Tag Archives: word and sacrament

Victory and Defeat

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After enjoying a richly fruitful event yesterday—our annual “The Body of Christ and the Public Square” conference—I’m again reminded of life’s strangeness. I acknowledge that Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hartland, Michigan, is by no means a powerhouse of financial magnitude, nor are we large by comparison to many other churches. In truth, we are a relatively unassuming bunch of Christians who gather for Word and Sacrament ministry. By God’s grace, in that gathering, we have discovered ourselves equipped for accomplishing some pretty incredible things—namely, the courageous carrying of Christ’s Gospel into the world in ways one might not expect from a troupe like us.

We do this as Confessional Lutherans—people who are disinterested in using candied entertainment to lure people through our doors. Instead, we hold to the historic Rites and Ceremonies the Church has enjoyed for two millennia. That’s been our identity for our six-and-a-half decades here in Hartland. Within the last ten years, as the world has intensified its efforts to invade and destroy all things Godly, we’ve seen our shiftless identity draw others alongside us in defense. Some of these folks are ones you only see on TV—such as Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Dinesh D’Souza, Dennis Prager, and of course, Matt Walsh, who so graciously joined us for yesterday’s conference.

How did this happen? Well, that’s a question I’m asked quite frequently.

The honest answer is, “I don’t really know.” Or perhaps better stated, “Only God knows.” Although, I suppose I could say that I’ve found myself in the right places at the right times talking with the right people. I’ll add relatively frankly that those same people found the depth and relevance of our identity refreshing. That said, even as the one running point on these conversations, I never expected any of the opportunities we enjoy today. I was doing what pastors are supposed to be doing, plain and simple. The congregation I serve was, too.

Admittedly, I’ve grown in my awareness that the times, as they say, “are a-changing.” Things are much harder for the Church these days. In fact, the way I’ll often describe this is as it relates to clergy: the days when people tipped their hats kindly to a passing clergyman on the street, listened to him with gladness giving the invocation at a public school event, or smiled as he engaged in community affairs—these are all ancient and alien experiences compared to today. Nowadays, the chance of a clergyman being attacked or spit upon by a passerby is a ready possibility. I speak from experience. Still, God leads His undershepherds accordingly. The same goes for the people who know the Good Shepherd’s voice. His mission and its subsequent peripherals haven’t changed. With that, and speaking only for myself, I’ve spoken to particular topics in specific contexts as the Spirit required. This produced results. Sometimes good. Sometimes not so good. Either way, friendships emerged. Those friendships expanded to others, eventually moving into certain spheres where an in-the-trench congregation and her pastor would subsequently find themselves engaging with some of this world’s darkest forces. And yet, God saw fit to send help from others. Some of these reinforcements speak from exceptional platforms and bear extraordinary resources.

Indeed, God has blessed us in this. And so, we go forward.

There is a saying that victory has many fathers, but defeat is an orphan. The point is that when things are going well, plenty are willing to say they had a hand in it being so. But when the threat of trouble comes, associations grow thin, and people take cover in the shadows. The thing about God’s people here at Our Savior is that, for the most part, we’ve never been a congregation with the urge to cut and run when things got tough. As it is in most congregations, individuals have departed from our fellowship for one reason or another. Some because they simply didn’t like me and wanted me gone. In fact, they worked really hard to get rid of me. That’s fine. Not to be too bold, but they’re elsewhere, and I’m still here. Apparently, God had other plans.

Others left because of our congregation’s hard stance against abortion, LGBTQ impositions, CRT, and the like. Unfortunately, and in my opinion, those folks couldn’t exchange their love of this world for alignment with God’s Word. Interestingly, some left our fellowship for various reasons, but when they discovered the theological conditions in other places, they regretted the decision and returned. They realized the essentiality of Confessional Lutheranism’s inherent resistance to the ever-altering whims of culture. And why are confessionally liturgical churches so sturdy? At some point, I’ll probably write a book about it. Until I do, let’s just say it’s because their identity isn’t bound to the here and now. They share ownership of a singular identity with countless generations of Christians before them. As a result, they’re less inclined to roll over and give it away when the enemy comes calling for something new. They will fight as their fore-parents fought, knowing they’re not in the fray for the temporal successes bound to this world’s timeline but for the timeless successes that only God can provide—the kind He has supplied to the confessing Church during her most challenging days throughout all of human history.

