As the Church of Christ, we find ourselves positioned between two great victories.  Behind us is the victory of our Lord who died upon the cross and was raised again.  That moment of human history spelled the end of the power of sin and death.  Now we await the second victory, the final liberation of the world from sin, evil and death at the re-appearing of our Savior when He comes again at the end of the age.  We are in a period of waiting and expectation, with the promise that the One for whom we wait will not disappoint us.

However, Jesus warns us that the interim period would not be easy.  As the day of salvation approaches, he warns, there will be greater conflicts and outpouring of evil among people and natural disasters in the earth.  These are the signs that should alert us to the fact that we live in a world that is in need of redemption.  Jesus says, “When these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).

Look up!  Raise your heads!  That runs counter to the advice of the world and our own natural instincts.  When things start flying all around us, as one Biblical scholar put it, the inclination is to duck, retreat, and keep your head down.  Instead Jesus calls us to stand up, raise our heads, and be out in front.  Why?  Because as things get worse, and the need for a Savior becomes more obvious, it becomes all the clearer to those who believe that God will act to save His people.  Simultaneously we stand to make bold witness that the Christ for whom we await brings redemption, salvation from all that threatens us.  To lift up our heads is an act of faith and witness to the promises of God that await us and which have been assured to us in the first victory of our Lord at the cross and the empty tomb.  In a year of covid struggle and isolation; with tragic hurricanes, wildfires, and erupting volcanos;  terroristic acts and random shootings; a country that’s politicized in all things, now is the time for us to strike a posture of courage and hope.  It’s not a time for us to take a low profile.  With the worship themes of these last Sundays in the church year past and our entering the time of Advent in the new church year we hear God’s call to renew our expectation and hope in the return of our Lord, and to stand up boldly to call the world to look to Him for salvation!  May we boldly share the forgiveness and strength that only Jesus can bring!

Maranatha!  “Come Lord Jesus!”  In His love, Pastor Craig

How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to me?  I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.  I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people.  Psalm 116:12-14

Can you believe it?  Already there are commercials in the media pushing the world’s idea of Christmas!  Coupled with the news reports that if we don’t shop now for gifts, we may not find them when Christmas arrives!  It’s almost as if Thanksgiving and Advent run the risk of getting lost in our Christmas preparations.  Yet there’s Thanksgiving and Advent ahead to prepare us to celebrate our Savior’s birth.

With November how important it is for us to remember Thanksgiving.  It becomes the heart-set to the Advent and Christmas seasons to follow.  This morning I read Psalm 116 in my devotion.  The question raised by the psalmist gives us Thanksgiving pause:  “How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to me?”

During gift purchasing for the celebration of Christmas, many of us will jokingly complain about how hard it is to buy a gift for the person who has everything.  The joking pun (especially by the fiscally minded like me) is to then say, “I will just give them the gift of myself.  With God, it’s not just a joking matter, but a serious challenge.  God does have everything!  Everything, including ourselves, is the work of His creative hands.  This puts us into a position of obligation.  We owe our lives and everything we have to God.  So, how do we respond to the psalmist’s question?  How do we express ourselves to the God who has given each of us life and eternal life in His Son, Jesus Christ?

Fortunately, we’re not left to guess.  The Bible tells us what God is looking for from us.  He is looking for nothing more than a sincere “thank you!”  God expects us to receive His generous gifts with a thankful heart.  That’s what Thanksgiving is all about.  How could we not be moved to gratitude when we think of the lengths to which God has gone to create us and then to redeem us in the death and resurrection of Jesus?  Our heavenly Father loves us so much He gives the gift of His Son!

God in His Word repeatedly proclaims that He expects our thanks be given to Him in worship!  After this time of covid and remote worship, maybe it’s too easy to brush off in-person worship with the comment, “I can worship God anywhere, at home or even on the golf course.”  Well, no, the psalmist says, “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.  I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people.”  As I count my blessings this Thanksgiving, high on the list is to be back worshiping in person with my brothers and sisters in Christ.  When we gather to worship, whether during the time of Thanksgiving at our Thanksgiving Eve Service at 7 p.m. on the 24th or during Advent  with in person devotions at 7 on December 1, 8 and 15 or on Christmas Eve (5 and 8 p.m.) or Christmas Day (11 a.m.) or any Sunday, it is with the purpose of thanking and praising God, giving to Him the only thing which He really asks in return for His generous blessings:  the grateful worship offered to Him in faith and love.

May our worship in November/December swell with the hearts and voices of God’s thankful people who take time each week to thank God for all His goodness to us!   Love in Him, Pastor Craig

With the 4th of July on Sunday this year we have opportunity to do some serious reflecting on what we enjoy by way of our citizenship.  It’s a great time to count our blessings and realize that there are too many of them to number.  How about the beauty and abundance of our land.  The stores and our fridges packed with good food.  How about medical science and the miracles that become part of our lives to fight covid and cancer and so on.  We are blessed with freedom and liberties (my writing this message and our gathering to worship on July 4th) that many throughout the world are denied.  Americans have every reason on the 4th of July to sing about how God has “shed His grace” on us all!

It’s important for us to be reminded of these many blessings because we so easily take them for granted or use them selfishly.  What we do with what we have is a reflection of the kind of people we are.  God did not give us all of these good things just to serve our own needs and wants.  As we use them for the good of others we show and share the heart of Christ.  

Take to heart the words of Galatians 5:13 — “You … were called to be free.  But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.”  We are the ones called to freedom:  freedom from a way of life that is self-serving, freedom from a way that leads to death and destruction, freedom from sin and pain that makes life so hard to live.  May we who have been freed by Christ from sin and death now live as the servants of others!  Have a happy and blessed 4th of July!  Pastor Craig

You know the experience of “the morning after,” right?  The celebrating is over, the challenges and burdens and disappointments are back, what a headache…  we have to face the world as it really is!  It’s the same with our celebration of Easter, the great victory of new life when God raised Jesus from the dead.  We have been rejoicing in that message throughout this Easter season.  But alas, the Easter season is over and we’re right back in the world, as it were, “the morning after.”

