The business of being welcoming and showing welcome. . .

Welcome is the buzz word today -- from the stodgiest ethnic religious communities to the most liberal enclaves of generic spirituality.  We want to be welcoming, to make sure that those who visit feel our welcome, and to do everything possible so that those welcomed take no offense at anything.  There is not a week goes by that our parish does not receive something in the mail about our welcome (or lack thereof) and how to improve it to get visitors to return and members to keep on coming.  It is a big thing among those who sell the newest and best methods of obtaining, retaining, and assimilating new folks and so it is a big thing to most of us in the pulpit and in the pews (if only because we have heard the mantra so often!).

Some of it is just plain common sense.  Places to park, clean restrooms, signage, etc...  While some may turn up their noses to this we have all been in places where there was no parking, where the restrooms were terrible, and where we struggled to know where the front door was.  We seldom go back to businesses who manifest such problems and it stands to reason that churches are judged by these things as well.

Some of it is stuff we know is true but don't want to hear.  Excellence in music and preaching and liturgy, for example.  We don't want to hear it because it costs us something in money, preparation, and evaluation and we would rather not  spend our resources there.  I have heard it until we all assume it is real -- we have a real shortage of good organists, preachers have other things to do and sometimes the inspiration does not come late on Saturday night, and as long as got through it, that is enough.  We have a shortage of organists because we do not pay well (workers are worthy of their wages -- I read that somewhere!).  We do not prepare because we really do not think it is all that important (so if I screw up reading a collect or forget where I am in the service or whatever, it is no big deal).  We do not evaluate because we really don't want to know how bad it was.  Meanwhile the faithful keep on coming but the rest start shopping for something better.

Some of it, however, is just plain foolishness.  The Gospel is offensive.  There is no way around that.  Preach the Word faithfully and it will offend those who refuse the Spirit and repentance.  The liturgy requires us to take our minds off ourselves and focus upon the Lord and His gifts.  No work is more difficult than turning away from what I want, feel, like, desire, or think in the moment.  The Spirit has His work cut out for us every Sunday!  We have to face up to the fact that we can be as welcoming as possible and still folks will be turned away.  The Gospel is a scandal to the modern mind, to the pride of self-righteousness, and to the spiritualized self-help agenda that many want from religion.

Nowhere is this put more into focus than an article in The Lutheran on how to be welcoming.  Along with the usual advice, one reads:

“If you want to welcome the community, then welcome it. On our church exterior sign we acknowledge other religious holidays. That kind of action says who we are to the world. We put up Ramadan messages, Jewish New Year’s greetings and Diwali signs for our Hindu friends. It says we’re an open and welcoming church. We send blessings to our neighbors. That’s a part of getting people in the door before they come in the door.”

I will tell you what that says.  It says community center (not church).  It says we stand for everything so we stand for nothing.  It says we will pander to everyone.  We don't welcome people by bowing before their ethnic, cultural, or religious identities.  We welcome people with the all inclusive Gospel that is exclusive to Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  Like those who claim that their churches are all about the questions and not prepared answers or those who claim that their church is about open minds willing to consider alternative truths, this kind of thing is a poor excuse for witness and betrays the very thing we are to boldly proclaim whether or not it is popular or winsome.  God works through the Word faithfully proclaimed.  Faith comes by hearing but hearing of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

There there is this silliness:

"Our Saviour also avoids fellowship or coffee hours, which, “to quote Dickens, ‘are the best of times, the worst of times,’” Fritch said. “One thing I’ve found is that a coffee hour for an introvert is bad. An introvert doesn’t want attention drawn to him. And never ever make people stand at the end of service and say who they are or why they came — or wear a name tag. It’s horrible for a newcomer. They’ll never come back; we have not welcomed them.”

In other words, if our people might ignore the new folks, if the new folks might find it uncomfortable, if the the new folks don't like coffee, if the new folks don't like our brand of coffee, we will skip it all in order to avoid offense.  But the offense is already made.  Once you identified the new person, you have already singled that person out and now you are merely strategizing on best to keep them coming back absent any real connection to the whole.  Meanwhile the folks who want to talk, who yearn to reconnect on Sunday morning, are made to pay the price for the offense the introvert might have taken from a cup of lukewarm coffee and an extended hand.

Such goofiness takes up too much of our time and keeps us from the real attention -- faithful worship that seeks excellence in all we do, faithful preaching that preaches Law and Gospel in well prepared sermons and robust preaching, and honest Christian service to those whom the Lord has placed into our care (family, neighbor, community, etc.).  When our focus is on these and we practice some common sense and spend a few resources to cover the other things, we will not have to worry about such trivialities parading as helps to churches.

How can this be?

Sermon for Easter C (early) preached on Sunday, March 27, 2016.

