Tag Archives: worship

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.

New Year’s Eve, 2023

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What I’m about to share happened while waiting in line at the Ace Hardware near my home a few days before Christmas. Jennifer and I stopped there for some miscellaneous items. Essentially, the visit went as follows:

Finishing the sale and handing the man in sleep pants his receipt, the youthful cashier said with a smile, “Thanks for coming in. And Merry Christmas.”

His trajectory already toward the door, the man stopped mid-stride and turned back, pausing long enough to stir concern among us for what he might say.

“Ma’am,” he started, “thanks for saying that.” But before relief could form in any of us, he continued, “You know, I’m so G*# D@*%ed tired of people saying ‘Happy Holidays’! It’s Christmas, for cryin’ out loud! People need to stop with the ‘Happy Holidays’ %*@# and say ‘Merry Christmas’!”

Nodding to the elderly woman in line behind him as if expecting her agreement, he looked back to the cashier. “Keep it up,” he said, walking backward toward the door. “You’re doin’ God’s work.”

Forcing her smile, the cashier replied, “Thanks again,” followed by an equally strained, “Merry Christmas.”

The elderly woman was visibly bothered. And why wouldn’t she be? She comes from a strange and alien land by comparison. Where she’s from, they don’t speak that way to one another, let alone adorn Christmas in vernacular sludge. I’m an inhabitant of a similar land, often considering myself a part-time resident of the 21st century. In many ways, I only visit out of necessity. I said as much to the woman in line.

“I’m not from that man’s world.”

She knew what I meant, responding, “Me either.”

Before I go any further, it might surprise you that I’m skipping over the man’s vocabulary choices. That seems too easy. You already know that his defense of “Merry Christmas” was an obnoxious contradiction in terms (Romans 12:1-2). Instead, I prefer to approach the event from a less obvious angle: the man’s sleep pants.

For starters, I know that 21st-century culture prides itself on self-pleasing individualism. That pride sometimes produces a desire to buck the system. Admittedly, bucking the system is sometimes required. But that’s not necessarily self-pleasing individualism. It can sometimes be a response born from the knowledge of right and wrong. God’s Law is written on our hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3), and if a person digs deeply enough, he’ll know when to abide and when to push back. Examining the strata, he’ll also discover that societies have their written and unwritten rules. It might not seem all that important, but I’m pretty sure an unwritten rule common to most is that what a person wears to bed is not what he or she should wear in public. The rule has little to do with what a person may or may not find most comfortable. Instead, it deals with liberty’s responsibility, namely, one’s role relative to context and the people in it.

No, sleep pants in specific public settings aren’t inherently wrong. A person wrestling with illness might be found wearing them at a doctor’s office. But that same person, healthy or sick, would not wear them to a court appearance or wedding.

Why?

Most normal folks don’t need to be told the answer, which proves the unspoken rule—the innate standard that fosters and preserves dignity, resulting in mutual respect. In its simplest and most broad-sweeping form, it knows that a society of conscientious and dignified citizens makes life better for everyone. More precisely, it understands that personal liberty does not mean a person is free to do whatever he or she wants. Liberty comes with responsibility. A society of citizens who think they can be, do, and say anything they want without consequence is doomed to act in ridiculous and contradictory ways. It’ll end up insisting that men can be women and women can be men, and it’ll expect everyone to agree. On the road toward doom, it will have increased its production and acceptability of crass scenarios like the one in Ace Hardware. That was a snapshot of the confused self-centeredness that acts without any concern for the people around it, that paradoxically slathers the dignified greeting “Merry Christmas” with the foulest words any world’s vocabulary can afford and then, unsurprisingly, nods to others, expecting them to praise its irreverence as noble.

What foolishness.

A new year begins tomorrow. An online friend shared the following quotation: “Every year, you resolve to change yourself. This year, resolve to be yourself.” I don’t know who spoke those words initially, but I disagree. I don’t want to settle for being myself. I want to be better than myself. This isn’t only for my benefit but for yours, too.

