Tag Archives: our savior

Be a Man

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The Thoma family doesn’t go out to dinner very often. It isn’t just that dining out has become quite expensive. Instead, it’s that we’ve always been more interested in family dinners at home. Any time we’re required to share a dining space with others, it seems the genuine Thoma frivolity becomes unfortunately inhibited. At home, we can be us, laughing as loudly as we’d like at whatever we like. We play games. We rib each other. Sometimes, we even throw stuff. We don’t make a mess. We’re not messy people. But we do things at home we surely wouldn’t do in a restaurant.

I should admit that in restaurants, Jennifer is the governess. She maintains the boundaries. I certainly know where the boundaries are. However, my threshold for public tomfoolery is a little higher. I can easily become a part of whatever hilarious thing Harrison or Madeline might be doing that requires a little more volume or risk. Thankfully, Jennifer anticipates this and brings us back into orbit. She doesn’t quell the fun. She maintains its appropriateness.

When things are no longer in tomfoolery mode but instead require actual discipline, it’s often the other way around. Jennifer is much gentler. I stand at the borderlands’ edges, allowing nothing illegal to cross. Ultimately, my sons are expected to be Godly men, and my daughters are expected to be Godly women.

Looking back at what I’ve written, two things come to mind.

The first is that fathers and mothers—men and women—are very different. I probably don’t need to tell you this. Or maybe I do because it sure seems these roles are more than confused these days. Men are portrayed as inept and effeminate ninnies in movies, TV shows, and commercials. Women are depicted as hardnosed boss-girls who shepherd the men around like children, but that’s only when they have need of them. The genuine give-and-take of naturally complimentary roles has been lost to artificial ideologies meant only to disrupt. Perhaps worst of all, the ability to define the actual roles has already been sacrificed at confusion’s altar. What is a woman? What is a man? Fewer and fewer can answer these questions, lest they give a truthful answer and be canceled. In fact, the answer is becoming more elusive, not only relative to gender but to species. For example, a 22-year-old man who thinks he’s a female cat is running for a seat on the Board of Commissioners here in Livingston County. I have a quick story about this.

I was picking up my daughter, Evelyn, from volleyball practice at the Hartland Community Education building when I drove past this candidate and his friends having a picnic-style demonstration on the facility’s front lawn. There were only a handful of people with him. It was by no means a grand event. Nevertheless, he placed signs near the facility’s driveway, one of which read, “Protect trans students like you protect your guns.” If I hadn’t been in a hurry to get Evelyn home to Linden and then back again to Hartland for a church meeting, I may likely have stopped to ask for clarification. This tendency does get me into trouble sometimes. Just ask Jennifer. She shifted into governess mode a couple of times yesterday at a conference in Detroit to keep my tomfoolery at bay. However, one particular gent in a breakout session who insulted me for being Lutheran rather than Catholic did receive a word or two. Actually, he received four.

Still, I believe in conversation, especially for the sake of invalidating untruths. I certainly had more than my fair share of questions before I rounded the first turn in the parking lot to fetch Evelyn that day. In particular, I would have asked the 22-year-old cat woman with male genitalia if “Protect trans students like you protect your guns” meant registering trans students with the government. Next, I would have asked if that meant red flag laws, too. In other words, if a trans student behaves in ways that make me nervous—like, say, demanding drag queen story hours at the local library—I could call the cops and have him, or her, or whatever taken away and locked up, letting the situation get sorted out in court before allowing him (or her, or whatever) to go home. Along those same lines, I’d have asked if he thinks we should keep all trans students locked away in safes to help keep children safe.

This is only one thread in gender confusion’s fabric. But this fabric is so easily unwound when the hard truth pulls on it. Speaking in an elementary sense, the fact that two men cannot create a child excludes such madness from any real claim on Father’s Day. Inherently, the word “father” assumes and requires “mother,” so whether a man and woman procreate or adopt, fatherhood remains innately a man and woman thing, not a man and man thing. The same goes for Mother’s Day.

I told you two things came to mind. The second is the blessing of home.

Everything I described begins in the home. If a child’s home is unsteady or confused, then everything beyond it will be, too. Beyond this, I once heard someone say that home is a pre-heaven of sorts. Indeed, home is a place where your seat at the table is certain. The rule of forgiveness secures it, and everyone there is family. Oliver Wendell Holmes said something about how our feet may leave home, but our hearts never will. This is to say that we’re forever rooted in a lifeblood sort of way with our home. Who we are, what we’ve learned, who taught us, and why—all these things go with us. And yet, even as they’re carried away on two legs, they are forever bound to the source, no matter where we might be. In my opinion, this is just another way of highlighting the significance of fathers and mothers and that no matter where a child goes, he can never really shake loose from the home his parents made. Good or bad, it’s forever a part of him.

Wrapping this up, I say, since it’s Father’s Day, grab hold of confusion’s fabric and pull. Do what you can to dispel gender confusion. Treat your dad like the manly man he is and ought to be. Rejoice and publicly share those things that show dads to be the God-given heads and protectors a family needs and requires. Maybe even take a chance at grabbing this world’s absurdity by the jugular. June certainly would be the month to do it. Women, demand alongside Saint Paul that the men in your life “act like men and be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13). Husbands and fathers—the gents crafting the next generation of men—insist beside King David, who instructed his son, Solomon, “Be strong, and show yourself a man” (1 Kings 2:2). Even better, demonstrate manliness for them. Demonstrate it for your daughters, too. Be tough when toughness is required. Be courageous. Most of all, shepherd them toward Jesus, and along the way, do everything you can to hold the line on truth while invalidating untruth. My guess is that when they eventually leave home, and they will, no matter where they go, their hearts will be permanently sourced by something far stronger and more certain than this world’s sin-draped irrationality.

Ambiguity

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I suppose I should begin by closing the lid on last week’s events. Amen, and hooray, I successfully defended my doctoral thesis. To those who prayed for my success, I thank you. Indeed, it was robustly challenging, but knowing the material well, it ended up being quite exhilarating, enough so that I told Jennifer and the kids… well… I won’t simply tell you what I told them. I’ll describe it.

For those who appreciate the exhilarating terror of high-speed roller coasters, think of the first time you rode one. When you first stepped down from the loading platform into your seat, as the protective bar lowered and the coaster jerked forward, a strange concoction of excitement and apprehension began forming. Those beside you experienced it, too. It got thicker and more palpable as the coaster clacked its way to the top of the first hill. And then suddenly, you were dropped over its edge, only to be thrashed this way and that way and upside down and around until finally arriving at its end. You lived. The bar lifted, and as you climbed from the machine’s steely embrace, you said something to those beside you that would have astounded your pre-coaster self.

“Let’s do that again.”

That was, more or less, what I told Jennifer and the kids. Of course, it was necessary to tell Jennifer plainly that I had no intention of doing it again. Had I not, my words would’ve left her in fretful ambiguity.

There’s a book on my shelf I’ve owned for a long time. I hadn’t yet begun to read it until nearer to the roller coaster’s end. It was a gift to me from someone who knows my appreciation for poetry. The book is Seven Types of Ambiguity by William Empson. The book is not to be mistaken for the later novel or TV series of the same name. It came to mind several weeks ago during the ladies’ “Wine and the Word” bible study we host in our home.