    So tell me how this could happen.  How could Mary Magdalene fail to recognize Jesus?  How could she have missed His voice, His face, His promise?  Would you have missed it too?
Do we miss still?
    Can it be that we have become so accustomed to death and its reality that we have made our peace with it and do not think much more about it?  Could we as Christians be so caught up in death that we miss Christ and the power of His new life when death comes near us and our loved ones?  Can it be that death is more real to us than the hope we have in Christ, who rose from death to life that we too might rise again?
    Jesus told Mary and all His disciples He would suffer, die, and rise on the third day.  They heard His words but still Mary and the rest of them came to the grave expecting to find Jesus’ limp, dead body.  Death was more real and more powerful to them than the hope of life.  Life stronger than death was too surprising to be taken seriously.
    They had made peace with death and used their grief to try to soften the blow.  They consoled themselves with their memories, salved the wounds of His death with their attention to the details of His burial, and tried to memorialize Jesus’ life.
    But Christ refuses to allow death to steal our attention, to rob us of our hope, to leave us with only memories, details, and monuments.  Christ came to offer life stronger than death.
    He is risen to give us hope in the face of death.  We cannot walk to the graves of our loved ones as people ignorant of hope and captive to fear.  Christians still grieve but not as those with out hope.  No, we grieve differently because we take Christ’s life as seriously as we take the death of our loved ones.
    Christians refuse to make peace with death, to call it natural, or to be left with mere memories.  When death comes near we claim only that which God has promised. Life; life stronger than death. Life filled with the surprise of hope & grace
    Christ came to save us from our celebrations of life in funeral homes, from merely sharing funny stories to make us feel better, from being consoled that the dead lived either a well lived life or at least a long one.  Christ died to steal death’s thunder and we dare not give it back to death.  We were born again for something more than a past.  We have a future.
    God will give you what you want.  If all you want is today, if all you desire are memories, and if you believe that however long your life is, it is enough for you.  God will leave you with just that - with the comfort of memories and a future of only eternal death.  And it will be as if you never lived at all.
    But, if this is not enough for you.  You have hope today. Christ is risen.  Christ has come to give you more – the surprise of life, the promise of life without death, and the eternal future prepared for you from before the foundation of the world.  God has given you hope that does not make peace but casts away its doom with the hopeful anticipation of our own resurrection and our own eternal life in Christ.
    What was Mary thinking when she failed to see Jesus risen from the dead?  What were you thinking when you did the same thing?  Since the fall, death is expected and eternal life is the surprise.  But the challenge for us as Christians is to see that the surprise of eternal life is even more real than death.  When we lay our loved ones into the death and when we too shall be buried, we know that Christ will reach into the earth and raise us up together with all believers to everlasting life.  This is most certainly true.  Christ is risen!

We believe. . . We condemn. . .

The Augsburg Confession is remarkably positive in its statement of what the Reformers believed, taught, and confessed -- and what those who heed this Confession still do!  It took 20 articles or so before the Reformers got around to an area of major disagreement.  In fact, the first three quarters are directed to affirming catholic doctrine and practice and to condemning those who do not heed catholic doctrine and practice.  Therein lies the rub for some today --  the condemnations!

There are those who would insist that one must only speak positively and not speak negatively -- even of those with whom you would disagree.  Such may be the fantasy of a dream church but in the real world of history and witness, the churches have not only affirmed what they believe but condemned those who believe otherwise.  What you affirm is what you believe, to be sure, but what you condemn is also what you believe.  In other words, what we do not believe is also what we believe.  I am indebted to Russell Saltzman for that phrase -- and it is a good one!

It is impossible to faithfully affirm the truth without also condemning falsehood.  Now it is surely wrong to believe only with the word "no."  But it is equally as wrong to believe only with the word "yes."  The Church, in order to be faithful, must speak both positively of what is believed, confessed, and taught and negatively, condemning error.

We live in a time when this is considered not nice, not polite, and we live among Millenials (spiritual but not religious) who chafe at this aspect of truth but there is not unauthentic to Scripture, to Christ, and to Christian apologetics to state clearly and concisely what we do NOT believe even as we state clearly and concisely what we DO believe.

It is this which has, in part, clouded the discussion of whether or not Muslims and Christians worship the same God.  Christian politeness would suggest that to say "no" would be to practice a pride, aloofness, and arrogance that is unwelcome in the co-existence of competing truths.  The Muslims themselves weigh in pretty much against the polite answer -- no, we do not worship the same God.  But that is often not enough for those who wished we could believe and play nice about it all as if our differences were neither substantive or serious.  We believe but we don't say anything about that which contradicts what it is we believe.

As I have said here before, the true ecumenical endeavor will consider not only what we believe in a positive sense but also what we condemn.  There is no hope of unity from a truth too fragile to be engaged by the full measure of belief -- both what we affirm and what we deny.  In the same way also, it does nothing for a church body or for the members of that body to treat truth subjectively, to affirm without denying falsehood, and to remain silent before error.

Our Lord was insistent upon the inclusivity of the Gospel of the Kingdom but also insisted that it was exclusive (no one comes to the Father but by Me...).  Over and over again He contrasted false paths with the true path, false readings of the Word with the truth of that Word, and in every case placed Himself as the center of that truth.  We live at a time when this is not only considered impolite but politically incorrect -- something not to be tolerated in the public square.  But the test of the faithful confession will not only be what we affirm but also what we deny.  Now more than ever!

Thanks for the memories. . .

Sermon preached for Easter C (middle and late services) on Sunday, March 27, 2016.

