Monthly Archives: November 2023

Filling and Trimming Your Lamp

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The introduction in the current draft of my sermon for this morning includes a warning. I offer the warning because, sometimes, the deepest intention of a particular portion of God’s Word isn’t so gentle with its recipients. Sometimes, it’s razor-sharp, cutting us in ways we’d prefer it wouldn’t.

This morning’s Gospel reading appointed for the Last Sunday in the Church Year—the parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25:1-13—is one such text. It steers into and ends with some words that Jesus has warned in other texts He’ll inevitably use on the Last Day. To have them directed at oneself would be to experience terror above all terrors. Time will have run out. All bets will be off the table. The divine lights of God’s standards will beam with unmatchable brightness, incinerating all disbelief or untruth. Nothing will be hidden. Those who are prepared will be welcomed into eternal glory. With chilling brevity, He will look to others—the unprepared—and say, “I do not know you.”

This whole scenario carries in its pocket a particularly crucial assumption. As the Creeds have long maintained, when Jesus returns, He will do so as the divine Judge, saying yes to some and no to others during eternity’s first few moments.

For some, this is an uneasy image. Why? Because it opposes everything human sinfulness prefers of its gods. It meets a certain kind of Christian, too. The Jesus embraced by some in American Christianity is mushy, being more than willing to let us shape Him to fit our preferences. He doesn’t get annoyed when we twist His Word. He’s not the least bit uneasy when we muddy His natural law. He isn’t so bothered when we skip worship Sunday after Sunday, arguing that we can be His people on our own time and our own terms. He’s certainly not going to be so arrogant as to tell us we’re wrong—that we’re headed for destruction. The Jesus some prefer could never bring wrath, only hugs. He doesn’t decide what’s good or bad. He lets us decide. And then, no matter what we choose, He smiles with satisfaction that we’ve done what makes us happy and pursued personal fulfillment.

The Gospel reading for this morning would say, if this is your Jesus, you’re done for. Or, more akin to the parable’s intention, you’re unprepared to meet the real Jesus on the Last Day.

I’ll say that today. It’ll be tough to hear, even for me. Why? Because I’m no different than the folks in the pews. I’m so often a self-interested sinner.

We’re all in this together.

Something I won’t specifically say in the sermon but will share with you here is that Jesus often measured His hardest words against hypocrites, which is probably why only a few paragraphs after this parable, the reader discovers, “Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him” (Matthew 26:3-4). Jesus regularly pointed to these men as being those who, and they knew it. This parable about preparedness certainly has hypocrisy in mind.

Preparedness is impotent without self-reflection. The whole point of readiness is genuine self-honesty. It asks, “What do I know is true about my situation and condition? What, where, and how will I acquire what I need to be prepared?” It’s not far from Jesus’s point that Christian endurance will be one of self-reflection resulting in repentance and faith. Christians will know by faith to confess, be absolved, and recalibrate—to continually refill and trim our lamps.

On the other hand, hypocrisy is the absolute manifestation of self-deceit. It lives a dangerously duplicitous existence, believing it has enough of what it needs in itself. It believes one thing, most often for self-exemption, while being something altogether different.

Examples of hypocrisy are all around us. We all do it. A perhaps minor, yet still relevant, example that comes to mind concerns a photo I posted on Facebook of our family’s nativity scene. One or more kids and I will add various action-figure characters from around our home to the display each year. We’ll put Star Wars characters, aliens, you name it, all standing at attention before the Christ-child cradled in Mary’s kindly arms. We do this mindful of Christ’s return at the Last Day, paying closest attention to Saint Paul’s Advent nod to the Lord’s return in Philippians 2:5-11:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Paul just told us that Jesus, the Son of God, crossed from the divine sphere to ours in absolute humility, His trajectory being that of the cross. A nativity scene teaches these things. Christ arrived in lowliness, emerging from the Theotokos among animals that feed from a manger. Advent—a time when someone might set up a nativity scene—makes visual the message’s connective tissue. Traditional churches celebrating Advent will know the season’s historic purpose is to rejoice in the Lord’s first coming while penitently anticipating His return. It’s no wonder that, after noting the incarnation and death, Paul moves straightway to the events of Last Day. Our nativity scene has these things in mind. It knows the incarnation. By its traditional characters, it knows the Gospel texts that make clear His purpose (Luke 1:26-38, 2:8-18; Matthew 1:18-25, 2:1-12; John 1:1-14). By the stranger figures we add (which, when choosing them, admittedly, sprinkles in some humor), it understands Paul’s conclusion, which is that everything—visible or invisible, angel or demon, believer or unbeliever, all human fictionalities and all absolute truths, all things in heaven and on earth and under the earth—will bend in submission to the crucified and risen Christ at the Last Day. Prepared or unprepared, all will call Him Lord.