Empson’s book was first published in the 1930s as a critical examination of poetry. It’s a busy volume holding multiple threads of thought. One way to consolidate them is to say Empson observes and then analyzes what he believes are common tendencies toward ambiguous words and phrases in poetry that affect meaning. Another way to think of it is that when poets are writing, they’re most often intentional in giving airy glimpses of something rather than explicitly defining it. In most circumstances, people don’t prefer being fed ambiguous information. However, in this case, ambiguity actually makes the poet’s work more accessible to others, ultimately leaving the final interpretation to the reader. To experience this firsthand, a person needs only to sit through a professor’s lesson on Shakespeare before moving down the hallway to another professor’s class on the same subject. Students will walk away from both having learned different interpretations of the same material.

Truthfully, I struggled with Empson’s book. In general, I get what he means. Still, he admits on occasion that ambiguity’s inherent fruit in communication is chaos. What’s more, at other moments in the book, he leaves the impression that chaos is beautiful.

Chaos is not beautiful. It’s ugly and destructive. But first, understand what I mean by chaos.

We’re less than a month away from the Fourth of July. People will celebrate with fireworks. Of itself, a firework’s detonation is a chaotic explosion of sound and color. Its sudden and uncontrolled expansion is stunning. Add rocket after rocket to the display, and the sky suddenly becomes a breathtaking exhibition of chaotic loveliness. But the beauty of a fireworks display is only possible by design. People created the fireworks. They tamed the chaos and then aimed it. They did this by employing chemical equations combined with specific safety measures. The chaotic nature of the object was harnessed and directed, and thereby, it was used to create something spectacular.

Take away even one of the chaos-harnessing boundaries and a fireworks display becomes deadly. Perhaps you’ve seen those videos of someone accidentally launching a Roman candle into a box of unlit rockets only to become a chaotic scene resulting in devastating injuries and destruction. Chaos—genuine disorder and confusion—is not beautiful. It leads to suffering. It leads to misery. In the Bible, chaos is not an uncommon product of sin. When God’s revealed Word is ignored or His natural law is disregarded, chaos often ensues, whether as a natural byproduct or as a direct punishment for willful disobedience.

How could it not be this way, especially since “God is not a God of confusion” (1 Cor. 14:33)? The word Saint Paul uses for confusion is ἀκαταστασίας. It’s a genitive noun meaning unstableness, violent disorder, or chaos. A genitive noun usually modifies another noun. In this case, God is the modified noun. We learn what He isn’t, namely, He does not want chaos. He wants order. And He wants it for a good reason. While instructing Timothy to pray and intercede, Paul betrays God’s reasoning, which is that “we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-5).

I probably don’t need to remind most Christians just how affronting the month of June has become relative to God’s established order. Successfully hijacked by LGBTQ, Inc., June has become this world’s official month for the prideful celebration of chaotic human sexuality. It’s disheartening, especially when you know why God desires order in the first place.

Speaking of June’s established sexual licensing, have you heard of Monkeypox? The first I’d ever heard of Monkeypox (which is a sexually transmitted disease limited almost entirely to the homosexual and bisexual men’s community) was from an article in the UK at the end of last summer. It seems in 2023, there was an alarming spike in the ghastly disease’s transmission since the previous June. I read an article this morning from CNN reporting that the US Department of Health and Human Services was gearing up for another spike in the same community in June of 2024. To combat this, DHS plans to set up information stations at pride parades across the country. If that weren’t already enough, Fox News just reported a new disease—a rare, sexually transmitted ringworm fungus—affecting the same sexual demographic and requiring similar information campaigns.

Ninety-plus percent of these particular diseases are occurring and spreading in the pride-filled camps of sexual backwardness. That said, there are plenty of other diseases making the rounds among heterosexuals with countless partners. The news won’t report it, but it certainly appears that God’s plan for good order—a man and woman joined together by the bond of holy marriage—provides a relatively sturdy measure of security from a number of sin’s physical aberrations. Again, God desires order. He desires that we live peaceful and quietly lived lives. The delight a man and woman find in one another in marriage is a part of this.

Perhaps the most crucial reason behind this divine desire is discovered in the final verse of the text from Saint Paul I shared: “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (v. 5). God wants good order because it maintains the setting for preaching and teaching the Gospel. In other words, when chaos is quelled, the truth that saves remains accessible to all.

When a person understands the Gospel’s perpetuation as God’s paramount intention, it shouldn’t surprise any of us that the world gleefully embraces LGBTQ, Inc.’s hijacking of June, ultimately retitling it “Pride Month.” It shouldn’t surprise us that many in these camps consider Biblical teaching as hate speech. The Bible doesn’t just speak of the world as a planet we’re walking on. It often refers to it as a power in opposition to God and set upon our destruction (John 15:18-19, John 17:16, Ephesians 2:2, 1 John 2:15-17). The Bible mentions a particular being who partners with the world, someone whose pride led to his destruction, ultimately making him sin’s infectious conduit into the world. That same individual delights in confusion’s celebration and disorder’s gradual spread. I’m guessing June has become one of his favorite months.

Enough of that discussion. I feel like I need a shower now.

Looking back at Empson’s work from another direction, I wonder if some folks reading this have felt the urge to reply, “But Empson’s point concerning ambiguity seems to apply to Jesus. The Lord told parables. They were poetically creative and also quite ambiguous.” If a person believes Jesus’ parables were ambiguous, ultimately leaving their interpretation up to the reader, then that person has never read the parables very closely. When the Lord spoke a parable, it had an intended meaning. Even the Pharisees knew this, which is why I’ll say on occasion that the Lord’s parables played a massive part in getting Him killed. Sometimes, the Lord used a parable to demonstrate the Pharisees’ wretchedness, which only fed their devilish desire to destroy Him. What’s more, after using challenging imagery or telling a strangely worded account, the Lord would sometimes end by saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:9). This is to say, “What I just said has a precise meaning. There’s nothing ambiguous about it. Those who are listening with the ears of faith will not be left uncertain or confused by it but will receive and understand it to their benefit.”

By the time I finished Empson’s book, while it was insightful, I was not convinced that poetry’s beauty is necessarily related to its ambiguity. Instead, I maintain the belief that poetry’s beauty is situated in its broader creativity with language. It uses unusual words and forms for communicating precise ideas, just in a different way than we might read in a novel, news story, or eNews message like this. That said, when it comes to word choice in general, I agree with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who said, “I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order.” When it comes to creative language’s goal of unambiguous communication, I agree with Mark Twain, who wrote, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” As it pertains to creative language’s purpose, I’m with T.S. Eliot, who noted, “Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.” In other words, get our attention, and when you have it, teach us the difference between good and evil, love and hate, justice and injustice, order and chaos.

Well into June, teach us not to celebrate as the world celebrates but to rejoice in godliness.