    Many's the time that we feasted, And many's the time that we fasted; Oh well, it was swell while it lasted; We did have fun, and no harm done, thanks for the memory. . . so an old song sang it...
    Memory is a wonderful gift from God but it is not perfect.  It fades, our minds become confused – lost in the wrinkles of time.  Memory is skewed and slanted by the lens of the person.  It can be a prison for those filled with regret or guilt or shame.  Memory is a gift from God but it is no consolation prize for death nor is it a substitute for living.  God gave us memory but He created us for life, life with Him, together as His creation.
    In Eden Adam and Eve traded life for a memory, a happy dream as they chose to see it.  Then today became fragile and life fleeting.  It was instantly seen as a foolish and regrettable exchange but they did not know how to fix it.  So they taught us to make peace with death.  Until today we call it natural and normal.  We live each day as if it were our last and console ourselves with faded photo albums and Facebook galleries, Instagram images and digital glimpses of a cloud reality. 
    We were meant for more but we settled for what we had.  No where is this more true than the funeral has been replaced by celebrations of life – note that – life in the past tense.
When death ripped today from us, without confidence in a future, we contented ourselves with old stories, a few laughs and a body made up to mask the reality of death.  We were meant for life but settled for as big a today as could make it.
    Thanks for the memory.  But therein lies the rub.  Death ends memory; it leaves silence where voices once spoke and all our stuff becomes the possession of others.  Through time and eternity the prophets were sent from God to remind us that we were meant for more.  We were meant for life.
    Now even memory must compete against preference and choice.  We don’t both to recall or esteem the past.  We define life by the range of choices and preferences we have now.  We try to make life unique but even that cannot stave off death.  We can pursue the moment as much as possible but it cannot erase the fact that you were made for more.  God made you for life.
    More than anything else, sin is the ache to live only in the moment, to make ourselves gods of our own little universe, doing what we please to get as much happiness as we can. Death is normal and sins don’t count.  This is also our prison.
    But God entered our world of lives to shatter its grip over us and over the whole world.  Jesus lived not for Himself but for us.  He died for a past full of sin to deliver to the dying a life stronger than death, a future the grave cannot claim.

    Now He lives.  Not to seek revenge on those who killed Him or lord His victory over His enemies.  No, He lives to restore you and me to life, to give to the unworthy the precious gift of tomorrow.  We made peace with death but God did not.  We judged sin not so bad but He exposed sin for the wretched evil it is.  And then He rose.  He rose to end death’s reign to announce forgiveness for every sin and every sinner who desires it.
    We were created for life, to live under Christ today in His kingdom, to live in community as brothers and sisters, and to live forever.  We screwed it all up by choosing to play god.  Discontent to be creatures, we traded life for a living death.  We learned pain and sorrow, we learned suffering and death.  But Christ lives now and has prepared and ending for our torment.
    God took our flesh to live in our world of death to carry the burden of our sin and to die the death that kills death once for all.  Our Lord rattled death’s cage and awaken us to what we were created to know and enjoy.  LIFE!  We were created for life.  Christ rose to give this life back to us.  He lives now to speak the voice of life into our dead ears, to drown the dead and raise the living from the baptismal waters, and to feed us the bread that we eat and life forever.  He gives us His Spirit so that our hearts may confess this and believe it and live transformed by its good news, now and forevermore.
    Christ is not in the grave.  He is here.  Not in memory but living in bread and wine, in Word and absolution, in baptism and in the baptized.  Christ is no longer alone but has rounded up the dead to be with Him.  Those we laid to rest in Christ now live in Christ awaiting us and the eternal future that began Easter morning.
    Christ was not raised a spirit to a spiritual life but in the glorious new flesh and blood you and I shall wear.  He lives not some vague spiritual notion of life but real life without limit or constraint.  He lives not for Himself but to restore the dead in trespasses and sin and the dead waiting for these bodies to give out.  He lives to steal the pain from angry words and to heal the division of hurtful actions.  He lives to bestow on us memory and more – a future in which God remembers us in love and reaches into the dust of the earth to bring the dead to live with Him for all eternity.
    Christ has died, Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.  This is the mystery of the faith, the framework of our hope, the bold confession we make before the world, and our peace at the grave.  He has given to us what we could not do for ourselves.
    Now, when you leave here today, do not surrender this new life to the death of sin.  Do not exchange what Christ has given you here with the prison of only a yesterday or today. 
Do not replace the words of hope with angry and bitter words.
You were created for more.  You were created for life.  Now Christ has given to you, what you were meant for.  Because He lives, You live in Him, right now this life and the life which is to come without end.
    Many's the time that we feasted, And many's the time that we fasted; Oh well, it was swell while it lasted; We did have fun, and no harm done, thanks for the memory. . .  Nope.  Not thanks for the memory.  But thanks for the victory!  Christ is risen!

The Crucifixion as Half-Time Show. . .

We turned the political season into a reality show designed for bombastic personalities and made for entertainment.  It stands to reason it would not take long to turn the crucifixion of Jesus into a half-time show, an entertainment diversion between our favorite sports (in this case, the NCAA brackets).  It makes one wish that the networks would forget about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus -- whenever the media gets its hands on the story nothing good comes of it.

I know I am risking the wrath of those who found it warm and touching, who found their spirits uplifted by it, and who think it is a good way to speak the story to those not yet of the kingdom.  I am pretty sure on all counts that this is not the case.  The crucifixion of Jesus is neither warm nor touching.  It is stark and blunt and real (the kind of reality no one wants to watch).  The crucifixion and resurrection are not inspirational.  They do not encourage us but confront us with the radical, irrational, unreasonable love of God who would die for sinners and rise to give them a share in His divine life for all eternity.

It is mystery more than inspirational fare -- yes it does strengthen the faith and make us marvel at the length God would go to reclaim His lost creation but it does not inspire us to do anything more than believe it under the guidance of the Spirit.  Anything more and this Gospel becomes one more law, demand, or burden laid upon us to beef up our behavior.  We need less to be uplifted than to be swept from the ground of sin and death to the domain of grace and life.  This happens not by spiritual imagery but by real and powerful means of grace that deliver what they speak and do what they sign.  The end result is more than "You'll Never Walk Alone."