There’s something else to keep in this regard.

Strangely, success often appears among such people as defeat—as struggle, suffering, hardship, and adversity. If you doubt it can be this way, consider the crucifixion of Jesus—the absolute epitome of the world’s depiction of failure. And yet, by the Lord’s gruesome self-giving, the cure to Sin’s poison was accomplished and delivered, and the old evil foe, the devil, was forever defanged. The incarnation of Jesus—God’s lowering of Himself to our station—and His eventual death on the cross, these two things demonstrate the truest glory of God. Jesus and His Heavenly Father believed and acknowledged this together in John 12:23-32. In the same way, Christians who crave faithfulness to this glory rather than the glory of prestige already have a proper bearing. They can trust even as victory and defeat seem blurry, assured that God is in the fracas with them and He is using even the hardest moments for His faithful people as it serves His righteous purposes.

There’s another saying relative to this that’s worth considering. I’ve heard it said (and I’ve likely shared it before) that the real tragedy in loss is the pain experienced from almost winning. I don’t know who said it, but I certainly appreciate its insight. It’s an honest observation of how it can hurt to arrive at the finish line but not cross it. But again, for Christians, it’s not necessarily about the finish line. It’s about the race. When it comes to humanity in general, the finish line gets crossed in death. Although, in one sense, Christians have already crossed the finish line as they’ve died to themselves and were reborn in Jesus. Baptized into Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit at work for faith in the One who already crossed the threshold by His death and resurrection, ultimately winning the victory, a Christian is accounted with His finish-line triumph. Knowing this, the race becomes a joyful venturing alongside the One who promises never to leave or forsake us as we run.

Of course, just as the world would interpret the Lord’s death as defeat, so also will it see the struggles we face as Christians—and even our mortal death—in the same light. But again, Christians know better.

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Saint Paul wrote those words. His words consolidate both living and dying into one unending life.

As Paul’s words meet with the here and now, we know that the hills and valleys, the straightaways and the turns, the uneven roads and the smooth terrain all provide opportunities for God’s victorious Gospel to drive us toward the next moment. What that moment will be—how it will feel, what will be at stake, the measure of effort it will exact—we don’t know. But what we do know is that if God is for us, who can be against us (Romans 8:31). He’s on our side. The victory is His. We get to go forth in faithfulness to Him regardless of the current climate of our culture. There’s courage to be had by this knowledge.

I mean, when not even death can scare you, what would any of us have to fear if someone vomited threats on us for saying that an unborn child is a person worthy of life; or that men can’t be women and women can’t be men; or that the answer to racism is not more racism as Critical Race Theory would insist? Of course, these are rhetorical questions easily answered.

Death has been conquered. In Jesus, we have life. This is at the heart of what we do here at Our Savior in Hartland. God is blessing our efforts as they’re born from this trust in the middle of both ease and struggle. I’m glad for both because I know they serve as tools of a God who has given unbreakable promises of His loving care.

Absurdity

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One thing I appreciate about summer is that the time I spend writing tends to occur more so in the sunlight than in the darkness. It may sound absurd, but there’s a very real sense of invigoration I get during moments when the sun is streaming through my office window, not necessarily directly, but still enough to cause the glossier book covers on my shelves to glisten.

It’s even better when it’s shining directly on me as I tap away at the keyboard. It’s an easy feeling; a restorative feeling.