Worry = Wasted Time

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I don’t know how this past week went for you, but mine was ultra busy. Not only was it somewhat emotionally charged with the last of our four children graduating from the church’s day school—which means after about twenty years of back-and-forths with kids, it’ll be just me from now on—but it took precision to fit everything into each day. With the end-of-school activities, church and school meetings, graduation parties, staff and graduate celebrations today, preparing several sermons for various services, evening activities tonight (including a funeral visitation and a Bible study in my home), the forthcoming week should be a breeze, right?  Well, no. In between a number of these things, I will defend my doctoral thesis before a committee, and I have yet to actually sit and prepare. Each time I’ve tried, life happened, which is to say that other things with much stronger gravitational pull kept my mind and body busy.

The topic of preparedness came up in a phone meeting with my mentor on Thursday. While he implied the event would be incredibly challenging, he said he had every confidence in my abilities. I thanked him, but in secret, I was worried. I knew my own schedule. I also know myself to be a “show up early and have more than one backup plan” kind of guy. In other words, I’m the kind of guy who’ll get the family to the airport three hours too early pulling an overpacked suitcase in tow. But in this instance, things would be different. You might even ask why I’m taking time this morning to write this message. I should be studying.

But there’s something else to think about here.

I experienced a slightly different version of the same conversation several weeks ago at the Livingston County Lincoln Day Dinner. Jennifer was sitting beside Pete Hoekstra (the former Ambassador to the Netherlands, now the Chair of the Michigan Republican Party). During dinner, she told him that I’m the kind of guy who fills every waking moment of his schedule with something, and when I’m done with my current schooling, I’ll almost certainly fill the void with something else. At first, it felt a little like she was confiding in a marriage counselor who, unlike most others, could make a call on his government phone and have me eighty-sixed. But then I had a moment of clarity. When it comes to one’s level of busyness, we all have our fair share of self-inflicted distractions. The fact that I was sitting at that dinner when I should have been home studying is an example. And so the point: in the final cost/benefit analysis of our lives, we all spend time doing things that, in the end, may or may not be of value.

Don’t get me wrong. My time at the dinner was valuable in ways I won’t go into here. Still, discernment is necessary. A person can’t and shouldn’t say yes to everything. That said, do you want to know what one of the most considerable time-wasting activities is? Worrying. The thing is, I seem to have been doing more than my fair share of it the last few days.

I suppose I could jump straight to Matthew 6:25-34. It’s there the Lord discourages worrying. Actually, the word is μεριμνᾶτε, which the English Standard Version translates as “to be anxious.” That’s probably a better understanding than “worry.” In one sense, I’ve always sort of felt as though worry could be interchangeable with heightened concern, depending on the situation. Concerned awareness or readiness is often mistaken for worry. As a Christian, such readiness has the potential for action. It leads to something. When faced with a concerning situation, either the person will trust in Christ while being moved to take every reasonable action, or the person will crumple over and into anxiety, somehow believing everything depends on him and all hope is lost. In other words, anxiety is worry that’s been slow-roasted by hopelessness. Christ says four times throughout ten verses not to go there. Instead, He urges His listeners to seek first the kingdom of God.

The Lord’s point is quite simple. Despair—anxious worry—is the inevitable result of a starved hope. Therefore, feed the hope, not the worry. To do this, seek first the kingdom. Seek Jesus. I say this because where the kingdom is, there, too, is its King. Hope is abundant with Him (1 Peter 1:3-6). Concerned Christians know to look to Him first, not the self. As they do, real peace is both assured and given (John 14:27). They are not surrendered to the terrors of anxiety, no matter the monsters that threaten.

Anyone familiar with the stuff I scribble will remember a perspective I hold to rather strictly. I learned the perspective from Saint Paul. The more I hold to it, the less worrisome or hectic things become. Take a look at 1 Corinthians 15:26, 54-57 and you’ll see what I mean. Essentially, I’ve learned that the day a person realizes the only thing he has to lose is Christ is the same day he becomes impenetrable to pretty much every terrorizing monster this world can conjure. This includes death. If not even death can frighten me, then everything else is cake, including a thesis defense. Besides, life is far too short to be despairing about this thing or that thing that may or may not go one way or another.

I’m sure I’ll be just fine on Wednesday. In fact, if I really think about it, the last few years have been nothing but preparatory. I know what I’m doing. I’ve lived all 296 pages (and then some) of my final paper. If I stumble a little here and there during the defense examination, so what? I’m not perfect. But Jesus is, and He has me well in hand. Resting there, I can scrap every ill-weighted concern and then stand back and watch the horizon of mental and physical free time open.

Of course, I’ll bet you can guess what I’m likely to do in those spaces. That’s right! I’m going to fill them. Trust me when I tell you I already have a few ideas.

My Age is Showing

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I’m writing this from Roger’s City, Michigan. My friend and brother in the Lord, Joe Bangert, is being installed here as pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church and St. John Lutheran Church and School, and he asked me to preach at the installation service. I was glad to accept the invitation. Although, I confided with Jennifer that being asked to do things like this has a way of putting my age before me. While I’m sure it does happen, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a young pastor doing things like this. Typically, it’s the patriarchal guys who get asked to preach at ordinations and installations. Admittedly, this is my 30th year in church work. That said, I suppose I’m not the spring chicken I once was, even if I do believe I’m “always the same age inside,” as Gertrude Stein so famously said.

A glance in the mirror or getting back to my feet after sitting on the floor for too long both remind me that I’m closer to my end than my beginning. My face has lines, my hair is more than graying, and my body makes sounds that it probably shouldn’t.

The topic of aging came up last night on more than one occasion during discussion. When we were alone, Jen said something that reminded me of an insightful observation Henry David Thoreau once made. By the way, I am by no means Thoreau’s biggest fan. I’m just one of those guys who’ll share anyone’s words so long as the quote is good, and what Thoreau said makes sense to me. He once wrote, “No one is as old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” I agree with those words, although not as Thoreau probably meant them.

Thoreau was a transcendentalist, so in context, his words carry transcendentalism’s baggage—ideas like discovering life’s truest joys and purpose through spiritual connections with nature. I appreciate sunrises, and I’m rather fond of trees. I like these things just as much as the next guy. In fact, I’m watching the sun rise behind a purple-hued maple tree as I type these words. In its emerging light, I count no less than ten spiders meticulously preening their webs in preparation for the day’s catch. There’s a chipmunk skittering here and there in the yard. A rabbit sits near the fence, watching him closely. As they do what they do, the birds sing their early morning songs. The portrait is extraordinary in every way. Still, I know better than to commune with any of this stuff.

First of all, I can be weird on occasion, but I’m not a weirdo. And so, there’s a 100% chance you’ll never see a YouTube video of a bison trampling and then launching me into the air because I somehow believed I could commune with it. You’ll also never see me attempting to pet sharks, which leads me to another thought.

Not only am I overly fond of things like showers and indoor plumbing, but I’m equally fond of not being eaten by creatures larger than myself.

Lastly, and perhaps it’s just one more sign of age’s infiltration, Jennifer and I have been watching a lot of nature shows lately, and I’ve become all too familiar with nature’s instinctual ways, some of which I’ve already witnessed this morning with the spiders. It seems to me that nature can pretty much be summed up in three essential premises: wooing mates, combat, and killing and eating each other. That’s about it. And so, with that, count me out of Thoreau’s transcendental intentions.