It troubles me that the world might be more sympathetic toward the half time show of the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord than His Word.  All that glitters is not what moves people to faith.  It is the Spirit and the Spirit works through the Word proclaimed and the Sacraments administered as Christ established them.  I am not sure that it helps if the people outside the kingdom are moved to sympathy for Jesus.  He does not ask for it but rejects those who cry out for Him.  Instead He asks us something far different.  He invites us to be convicted of our sins and moved to faith to believe that mercy is what God offers the unworthy and undeserving sinner.

Yes, I know.  I am a cranky old curmudgeon.  It was strange to say the least.  Life, recorded, music, drama, complete with commercial breaks!  All in all I think it was more goofiness than The Passion.  We spoke The Passion five times.  On Palm Sunday from Luke, on Monday of Holy Week from Matthew, on Tuesday of Holy Week from Mark, on Wednesday of Holy Week again from Luke, and on Good Friday from John (twice).  Every word from the extended chapters in which the Gospel writers tell us what happened without detracting from the story to entertain us, inform us, move us, or sell something to us.  In the mind of this old coot, this is The Passion.  Fox gave us a half-time show -- not bad as entertainment but certainly a pale substitute for the New Testament.

Too many words. . .

One of the problems I have with Donald Trump is that not only has thoughts on everything, he is an expert on everything.  In that respect, he is much like Pope Francis who cannot keep from answering questions on nearly every subject.  Like every one who has thoughts on everything, his thoughts are uneven.  I should know that.  I am a living example of too many thoughts.  But then again, I am not running for President nor Pope (I suppose there is still time to do both but I am not holding my breath).

The best Presidents are not those who know everything.  Gadfry, some of our smartest occupants of that esteemed office have been, shall we say, less than successful.  But the ones who know who is smart and whose judgment is good and who act with integrity even when it is not popular -- well, they prove generally quite successful in hindsight (I think here of Bush 41).

In the same way, the best Popes are not those who know everything but those who know the one thing needful.  Those who know when not to dilute their influence by having something to say on every topic are the ones who have learned the secret of real wisdom.  Popes have no guarantee of infallibility for everything they say.  They say funny stuff (not humorous).  They say stupid stuff.  They forget that the papacy has become a cult of personality and people are hanging on every word from the mouth of the Pope (and not in a good way, either).

Remember when we found out that Wilson's stroke left him unable to govern and his wife had hidden him away and pretty much run the country in his absence from the public stage?  Remember how long it took before the world learned it was at war after the assassination of the Archduke?  Yeah, maybe this was not so good but neither is it good to have a President who has something to say on everything and Pope who does not know when to keep quiet.

There was no real opportunity in centuries past for his private ruminations to be aired. Now it's non-stop. Catholics have gone from never hearing from their popes to hearing too much. A distinction needs to be made between Joseph Ratzinger and Pope Benedict. A distinction has to be made between Jorge Bergoglio and Pope Francis.   Men in the office of Pope can be wrong. That shouldn't be a headline to Catholics — but it is. Popes can be wrong; not every word that falls from the lips of a Pope is full of grace. It's not Catholic to hang on every utterance of the Pope as though it is divinely inspired.


I have a lot of opinions.  You should know.  You are reading them.  But don't hang on my words.  Read them if you want, argue with me if you disagree, laugh if they are funny, and consider them if they are wise... but there is only One whose Word is always worth our attention.  Presidents come and go.  Popes, too.  And Pastors. But the Word of the Lord endures forever.  A President may not need to know this.  Popes and Pastors ought never to forget it.

What is finished. . .

Sermon for Good Friday evening, preached on March 25, 2016, by the Rev. Daniel M. Ulrich.

When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit (Jn 19:30).

Christ spoke 7 last words as He hung on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34); to the repentant criminal beside Him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43); to Mary, His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” and to John, His beloved disciple, “Behold, your mother!” (Jn 19:26, 27); My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46 & Mk 15:34); “I thirst” (Jn 19:28); “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Lk 23:46); and finally, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30). This word, “It is finished,” may be short, literally a single word in the Greek, but this one short word proclaims so much. With this one word, Christ declares the war with Satan, sin, and death finished. With this one word, Jesus announces the work of your salvation finished.

The war with Satan, sin, and death began in the Garden of Eden. In the paradise that God created, Satan shot first. He was crafty in his attack. He came to our first parents and offered them lies. He promised them that they could be like God. He assured them that they wouldn’t die, but guaranteed them life, something that they already had. He convinced them to disobey, to go against God and His Word. He tempted them with the simple. All they had to do was eat a piece of fruit, the fruit from a forbidden tree...and Adam and Eve gave in. They quickly fell to this attack without much of a fight. Satan won that battle. The devil conquered our parents with his lies, and he happily brought sin and death into God’s very good creation...and we’ve been battling with them ever since.

We continue to fight with Satan, sin, and death. Every day they make their advances against us. Satan tempts us just as he did our first father and mother. He offers us sweet sounding lies, promising us things that appear to be good, but aren’t. He attacks us from the outside, with the simple pleasures of the world around us. He convinces us that we can have control of our lives and that we can know everything. He persuades us to turn our backs on God and His Word, making ourselves our own god.