I’ve written plenty about how New Year’s resolutions are a good practice. Every year, I attempt to make personal changes. I do this because I know myself. I know I’m incredibly flawed. And so, by faith, I’m less inclined to remain settled in these flaws. I want to fight them (Galatians 5:16-18). I want to be better. I want to reach higher, just as Saint Paul encouraged: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:1-4).

However, remember: “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm” (Proverbs 13:20). In other words, to change, sometimes one’s surroundings must first be changed.

Thinking about the man at Ace Hardware, if I could make a resolution for him, it would be to spend a little time each day with citizens of the alien worlds owned by the elderly woman behind him in line. I’d have him binge-watch I Love Lucy or Bonanza instead of the drivel on Netflix. Or better yet, I’d send him to Dickens and Twain, to Austen and Fitzgerald. I’d send him to places where men respected shop clerks and the elderly, where men were women’s protectors, where language mattered, and so on. I’d send him to those distant realms for a few moments each day of the forthcoming year.

I don’t know what the effects might be. Still, it couldn’t hurt. I know someone who once spent a year in England and returned with the hint of a British accent and afternoon tea as routine. We become that in which we immerse ourselves.

Since we’re talking about it, how about this for a New Year’s resolution?

If you’re a Christian who’s been apart from your church family for a while, imagine how you’ve changed since you’ve been away. Now, imagine the benefits of returning. Imagine the eternal value of regular visits with the Gospel of Christ’s wonderful forgiveness. By extension, I’ll bet it wouldn’t be long before certain tendencies were traded away as strangely foreign. Receiving a steady diet of Christ’s forgiveness (which God’s Word promises will produce fruits of faithfulness [Galatians 5:22-23]), a person is bound to stumble into agreement with Saint Paul’s instruction to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). That same person will likely align with Paul’s instruction to “stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15), and to “let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).

Who knows? Either way, it’s worth considering. And may I suggest giving it a try in the New Year?

Christmas Day, 2023

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Merry Christmas to you and your family!

One of the Bible’s principal thrusts is not only that humanity needs saving but that we occupy a dreadfully weary world. A simple glance at the surrounding world measured against an honest self-inventory will more than reveal just how much we need Christmas.

When I say we need Christmas, I suppose I mean at least two things.

First, I’d say Christmas brings refreshment to the world. It’s nice to have at least one day during the year when, for the most part, even our society expects people to think of others before themselves. The longstanding practice of Christmas gift-giving demonstrates this.

Although, it is true that people wrap and give gifts for various reasons or occasions. Still, if an unfamiliar onlooker required an explanation for the gift, the giver would unhesitatingly explain its purpose, whether to celebrate an anniversary, birthday, or whatever. With such an explanation comes the assumption that everyone giving gifts at the gathering is doing so for the same reason. One of the oldest Christmas traditions is to give gifts. No matter what anyone believes concerning the holiday, there’s no denying that a Christmas gift remembers Christmas. Ultimately, to remember Christmas is to honor Christ, intentionally or unintentionally.

Christians do so intentionally. That’s why churches aren’t bare on Christmas Day. At least, they shouldn’t be. I dare say Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hartland, Michigan, will have people in its pews who know the second reason the world needs Christmas.

The kind of people who venture out on Christmas Day intent on gathering in worship know full well that the point of Christmas isn’t gift-giving. This is true because they have a better sense. This sense—faith—knows that if our hearts aren’t set on the gift of Christ, we’ll never be satisfied by anything we might discover wrapped and resting beneath a Christmas tree. Unsurprisingly, the folks bearing this better sense manage to keep the Christmas vigil into and through this weary world’s less glittery days. This is true because they know and believe all year long alongside Saint Paul, who wrote “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…” (1 Timothy 1:15). They rejoice each day alongside Saint John, who insisted that “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). They know their need for rescue from the all-consuming powers of darkness no mortal in history has ever been able to conquer. Christmas observes this world’s timeline and says, “This is when it began.” It celebrates with precision the One who stepped into this world’s dreariness to begin the impossible feat. It marks the One who came to give us far more than seasonal refreshment. He came to win eternal rest from Sin, Death, and Satan’s dreadful curse.