Again, I posted a picture of our nativity scene on Facebook. I even added the relevant text from Saint Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Shortly thereafter, a fellow pastor who enjoys trolling me added a sarcastic comment (which I deleted) implying that by putting fictional characters into the scene, I was making unholy that which is holy, and thereby insinuating Jesus Himself was fictional.

That’s a stretch, even for some of my worst critics.

My point here: It was a hypocritical response on his part, especially since he’s no stranger to enjoying Babylon Bee memes portraying Jesus saying things He didn’t say. By the way, I see those articles and laugh, too. Why? Firstly, because I have a sense of humor. Secondly, what I see, while out of the ordinary on the surface, has a far deeper meaning, pointing to something truthful. That’s how satire works. However, since the Babylon Bee’s fictional words are attached to Jesus as a direct quotation, sometimes even in a way that might be offensive to some, is the image making unholy and mythical that which is holy and true? No. But again, you need to be capable of genuine self-reflection that can see one’s beliefs and actions rightly. Devout hypocrisy cannot do this. It holds blindly to its own agenda, unable to see anything else, often resulting in an equally devout hatred for others—just like the Chief Priest and elders in Matthew 26:3-4.

At the end of the parable, Jesus says, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13). The Greek word used for “watch” is γρηγορεῖτε. It’s an imperative verb. It means to stay awake. But it doesn’t just mean to wake up and pay attention. It means to remain alert, ever ready, and on one’s tiptoes, looking to the horizon. Jesus chose this word because His aim is vigilant preparedness.

At its center, preparedness means faith in Jesus. But Jesus’s parable included many more details than the flickering flame of faith. He also spoke of a mindfulness that acts. This action starts with self-reflection. The wise virgins began and stayed there. The foolish virgins didn’t.

Again, and indeed, the Lord makes clear that faith in Christ saves. The arriving bridegroom identifies the wedding party by its lighted lamps, and they are the ones ushered into the wedding feast. But don’t forget the rest of the parable’s details. Don’t lie to yourself. Admit to your tendency to believe one way but live another. Then, go to church. Fill your lamps with the oil of God’s merciful love through Word and Sacrament—the preaching and administration of the Gospel in its verbal and visible means. You’ll hear the Lord’s instruction to be ready and be immersed in the bountiful gifts that make it so.

The Eve of Thanksgiving

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I’m guessing you know what I mean when I say the Thanksgiving holiday has a unique sense about it. Regardless of autumn’s shrouded frigidity, Thanksgiving remains bright and warm, as if the sun leaned closer to the earth for just this one day.

I say this knowing full well that family gatherings at Thanksgiving can be a mishmash of dynamics. I also know from casual reading that division in families from this or that issue is at an all-time high. For some, family get-togethers are more taxing than enjoyable. Still, I meant what I said. Thanksgiving has a unique sense about it. And it’s good.

It’s good, not because the Thanksgiving feast is the meal all other meals only wish they could be. For the pessimists among us, it’s not good because it only happens once a year. Thanksgiving is as it is because of its point: no matter where we’ve come from, where we’re going, where we are right now, what we’re experiencing, or who we’re with, we can be thankful. Thanksgiving’s point is gratitude.

Relative to families, someone once said genuine gratitude is only possible when the memories stored in the heart conquer those in the mind. I don’t know who said it. And yes, I suppose the saying is somewhat Hallmark card-like. Still, I’m fond of the thought, even if only for how I prefer to interpret it, which, as you might expect, is through the Christian lens.

Admittedly, the human heart and mind are both sin-stained in every way. And yet, Christians know something beyond this fact, especially when it comes to the Holy Spirit’s work in us through the Gospel for faith. We understand what Ezekiel meant when he spoke for God, saying, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26). We know what Jeremiah meant when he shared the similar promise, “I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart” (Jeremiah 24:7). We know what Saint Paul meant when he insisted, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Paul’s words in Romans 5:5 are not lost on us, either. We know what he meant when he wrote, “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Filtering the adage through these biblical truths, I suppose I like it because it implies that genuine gratitude is out of reach to mental calculation. In other words, as humans, we remember things. Those things shape and reshape us. Remembering how people have treated us—what they’ve done to help or hurt us, whether they’ve behaved as friends or foes—these become the variables we ponder in the calculations of relationship mathematics. And like any equation, sometimes the resulting product is positive. Sometimes, it’s in the negative.