Sin strikes at us from within. It’s made its bunker in our hearts and urges us to wickedness, and we willingly oblige and surrender. We give in to all sorts of evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, covetousness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness...and we enjoy it. We find pleasure in our sinful actions, and there are times when even we praise them and call them good.

Death beats us down every day. It takes its toll on our bodies, doling out physical pain with sickness and disease, aches and injuries. Death claims our loved ones, taking them away from us, inflicting hurts that cut us to the soul. Death makes itself commonplace in our life and we give in to it. We accept it as just a natural part of life and even call it good, wanting it to come soon to end suffering.

Every single day Satan, sin, and death battle against us. Every day they continue to fight. This is a war that seems like it will never end...but it will, and the outcome has already been decided. The deciding battle has already been fought. On the hill called Golgotha, from the cross, Christ Jesus claimed His victory. He declared the war finished. Satan, sin, and death are defeated!

When the devil overcame our parents, God responded. He would not lose His creation. He cursed the lying serpent and promised victory over him. With the very first proclamation of the Gospel, He said to Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen 3:15, NIV). God put the devil on notice. He would defeat him. He would crush him. Through the woman’s seed, through Jesus Christ His only Son, born of the Virgin Mary, God would win the deciding battle. He would win the war and reverse all the sin and death that Satan brought into this world. But this victory would come at a cost. In the defeating of Satan, sin, and death, the Savior would suffer and die.

This is what the prophet Isaiah sings about in his Suffering Servant Song. Speaking about Christ, the Servant, the Savior, he says, “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed” (Is 53:5). The One who would bring us peace, the One who would heal us of our sin, the One who would save us from our enemies had to be wounded and crushed. Jesus had to die in order to overcome Satan, sin, and death. Christ had to die in order to save us.

As Jesus hung on the cross, Satan must have been giddy, thinking victory was his. He must have thought he delivered the final blow. The Son of God, the seed of the woman who was supposed to defeat him was defeated, He was killed, crucified on a cross. The devil has won...but this can’t be, because Christ from the cross declared His victory.

“It is finished” (Jn 19:30). The war with Satan is done. The fight with sin and death is done. They’ve all been defeated. It’s over. What appeared to be Jesus’ defeat was His victory. Satan, who overcame us with a tree in the Garden, has now been overcome by Christ and the tree of His cross. Jesus has won, the spoils are His. He has won you and gives you the prizes of forgiveness, life, and salvation. This is why we call this Friday Good, because on this day, our Savior has conquered your enemies and earned for you everlasting life.

You are the spoils of this war. God fights with Satan for you, and He has won for you. He has rescued you from your enemies. No longer do they have power of you, you’re free. God has defeated Satan. All the work that Satan has done to try and steal you away from God, Christ Jesus has reversed.

God has defeated your sin. The sin that has bunkered down in your hearts He has overcome and forgiven. Christ’s wounds on the cross have paid for your transgressions. God has redeemed you and freed you with the blood of His only Son and He has created a new heart within you, a heart that wants to follow after God and His Word, a heart that relies on and trusts in Christ’s forgiveness and mercy.

God has defeated your death with His. He has overcome it. Death is never a good thing, it is a sign that there is something wrong within God’s creation. But through Jesus’ death, God creates life, everlasting life. In your baptism, you received this everlasting life because you’re connected to Christ’s victorious life-giving death on the cross. No longer must you fear death, because in faith you have the confident hope of everlasting life.

Christ has defeated Satan, sin, and death with His cross. They have lost the war; however, they still come after us. They still continue to fight. Satan won’t admit defeat. Sin will continue to push us to wickedness; and death will still try to steal our hope in everlasting life. But all their advances are futile, because the war has already been decided, it is finished. Christ Jesus, your Savior has won. He has overcome these three, and gives you the prize of everlasting life. In Jesus’ name...Amen.

What would we find out about Lutheran colleges and universities?

CRISIS magazine has issued a report on the visitation policies of Roman Catholic colleges and universities.  It is an eye-opener.  One fourth permit all night opposite sex visits at least some of the time, most allow it until early morning hours, some have visitation policies rather reasonable for Christian but archaic for modern standards, and a few have caved into the prevailing standards of secular universities where pretty much anything and everything goes.

I am not sure what we might find if the same kind of study were done of Lutheran colleges and universities but I am pretty confident that most ELCA schools would embrace the full allowance of same and opposite sex visits at most any time of the night or all night.  Some allow and even screen to provide same sex and opposite sex partners to allow them to be roommates.  I would expect that Valpo would fall on the open side of visitation policies.  Where Missouri schools stand on this is not certain but well worth a look.  I would not want to predict the results but it is my hope that the colleges and universities of the LCMS have retained at least in policy a semblance of integrity with what our churches believe and teach.  That said, it is undoubtedly difficult on some aspects of recruitment when so many secular schools have abandoned all restrictions whatsoever.  But then again many times the parents of those attending have given up any attempt at rules for what happens at home.

On weekends, 95 percent of Catholic colleges permit at least a portion of the students (usually non-freshmen when specified) to visit with members of the opposite sex in dorm rooms for at least some part of the night. It’s the norm in American higher education, but it’s an extraordinary social shift for Catholic colleges that still retain the language of moral formation and Catholic campus living.