Thoroughly removed, his words are still good, especially if you consider “enthusiasm” as a synonym for “joy.” No one is as old as those who have outlived joy.

Life, with all its twists and turns, is profoundly vibrant. Through good and bad, opportunities to learn and grow abound. And because God never fails in His loving kindness and care (Philippians 4:19; Matthew 6:31-32, 7:11), which is perfectly located in Christ, a Christian can rest assured that joy is always lurking in each of life’s moments (Romans 5:1-5). The ability to discover joy during sadness’ inevitable humdrum is possible, too. And that’s the partial point. Young or old, a joyless person is metaphorically near death compared to a joyful one. A joyless 20-year-old man, while he may be capable of greater physicality than an 80-year-old, is far less capable of so many other things that matter so much more.

Something—or better said, someone—comes to mind in this regard.

I went to visit my friend Gerry. He’s a longtime member of this congregation who can no longer get to church on his own. Thankfully, his faithful son and daughter-in-law, Jeff and Lisa, bring him regularly. But when Gerry isn’t feeling up to it, I visit him at home. I saw him a little over a week ago. At one point during our conversation, somehow, we began chatting about television programming’s devolution. Admitting that most shows on TV were trash, he mentioned a fondness for home restoration programs. He enjoys the “reveal” moments. He loves the moment when the home is finally ready, and the owners see it for the first time. Describing these things, Gerry was kid-like in his enthusiasm. As someone who is relatively recliner-bound, he couldn’t restore a home even if he wanted to. But you’d never know it by his enthusiasm. You’d never know it by his joy. Although, that’s not quite the point of sharing this.

Gerry’s joy is clearly not located in what he can or cannot do as he ages. Sure, he misses his athletic days. Gerry was an exceptional baseball player. He probably could’ve gone pro. But the “was” and “could’ve” haven’t landlocked him. His joy isn’t tied to this world’s limitations, ultimately rendering him perpetually downcast. Instead, his life is fixed on Jesus. And interestingly, his joy continues to flourish as it’s fixed on others around him. Their happiness feeds his happiness, and with that, his enthusiasm for life continues to abound.

I didn’t begin this rambling intent on talking about Gerry, but I never really know where these things will go. Just know that even as Gerry is in his mid-eighties, the more time I spend with him, the more I realize he’s one of the youngest people I know. Uplifted, and then looking at myself in the mirror through the same Gospel lens, I am reminded, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).

Indeed, I’m getting older. But I fully intend, by God’s grace, to remain a joy-filled toddler in Christ. Looking back on what I just wrote, I know my words are by no means original. Jesus said them first. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Saint Matthew recorded for all of us, “At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’” (Matthew 18:1-5).

Prove It

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It’s right around this time each year that I’m reminded that my favorite of the Lord’s Apostles is Thomas. It’s not because the name Thomas is the patronymic origin for my own last name, which can be traced as far back in Germany as the 1250s. Instead, like Thomas, from among the twelve, I want to be the one who, even if foolishly misguided, along the way, demanded the real Jesus, the once dead but now alive Savior with scars.

I want to be bold enough in every crowd I occupy to demand that Christ do what He promised He’d do.

Still, Thomas has gained the descriptive prefix “Doubting.” Doubt is a tricky thing. Some theologians say doubt was the first sin committed in Eden. Maybe doubt is the word that describes what happened. I tend to think it was more than that. I think by the Devil’s line of questioning, he went straight for the jugular of faith, ultimately stirring absolute mistrust. “You will not surely die,” the Devil replied to Eve. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5). This was the Devil’s way of saying, “Not only did God lie to you, but He’s hiding something from you, too.” Eve unhesitatingly believed this and went straight to dining on the fruit. Adam, who was with her, did the same (v. 6).

I could be wrong, but I think mistrust and doubt are two very different things. This reminds me of a quotation I shared in my dissertation, having first shared it during a discussion with one of the pastors participating in my doctoral research. David Mills, a former editor for Touchstone magazine, once maintained:

“In the same way, ‘permissiveness’ is a very different thing from ‘licentiousness.’ The first means relaxing the rules too much, the other means actions characterized by license and lawlessness, and usually in a lewd, lustful, and dissolute way. They are not even close to the same thing…. The ideas are related but they are not the same. One cannot do the work of the other. You might as well, in a professional baseball game, send in Barry Manilow to replace Barry Bonds, because they are both rich, famous, talented men named Barry.”

In the same way, mistrust and doubt “are related but they are not the same.” Mistrust is the demonstration of a complete lack of confidence. It establishes plainly that a person is not trustworthy, and then goes no further except to act contrarily to the untrustworthy person. Doubt, while not necessarily a good thing, often makes demands before becoming mistrust. Its first vocalized insistence will likely be, “Prove it.”

That’s precisely what Thomas did. He wanted proof. Interestingly, he wanted the same proof Jesus promised He’d give. Even better, he was willing to go further. He didn’t remain apart from the other disciples but instead returned at their pleading to join with them in the upper room. That’s not mistrust. That’s a willingness to be convinced coupled with concrete expectations. He’s in a middle space between belief and unbelief, trust and mistrust.

Still, and as I hinted before, the middle space can be a dangerous place. In this circumstance, it could lead to mistrust. Jesus knew this. In fact, He acknowledged this hazardous progression when He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:27). In the English, it sounds like Jesus said he was disbelieving. In the original Greek, the Lord’s words “Do not disbelieve, but believe” are more pivotal. The verb γίνου is in there. It means “to come into being, to happen, to become.” It presents the possibility of a change in location relative to one’s position. In other words, Jesus’ literal words were, “Do not become untrusting but become trusting [μὴ γίνου ἄπιστος ἀλλὰ πιστός].”

And then Thomas’ words, “My Lord and my God!” These are some of the most beautiful in all of the scriptures.

Samuel Johnson once said, “Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.” I share these words only because they acknowledge the tension that exists between doubt and trust. That said, Jesus acknowledged the tension first and in a far better way.

The scene with Thomas ended with the Lord speaking somewhat rhetorically. His words may even have stung Thomas a little. “Have you believed because you have seen me?” the Lord asked. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (v. 29).

On second thought, if the Lord’s words were stinging, I’ll bet the sting didn’t last long. Jesus wasn’t wholly directing them at Thomas. According to this particular Gospel’s author, John, they were aimed at us (John 20:31). And if this is true, then they’re encouraging, not indicting. They point to the blessed nature of faith. They’re meant to remind us that even as we won’t experience the exact proofs that Thomas was given, in the end, faith doesn’t require physical proof to overcome every possible objection or tension, just as Samuel Johnson described. Faith knows without seeing. It can believe without feeling or experiencing. This is true because its assurance is from another sphere altogether. It is convinced by something far more powerful than what the human senses could ever grasp (Hebrews 11:1). That something, or better said, someone, is the Holy Spirit—God, Himself—at work in the believer. Christians are made by the power of the Holy Spirit at work through the Gospel in both its verbal and visible forms—Word and Sacrament. But Christians aren’t just made. They’re endowed with that which helps them hold on when there doesn’t seem to be anything to hold onto. In those moments, they’re equipped to say to the world’s imposing accusations, “Prove it,” all the while knowing that sufficient proof for measuring all things is always available in the most trustworthy of all locales, God’s Word (2 Peter 1:12-21), just as the Lord promised (John 5:24).