Through the lens created by the Bible texts I shared, the phrase “memories stored in the heart” seems to hint at a different sort of math, an involuntary, grace-filled action uninhibited by human sensibility. It sees things through the Gospel. It understands annoying family members more so as family than annoying, and it’s thankful for them. It knows the time required to prepare a massive meal is exhausting, and yet it’s grateful for the opportunity to serve the ones it loves who’ll be gathering at the table to eat it. Some of those people haven’t been all that nice in the past. Still, it knows that kindness will always be sweeter than malice. It stands on its tiptoes, ready to reconcile. It’s hopeful for it to happen and gives thanks when it discovers itself stumbling into uncomfortable moments that are all but begging for it to be enacted.

In short, the memories of a Christian heart are the memories of Christ. The Holy Spirit puts them there. They are the remembrances that Christ, even when we were utterly unlovable, loved us to the end (John 13:1). They remember that even while we were still sinners, He gave Himself over entirely into Death’s perpetual night (Romans 5:8). They retain the incredibly crucial sense that we are just as needful of Christ’s merciful love as the screwed-up people sitting beside us at the Thanksgiving Day table, and with that, we belong together.

These Christian heart memories stir genuine gratitude, even when gratitude seems nonsensical and maybe even a bit foolish.

My prayer for you this Thanksgiving is two-fold. First, I hope you’ll begin your Thanksgiving Day by going to worship. There’s no better way to be equipped with Godly gratitude than by receiving Christ’s gift of forgiveness through the administration of His Word, both in its verbal and visible forms. Here at Our Savior, the service begins at 10:00 a.m. I hope to see you.

Second, I hope the memories stored in your Christian heart will conquer those in your mortal mind, and as a result, your Thanksgiving Day celebration with family will indeed be brighter and warmer, as if the sun leaned closer to wherever you are standing even if only for this one day.

Marriage’s Yoke

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There’s no other way to say it except that the Thoma family has been stretched too thinly for several months. With homeowner insurance claims hovering since the beginning of summer and a schedule so robust that not even a nine-day week could accommodate all the demands, speaking only for myself, there’ve been times when all I could do was sit and stare at my mental horizon, wondering what else might appear on its ridge intent on challenging me to a duel.

Of course, there’s always someone or something willing to try.

I’m glad I have Jennifer. I’m thankful for my kids. When I’m slipping, Jennifer’s there. When she’s exhausted, I’m there. When we’re both spent, the kids are there for both of us.

Thankfully, most of our house-related issues were restored in time to receive visiting family and friends for our son Joshua’s wedding this past Friday. We certainly were hopeful that things would come together in time. Had they not, I suppose the only appropriate response would’ve been, “Oh well. What can you say? What can you do?”

Either way, what a joy the event was! And how blessed we are to formally welcome his wife, Lexi, into the Thoma family and name. I say “formally” because Jennifer, Madeline, Harrison, Evelyn, and I have long since considered Lexi as a part of the family, ever so glad that God nudged her toward the necessary “yes” that would forever cement her to our lives. Even before yes or no were choices, setting the dinner table assumed preparing a place for Lexi, too, whether or not she could be there. That’s what a family does.

Joshua and Lexi already know these crucial family dynamics. However, they know them from a more youthful perspective. They’re now learning them from a Genesis 2:24 perspective. Indeed, Joshua remains a son, and Lexi remains a daughter. And yet, they’ve become their own family, the next generation. With this comes the fantastical joys and hum-drum drudgeries of husband and wife, and if God grants it, fatherhood and motherhood. If she didn’t already know it, Lexi was immersed this past Friday in what Heywood Broun meant when she said something about how men can build bridges across impossible chasms and throw railroads across barren landscapes and yet have the needs of a child when attempting to sew on a button. Joshua’s learning trajectory is similar. He just walked into an entirely new sphere of existence, one permanently and intimately familiar with Nietzsche’s tongue-in-cheek comment that when God created Eve, boredom was officially ended.