I just used the word “absurd” in the text above to describe your possible reaction to the scene. I did this because I’ve learned that what is sensible to one may be completely inane to another. I described something I enjoy doing in the sunshine. For you, the thought of typing on a keyboard in the sunshine is absurd. You’d rather work in the garden, or ride your bike, or swim in your pool. The funny thing is, for as sublime as either of our preferred moments in the sunshine might be, we’re both only a step from absurdity.

Here’s what I mean.

I’m a writer at heart. I could spin verbal yarns about almost anything. Just ask my kids. This is true because creativity with language has always been something I loved to explore. But the thing about writing (especially in this day and age) is that you don’t have to be all that good at it to be successful. For the most part, you only need two things. Firstly, you need to be irrational enough to put your thoughts into the public realm. I say “irrational” because, these days, willingly writing for public consumption is like volunteering to be a fox for the hounds.

Secondly, what you write needs to be reasonably intelligible. If what you say makes little sense to the reader, your efforts will have been in vain.

In short, without these two ingredients, a writer is destined for absurdity.

The same goes for your gardening or bike riding or swimming. One misplaced element and the activity becomes absurd. Planting seeds but not watering them is ridiculous. Riding a bicycle with no chain on the gears is senseless. Paddling around in a waterless pool wearing water wings is a sign you may need psychiatric help.

Christians exist at the edge of absurdity, too.

In one sense, this is true because the Gospel is already nonsensical to the observing world. It makes very little sense that the innocent would die for the guilty, that the One opposed and dejected would first be moved to forgive His dejectors and “love them to the end” (John 13:1). Indeed, this is the absurdly wonderful image of our rescuing God.

In another sense, Christians exist at the edge of absurdity’s shadowlands because as we still retain the Sin-nature, we are more than capable of claiming faith while doing so apart from faith’s key ingredients.

For example, how is it possible for faith to assert absolute devotion to Christ while only moving the person in which it dwells to attend worship three or four times a year, sometimes far less? Frankly, that’s absurd. How can faith stake a genuine claim in the Savior as the Lover of all nations and the Redeemer of the world while partitioning particular races into permanently unforgivable categories of “victim” and “oppressor” as Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory does? That doesn’t make any sense. How can faith claim to abide in Christ and yet be so distant from the truths of the Lord’s holy Word by embracing the murder of unborn children or dysphoric gender ideologies that confuse Natural Law and destroy the family? That’s farcical.

Seeds with no water won’t grow. A bike with no chain won’t go anywhere. Dive into a pool with no water and you’re likely to be maimed or killed. Exist as a Christian apart from Christ and His Word and Sacrament gifts and your faith will starve and die. A dead faith is no faith, and such a condition is guaranteed to lead into the mouth of destructive falsehoods resulting in eternal Death.

Pastors are charged with bringing this warning. Interestingly, pastors have been offering this kindly advice born from the Holy Scriptures since, well, forever. There are plenty of reasons for this. I think Luigi Pirandello, the Italian playwright and poet summed up one of them when he said, “Life is full of infinite absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not need to appear plausible, since they are true.”

Sinful humanity will do absurd things. That’s the rule, not the exception. Christians are by no means hovering outside of this tendency. I can assure you I’ve been on the giving and receiving end of this verity countless times just in the last week. Nevertheless, by genuine faith in Jesus Christ—by humble repentance and faith given by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel—we are free from sinful absurdity’s eternal consequences and empowered for waging a deliberate war against it. This is true because in contrast to the unbelieving world, even in the midst of our own insanity, we have something the world does not: the Word of God. It’s there that we learn to identify our absurdities, coming face to face with just how deeply terrible they are. But it’s also by that same Word—namely, the Gospel—we are introduced and grafted to the One who has rescued us from perpetual bondage to them (John 15:5-8), and are changed into people who love truth.