Other results of the study may be surprising. More than a quarter of residential Catholic colleges—54 nationwide—permit all-night opposite-sex visits on weekends, and only five of these regulate visiting hours during the week. Whether intended or not, that’s an open invitation to sexual activity. The colleges enabling this include some of the largest and most notable Catholic colleges, such as Boston College, DePaul University, Georgetown University, Loyola University Chicago, Loyola University New Orleans, Santa Clara University, St. Joseph’s University, University of Dayton, University of San Francisco and Villanova University. But it’s surprising to see how many smaller Catholic colleges have also abandoned dorm policies that were universally embraced just a few decades ago.

Even at the more than two-thirds of Catholic colleges that impose deadlines for opposite-sex visits to dorm rooms, their policies generally fail to satisfy Catholic sensibilities. Nearly half (91) of Catholic colleges permit opposite-sex visitation until 2 a.m., well into the night. Another 11 colleges allow visitation until 3 and even 4 a.m., inviting the question, “Why even bother?” These include Creighton University, DeSales University, Fordham University, St. John’s University (N.Y.), St. Louis University and the University of Scranton, as well as smaller institutions.

At the University of San Francisco, there is no pretense of promoting chastity in its dorm policies. In addition to having open visitation hours, USF now also offers some students the option to have an opposite-sex roommate. The program for “gender inclusive housing” welcomes students who identify as “transgender,” do not identify as any sex or simply “respect people with the above identities” and “prefer to live” in a gender-inclusive “community.” Students share bathrooms with members of both sexes. And community standards include respecting “gender as a non-binary construct,” openness to developing one’s own sexual orientation and using “preferred names and gender pronouns.”

Catholic Edgewood College in Wisconsin unabashedly condones promiscuity with 24-hour “Weekend Opposite Sex/Intimate Partner Visitation Hours.” The College declares that dorm visits can be for “opposite sex and same-sex intimate partners.” Curiously, while the College permits fornication on the weekend, it states that “intimate partner guests are prohibited overnight during the weekday.”

Edgewood is, of course, an extreme case—and we approached this study assuming that even when Catholic colleges implicitly condone sexual activity by inviting opposite-sex visitation in bedrooms, those colleges would have rules on the books forbidding premarital relations. Sadly, we were wrong. We examined student handbooks and residence life policies, finding that only about one-third of the colleges explicitly prohibit sexual relations on campus. Most of these cite the institution’s Catholic identity or reference Catholic teaching reserving sex for marriage as the reason for the rule.

Better News
Not all the findings in our report are bad. For instance, even among Catholic colleges that offer opposite-sex visiting hours, there are some that set deadlines at more reasonable hours. Donnelly College admirably ends weekend visitation at 10 p.m., and ten other colleges allow it until midnight. The Franciscan University of Steubenville has visiting hours only from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m. on weekends, from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. on Sundays, and doors must stay open.

Weeknight visitation hours are also more reasonable at 84 Catholic colleges (44 percent), which end visitation at or before midnight. But still, a quarter of Catholic colleges end visitation after midnight during the week, and 26 percent have no time parameters at all.

Some Catholic colleges that allow opposite-sex visitation have open-door and open-bolt rules that help discourage sexual activity. Franciscan University of Steubenville and Ave Maria University require that, during opposite-sex visitation, bedroom doors must remain open. St. Gregory’s University and the University of Dallas require that the bolts of bedroom doors must be placed in the open position to keep them ajar. St. Martin’s University requires open doors during the final couple hours of visitation.

Most impressive are the nine Catholic colleges that have retained traditional Catholic mores; i.e., there is no opposite-sex visitation in student residences, save occasional open-house events in some cases. Most of these institutions will be familiar to Crisis readers: Aquinas College (Tenn.), Christendom College, Divine Word College, Holy Apostles College and Seminary, John Paul the Great Catholic University, Northeast Catholic College, Thomas Aquinas College, Thomas More College of Liberal Arts and Wyoming Catholic College. These colleges demonstrate that a culture that promotes chastity can be achieved with appropriate dorm polices as well as educational efforts.

Why has Easter resisted the commercialism of Christmas?

James Martin describes it as the subversive message of Christ is Risen.  Read more his WSJ article here. . .

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

Click here to find Paschal Greetings in more than 250 languages....  On this day demons fall, sin's debt is paid, death is defeated, and hope is born....

Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands

1 Christ Jesus lay in death’s strong bands
    For our offenses given;
But now at God’s right hand He stands
    And brings us life from heaven.
Therefore let us joyful be
And sing to God right thankfully
    Loud songs of alleluia!
        Alleluia!

2 No son of man could conquer death,
    Such ruin sin had wrought us.
No innocence was found on earth,
    And therefore death had brought us
Into bondage from of old
And ever grew more strong and bold
    And held us as its captive.
        Alleluia!

3 Christ Jesus, God’s own Son, came down,
    His people to deliver;
Destroying sin, He took the crown
    From death’s pale brow forever:
Stripped of pow’r, no more it reigns;
An empty form alone remains;
    Its sting is lost forever.
        Alleluia!

4 It was a strange and dreadful strife
    When life and death contended;
The victory remained with life,
    The reign of death was ended.
Holy Scripture plainly saith
That death is swallowed up by death,
    Its sting is lost forever.
        Alleluia!

5 Here our true Paschal Lamb we see,
    Whom God so freely gave us;
He died on the accursed tree—
    So strong His love—to save us.
See, His blood now marks our door;
Faith points to it; death passes o’er,
    And Satan cannot harm us.
        Alleluia!

6 So let us keep the festival
    To which the Lord invites us;
Christ is Himself the joy of all,
    The sun that warms and lights us.
Now His grace to us imparts
Eternal sunshine to our hearts;
    The night of sin is ended.
        Alleluia!