Suppose things go as they typically do in this life. If so, Joshua and Lexi are about to experience the kinds of things their parents have experienced. They’re about to endure insurance claims, emotional overextensions born from bursting schedules, and all the demands that can make life both exhilarating and acidic simultaneously. But here’s the good part. Like Jennifer and me, they’re in it together, yoked sturdily by Christ.

During the father-of-the-bride speech at the wedding, Mike, Lexi’s dad, shared a unique exchange between them not long after she and Josh began dating. I figure this gives me a moment’s license. I remember a conversation with Joshua in our kitchen a couple of weeks before he asked Lexi to marry him. It wasn’t necessarily a crossroads moment. It was a father and his adult son talking about married life, something that was clearly on Joshua’s mind. I remember Joshua was sitting on the counter near the sink. I was sitting on a stool near the island. Along the way, I commended him and Lexi for doing things rightly; that is, they were resisting the world’s temptation to live together outside of marriage. I know I said more than a few times how proud I was of them. I encouraged him to keep resisting, to continue in faithfulness to Christ. Faithfulness to Christ, no matter how out of pace with the world it might be, is always the better way (Luke 5:1-11). I encouraged him to continue rebelling against the culture’s marital preferences, especially those that, again, often seem so sensible.

I remember him being somewhat surprised by the core of the conversation, especially if his goal at that moment was to get a sense of how I might respond if he told me he would soon ask Lexi to marry him. I told him that when it comes to marriage, our society is backward. Unfortunately, lots of Christians have bought into the backwardness. Not only does the world think it makes sense for a couple to test-drive one another sexually before committing, but it insists that before marrying, each should get a few years of solo life under their belts, too. Moreover, before ever even thinking about proposing to a special someone, each should secure careers promising financial stability and multiplying assets, be free of student debt, maybe even own a home, and so many other ridiculously mammonous things that have nothing to do with the promises God weaves into holy marriage.

And so, I took a chance.

“You’re both pretty much on your way in life, right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“It’s not like you don’t know where you’re going or what you’re hoping to do, right?”

“Yes.”

“So, how about this instead?” I continued, “Is Lexi the one God chose for you, and are you certain you’re the one God chose for her?”

“Absolutely. I have no doubt.”

“Is she a prize you’d give anything and everything to win over and over again through good times and bad for the rest of your life?”

“Absolutely.”

“Is Christ at the very heart and soul of who you want to be as a husband and father? Do you want Christ at the center of your marriage, and does Lexi want to be and do the same?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then, what are you waiting for?”

“Well, of course, we’ve talked about marriage, but we need to finish coll—”

“—Why not finish college together?”

“And we should probably make sure—”

“—Whatever comes your way, why not steer into it together? Whatever you need to get in place, why not build it together?”

I kept going, reminding him that Christians use the term “yoke” relative to marriage for a reason. Sure, we use it because the Bible uses it. But again, that’s because the Bible uses it for very good reasons. Each of the reasons understands Christ Himself as the yoke. Beyond this, the image becomes quite practical. To be yoked is to be paired—bound by something to someone in a way that keeps two individuals laboring together. This is true not only so that the pair holds the same pace, both pulling in the same direction, neither getting too far ahead nor behind the other. The yoke is there for the harder moments, too. When the day is at its darkest, and the task is most challenging—when the ground is uneven and bemired, when the job requires so much more than what an individual can muster alone, when a person becomes exhausted, eventually stumbling and falling—marriage’s yoking means someone will be there to lend strength and help lift you to your feet. And not just anyone, but someone the Lord, as the very yoke, is actively binding to you.

This is not the world’s understanding of the marital yoke. The world’s view is a self-invested and often quite cynical one. It chimes with Montaigne that wedlock “is a cage: the birds outside despair to get in and those within despair to get out.” As such, it insists on absolute individualism unrestricted by any yoke whatsoever. And if an individual happens to fall prey to marriage, according to its confused mentality, you don’t even have to marry a human. Some guy married his laptop a few years ago. Another woman married her cat. Some guy in Japan married a robot. The world’s view of marriage is incredibly skewed. It’s more about what someone or something else can do for me to make me happy.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Marriage is designed to bring delight. The Lutheran Rite for Holy Matrimony affirms that God ordained marriage “so that man and woman may find delight in one another.” But again, by delight, the world means the taking kind, not the giving kind. When one can no longer provide what the other considers valuable for taking, the relationship’s so-called “love” grows cold, and the marriage comes undone.