Yes, Christmas is refreshing. Yes, Christmas is traditionally celebrated through gift-giving. But Christians know there’s far more to it than these things.

Interestingly, when it comes to Jesus, Christians know the gift-giving order will always be reversed at His divine party. We’ll gather in His house for worship. As we do, the Gospel gifts of life and salvation won by the Christmas Savior are abundantly showered upon us. It’s the only birthday party where the One being celebrated gives cosmically grander gifts than the attendees could ever afford or even think to bring.

Indeed, we need Christmas. Thankfully, we have it. And you’ve been invited to its tremendous festival. The Gospel of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection for your redemption is not only the gift but also the invitation. By the power of the Holy Spirit at work for faith, receive it—and then act on it! Attend the party! Rejoice with the One who put aside His divine glory, choosing instead the lowly confines of a manger, ultimately foreshadowing His forthcoming work as the suffering servant. Celebrate with the One who did all of this for you! In all my years as a pastor, I’ve never met anyone who regretted coming to the Lord’s Christmas celebration.

Again, Merry Christmas to you!

Christmas Eve, 2023

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Merry Christmas to you!

A favorite moment in the Church Year for many, Christmas Eve, is upon us. It’s beloved for plenty of reasons. For many, Christmas is little more than a break from work or school or, perhaps, an obligatory time for family gatherings and feasting. For faithful Christians, it’s so much more. It’s a day among days bearing a unique sense of awareness. It enjoys the best dimension of family togetherness and the greatest feast. It’s Christmas—or, more precisely, the Christ-mass! Believers gather to celebrate the beginning of God’s inbreaking through the person and work of Christ (Greek Χριστός). Christians have known for centuries that the best way to do this is by assembling at the divine table of the Lord’s Supper (Latin Missa), doing so fully aware that the same gracious Lord who gives Himself there was once an infant in a manger destined to redeem the world by submitting His very body and blood into Death for our forgiveness.

Christians know the Christmas event deserves reverent contemplation. One of the best ways to reflect is through Christian hymnody. Christmas is most certainly a time for singing some of the best-loved in Christian tradition. “Silent Night, Holy Night.” “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.” “Angels We Have Heard on High.” “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Time has tested these musical portraits, and they’ve never been found wanting.

Those who know me best will know I have favorite hymns. During Lent, “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted” gets me in the gut. I cannot navigate past its third stanza without shuddering. It’s there the hymnographer, Thomas Kelly, puts on paper what my Christian soul knows, but my fleshly self so easily forgets. He rhymes that Sin and Death are powerful specters haunting my every moment, and in the bloody dreadfulness of the cross, I can rightly reckon their fullest cost, ultimately paid by Christ. See for yourself. Those who know the ghostly tune will be hard-pressed not to hum as they read.

Ye who think of sin but lightly
Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed,
See who bears the awful load;
’Tis the Word, the Lord’s anointed,
Son of Man and Son of God.

During Holy Week, namely Good Friday, “Sing My Tongue the Glorious Battle” is a must. With our pipe organ thundering through the stratosphere, we steer straight into the fracas of Sin’s stronghold. We don’t go meekly. Jesus is the meek One here. He is this way for us. We follow in confidence, finding ourselves on Golgotha’s bloody soil, our innards becoming a strange mixture of sadness and joyful assurance as we look upon the One who is Himself the victor and the emblem of triumph:

Sing my tongue, the glorious battle;
Sing the ending of the fray.
Now above the cross, the trophy,
Sound the loud triumphant lay;
Tell how Christ, the world’s redeemer,
As a victim won the day.