I suppose I’m sharing these things because just outside my window is a clear blue sky promising a beautiful day of sunshine. This brings to mind the forthcoming summer. Every year at this time, I want to do what I can to encourage you to be faithful during the summer months. Don’t stay away from worship and study. Be authentic. Know that you need what the Lord gives by these things. You’re already aware that you need moisture in your garden, a chain on your bike, and water in your pool. Admit your need for the key ingredients for faith delivered by way of Word and Sacrament ministry. As a Christian, measuring their value as worthy of deliberate ongoing absence just doesn’t make sense. In fact, it’s just plain absurd.

The Devil Comes Out

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It may be somewhat of an abrupt way to begin, but as a pastor, I’ve seen and experienced plenty to affirm the existence of the devil. And I’m not just talking about the philosophical deduction that comes from observing our world in chaos and concluding that he’s the only possible explanation for all of it. Instead, I’m admitting to being fairly sure I’ve met him face to face a time or two. Even further, I’m confessing to having experienced unexplainable things, that is, I’ve been brought into situations involving particular places or people, and what was going on around me didn’t play by the rules of natural expectation. I won’t give you the details, but rest assured, some would serve well as scripts for horror flicks.

I guess what I’m saying is that if you disbelieve the existence of the devil, I’m here to tell you that you’re fooling yourself. He’s real. And every now and then I find myself working with someone who has the bruises—both physically and spiritually—to prove it.

It used to be a fashionable thing to say that the devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world he doesn’t exist. I’ll be honest and say I never really fell for that line. The devil has always been captain of the blowhards. Anyone at all familiar with the scriptures will know it was his prideful arrogance that brought about his fall (Isaiah 14:12–15 and Ezekiel 28:12–17), and so I find it difficult to believe that he’d ever be willing to give up the spotlight in any room. Although, if indeed his non-existence has been one of the go-to plays in his playbook, I think he’s using it less and less these days. From some of the things I’ve read and seen lately, I get the sense he’s beginning to step from the shadows in order to let more and more people know he’s there. In fact, I think he’s not all that far from coming out of the closet completely, since that seems to be the grandest sign of nobility in our culture these days. In other words, don’t be surprised if one day you hear the pronouncement that the devil has announced his premier interview and that it’ll take place on “Ellen”—or better yet, “The View.”

But to come out would mean he’s willing to tip his BLM, Inc. hat to the existence of God, too, and wouldn’t it make life harder on the devil if people believed God actually exists?

Not as long as the devil emerges as the hero in comparison.

The devil has been hard at work in our radically individualized society framing himself as the first in a long line of “misunderstoods” who have throughout history been met by unjust systems built by self-appointed and self-righteously intolerant people—God, of course, being the chief of the intolerants. To establish this premise, the devil has been exemplary in his usage of universities and the civil government—one being a locale for learning “truth” and the other a system of legislators, judges, and lawyers in place for employing that truth on behalf of victims for the sake of justice.

Truly, it is as the old saying goes, “The devil makes his Christmas pies of lawyers’ tongues and clerks’ fingers.”

In addition to this, it sure seems the devil is more openly making his case from the reasonable premise that there are two sides to every story, and yet God has written all the so-called “official” literature on the subject, so the system is inherently rigged and isn’t to be trusted. It’s time to see things from a better perspective. And so the devil is more forthrightly suggesting that, yes, while the pathways apart from God are different, they aren’t necessarily bad. And they’re certainly not condemnable. But because God says they are, the devil becomes the good guy, and God is the over-lording villain working to support a system that needs to be completely torn down and rebuilt.

Do you see what he’s done here? Indeed, it is as Elizabeth Barrett Browning said: “The devil’s most devilish when he’s respectable.”

For the record, while so many in our world are succumbing to this kind of “critical theory”—even in the Church—I intend to stand as diligently against it as I can. I’m not going to fall for it, but rather I’m going to fight it with everything I’ve got. I hope you will, too.

But how?