A marriage built on self-sacrifice, of being outwardly invested in and for another person—as seeing him or her as a prize you’d give anything and everything to win over and over again through good times and bad for the rest of your life, just as the Lord looked on His fallen creation in an utterly selfless way—such a marriage has something others do not.

It has muscle for the long game.

By muscle, I mean it has Godly devotion, humility, and forgiveness. By long game, I mean the marriage will have everything it needs to make it through the impossible moments and, ultimately, find itself fulfilling the vow “until death us do part.” It’ll do this, landing at heaven’s doorstep unscathed. Well, maybe not unscathed. It’ll have its scars. But only the soldiers who’ve endured the battles have scars.

If this is the divinely mature framework already in place between two young people in love—real, Godly love—what’s the point in waiting? They’re already a million miles past the world’s marital intellect or capability. More than that, they have what it takes to be a bright-beaming and resilient example of what marriage can and should be.

Joshua and Lexi are young. So what? I’m not the least bit worried about them. Honestly, and as I shared in the wedding sermon, my only real concern is what the eventual grandkids (if God so allows) will call me. I can imagine Jennifer being okay with the classical title “Grandma.” I had something else in mind for me. Imagine if you can…

“Good morning, Billy,” the first-grade teacher might say to the little one flanked by and holding hands with Jennifer and me on Grandparents Day at his school. “Who are these two you brought with you today?”

“This is my Grandma and Sensei!”

A Turkey Flag

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Turning left out of my subdivision, a few houses down on the left, there’s a home with a flagpole bracket attached to a tree in the front yard. The homeowners change the flag with the seasons. In the spring, they have a more flowery flag. On the approach of Christmas, the flag is appropriately festive. At other times, the flag demonstrates team pride, flapping their favorite football or baseball team’s symbol and colors in Linden, Michigan’s breezes. Right now, the flag is taking aim at the forthcoming Thanksgiving holiday, displaying a bright-eyed and smiling turkey character surrounded by all the Thanksgiving feast’s usual food suspects. Across the front of these things, in colorful letters, are the words, “Be thankful!”

Of all the flags this home displays, the first time I saw it, I laughed. I’ll tell you why in a moment. However, the more I thought about it, the more the flag became my favorite in the homeowner’s collection. It isn’t my favorite because I appreciate the style of cartoony banners it exhibits. I’m fond of it for its deeper message.

If you’ll allow me an extra minute or two, I’ll offer its explanation this way.

I know plenty of stories from Christian history, but what immediately comes to mind is one I just shared in passing with my wife, Jennifer, and my daughter, Madeline, this past Friday. It’s the story of Antonio Herrezuelo and his wife, Leonore. Herrezuelo was a lawyer in 16th-century Toro, Spain. He and Leonore had converted to Lutheranism, joining the secretive congregation of only seventy Christians in Valladolid. Relative to the times, this was, by nature, dangerous. The Reformation’s contention was in full bloom, and so was the Spanish Inquisition, which, as you may know, was an already well-established conquest intent on purifying the Church through brutality.

As the account would go, the little congregation was discovered, and all its members were accused of heresy—that is, they were accused of believing as Luther believed, which is that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law (Romans 3:28). At this point, accounts begin to differ somewhat. Some say that nearly all the church’s members recanted to save their lives. Other reports say that many did not. Either way, what’s common to most accounts is that as a principal nobleman in the region, Herrezuelo, along with thirteen others of similar status, was imprisoned and brutally tortured. In the end, only Herrezuelo maintained without recanting.

Leonore was kept separate from her husband throughout the ordeal. One account records that eventually, the two stood together before a final court of inquisition. The tribune interrogator is the only one among the court who spoke, and he did so with merciless brevity. He offered the couple what were essentially three choices. First, they could recant immediately and accept imprisonment, trusting that perhaps, in time, a pardon might be granted. Second, if any hesitation occurred relative to their recantations, they would be shown mercy, but only in that they’d be strangled to death before being burned at the stake. In other words, when asked, an immediate recantation was required. Third, if they refused to recant altogether, they would straightway be burned alive.

The interrogator turned first to Leonore and demanded, “What will you do?” Her words were soft between trembling gasps. “I will recant,” she said.

“Repeat it for God and Emperor!” the inquisitor fiercely demanded.

“I recant,” she said, this time with more fervor.