7 Then let us feast this Easter Day
    On Christ, the bread of heaven;
The Word of grace has purged away
    The old and evil leaven.
Christ alone our souls will feed;
He is our meat and drink indeed;
    Faith lives upon no other!
        Alleluia!

LSB 458

Christ Jesus Lay in 
Death's Strong Bands

1 Christ Jesus lay in death’s strong bands
    For our offenses given;
But now at God’s right hand He stands
    And brings us life from heaven.
Therefore let us joyful be
And sing to God right thankfully
    Loud songs of alleluia!
        Alleluia!

2 No son of man could conquer death,
    Such ruin sin had wrought us.
No innocence was found on earth,
    And therefore death had brought us
Into bondage from of old
And ever grew more strong and bold
    And held us as its captive.
        Alleluia!

3 Christ Jesus, God’s own Son, came down,
    His people to deliver;
Destroying sin, He took the crown
    From death’s pale brow forever:
Stripped of pow’r, no more it reigns;
An empty form alone remains;
    Its sting is lost forever.
        Alleluia!

4 It was a strange and dreadful strife
    When life and death contended;
The victory remained with life,
    The reign of death was ended.
Holy Scripture plainly saith
That death is swallowed up by death,
    Its sting is lost forever.
        Alleluia!

5 Here our true Paschal Lamb we see,
    Whom God so freely gave us;
He died on the accursed tree—
    So strong His love—to save us.
See, His blood now marks our door;
Faith points to it; death passes o’er,
    And Satan cannot harm us.
        Alleluia!

6 So let us keep the festival
    To which the Lord invites us;
Christ is Himself the joy of all,
    The sun that warms and lights us.
Now His grace to us imparts
Eternal sunshine to our hearts;
    The night of sin is ended.
        Alleluia!

7 Then let us feast this Easter Day
    On Christ, the bread of heaven;
The Word of grace has purged away
    The old and evil leaven.
Christ alone our souls will feed;
He is our meat and drink indeed;
    Faith lives upon no other!
        Alleluia!

LSB 458 - See more at: http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/search?q=Christ+is+risen&updated-max=2011-04-25T10:42:00-05:00&max-results=20&start=85&by-date=true#sthash.haXq1Sws.dpuf

Backwards and forwards. . . in the Holy Supper

Sermon preached on Holy Thursday, March 24, 2016.

    The truth is that we are heirs of a flawed tradition.  Our most recent Lutheran forbears came to see the Sacrament of the Altar as an add-on to the Word, an occasional extra.  They taught it to our grandparents and parents and, if you are my age, they taught it to you.  I grew up first with a four times a year Holy Communion and then monthly as did many of you.  Boy did they get it wrong! 
    Luther and our first fathers of the Reformation understood it correctly.  Our Confessions faithfully spoke of this wonderful sacrament (which we just prayed about in the Collect).  Our Lord bequeathed to us this Sacrament as His highest gift – what He called His solemn testament.  All that went before is remembered here and all that is to come is prefigured here.  Here in this Sacramental eating and drinking of His flesh and blood, we remember yesterday and anticipate our eternal tomorrow, all in the flesh and blood of Christ.
    All that went before, reaching backward in time to the earliest of days, is manifest right here.  Here is Jesus’ blood, the blood that gave the blood of goats and bulls its power to forgive sins.  The whole sacrificial system of the temple looked forward to and was dependent upon Jesus once for all sacrifice of His flesh and blood on the altar of the cross.  Every Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement prefigured what we have right here.
    Jesus’ body is the Passover Lamb that once symbolized more than it was but now is the real food of Christ’s flesh.  Everything in the Passover looked forward to Christ and here in this Sacrament we recall that Passover and see it fulfilled in Christ the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
    Here in this communion we receive bread from heaven – not the fragile and perishable manna God once provided in the wilderness but the full manna from heaven that the miracle bread of old prefigured.  Here in the wilderness of sin does Christ set His table and feed us His flesh, the living manna from heaven that imparts eternal life and satisfies our hunger.
    Just as this meal fulfills all that went before, so does this meal anticipate the hidden future that is in Christ.  The future prepared for us, the marriage supper of the Lamb in His kingdom without end – this is what we eat.  This is the foretaste of the feast to come.
    Here is His blood that cleanses us from all sin and we are given this blood to drink that Christ may be in us and cleanse us and we may be in Him.  Here He gives us His crucified and risen flesh in which we taste our future, our own joyful resurrection and reunion.  This is the foretaste, the appetizer, for the promised future, the main course God prepared for us.
    Here is tomorrow’s bread for which we pray in the Our Father – not a bite of food which will need to be replenished another day but the eternal food of an eternal people in Christ. Here is our future, here is our communion with those who have gone before us and rest from their labors, here are saints and angels, archangels and all the heavenly host.  Here we taste our future and in tasting are strengthened for today.
    We don’t eat signs and symbols.  We eat real food and we drink real drink.  Christ’s flesh and blood are real food and real drink for a people who need to be connected to God’s saving acts in the past and sealed for the future He has prepared.
    Come, les us eat the real food that ties us in real time to the temple sacrifices of old, to the Passover Lamb, and to the wilderness manna from heaven.  Come let us eat the future that is already but not yet of our own joyful resurrection, of perfect righteousness to cover all our sins, and of an eternal home and dwelling place, the wedding feast of Christ and His bride the Church.
    Symbols have no power but the power we give them.  They cannot connect us to the past or to the hidden future we believe but do not yet see.  Only real flesh and real blood, with power to bestow real forgiveness upon real sinner, with real life now and real life triumphant over death, and with real salvation that is not our hope but our confidence.  Christ has hidden Himself in the bread and wine of this Supper, a presence that is seen not with eyes but with faith.  This presence looks backward in time and brings the past to fulfillment and forward to eternity to anticipate what is to come.  That is what your Holy Communion is now and forever. Amen.