For a Christian to say, “Prove it,” and then look to the Word of God for what’s needed, in a way, is the same as Thomas expecting to meet only with the real Jesus. Indeed, Jesus is the Word made flesh.

The Name Above All Names

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He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

I don’t have to tell you who the pronoun “He” is referring to in those traditional Easter acclamations. You know His name. He’s Jesus, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He was dead and is now alive, owning the name that is above every name. Every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth will one day bow in absolute reverence to this name, whether it’s the knee of a believer or unbeliever, friend or foe (Philippians 2:9-10).

This cosmos-encompassing event Saint Paul describes will happen in the flesh. The Lord’s resurrection has sealed its certainty (Job 19-25-27; 1 Corinthians 15:42-56). This final veneration will not be a commemorative act, one performed in memory of an exceptional individual who once was but is no more. It won’t be an act of devotion recalling a person indispensable to history but nevertheless long dead and buried. Graveyards are filled with the forgotten. Even the greatest are little more than “comets of a season,” Lord Byron would say. “The glory and then nothing of a name.”

And yet, Jesus, the One bearing the name above all names, His grave was a blink. He could not own one for long. Although I suppose if owning the grave means besting the sinister powers of sin and death that give a grave its claim, He certainly holds these powers’ enduring titles (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). He owns them as a superior champion owns a weaker opponent. They came for Him. They were strong. But they approached Him in bold assumption and were met by an ugly fact. “No one takes my life from me,” Jesus said, “but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:18). “Now is the judgment of this world,” the Lord added, “now will the ruler of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). Indeed, and amen! His resurrection is the proof that His words were not empty. He’s alive, and if this is true, then even these darkly powers will be forced to their knees at this world’s final hour. They will coalesce from their formlessness in humble reverence for the One who is no longer the suffering servant but the Pantocrator—the ruler of all things created and uncreated.

Admittedly, the Lord’s work was not easy. The combat was stupendous, just as the lovely Victimae Paschali sings (LSB 460). But the good news remains as plainly splendid as it is plentiful. His foes were too weak. They lost everything, and their consequence was sealed for the great and final day.

In the meantime of eternity, to the victor goes the spoils. Among the prizes, to the Champion the most precious: us! He won us! And now, by the power of the Holy Spirit for faith, to be with Jesus is a believer’s forever. The grave is not our end. He filled in its gaping chasm. The devil cannot accuse us. He has been debarked. Death cannot consume us. It was defanged. And now, we are the Lord’s own, and we will be raised and adorned in bodies “like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:21)!

Immersed in this joyful news, may your celebration of Easter be wonderfully full-throated as you call out to this conquered and whimpering world, “He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!”

All For You

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Today is the Friday that, for centuries, the Church has called “good.” It is a strange designation, and yet, most appropriate. Without it, what hope against Sin, Death, and Satan would there be?

I’d say, “The Good Friday hour is upon us,” if that were sufficient. But it isn’t. It’s better to say, “The hours are upon us.” This is to say that the Lord’s death for mankind’s sin wasn’t swift. It didn’t happen in a flash. It didn’t come peacefully during sleep. It was preceded by ethereal misery.

When the Lord submitted Himself to the Devil’s viciousness, saying, “Now is your hour” (John 22:53a), and then allowed the fullness of Sin’s curse to crush Him, adding, “and the power of darkness” (v. 53b), unspeakable suffering began. There are no words to describe it. Which is why the Gospel writers really don’t even try. Like emotionless correspondents, they report the events. They speak simply.

For scope, Mark’s Gospel tells us the betrayal in Gethsemane occurred at midnight. That’s when it began. Beyond Gethsemane, Mark records:

“Then some of them began to spit on him; they blindfolded him, struck him, and said to him, ‘Prophesy to us, O Christ, who is it that struck you?’ The guards beat him…” (Mark 14:65).

All the inspired writers tell you these kinds of things. Within the limitations of human language, they present unfathomable cruelty in the plainest details.

“Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged” (John 19:1).

They don’t describe the event’s flaying nature. They don’t share the supernatural turmoil—the unseen grappling, the invisible but slicing dreadfulness occurring as the unholy trinity of Sin, Death, and Satan meet with God’s own flesh.

“When [the soldiers] had woven a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and a reed in his right hand, and they knelt before him and mocked him…. They spat on him and took the reed and struck him on the head” (Matthew 27:29-30).

The hours go on. Things get worse. But the writers scribble dryly. They don’t describe the bruising, the torn flesh, the streaming blood that pools whenever and wherever the Lord might stop to rest. Instead, He receives His cross and continues on.

“Carrying his own cross, he went out of the city to a place called Skull Hill, in Hebrew, Golgotha” (John 19:17).

The following is peculiar:

“As they led him away, they laid hold of Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, who was coming in from the country. On him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus” (Mark 15:21).

Has the visible and invisible cruelty become too much for even the unholy trinity and its agents to stomach? We can’t see or describe it. But they can. They know every drop of its tarry horror. Beholding the Lord’s exhaustion, are they becoming sympathetic? Are they relenting a little?

No. Simon of Cyrene is of little consequence except to ensure that Jesus makes it Golgotha. Simon will be their ignorant mule.

“And there they crucified him” (John 19:18).

The writers are succinct. It’s a gory scene—ghastly all along—but they do not describe its carnage. Some might say it’s because the reader already knew a crucifixion’s harshest details, and to describe them would be a waste of precious papyrus. That may be somewhat true. However, it’ll never be the only reason. The Gospel writer John tells his readers that to record and share in print everything Jesus said and did would require more library real estate than the earth can provide (John 21:25). But if the world unexpectedly grew a thousand times larger, and the books suddenly appeared, some containing the Passion’s accounting within, what’s written would still be an atom-sized jot incapable of describing the Lord’s fullest work.

And so, our loving God has taken something massively incomprehensible and made it simple.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).

“[Jesus said] For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:17-18).

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13).

I could go on and on sharing more and more of God’s simplified yet preferred renditions of His great love for you accomplished through the person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ. But I won’t. However, I will encourage you to join with the faithful for Good Friday worship. I urge you to immerse yourself in the Church’s consolidated remembrance of the hours in which our Savior labored to set the whole world free from the grip of perpetual night.

For the readers beyond my congregation’s borders, if your church does not observe Good Friday, find one that does. Go there. Settle into a pew. If you can, spy a crucifix. See there a hint to Sin’s weight. “Here may view its nature rightly,” the great hymn whispers solemnly, “Here its guilt may estimate” (“Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted,” LSB 451).

Even so, listen to God’s Word being read. Take in the Gospel preaching. Hear and rejoice that the Lord endured the horrible hours willingly. Take into yourself that His divine mind was thinking of you. You could not do it. But He could. And He did, all for you.