Without pause, the same question was put to Antonio, who, at that moment, stood captured in a frozen stare at Leonore. Prompted again, this time more vehemently, Antonio turned to his ferocious questioner. Still stunned by his wife’s words, it’s said he gave barely an intelligible slur, tearfully offering, “I cannot. I cannot recant.”

He was not asked a second time. A motion from the chief inquisitor stirred the guards to immediate action. Antonio was shuffled from the room to the nearby square. Another account depicts Antonio reprimanding his wife as he left. Others do not. Others portray a man led to a pine post on a readied platform at the center of a town swelling with as many as 200,000 onlookers. Tied to the post still nubbed and sap-sticky from branches hastily pruned for the event, a blindfold was added. Antonio’s last words were an unrelenting plea to his wife, “Leonore! I thank God for you! Please return to Christ, my love!”

Unable to see, he called in every direction, doing all he could to shout above the taunting noise from the gathered spectators, some even crowding the rooftops. Indeed, and surprisingly, Leonore heard him.

“Please return,” he continued crying. “We will be united together in heaven!” Annoyed by his persistence, one guard shoved a burlap wad into his mouth. For good measure, another stabbed him with a spear.

After a ceremony that included an hour-long sermon against the so-called heresy of salvation by grace through faith alone, the fire was set. The flames were stoked. Dreadful moments passed, and Antonio was dead.

Still in prison several years later, Leonore called to the guards from her cell early one morning. She requested an audience with a magistrate. Eventually, a court representative arrived. With the same quivering voice as years before, she informed her visitor, first, of her thankfulness for her husband’s steadfast faithfulness to Christ at his death, and second, she expressed gratefulness to Christ for His continued grace measured against even her dreadful betrayal. With that, she demanded her visitor send word that she had rescinded her recantation.

The message was delivered. Leonore was judged, condemned, and executed the next day.

It’s said she whispered to her executioner as he tied her to the post, “My first words to Antonio will be, ‘I have returned to our Jesus, my love.’” Her last words were, “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.’”

So, what does this have to do with the flag adorning the tree around the corner from my subdivision’s entrance—the one with a smiling turkey?

The story I just shared has both of its victims giving thanks when thankfulness seems wholly inappropriate. When you think about it, a turkey is the one guest at the Thanksgiving Day feast who is killed, cooked, and eaten. And yet, there he is on the flag announcing to every passerby, “Be thankful!” Again, for as cartoony as the banner is, this is an extraordinarily rich image. It is a Christian image.

A lot is happening in America right now; there are some incredibly dreadful things. For one, Christianity is more than being pushed further and further into the shadows of criminalization. People are considered backwater bigots for holding to the truth of God’s Word. As this devolution continues, the temptation increases among us to ask, “What, exactly, is there to be thankful for?”

Many churches don’t offer a Thanksgiving Day service. That’s unfortunate. We do here at Our Savior. In case you’re interested, it happens on Thanksgiving Day at 10:00 a.m. Interestingly, one of the appointed texts for the day is the same as Leonore’s last words. At some point during the liturgy, God’s people will sing, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 107:1). Why would we sing these words? Well, it isn’t because of what we see occurring in the world around us or because of what we must endure day after day. Instead, it is because of what we know by faith.

By the power of the Holy Spirit at work in believers for faith, even as everything around us may be coming undone—even as the fires of persecution rage, as we are betrayed, slandered, unjustly maligned, and brutally mistreated by the powers and principalities of this fallen world—we can and will be thankful to the Lord. Why? Because the most insurmountable of all insurmountables was conquered by Christ. He defeated Sin, Death, and the powers of hell for us. By His person and work, through faith in Him, we’ve been made His own. Knowing this, let the world kill, cook, and eat us. From among all on this transient blue ball hanging in space, we’re the only ones with an otherworldly viscera enabling us to lay our heads on the chopping block the same way we’d lay them on a pillow to rest. We can close our eyes in peace, knowing we are not inheritors of this world. We are inheritors of the world to come (Matthew 25:34, Luke 12:32, Romans 8:17). For a believer to live is to do so beneath Christ’s gracious benediction, no matter what we suffer. For a believer to die is not loss but gain beyond measure (Philippians 1:21).

Remember this. And when you forget it, may God be so gracious as to remind you. He reminded me this past week while driving past a flag with a turkey on it.