I have favorite hymns for every season of the Church Year. Interestingly, when I set them side by side, I notice something familiar to all of them: they’re in acute alignment with Saint Paul, who insisted, “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23). As each hymn carries along, eventually, there’s a moment when the hymn writer lays bare for his audience the brutal reality of Christ’s death for our redemption. In other words, no matter what appears central to a particular Church season’s thrust, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for mankind’s rescue will always be the seed from which it sprouts. Typically, you’ll find what I’m describing right in the hymn’s middle. Not always. But usually. A favorite hymn we’ll sing tonight, the lullabying “What Child is This,” is no different.

Only three stanzas long, its middle stanza leaves the quiet splendor of Bethlehem, reaching instead for Golgotha’s brutal moments. It interprets the Lord’s strange arrival in lowliness through the bloodstained lens of what He came to endure. What’s more, He didn’t do it for Himself. He did it for us. He, the silent Word, is even now pleading for us. Again, see for yourself:

Why lies He in such mean estate
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christian, fear, for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The babe, the son of Mary!

Tonight at Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hartland, Michigan, stanza two of “What Child is This?” will be handled far differently musically from stanzas one and three. The second stanza’s words require tones that rearrange a pew sitter’s insides and very nearly rattle the roof. Why? Not only because Christmas itself deserves it but because the message—the Gospel—deserves it. And these words will get what they require. Why wouldn’t they? The historical moments they describe converged into a final moment that shook our planet on its axis, causing the rocks to split (Matthew 27:50-51).

I hope that you’ll experience this thundering message for yourself. Go to church. Join your Christian family in celebration of the Christ-child’s birth. Know He came to save you. Rejoice alongside the angels at His arrival. Heaven has pierced Earth’s veil. God has come. He didn’t send a representative. He became human flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). He came Himself. Believe this. On the tiptoes of childlike faith, look into the manger and see this great work’s beginning. By that same faith, see in His tiny eyes a distant cross. He’s already looking there. He has you in mind. Indeed, you mean that much to Him.

Merry Christmas!

Pieces of the Puzzle

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Did you know there’s an aspect of human development called childhood amnesia? I didn’t. At least, not until I went looking for information on childhood memory formation. Essentially, childhood amnesia is as it sounds. So many things happened to us when we were little that we just cannot remember. As we grow, a pool of various experiences becomes more and more accessible to memory recall. Scientists used to think that this happened around the ages of seven or eight. Now they believe it happens much earlier, closer to two or three years old.

And so, here’s what prompted my memory-formation search.

The Thoma family enjoys assembling puzzles. On occasion, Jennifer will fetch one from our shelved collection and dump it on the island in the kitchen. Within minutes, one, two, three, and then all of us are digging through the fragments, looking for the most important startup pieces—the edge pieces. The 1,000-piece puzzle currently occupying our countertop is one I had custom-made as a Christmas gift for the family a few years ago. It’s a wintertime family image taken in front of some pine trees at our former home. The kids were still very young at the time. For perspective, Evelyn is now fourteen. She was a toddler, barely three years old, when the photo was taken.

While assembling herself in the puzzle, Evelyn mentioned that she remembered the image’s moment well. To prove her recollection, she described the event in detail. She remembered Jennifer using one of our old wooden barstools as a camera stand. She remembered her mother taking test shots to sort out the camera’s timer. She remembered snuggling into Harrison beside her. Her ability to recount the details was impressive.

Standing beside her at the puzzle, I attempted silently to conjure my earliest memories. The first that came to mind was sitting in worship at Trinity Lutheran Church in Danville, Illinois. I remember sitting next to my brother, Michael, near the front. I remember flipping through the pages of a book with a red cover. I remember wondering why the people around me said they were “hardly sorry” for their sins. As it would go, that was the 1941 edition of The Lutheran Hymnal, and the word wasn’t “hardly” but “heartily.”

Another that came to mind was being in the bed of a truck at a drive-in. I don’t remember the movie that was showing. Although, I remember explorers, an island, and dinosaurs. It wasn’t King Kong. Kong is hard to forget. If I had to guess, it was The Land that Time Forgot, a film that was instinctively familiar when I discovered it on TV as a Sunday matinee. Concerning the drive-in, I remember a magnificent screen, an expanse of cars, and the tinny sound from a tiny speaker.