I mentioned at the beginning that I’m more than certain I’ve met the devil. I mentioned that I’ve worked with people who’ve been tormented by him personally and I’ve stood against others who were clearly sent by his directives. In each of the circumstances, my practice has been the same—to advise or engage in an exorcism. But I don’t mean the kind you see in the movies. I mean the exercise of Word and Sacrament ministry—the pure preaching and teaching of the Gospel and the right administration of the holy sacraments according to Christ’s command—all of this most certainly being delivered to the world through the Church in the midst of holy worship.

In other words, every time you gather for worship, in a sense, you can be sure you are experiencing an exorcism. You are gathering together with the One true God—the Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit—who loves you, and He is giving to you His merciful gifts of forgiveness and the knowledge of the way of righteousness, and He’s driving from you the powers of Sin, Death, and the lying devil.

This is how you keep from falling for the deception.

This is how you prevent the devil from inhabiting your heart and mind.

This is how you are equipped for the seemingly endless warfare against his tireless assaults.

Apart from this, using your reason and mortal senses alone, your defenses will be weak and you’ll be fooled. But with the continued strength of the Holy Spirit by way of the Gospel of God’s grace, your fortifications will be sturdy as your otherworldly senses are heightened. By these, the devil won’t be sly enough to make it into your camp undetected. Even better, when you see him slinking into the camps of others, you’ll be ready and able to grab your weapons and run to their aid to protect and defend them.

Fishing ≠ Worship

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It would appear that our world is indefinitely fixed with the global stamp which reads “Pandemic,” and so I don’t know what the future holds. For the most part, I’d say our efforts to maintain as a church engaged in public worship together here at Our Savior in Hartland is succeeding. It hasn’t been without snags, but it’s certainly been well worth the labor. (To see what we’re doing, click here.)

All I can say now is that we’ll keep doing what we’re doing as safely as we can for as long as we can. We’ll keep this stride knowing that if we need to make changes, we will.

I should say that through all of this, the people who comprise the congregation of Our Savior have proven one thing in particular. Instead of fleeing from public Word and Sacrament ministry, we’ve shown an instinctive desire for preserving it, and an even more visceral dismay at the possibility it could be snatched away. There’s a hunger for it, and we just don’t want to exchange it for other, less communal avenues—at least until we’ve met the absolute end of the road in our abilities to make it happen. With this spirit, we’ve been far more inclined to triple our efforts rather than reduce them.

This is by no means an indictment of anyone in our midst who hasn’t wanted to participate, nor is it a finger of critique aimed at other congregations. These are serious times, and I believe so many are gauging their situations and communities with honesty. Like us, they’re balancing. They’re doing what they need to do to be faithful. I’m glad for that. That being said, however, I’ll admit to being surprised by the road sign in front of a nearby Methodist church that reads something like, “We’re closed for March and April. Enjoy the break. Take this time to go fishing.”

Enjoy the break? Go fishing?

Hmm.

Putting the best construction on this, I’m hoping their sign committee (if they have such a thing) is just trying to be funny. Or perhaps they’re using insider terms, words that only the congregation members will understand. Maybe the sign is a wink to a recent sermon which preached that even as they’re no longer gathering together formally, they’ll be receiving God’s Word in other ways, and as they do, their communal focus will be to become better fishers of men among their neighbors. Still, the wording of the sign sure makes it look like taking a break from worship is a good thing, that somehow leisurely activities are viable alternatives to remembering the Sabbath Day and keeping it holy.

Thinking on the Third Commandment, Luther explains in the Small Catechism: “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”

Pandemic or not, the Church has never been underwhelmed by people who bear the name “Christian” and yet betray a lack of love for holding the preaching and teaching of God’s Word in worship as important. The last thing I want to see is a church broadcasting such a disposition as good practice. It isn’t good. It’s ungodly. It’s deadly to the soul. It embraces a course of spiritual starvation that robs the Christian heart of hope.

On second thought, I want to take back what I said above about not knowing what the future holds. I know plenty of what the future holds.