It was all for you.

P.S. If you need a place to go for Good Friday worship, here at Our Savior, we offer a 1:00 p.m. Tre Ore service and a 6:30 p.m. Tenebrae service. Consider joining us.

A Good Kind of Tired

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Holy Week begins today with Palm Sunday. Like any other week, Holy Week has seven days. And yet, it seems exceptionally longer than the others. By the time we get from Palm Sunday to Easter, a lot will have happened. For perspective, here at Our Savior, we will have packed at least ten weeks of sacred worship into these seven days. For our Kantor, musicians, and choirs, that’s an abundance of preparation and rehearsals. For the pastors, among so many other things, that’s a lot of sermon writing. I suppose that’s why you might hear me say in jest that the Lord and His pastors trade places on Easter morning. I often get very sick the week after Easter, usually from over-exertion. Although, I think it hit me early this year. I was terribly sick this past week.

Getting sick this time every year is one of many proofs that I could not do what the Lord did. He endured cosmic suffering. And yet, I count myself blessed if I can think through and preach a relatively coherent Easter sermon after Lent and Holy Week’s busyness has concluded.

I had an interesting conversation about these things last Sunday in the ER at Maclaren Hospital. A man sitting a few seats away from me in the waiting room started it. The worship pastor at his church, he endeavored to ask me how my church “does” Easter. I told him, even taking a chance at assuming between two clergy its exhausting nature. I assumed incorrectly. Along the way, he asked rather awkwardly why we continue doing it this way, especially when I almost always get sick year after year. At first, I took it as a reasonable observation and told him I had thought about cutting things back a little. But then he did something else. He took a passive-aggressive shot at what he believed was traditional worship’s tiredness. As he did, He explained worship shouldn’t be tiring, and he went out of his way to tell me that his church’s worship life could never be considered exhausting, that his church’s contemporary style was comfortable and easy—always fresh and new, always joyful, and always inspiring. He explained that worship is about praising God—about really feeling it, and blah blah blah.

Let me first say that’s not what worship is about. Praise is part of it (the lesser part, mind you) but that’s not its purpose. Worship begins with God. He serves us what we need—forgiveness. We respond with prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. Think Isaiah 55:11 and Ecclesiastes 5:1-3.

Next, I’ll ask, “Why?” What’s going on inside a person that would cause him to impose on a stranger in this way? I get that I’m easily identifiable in my clerical collar, and perhaps by it, I may represent a more traditional position. I’m no stranger to such interactions. But that alone doesn’t invite the imposition. I certainly didn’t ask for a critique of our worship style or life. As a normal human being confiding in someone I assumed might understand, I would never even think to steer into another church leader’s sphere in this way. I have no reason to criticize him. I’ve never been to his church.

Thankfully, few clergyfolk I meet are like this. Most just want to meet and visit—like normal humans. Also, thankfully, I didn’t have the time (nor the mood) to debate this particular guitar-slinger. I was seconds from being escorted to the bedside of one of my church members who’d been in a car accident. I was pondering my words to them and not to the worship pastor. Although, Blaise Pascal’s thoughts on reason would have been appropriate if the conversation had continued. Pascal once said something about how human reason’s final use is to admit there’s an infinite vastness beyond its capabilities.

What does this have to do with the interaction I just described? If I’d had the time and energy, I think it might have mattered in at least two ways.

First, Holy Week does sometimes feel unreasonably challenging. As I said, I’ve considered excluding some of the worship opportunities for this reason. And yet, as Pascal implied, even human reason admits to blessings that can only be reached by extending beyond what’s reasonable. No, the Lord doesn’t want us murdering ourselves with devotion. Still, we can (and often should) stretch ourselves past what we know is easier. This is the “no pain, no gain” principle. Still, even in an elementary sense, we also can’t remain infants, drinking only milk. We need solid food (1 Corinthians 3:1-13). The historic rites and ceremonies of the Church embody this opportunity, and if there’s ever a time to reach for solid food, it’s during this pinnacle time of the Church Year.

Some might refer to our worship style here at Our Savior as “high mass.” That description has various outside interpretations. Although, compared to other Lutheran churches, I can guess what it means. Still, I’m not interested in the other churches. I’m the pastor here. And no matter what is implied or who we’re being compared to, I’m convinced we’re enjoying solid food in this place—meat and potatoes, not frozen waffles and milk duds. It’s certainly far from being about the preacher or service meeting us right where we are, giving us what we like, and never demanding anything more. God does not call for us to remain forever where we are. We are to reach higher (Colossians 3:1-2).

By the way, a person should be able to tell when they’ve left the “where we are” of every day and entered into the new day of “higher.” Our regular worship is already wired for this. Stop by anytime. You’ll know you’ve stepped from the secular world onto holy ground. Holy Week is this on steroids, and for very good reasons.

This stirs a second thought relative to what’s reasonable. Pascal admitted to an endless array of things beyond reason’s reach. Isn’t that more or less a nod toward the nature of faith? It’s the same kind of nod Saint Paul offers in the Epistle appointed for today’s Palm Sunday celebration. In Philippians 2:6, Paul admits Christ’s incarnation was an ungraspable truth existing far beyond reason’s borders. Very little about it makes sense. However, as challenging as it is, it’s utterly accessible to faith. This is where I might have pushed back on my conversation partner even further, crossing the border into his doctrines and sharing how I think it’s strange how someone like John Calvin could ever insist, “Finitum non capax infinitum,” which is to say, finite things cannot contain infinite things. Of course, Ulrich Zwingli assumed it years before when debating Luther at the Marburg Colloquy in 1529. But either way, to say the infinite cannot be located in the finite is to be trapped behind reason’s barrier. It certainly binds God to human premises.

Since I’ve already mentioned Christ’s incarnation, if Calvin’s words are valid, then we must dismiss Saint Paul’s reason-pummeling words in Colossians 1:19-20, where he writes, “For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:19-20). Had the conversation gotten this far, I would have encouraged my new ER friend to reconsider what the finite containing the infinite means for things like Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. I’m guessing he thinks these are just symbols. I wouldn’t attack him on this. But I would at least ask, “Is it possible they could be more?”

In the meantime, yes, the fullness of the infinite God was located in a finite human man—an object occupying a limited location. That man was Jesus. No, it doesn’t make sense. And Paul knows it. But that doesn’t stop him from upping lunacy’s ante in the Palm Sunday epistle with the reminder that the God-man Christ actually died. You think the incarnation is unreasonable; how about God dying? Paul goes further into irrationality, adding, “even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8).

The historic rites and ceremonies dig deeply into this, especially during Holy Week. From Palm Sunday through to Holy Wednesday and then the Triduum—the holy three days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter—it’s a week that carries us into these things and more. It isn’t just a day or two of our favorite and most syrupy worship songs, whatever Bible verses the preacher happens to prefer at the time, and an engaging sermon with some fetching slides. It’s several days of reaching further.