There are more memories I could share. I’m sure you have your own, too. What struck me about mine and Evelyn’s is that our earliest memories felt like primitive echoes of who we are today. For example, when it comes to family, Evelyn is all in. She loves her family. If we plan to do anything, the discussion is irrelevant if the whole family cannot participate. This rule remains even now that Josh is married. Interestingly, one of Evelyn’s first memories is a family event captured in a photo. Relative to my first conjurable memories, I’m a Lutheran pastor, and I absolutely love movies, especially the kinds meant to scare.

It’s no secret that a person’s childhood experiences are foundational. Like the puzzle Evelyn and I were putting together, they’re crucial pieces to what will become a more complete picture. I suppose I’m speculating that a child’s first memories mark childhood experiences that had incredibly formative power.

This past week, I had these things in mind while rehearsing with our school children for the children’s Christmas service. The kindergarten and first-grade students, the children who are likely emerging from the amnesia stage right now, sat closest to me. I watched them. As I did, I wondered which among them might have as a first memory what they were currently experiencing. Would any among them remember the twinkling décor adorning every corner of their church’s massive worship space? Would they recall the church’s mighty pipe organ lifting their joyful voices to the very threshold of heaven? Would they one day reminisce about how they were so excited to sing “Joy to the World” that they kept singing too soon? Would they remember their teachers whispering at times, “Just wait, not yet,” gently quieting them for the appropriate moment to start singing? Would little Isabella, a first-grader sitting where she could spy Pastor Thoma behind the Christmas tree, remember how he smiled and winked at her every chance he could and how she smiled so brightly back? 

I hope so.

One thing is certain, though. Children kept from such things won’t have these memories. Ever. And this doesn’t just apply to the more fanciful time of Christmas. It’s true all year long. If parents don’t bring their children to church, it should be expected that a desire for Christ and His gifts will be foreign to their future selves. In other words, it’s more likely the puzzle pieces at the edge of their identities will border a future image that doesn’t include Jesus.

Unfortunately, it’s during these crucial developmental stages that parents are most tempted to stay away from worship. Apart from the dreadful poison of outright unbelief, what would keep a Christian parent from bringing their children to the Lord’s house? Well, that’s an easy one. It’s the struggle. Every parent who has (or had) toddlers knows it. Indeed, the toddling stage is simultaneously the most demanding, and yet, the most fertile.

I wrote a piece in 2020 after seeing something occur during Sunday morning worship here at Our Savior in Hartland. It was the all-too-familiar scene of a young mother wrestling with her toddlers. In short, she got more of a cardio workout in worship that day than she could have at the gym. Still, for as wild as the scene may have been, she was an inspiration to many. I told her as much, being sure to give her glowing encouragement. The very next day, I wrote and posted the note to parents I’ve included below. If you’d like to read (and share) the original, you may do so by clicking here. I ask one thing of you, though. As you read it, keep the “first memories” thought in mind. Remember that every minute of the day for our little ones has first-memory potential. Make it so that times with Jesus in worship will be more than one of them. Make sure they start with these pieces of the puzzle.

___________

Dearest Christian Parents struggling with little children during worship,

I know you feel like a mess on Sunday mornings.

I know you feel like every resonating sound in the church nave is coming from your pew. I know you feel like every eye is aimed at you in disgust. I know you feel like everything you are doing is useless and that the little ones in your care just can’t seem to settle in. I know you feel like you’re not getting anything from worship because you’re just too busy doing everything you can to ensure your children and, perhaps, the people in your immediate blast radius are getting the barest scraps between fidgety whines.

I know you feel overwhelmed—like the struggle is never-ending. I know you’re often teetering at the edge of calling it quits before you even roll out of bed.

But don’t.