I’m not talking about the financial markets or executive orders. I’m not talking about whether or not the store shelves will finally be stocked like they used to be. I’m not even talking about which of us, if any, will contract the coronavirus.

I’m talking about Death.

We’re all going to die. Virus or not, Death has ten thousand other doors for us to pass through, and at some point in our lives, each of us will go through one.

Being a reader of poetry, I appreciate how so many versifiers throughout history have observed and shared this fact. Dorothy Parker’s words come to mind:

It costs me never a stab nor squirm
To tread by chance upon a worm.
“Aha, my little dear,” I say,
“Your clan will pay me back one day.”

And of course, there’s Emily Dickinson’s infamous rhyme:

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.

Poems like these, no matter who wrote them, are observances of the point that we’re all going to die. They remind us that never in the history of the world has there ever been a man, woman, or child from any race, color, or creed who could stand his or her ground when mortal Death came calling, saying to the dreadful specter, “I refuse to go.”

All have gone. All will go. And God affirms this. The wage for Sin is death (Romans 6:23a).

And yet, there’s something else I know about the future. It’s an awareness fed by a divine wellspring of hope born from the Holy Spirit through the Word of the Gospel. I know that Death doesn’t have the last word for believers in Christ.

“…but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23b).

Through faith in Jesus Christ, eternal life is the final decree echoing well beyond Death’s ten-thousand doors and into an everlasting future.

It was François Rabelais (a 15th century French monk who was, unfortunately, overly influenced by humanism) who said with uncertainty at his Death something like, “I am going to the great perhaps.”

These words were spoken by a man who traded the truth of Mankind’s absolute depravity, as well as the certainty of an all-surpassing salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, for the deficient belief that, perhaps, mankind had a chance by his own merits, or perhaps through philosophy and science, we might gain better certainty of our eternal future.

Oh, the uncertainty of the great “perhaps”! Oh, the terror of doubt at the hour of Death!

But there’s no need for such uncertainty. Christians have certainty. The Gospel Word of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection for our salvation is the beacon of eternal hope, and Christians lean into the headwinds of the future with it well in hand. Its luminescence is fed by the Word of God and His holy Sacraments—the verbal and visible means of grace Christ has established and then mandated for His Church to gather and distribute. The Lord warns that without the oil of these means continually being poured into the lamps of our hearts, the daily readiness of our hope in Him will be extinguished. No question. If the flame of faith isn’t being fed by this fuel, it cannot burn with the torch-like strength necessary for withstanding the squalls of this attacking world (Matthew 25:1-13).

No wonder our God commands for us to go to church (Hebrews 10:19-31). No wonder we hear our Lord say over and over again to so many just how important it is to hear the Word of God and keep it (Luke 11:28). And by the way, by keeping His Word, He doesn’t mean in the shallow sense of simply knowing and obeying it, as is often preached by so many. The word in the Greek is phylassontes (φυλάσσοντες). It means to fulfill one’s orders as a guard—to protect and defend a most precious possession, and to make sure no one can steal it away, being ready to raise a sword and shield against anyone or anything trying to steal it away. The harder truth in this is that sometimes the “anyone” is us and the “anything” is fishing.

Pondering all of this as I tap away at the keyboard this morning, I suppose there’s one more thing I know about the future.

What we do now will shape our practices later. Without absolute connections to Word and Sacrament ministry, people will drift away. It’s the nature of Man, and there’s plenty of data external to the Word of God to prove this. In the midst of a time when the sources for Word and Sacrament seem to be far more limited—a time that could feel a little like a spiritual drought—don’t let go of God’s Word. Get it from faithful sources where and when you can. If you can go to church, do it. If you’re concerned about being in public spaces during this time, stay home. Either way, commit to regular devotions, to watching your church’s services that are shared online, to hearing the Word of God and keeping it.

Let fishing be what you do after your most valuable possession has been secured and the oil in your lamp has been replenished.