Holy Saturday. . . a waiting day

On Holy Saturday Jesus' disciples mourned his death and, because it was a sabbath day, they rested. Luke notes that the women returned home "and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment" (Luke 23:56). At the tomb, the guards that had been stationed there kept watch over the place to make sure that the disciples did not steal Jesus' body.

He descended into Hell (Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek) whose inhabitants lived in everlasting death deprived of the vision of God. Jesus descended not to redeem the damned nor to destroy hell but to proclaim His victory.

On this day the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist are not celebrated, marriages are not solemnized, and the faithful may choose to fast as they wait in prayer for the unfolding of the promise of Christ in the resurrection.

The most distinctive liturgical service is the Vigil, on the evening preceding the Paschal feast. Vigil comes from the Latin vigilia, meaning "watchfulness," and describes the tradition of waiting in prayer for the Paschal or Easter Feast which we know is coming with the dawn.

The resurrection of Christ vindicates His claims and promises. It is the foundation of our faith and hope and without it there is no gospel and we are still in our sins, the most of all to be pitied because we trusted in a lie. Through Baptism we are inserted into the Paschal Mystery of Christ, dying, buried, and raised with Him that we should also reign with Him.


Easter Vigil Candlelight Procession and Exultet from Cheryl on Vimeo.

Put a cross in it. . .

“Put a cross in it please”, said the pastor who recently asked for our studio to design a new logo for his church. I believe he’s wrong, so I challenged the notion. He said he wasn’t sure but the committee he reports to requested it... A logo needs to differentiate your church from other churches. If every church required a cross, a dove, an angel, or similar, then all church logos would start looking the same. Then it’s impossible to set yourself apart from all the other houses of worship and ultimately you don’t have a brand. 

Put a cross in it, please....  I am sure that those who advise churches on such things as logos and marketing are well meaning folks.  They do want their clients to succeed.  I am not sure that God has in mind the same definition of success.  Putting a cross in it is probably not a great marketing decision for those who want to appeal across the grand spectrum of the masses but the Church is not accountable to the world.  The Church is accountable to God.  We put a cross in it because He did.

In the midst of sin and its death, when reason would have said to wash your hands of it all (like Pilate) and walk away... God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.  Before the world and all its inhabitants had even awoken to the reality of sin, to the unnatural corruption of nature that is death, or to their own culpability in confession, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.  Not for the righteous or the just or those with potential or even in view of the future and those who would come to faith, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.  Not as reward for good intention or as second chance for them to get it right on their own, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.  Not as inspiration for what people might do for themselves or on their own but to redeem the poor, miserable sinner unable to help himself, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.

On this Friday we call Good, God stuck a cross into the ground and we hoisted up His own Son, killing the heir to gain the vineyard, glad to put an end Him who ended our hopes of self-righteousness, and as punishment for Him who ate and drank with sinners.  But hidden behind our own acts of rebellion and pride, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.  It was a drama whose script we thought we were writing but it was the plan laid down before the foundation of the world when God would in Christ reconcile the world to Himself.

The cross is not a symbol nor a logo.  It is the center of our preaching, our teaching, and our worship.  We preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified because there is salvation in no other.  We teach Him who is the way, the truth, and the salvation -- the way that led through suffering, cross, and death... the truth of Him who exchanged His righteousness for our sin and bore it all up obedient to the cross... the salvation that is in Christ alone by the proclamation of the Word made flesh, who suffered in our place for our sin, and died our death upon the cross.

His blood be on us... cried out the people when shown Christ their King.  And so it was.  The blood of Christ is on us -- not as guilt and shame but as the redemptive power of God to cleanse us sinners from the stain of sin and mark us for the life that death cannot overcome.  A blessed Good Friday to you as we contemplate the mystery of the cross where He who knew no sin became sin for us and by His death redeemed us and the whole world.  Let us come to this cross, bidden by the Spirit, and confess Him as Lord and Savior.  And thus confessing, let us rejoice in the love who arms outstretched in suffering have redeemed us.  Put a cross in it.  That is what God did.  For you.  For  me.  God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.  Thanks be to God!

A wonderful Sacrament, indeed. . .

O Lord, in this wondrous Sacrament You have left us a remembrance of Your passion.  Grant that we may so receive the sacred mystery of Your body and blood that the fruits of Your redemption may continually be manifest in us; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Ave verum corpus, natum
de Maria Virgine,
vere passum, immolatum
in cruce pro homine
cuius latus perforatum
fluxit aqua et sanguine:
esto nobis praegustatum
in mortis examine.

O Iesu dulcis, O Iesu pie,
O Iesu, fili Mariae.
Miserere mei. Amen.



Hail, true Body, born
of the Virgin Mary,
who having truly suffered, was sacrificed
on the cross for mankind,
whose pierced side
flowed with water and blood:
May it be for us a foretaste [of the Heavenly banquet]
in the trial of death.



O sweet Jesus, O holy Jesus,
O Jesus, son of Mary,
have mercy on me. Amen.