To be fair, I should come at this from another direction. As insulting as the worship pastor in the ER waiting room was with his passive aggression (most of which I didn’t share), I’ll admit some in my more traditional camp do the same things he did; not a lot, but a few. They take similar opportunities to impose their pretentiousness rather than enjoying the conversation and encouraging others toward Christian worship’s inherent beauty and benefit. For example, they can make a pastor shepherding a storefront church feel lesser for not having what they have or doing what they’re doing. Again, there aren’t a lot of them. But as the saying goes, there’s one in every bunch. Confessional Lutheranism is no exception.

In conclusion, let me just say this: For those out there who are moving in the better direction—who are reaching higher—whether or not you have the classically ornate worship space, vestments, smells, bells, or whatever, I encourage you to stay the course. You already likely know we’re in a dark time in worship history, days when almost anything goes, and as it does, the faith that worship is supposed to feed becomes shallow and weak among so many. Nevertheless, anyone who’s served as a pastor for any reasonable length of time will tell you that shepherding God’s people from point A to point B takes time. Building the muscle to reach higher takes exercise. Catechesis is key. Introduce. Teach. Stay the course. As you do, rest assured your labors are not in vain, no matter the pace or progress.

And some final advice: If a man in a waiting room scoots a few chairs closer to you to have a genuine conversation about differing worship styles, enjoy the discussion. Such conversation can be refreshing and interesting. But if a peacocking purpose becomes obvious, before the conversation goes any further, I recommend leaning toward him and asking with wide room-scanning eyes, “You can see me?” That’ll close the conversation shop’s doors. Of course, if you’re not comfortable doing that, first, compliment his retro tee, and next, tell him the hospital called you to perform an exorcism, asking if he’s the one they called about. That’ll probably work.

Don’t Risk It

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We’re entering the fifth week of Lent. The further we go into Lent, the more I’m sad for the churches that skip this penitential season, electing to go straight to Easter. They’ll have missed a critical view of the empty tomb.

The Gospel should always be a church’s center. That said, one of the grand benefits of observing church seasons is that they provide us with different perspectives on the Gospel. Advent considers it one way. Epiphany another. Rather than letting us coast along thinking we know everything there is to know, church seasons lift the Gospel and turn it, allowing examination on all sides. Lent is no different. If observed rightly, Lent, and then Holy Week, deliver us to the Lord’s resurrection, having first shown us the cost of Easter’s joy. Holy Week—the days between Palm Sunday and Easter—dig so incredibly deeply in this regard. It needs to. Humanly speaking, we’d much rather come to worship on Palm Sunday and then again at Easter. We’d much rather enjoy these brighter festivals, having skipped the hours of terribleness that cement the two together.

Why is this? My first guess is that the sinful nature would prefer to keep its role in the narrative a secret. It knows that if we investigate the harder scenes, there’s a chance we’ll be shocked by what we discover—perhaps even learning something about ourselves we’d prefer not to know. These reasons feed my appreciation of the masters—Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and the like. They looked into these spaces and shared the details. A more recent master, Carl Bloch, handled the details well, too. Perhaps you’ve seen his portrait of Christ being comforted by the angel in Gethsemane (Luke 22:43)? Far too many images of Christ in the garden before His betrayal are portrayed with the preferred fluffiness of gilded rays pouring from heaven, Jesus intently meditating but untouched by sadness. But that’s not what the Scriptures describe. They describe intense sadness. Bloch captures the Lord’s physical exhaustion and the angel that came to bolster Him for the forthcoming fight.

Since I already brought it up, Luther wondered aloud about the Lord’s time in Gethsemane. In a sermon in 1545, he asked his listeners why the Lord shivered and shook with such dread while praying. The gory mistreatments hadn’t even begun yet. And still, His behavior is shocking. It grips us. The Lord’s sweat became drops of blood, and Luther shared the reason: “It is for the sin of the world which God has laid upon Him.” Speaking for each of us, Luther added, “My intolerable sin brings Him to this, my sin which He has taken upon Himself and which is so hard to carry” (W.A. 52. 738). Who wants to be blamed for another person’s sadness? Not me. It stings as few other things do. When it happens, I want to look away.

Lent and Holy Week insist, “Don’t look away. Behold the bludgeoned and pathetic Christ. Indeed, it’s startling that He would suffer and die in this way. You’ve heard so often how He did it for you. Do you see what ‘for you’ means? Let your unsettled heart be a clue.”

Of course, that’s not the end of the story. Lifting the Lententide narrative and turning it for a better view, Luther continued that the Lord’s startling grief is also filling in confidence’s terrible gaps, becoming “a comfort to you, that you may be certain that Christ has taken your sin upon Himself, and paid the price for it. If, then, your sins are laid on Christ, be content. They lie in the right place, where they belong” (Ibid.).

Still, there’s the startling nature to all of this.

The topic of abortion came up during our church’s School Board meeting this past Tuesday. Relative to what we were discussing, I mentioned to the Board that I’m one who believes that the only way to end abortion once and for all would be to require our populace to see it—to experience the sights, sounds, and smells of genocide, much like the Allied troops marched Germany’s complacent citizens through the concentration camps after World War II. Changes in heart and mind occurred almost instantaneously in Germany. My theory, which I cannot necessarily prove, is that while incremental behavioral conditioning works, there’s a layer of our being that can only be pierced by jarring news. In a sense, the Bible does both. So much of the Lord’s comings and goings in the Bible are given in ways that caress us to careful attention. In a purely human sense, we’re being incrementally habituated to His identity and what He has come to do. But then there’s the actual doing—the viciousness of His suffering and death. The events themselves are anything but careful. They were a swift and consolidated shotgun blast of dreadfulness. Mark’s Gospel says the Lord was betrayed at midnight on Thursday, while Matthew, Mark, and Luke record the Lord died about the ninth hour, or 3:00 pm, on Friday. Compared to the rest of the Lord’s ministry, there’s very little time to be eased into it.

While it might not be the best analogy, this reminds me of something W.H. Auden wrote about stark incentives. I’ve been reading and writing about the psychology of attitudinal shifts for my doctoral work. Auden agreed that behavioral conditioning had a proven record. But then he joked that with a few select drugs and a simple electrical appliance, he could have almost anyone reciting the Athanasian Creed in public, and he could produce the results far more quickly than any behaviorist. Of course, he was talking about torturing someone into compliance. But beneath his dark comedy lies an elementary truth: extreme experiences have a way of cutting through our protected selves, revealing what might otherwise remain hidden to us, ultimately passing us by.

If Easter greeting cards draped in sunshine, lilies, empty crosses, and empty tombs are all one knows of the Lord’s passion, then something incredibly important has been overlooked.

I guess I’m saying this morning that Lent and Holy Week play an essential role in preventing a superficial understanding of the Lord’s labors. They were jarring, and much of these penitential seasons’ collegial goal is to remind us that redemption came at a cost, that its price tag was attached to a world-sized pile of human brokenness, and then to show us the price was paid in full. From there, the startling image becomes one of genuine comfort. A crucified Jesus is a testament to the unfathomable depths of God’s mercy. His resurrection becomes an indescribable celebration worthy of a joyful ruckus. Skipping over the precision of Lent and Holy Week risks missing this.

