Tag Archives: savior of the nations come

The Place Where Only Christians Can Live

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I would usually sleep on the cot in my office at the church on a snow-laden day like today. But not this time. I slept in my own bed at home last night.

For one, I prefer to make sure everything remains in good working order throughout the night, namely, that the heat and power continue uninterrupted. I also prefer not to be the only one out on the unplowed roads at 4:00 in the morning. And that’s precisely what they were on the way in. As the years go by, it seems less thought is given to the churches—to the fact that God’s people are still gathering, still trying to make their way to worship. I get the sense that Sunday morning simply isn’t factored into anyone’s plans anymore, certainly not the folks deciding what gets plowed first.

Still, in all of Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hartland, Michigan’s 70 years, we’ve never canceled a service. Not once. And it certainly isn’t going to happen on my watch. So, rest assured, the lights are bright. The heat is on. The Lord’s gifts of Word and Sacrament will be given, no matter how many gather to receive them.

The holy season of Advent begins today. That means Christmas is coming. And yet, last weekend at an event anticipating Christmas—a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Chicago—shots rang out, resulting in one dead and eight seriously wounded. That same night, in Concord, North Carolina, another tree-lighting ended in gunfire. Four were shot. Three of the victims are still in critical condition.

Violence in Chicago is a pretty standard thing. It’s one of the most dangerous cities in America. Concord, North Carolina, not so much. In fact, it ranks among the safest cities in America. Safe or not-so-safe, what makes all of this stand out is the setting. Although Christmas trees no longer mean to most what they’re supposed to mean. The whole point of a Christmas tree is Jesus—or at least it used to be, way back when Christian communities looked to the evergreen as a reminder of life in Christ during winter’s deathly season. But now, it’s little more than a seasonal prop stripped entirely of its sacred center. Still, public tree-lighting ceremonies continue to be celebratory opportunities, and if anything, a warm assumption of community. That’s nice. But it obviously isn’t enough. Not when dreadfulness suddenly intrudes. And in the end, that may be the most sobering point of all. Whether you live in a city known for violence or one praised for its safety, dreadfulness always finds a way in. And then what? I only ask this question having read some of the words from victims’ families, which I’ll get to in a moment.

In the meantime, I’ll simply say that sin can and will fracture anything devoid of Christ. When Christ is removed, wherever He once was is instantly hollow. An empty object is a fragile object. It certainly has no power to restrain real darkness. But that’s because Christ is missing, and He’s the only One who can carry us through times of need. In this sense, last weekend’s violence during the Christmas tree-lighting ceremonies served as a kind of grotesque sermon, reminding all of us how Christological substance is desperately needed in our lives, and how humanity just cannot manufacture it, not even through seasonal civic ceremonies that look and feel nice but in truth are entirely devoid of real meaning. This brings me back to Advent.

For the churches that observe Advent—and I mean, actually observe it—we know the centuries-old pre-Christmas season is by no means hollow. We know its language and sense. It’s a penitential time, one that acknowledges sin’s dreadful grip. And yet, Advent stakes a firm claim in hope as it simultaneously looks backward to the Rescuer who came at Christmas, and also forward to that same Rescuer’s promised return at the end of days. As we Confessional Lutherans tend to say, it’s the kind of hope that knows the fullness of God’s promises in the “right now” but also the “not yet,” all at the same time.

This weird tension is essential to Advent. It names sin honestly. It knows the situation is dire and, therefore, refuses to minimize the brokenness responsible for the violence we saw last weekend. But it does this while anchored in what Christ has done, is doing now, and will continue to do. That’s Christian hope. Christian hope is not some hollow form of vague optimism. That’s what happens at civic tree-lighting ceremonies. Advent’s longing is a deliberate, time-spanning trust that the same Savior who entered history will keep His promises, one of which is to return to set everything right. That makes Advent far more than a season that’s waiting for Christmas, but one filled with holy confidence rooted in history, promise, and unquestionable fulfillment.

That’s a place where only Christians can live.

By the way, this is not a claim of moral superiority. It’s one of theological location. To live in the “right now but not yet” requires faith. Only those who have heard God’s promise in Christ and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, believe, can stand in the middle of that tension without being crushed by it. It is a narrow place. But in its narrowness, there’s a freedom the world cannot replicate. It tries. But it just can’t do it.