Similar is Not the Same

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I should begin by saying I learned a valuable lesson a few years ago, one about which my family is often obliged on occasion to remind me. The reason it came to mind this morning is that it was brought up this past week during the Thoma family dinner discussion. I suppose if I share the lesson and its value with you, I’ll inevitably betray a measure of my own foolishness relative to it. In other words, if I tell you what I discovered, you’ll learn something about me I’d typically prefer to remain hidden. Therein lies a general problem with humanity. We’re all faulty. And yet, we’re often unwilling to let anyone else know just how faulty we are.

This puts me in a jam. It’s not that I’m required to reveal every misdeed I’ve ever committed. But I have written and said on countless occasions that the people I trust the most are the ones who can admit when they’ve done wrong. I believe confessing one’s failings takes genuine courage, the kind that needs no witness to confirm it. It’s honest and brave in public and private.

Conversely, the folks inclined to deny or defend their errors are the ones I typically keep at arm’s length—especially the ones who’ve convinced themselves they can do no wrong. If they cannot be honest with themselves, how can they be honest with me? If they cannot admit to the truer nature of their imperfections, how can they ever take hold of the treasures brought by repentance, faith, and the amending of Sin?

Repentance makes things better. Amending is betterment’s glorious display.

This brings me back to where I started. I learned a valuable lesson some time ago, one uncovered by way of personal failure.

As the story goes, my son, Joshua, was four or five years old. He was sick, and I was at home caring for him. Lunchtime arrived. And what is the universal remedy for anyone of any age suffering from illness? Chicken noodle soup. And so, that’s what I fixed him. Well, sort of. I went to the cupboard to retrieve the magic elixir, but alas, there was none. But we did have a can of crème of chicken soup.

“I suppose that’s close enough,” I thought. But it wasn’t, and I am forever scarred by the poor parenting moment.

No sooner than Josh tasted the soup did he start gagging as though he would vomit. He didn’t have the flu. He had a bad cold. But an observer would’ve thought I was trying to put him into the flu’s orbit.

The lesson learned: Even with the littlest details, it is a fantastic delusion that “similar” could ever be equal to “same.” Crème of chicken soup is by no means chicken noodle soup. Regardless of their occasional reminders, my family may or may not know that I apply this lesson to my life with regularity. For example, I was rewiring the lights above the pool table in our basement a few weeks ago, and at one point along the way, I needed a smaller twist connector for holding some wires together than what I had within reach. Ready to simply apply the larger twist connector, I whispered to myself, “Crème of chicken soup is not chicken noodle soup,” and then I searched for the right-sized connector.

Perhaps not as big a deal as it is continually made out to be, this relatively insignificant blip on my life’s timeline remains a parable of sorts. We more than live our lives thinking that similar is the same. We tell our spouses we love them without actually showing it. We avoid attending worship, figuring we can just pray and read our bibles at home. We claim a pro-life position while supporting self-proclaimed pro-life candidates who believe abortion is an option within the first trimester. A man dresses as a woman and is in every way accommodated as one. Similar is not the same, and if anything, to live as such is to embrace logical and empirical contradictions. It is a logical contradiction to believe that red can also be blue, and as such, red is a viable substitute for blue. It is an empirical contradiction to act as though a penguin is a feasible substitute for a carrier pigeon.

Logically, red will never be blue. Logically, the mandate to study the scriptures is not the same as the mandate to be present among the worshipping fellowship. Logically, love spoken is not the same as love displayed. Empirical evidence proves penguins are flightless. Empirical evidence shows it’s a human child from the moment of conception. Empirical evidence proves men cannot menstruate.

Crème of chicken soup is not chicken noodle soup.

There’s one particular aspect of orthodox Christianity that the Bible presents unequivocally. I’d say Psalm 25:5 enunciates it reasonably well: “Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation.”

Christians desire truth. Not something similar to truth. We want actual truth. We want God’s truth. And not only do we want it, but we want to be immersed in it, and we want Him to teach it to us continually. And why? Because He is the God of our salvation. His truth saves.

Thankfully, truth has been revealed. The Word of God—the Bible—is truth. Christians stake a fundamental claim there because they know that the Savior, Jesus Christ, is the Word made flesh (John 1:14). To hold fast to His Word as truth is to hold fast to Him, the same One who announced that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only viable avenue to the Father (John 14:6). Another way—something similar but not the same—will only ever be a half-truth and unable to save us. Who among us would want half-truths, anyway? Who would accept a glass of water with even the tiniest drop of urine mixed into it?

Similar is not the same. We want and need the real deal. Anything less is crème of chicken soup and won’t measure up.