Don’t miss out. Start making plans now, especially for Holy Week. Here at Our Savior, we’ll have services every day, sometimes twice daily. If you do not have a church home, or perhaps your church offers little opportunity to observe the harder things, feel free to join us. You are more than welcome. Listen to God’s Word and its preaching. By these things, look into the challenging moments. Measure sin’s cost. Be equipped for another startling of sorts.

In other words, no one goes to someone’s tomb who has been viciously mauled expecting to find that person restored and alive. And yet, we do. We behold and hear Easter’s cosmic announcement that the One who suffered and died so gruesomely is now alive, never to die again, His resurrection victory being ours by faith. Talk about shocking! Indeed, it’s the overwhelming sense of joy that the Easter celebration means to bring.

Catchphrase

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Everyone has a catchphrase. By catchphrase, I mean something you say with regularity. In truth, you likely have more than one. If you asked those closest to you, I bet they could tell you what they are.

About a year ago, Jennifer came up with a great idea. She decided she would make bingo cards with our family members’ unique catchphrases. I liked the idea. It highlights each person’s originality. As someone who appreciates movie memorabilia, I assure you originals are always best. By comparison, my family is by no means a company of imitators. They’re valuable originals.

I haven’t seen Jen’s bingo cards yet, but that hasn’t stopped the family from playing the game. Interestingly, the contest has expanded to include mannerisms, too. It’s not unusual to hear someone call out “Bingo!” whenever anyone at the dinner table says or does something unique to their persona. Apparently, I tend to sigh and say more often than I realize, “I need to get on the treadmill.” Now, whenever I utter those words, someone will say, “Bingo!” Thankfully, I know they’re playing the game and not commenting on my physique.

There’s one sentence the Thoma family as a whole says a lot. We all say, “I love you.” If I were to choose the family’s official catchphrase, that would be it, and I can prove why it’s the best choice. On two separate occasions within the past month, I said something to one of the kids as they walked away, and their reply was, “I love you, too.” The funny thing is, I didn’t say, “I love you.” I said something else. Not hearing what I actually said, they defaulted to the assumption that it must have been “I love you.”

I liked that. I liked it so much I didn’t even attempt to clarify. Instead, I continued along my merry way in both circumstances, savoring the moment’s joy and filing it away as something I might eventually write about. By the way, I’m not just writing for you. I’m writing for my family, too. This is a record of sorts, a chronicling. They’ll read and remember these words long after I’m gone. God willing, their children will absorb the lessons learned, sharing in them, too. As with most things, there’s a lesson to learn if we pay attention.

Looking back, I suppose one lesson I learned is just how burdensome life would be in any family if the go-to assumptions about each other were anything but the “I love you” kind. What would life be like for someone whose default expectation is anything but genuine care or concern from their closest family members? Instead, they expect ridicule and insult. That’s no way to live. It certainly isn’t what God intended for families.

That reminds me of something else.

I surprised my family a few weekends ago by taking them to the new Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Fenton. We don’t go out to eat very often, so it was indeed a treat. While there, a child in the booth behind us proved herself all but demon-possessed. Repeatedly screeching at the top of her lungs, the present but oblivious dad did little more than lean to her and whisper an occasional “Shhh” before returning to tapping at his cell phone.

His efforts did nothing. The child continued shouting, kicking the booth seats, and ultimately disrupting countless meals within earshot of the ruckus—which, in the end, was nearly half the restaurant. How do I know? Because I made eye contact with many of the disgruntled patrons.

Doing our best to talk above the screeches, Jen and I shared with our kids how hard parenting can be. Part of its difficulty is knowing two things. First, a parent needs to know the appropriate threshold for action in any given circumstance, and second, they need to respond in a way that actually helps. Before providing a few challenging examples from our family’s past, I told the kids how vital every parenting moment is for filling the middle spaces of who and what a child will be as an adult. What a parent does or doesn’t do will resonate exponentially. The out-of-control child in the booth behind us was in the very process of becoming her future self, and her disinterested father, even as he did nothing, was a part of her formation.

To explain this, I reminded the kids about a time years ago when I took a hammer and smashed one of their digital devices. I know that sounds harsh. However, the device had become a terrible distraction for one of them. Warnings didn’t work. Taking it away from him didn’t work, either. Getting rid of it appeared to be the only solution. Of course, I could’ve sold or given it away, but doing so seemed too easy, too unimpactful. It left me feeling like a deeper lesson would be lost concerning people and things. Moreover, as a Christian father, I knew somewhere in the mix was an opportunity for the Gospel to shine, which is the only thing that provides real love in any messy situation. The Gospel brings forgiveness while showing our Lord is neck-deep in the messes with us.

Having warned him well in advance of what I planned to do, when he finally crossed the line, he and I went out to the garage together, and I made good on my words. Right before doing so, I told him how much I’d spent to buy the item and that I’d be at a loss of several hundred dollars by doing this. In other words, I was invested in the loss. And yet, I added, I was deeper in the mess with him than he might realize. I told him I’d rather lose all the money in my bank account and sacrifice every object I own than lose him to this world’s things. I love him far more. With that, I smashed the device. He hugged me and told me he loved me. For the record, he remembers what happened and occasionally tells me how thankful he is that I did it.

I told the kids I felt sick to my stomach right after doing it. I wasn’t sure if I’d done the right thing. I wasn’t sure the results I’d hoped for would ever materialize. But as I said, they did. And reassurance abounded at the Texas Roadhouse dinner table. Here we were, several years after the event, agreeing that it strengthened the love between a father and son rather than eroding it. That’s the exponential resonation I mentioned before.

So, what does this have to do with where I started? Well, my mind tends to wander as I type, so I’ll do what I can to tie this up.

I suppose the first thing that comes to mind is the disinterested father in the booth behind us. He needs to know that disciplining his daughter is essential. It’s certainly not unloving. She’s not going to hate him if he requires that she respect him and the people in her vicinity. But if he continues his indifference, the time for hating him will come. She’ll be a self-interested young woman incapable of concern for others, and when he does impose a requirement, she’ll rebel, seeing him only as an enemy. He’ll say, “I love you,” but the words will ricochet.

I suppose my next thought concerns what I wrote before the story I just shared. I had just finished expressing “how burdensome life would be in any family if the go-to assumptions about each other were anything but the ‘I love you’ kind.” The connection there might be that for a family built on Gospel love, even the more complicated moments can still sustain and ultimately prove the “I love you” assumption. In other words, no matter what’s happening, easy or complex, happy or sad, tranquility or anger, we can assume “I love you” from each other, even when those aren’t the words being spoken, and maybe even when the situation requires the kind of disciplinary readjustments that might make a parent a little sick to his stomach. Disciplining or being disciplined, we’ll know the person loves us. We’ll know we always have a way back to better days.

This is true because the comfortable assumption is one of repentance and forgiveness. This is the way back. It bears the relaxing notion of the Lord’s Gospel presence in every trial. A moment might sting a little, but we know we’ll get through it no matter what. And why? Because Christ is our Savior, and He’s made “I love you” the family’s catchphrase.