Remember, Christians started all this decorating stuff. We decorated evergreens, lit candles, and hung lights. We sang ancient hymns that communicated the Gospel’s backward and forward perspective. We still do it. The world has similar traditions this time of year. It decorates evergreens, puts up light displays, and sings its holiday songs. But between the two spheres is a strict separation. Buffeted only by the world’s empty décor, culture’s residents experience what happened in Chicago and North Carolina, and suddenly, their holiday is tainted with despair. I read an interview with one of the Chicago victim’s family members. The woman being interviewed said she may never celebrate Christmas again. Essentially, the memory is too terrible, and now the holiday is, too.

I get how that could be true, especially when your only framework is a sentimental, once-a-year version of joy tied to things that can be ripped away at any moment. When that’s the case, then any tragedy is enough to make every twinkling light or holiday tune feel forever poisoned.

But from the Christian perspective, with Advent’s Gospel in mind and heart, we light candles and hang lights, not to deny the darkness, and not even because the darkness might be scary. We know it is. But we also have no intention of granting the darkness final authority. We keep singing our joy-filled hymns, not necessarily to cope, as though we’re in some starry-eyed form of denial, but as an act of genuine defiance against sin, death, and the devil. We sing because the Gospel has the upper hand, not the darkness, and we know it. And so, we are perpetually hopeful.

I guess one thing I’m saying is that Christian rituals like these, no matter how the world might twist or imitate them, will forever be Christian property. We own them. And because we know better, they’ll always be acts of resistance rather than seasonal sentiment. The evergreen—a plant that keeps its green even when all life around it has come to a frozen halt—for Christians, it’s a visible confession that death does not have the final word. A candle is not mere ambiance for us. It’s a proclamation that Light has entered the world and cannot be overcome. The hymns are not background music, but instead longstanding confessions of the one true faith that has survived the worst this world could throw at it. In fact, the chief hymn appointed for the First Sunday in Advent is proof alone. “Savior of the Nations, Come” was written by Ambrose of Milan. He lived from 340 to 397. And still, here we are, age after age of dreadful violence and persecution, and we’re still singing this great hymn of incredible hope, one that tells the entire Gospel story in eight beautiful stanzas.

This is proof that we own Advent and Christmas.

And so, while the world scrambles to make sense of yet another demonstration of human awfulness, the Church stands where it has always stood at this time—right in the middle of human ruin, all the while holding tightly to God’s promises. We stand there unshaken, proclaiming that this world’s terrors cannot overcome us. The Light of the World has come and is coming again. We know that everything around us is temporary, yet the forthcoming King and His kingdom are eternal. That divine knowledge shapes the entirety of our reality. And that’s that.

Indeed, the world is experiencing a sentimental countdown to a holiday. But that’s not us. Christians continue taking to a sacred battlefield, knowing the ultimate victory has already been accomplished and that the final victory is at hand. And the churches that observe Advent—and I mean, actually observe it—their senses are being honed to this truth.

Soli Deo Gloria

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I wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you. It’s certainly appropriate to do so, not only because we’re still in the Thanksgiving mood, but because, like the man who wrote the chief hymn we’ll be singing today (“Savior of the Nations Come”), Saint Ambrose once said, “No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.”

I’ve shared that quotation with you before. Sitting here at the church early on Thanksgiving Day morning, I took a quick stroll through previous Thanksgiving Day messages to the people of God at Our Savior in Hartland. In the note I sent last year, I shared the familiar quotation from Ambrose. Curious about its origin, I tracked it down. But before I get to that, let me continue the thread of sentiment I already started.

To the faithful here at Our Savior in Hartland—and in all the churches—you’re owed a debt of gratitude. Speaking as the pastor here, I should say that this congregation—how she operates, what she accomplishes, where she’s going—happens because of the faithful.

Now, don’t for one second think that I’m straying from our wonderful Lutheran legacy which knows to call out “Soli Deo Gloria” (to God alone be the glory)! I’m not. I’m simply doing what Saint Paul does with regularity throughout his epistles (Romans 1:8, Ephesians 1:16, 1 Corinthians 1:4, Philippians 1:3, Colossians 1:3, Philemon 1:4, 1 Thessalonians 1:2, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, and countless others). My thanksgiving to you is an acknowledgment that God has used (and continues to use) you for some pretty incredible things, all of which join to form a singular, bright beaming light of constancy streaming from this place. It pierces a shadowy world in desperate need of the Gospel. As your pastor, I thank you for your diligence in this. I owe this gratitude to you.

