted by the devil hold the pitch black and oily venom of death. They produce the same. Sunday after Wednesday after Sunday after Wednesday we’re being shown the vile crop it produces in thought, word, and deed. We’re being led out into the open to see its field, actually seeing what’s at stake in the war for our salvation. We’re beholding how our sin-nature—which is the deepest, and so often the most influential part of ourselves—has the easy inclination for spitting in a rage at anyone or anything that would put Jesus at the forefront as the solution for setting everything right.

We’re also realizing that the Christian community, for as pristine as we’d hoped it would be, isn’t immune to the curse. Certainly, we can know to expect a filth-laden tirade from an unbelieving stranger—a child and servant of the world. But even as we, the believers, have been saved from the same world, we’re not unaffected by it. We’ll need to expect it from one another on occasion, too. It’s got us—all of us. As long as this world continues to spin, the sinner-saint bout will continue.

Lent is offering to Christians the clarion call to remember these things, to not avoid them, but instead to embrace the Gospel that not only has what it takes to work repentance, faith, and the amending of the sinful life, but the power to view the world and one another rightly so that we know how and what to do to actually fight against it as a community.

When we find ourselves at odds, we know by God’s Word we play a huge role in bringing it to a peaceful conclusion—and not because we feel we have to, but because we know the Holy Spirit at work within each of us desires it.

Lent is about a lot of these things, which is one more reason why as a religious system (which a clergy-friend recently used this terminology in passing to refer to such things), the season has been considered incredibly important to the Church since very early on. Sure, you could set Lent aside as one of optional import, but that would be to remove oneself from the fuller collegium of Christians from across the centuries and globe who thought otherwise. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that much of myself. I try to take care not to think I know better than the thousands of years of faithful Christianity that came before me.

So, having unpacked the motivation behind what would have been a much shorter and more frustrated-sounding note resulting from an exhausting week, take a look at that first note one more time, except now through the better lens of the Gospel’s care.  You’re likely to be far less startled by its brevity.

Once again…

Jesus loves you. He died on the cross to save you. I’m guessing you believe this, yes? That means you’re not who you were before faith. You actually want to be a better person—a more faithful person. With that, be nice to others, being kind enough to give your fellow Christians the benefit of the doubt in conflict. And whatever you do, don’t impose your opinions onto them and then get angry when you discover they disagree.

That being said, however, if you are able, go to church. Don’t wait for an invitation. Certainly, if someone does happen to invite you, firstly, don’t get mad at them; and secondly, take a moment and consider that perhaps your unhappy response might have more to do with you than the person’s genuine concern for your wellbeing. Also, consider that it doesn’t do you much good to call yourself a Christian while actively avoiding being with the Creator who made you one. It’s kind of like saying two plus two equals five. The world seems to deal in that kind of nonsense. I mean, right now it’s calling a woman a man and a man a woman. Remember, you’re in the world but not of it. And besides, you know better, anyway. You’re a Christian. You have the truth of God’s Word. Live by it, never forgetting that Jesus lived, died, and rose for you. And why? Because He loves you. That love changes you.

There.

I began with the Gospel, and I ended with it. You’ve been given all you need to be and do everything I just described.

A blessed Lent to you.