Know that your children belong right where they are. Sure, take the kids out when it’s clear they need recalibrating, but get them back into the service as soon as you can. Do this knowing that you’re being faithful. Know that the struggle will end one day, and as you venture toward that day, your kids need you to do what you’re doing right now. Know that your gracious God promises to bless your every effort all the way there.

Know that you are being fed in worship. It may not feel like it but know that you are. Know that all of us—an assembly of people with countless distractions unavailable to human senses—are gathered by faith into the presence of our gracious Savior, assured that His reaching into us with His loving kindness hardly depends on our acumen. Again, rest assured, He’s at work there for you just as much as He is for everyone else in the room.

Finally, you need to know that your pastor is rooting for you. I’ve got your six. I’m watching the folks watching you, and if I ever get the sense they have forgotten what it was like to be in your shoes, I’ll be there in a heartbeat to remind them of the Lord’s words to “Let the little children come to me and do not forbid them,” and to steer them to the familiar relief they experienced when others gave encouragement rather than scowls.

Again, don’t give up. Your laboring—worked by the Holy Spirit for faithfulness to Christ and in love for your children—is by no means in vain.

With gladness, appreciation, and admiration, Your Pastor

Filling and Trimming Your Lamp

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’re all in this together.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Eve of Thanksgiving

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Similar is Not the Same

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crème of chicken soup is not chicken noodle soup.

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

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

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

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

Staring

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Did your mother ever tell you it’s rude to stare? I’m pretty sure mine did. Granted, it was typically an instruction given relative only to people. Parents experience an entirely different form of concern when their children sit and stare at nothing. Good thing I’m the only parent in the entire building right now. Here I sit, staring out my office window. Although, I am not entranced by a strange-looking person, nor am I being drawn into a void of nothingness. Instead, a reasonably hefty groundhog is wandering around outside my window doing whatever groundhogs do. He appears to be busy scurrying and popping up and scurrying again. At one point, he popped up to look in my window. We saw each other. I said hello and told him he looked well-fed. He dropped back down to scurry away, only to pop up again as if to say, “Same to you, buddy.”

There are plenty of other things I should be doing right now. For one, I should be tidying up my sermon for this morning. It’s written, but it isn’t ready. And yet, I’m watching a groundhog. It’s not as if I haven’t seen one before. Or that groundhogs are all that interesting. It’s something else. It’s more that feeling one gets on occasion. I’m guessing you know the one. You begin looking at something, and after a time, you realize you’re locked on it in a lazy stare. You’re not necessarily interested in whatever you’re observing. You’re just looking. And as you do, you leave yourself for a moment.

Have you ever been doing this when someone suddenly asked you a question? One way to know it’s happening is that it takes several seconds to realize you’ve been asked a question and then a few more seconds to answer. And when you give a somewhat disjointed reply (because you began speaking while climbing back into yourself mentally), the person doesn’t thank you but inquires, “Are you okay?” I suppose it wouldn’t be out of order to respond, “Everything’s fine. I just stepped away from the control panel for a moment.”

Returning to the fact that I’m staring at the local wildlife when I should be working on my sermon, I get the sense that staring at someone can’t be all that bad. The Gospel reading for today is Mark 8:1-9. As Jesus directed the hungry multitude to sit, I imagine His disciples were staring at Him. Aware of the dire situation, they’d already asked Him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” (v. 4). Rather than initiating a food search, the Lord instructed them to stay right where they were. That was weird. It invited astonishment, the kind that could easily become staring because it didn’t want to miss what might happen next.

My wife, Jennifer, is a gifted photographer. She’ll never admit it, but she has a visual sense about her that few others do. It’s a sense that employs staring—not the lazy kind I admitted to this morning, but the intently honed kind. Jennifer can spot things among casual scenery that most others will miss. Genuine photographers have this skill. Painters and poets do, too. They see things that others miss and then lock onto them. They look without flinching, observing the microscopic details. They learn by staring. They know a glimpse isn’t enough. They know you must look intently to truly see. By looking this way, they know they’ll be led to better, more substantial things.