It reminds me of a cute story I came across recently.  It seems a farmer’s best mule got sick, and the farmer called the veterinarian.  The vet examined the animal and then gave the farmer some extremely large pills with the instructions to give the mule one three times a day until the mule recovered.  The farmer was puzzled as to how he would get the pills down the mule’s throat.  “Easy,” replied the vet.  “Find a piece of pipe wide enough to fit the pill into.  Then, put one end of the pipe into the mule’s mouth, put the pill into the pipe and give it a blow.  Before the mule knows what happened he will have swallowed the pill.”  It sounded easy enough, but shortly after, the farmer walked into the vet’s office looking terribly sick himself.  The surprised vet exclaimed, “You look awful.  What happened?”  The farmer replied, “The mule blew first!”

That’s what “mornings after” are like; even for disciples of Jesus who celebrated the victory of life over death.  Our mornings and days are filled with times where our neat plans and carefully worked out lists of things to do run into “mules” which blow first.  And then we have some large and bitter pills to swallow.

But all is not lost.  It never is where God is concerned.  Our Risen Lord is also our Ascended Lord, to whom has been given “all power in heaven and on earth.”  That means that while our Lord Jesus Christ has the power of heaven at His disposal, He exercises it on the earth, right in the midst of disappointments and problems and things that go wrong.  And He has promised to be with us always.  Easter morning has made it possible for us to face “the morning after,” with faith and courage and even joy!!  Pastor Craig

Scarlet ribbons encircle me,

Tie me close yet set me free,

Scarlet ribbons, around my soul,     

Release my sin yet gently hold,

Scarlet ribbons, with a loving touch,

Cleanse and heal and mean so much!

Scarlet ribbons, by JESUS shed,

To purchase me He freely bled.

Scarlet ribbons that tie you and me, 

Tethered to CHRIST but Finally free,

Scarlet ribbons of perfect love,

Unite our souls to God above!

One of the stories told at the Nurnberg war trials was that of a group of Jews who had escaped from the gas chambers and had taken refuge in a cemetery.  They lived in the pits that had been dug to serve as graves.  One night a baby was born in one of those pits with the grave digger, an old Orthodox Jew, assisting in the birth.  When the baby uttered its first cry, the grave digger exclaimed, “Great God, have You finally sent the Messiah?  Who but the Messiah would be born in a grave?”

Little did that Orthodox Jew know that the real Messiah has come and has been reborn in a grave.  Jesus died, laid in a grave for three days, and then was born again.  He has done it for us so that we may be born again to new life!

Teaching from Luther’s Small Catechism

And lead us not into temptation.   What does this mean?

God indeed tempts no one, but we pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us, so that the devil, the world, and our flesh may not deceive us nor seduce us into disbelief, despair, and other great shame and vice; and though we be assailed by them, that still we may overcome and obtain the victory.

The cross was drawn into the original blueprint.  It was written into the script.  The moment the forbidden fruit touched the lips of Eve, the shadow of a cross appeared on the horizon.  And between that moment and the moment the man with the mallet placed the spike against the wrist of God, a master plan was fulfilled.

What does that mean?  It means Jesus planned his own sacrifice.  It means Jesus intentionally planted the tree from which his cross would be carved.  It means he willingly placed the iron ore in the heart of the earth from which the nails would be cast.  It means he voluntarily placed his Judas in the womb of a woman.  It means Christ was the one who set in motion the political machinery that would send Pilate to Jerusalem.

And it also means he didn’t have to do it – but he did! 

Excerpted from Max Lucado’s God Came Near.

Teaching from Luther’s Small Catechism:

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  What does this mean?

We pray in this petition that our Father in heaven would not look upon our sins, nor on their account deny our prayer; for we are worthy of none of the things for which we pray, neither have we deserved them; but that He would grant them all to us by grace; for we daily sin much and deserve nothing but punishment.  So will we also heartily forgive, and readily do good to those who sin against us.

The season of Lent begins with the memory of finitude and mortality, the symbolism of dust.  On Ash Wednesday, Christians are marked with the sign of the mark of dust.  Looking foolish, with ashes on our foreheads, we confront our own mortality in the midst of a culture which tries to deny death’s reality.  The mark of dust identifies us as foolish.  Yet the sight is also of the cross of the crucified and risen Christ, the highest wisdom of all.  And so that mark speaks of His Kingdom of Glory!

Kenneth Leech from We Preach Christ Crucified.

Teaching from Luther’s Small Catechism:

Thy kingdom come. What does this mean?

The kingdom of God comes indeed without our prayer, of itself; but we pray in this petition that it may come unto us also.

How is this done?

When our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead a godly life, here in time and hereafter in eternity.

Why do we pray?  Our prayers flow from trust in our loving God!

O Lord, what can I trust in this life?

And what is my greatest comfort on earth?

It is You, O Lord, whose mercy is without limit.

Where have I ever done well without You?

And when have I ever been harmed when You were present?

I would rather be poor with You, than rich without You.

I would rather be a wanderer on earth with You,

       than to be in heaven without You.

For where You are, there is heaven.

And where You are not, there is death and hell.

You are all that I desire; therefore I will earnestly pray to You.

There is no one who can help me except You alone, O my God.

For You are my hope, You are my trust, You are my strength,   You are my comfort, and my most faithful helper in every need.

(Thomas Kempis, 1380-1471.  Quoted from his book, “The Imitation of Christ.”)