There’s another reason this is your due, and again, we consider Saint Ambrose. That same great Bishop of Milan wrote the words I quoted not long after the unexpected passing of his brother, Satyrus. Interestingly, if you read my Thanksgiving Day note sent out last Tuesday, you’ll see my words emerged from thoughts of my brother’s death, too. Reading most of Ambrose’s eulogy this morning, I can see he experienced the same nagging sense as me. Standing at the grave of his brother, he encounters a particular awareness. Ambrose understands that none among us knows the hour of our final moments together (Ecclesiastes 9:12). No one knows what his or her last words given or received in this mortal life will be. Will they be loving? Will they be cruel? Will they be inconsequential? Will they be thankful? Whatever they are, Ambrose acknowledges the finality of Death, and as a result, he writes something familiar to those of us who’ve lost someone close:

“To die is gain to me, who, in the very treatise in which I comfort others, am incited as it were by an intense impulse to the longing for my lost brother, since it suffers me not to forget him. Now I love him more, and long for him more intensely. I long for him when I speak, I long for him when I read again what I have written, and I think that I am more impelled to write this, that I may not ever be without the recollection of him.”

Now that Satyrus is gone, Ambrose feels the deepest sting of Death’s separating power. It makes sense, then, that he would urge the rest of us toward genuine thanksgiving in the here and now—that we would be glad to God for each other and that we would share this same tiding with the people in our lives. He calls it our duty. And we can agree, especially as we’re prompted by another sense hovering among Ambrose’s words. He knew something about his brother, something that stirred him to cry out, “You have caused me, my brother, not to fear death, and only would that my life might die with yours!”

Ambrose thanked his brother for being an example of faithfulness, even in Death. For a second time, this brings me back around to where I started. I’m grateful for your enduring devotion, just as Ambrose wrote that his brother “saw [Christ’s] triumph, he saw His death, but saw also in Him the everlasting resurrection of men, and therefore feared not to die as he was to rise again.”

Thank you for being a congregation filled with Christians who emit this Gospel truth in so many ways. Some of you do it through financial support of the mission’s efforts. Others do it through hands-on service. So many do it through regular prayer. Countless do it in simple conversation. All of you do it by the power of the Holy Spirit in faith. Truly, you know the value of what we have in this place—historic liturgy, binding creeds, rites and ceremonies that reach far beyond the here and now, a sturdy backbone for enduring an ever-encroaching world—things that so many churches are dismissing as unfriendly, socially stiff, or culturally irrelevant. But you know better. You’ve learned from those who’ve gone before you. Even Plato knew that “learning is a process of remembering.” And so, like Satyrus for Ambrose, you remember. You’ve learned from the examples of others to live by faith in Jesus Christ, trusting just as Ambrose did that “Death is not, then, an object of dread, nor bitter to those in need, nor too bitter to the rich, nor unkind to the old, nor a mark of cowardice to the brave, nor everlasting to the faithful nor unexpected to the wise.”

If the world had the capacity for genuine gratitude, it would owe its gratefulness to God and His Christians throughout history. Established in shiftless ways as this world’s salt and light—God’s gifts to the world in human form—the sour darkness of this life is made flavorful and bright (Matthew 5:13-15). Acknowledging this does not negate a heritage of “Soli Deo Gloria!” Why not? Well, let Jesus answer. He’s the One who said that through the faithfulness of Christians—the ones reflecting His light—the needful world around us will “see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (v. 16).

To God alone be the glory for all you are and do and say in service to His Gospel.

Again, thank you for your faithfulness. Know you are loved and admired by your pastor. But not only me. By others, too. Come to think of it, may I suggest something? When you arrive for worship, take a chance at putting your arms around a fellow Christian or two you’ve not visited with in a while. Tell them just how thankful you are that they’re in your life. Remind them how their example of faithfulness is not only a delightful blessing of comfort amid so many life-terrorizing things, but it is also a simple and ongoing demonstration of Saint Paul’s words to “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

Being together in the Lord to receive His gifts, and taking the opportunity while we still can to commend one another for that togetherness, is a blessing once again remembered not only at Thanksgiving, but every time we gather together in the Lord’s house to receive His wonderful gifts of forgiveness. I’m glad for that. And I’m glad to celebrate it with all of you.