When it comes to Jesus, this should be everyone’s rule. He’s worth far more than a superficial glance. Everything He says, everything He does, you don’t want to miss. There’s a purpose in all of it, and it’s entirely for His onlookers. That’s one reason any seasoned preacher will admit that even the most uncomplicated Gospel narrative can provide a lifetime of sermons. Every little detail relative to Jesus’ person and work—every single motion and word in every single context or conversation—aims for the miracle of humanity’s salvation. That salvation, and all its accessory minutia, must be examined and preached. To do so is to connect with the instance being studied and be prepared to understand other instances.

For example, observing Jesus here in Mark 8:1-9, I imagine that later on in the upper room on Maundy Thursday, when the Lord took the bread, gave thanks, and then broke and gave it to His disciples (just as He did with the multitudes in the wilderness), there were words and actions used that the disciples had seen before. It was an entirely different context, yet it was reminiscently similar. At a minimum, having paid close attention in the wilderness with the starving crowds, they’d know the Lord’s ability to take a single piece of bread in hand and, prior to giving it to anyone else, make it so much more than before He touched it. In the wilderness, one piece in the palm of His hand became five, and then ten, and then thousands upon thousands, enough that the uneaten leftovers filled seven baskets. Surely, a single morsel in the Lord’s Supper, surely a tiny sip from the Lord’s chalice, could be more than well-wishing symbolism. Certainly, Jesus can take hold of mundane things and extend their potential beyond human faculties for reason or comprehension.

Either way, these things are lost on those who are only willing to give Jesus a superficial glance, one that assumes it can sufficiently sort Him out in a drive-by interaction, ultimately considering Him to be just one spiritual guru among many. You can’t just pop up for an occasional peek, fitting him into your scurrying, and expect to be called a Christian. It’s better to stop and stare. You should watch Him closely. You should listen to Him carefully. You should mind what He’s doing, and as He does it, hang onto His every word (Luke 19:48).

Knowing that Christ is the Word made flesh, the same rule naturally applies to the Holy Scriptures. God’s Word is more than worth an irregular glance. Luther is the one who said, “If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree and every word a little branch, I have shaken every one of these branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant.” In a mere practical sense, for Luther, a tree is a tree—until you examine it. When you stare into its branches with investigative eyes, you’ll see far more than a forgettable object with a trunk and green stuff growing out of it. You’ll discover details. You’ll see one branch leading to another—flowering adornments reaching out from countless stems covered in intricately contoured surfaces. You’ll find things living among the tree’s branches, lively creatures that call the tree home.

By the way, I think most pew-sitters can tell the difference between a pastor preaching from a drive-by glance at Jesus and one who has stopped to stare at Him. It’s not only revealed by the preacher’s care with words, but by the details his words are in place to carry. Telling the listeners about a tree is nothing compared to using words that lift them from the earth to set them into its branches. A tree remains an inconsequential construct until the preacher examines and then introduces you to it. That’s a reality relative to language.

Having said that, I should get back to the sermon-writing effort. In the meantime, consider your own willingness to stop and stare at Jesus. Is He of more interest to you than an occasional visit to church? Driving by, is He more than just another object decorating your intellect’s limited landscape? Is His value for life in this world and the next far more substantial than your rarely-opened Bible would betray? I hope so.

How about this? Pick a narrative from any of the four gospels. Long or short, read the same narrative every day for a week. After each textual visit, take some time to savor it. Think about what you read. Let yourself stare into it for a while. Do this with the same text each day for a week, taking a moment to jot down something you notice with each visit. My guess is that each interaction will provide a unique “something.” You might not understand the something right away. Still, you will have taken it in. And you’ll likely recall it right in the middle of another narrative somewhere else that may lead you toward understanding it. You may even begin to notice particular trajectories, ones that lead you from simple uses for water, food and drink, and so on, to other, more substantial truths—ones suggesting that there may be more to faith’s origin than you knew; or there may be more to baptism than you first thought; or there may be more to the Lord’s Supper than the one-size-fits-all church or the meme-assembled theologies have taught you.