God was a demanding God in the Old Testament. You know He didn’t allow the people to worship in any kind of convenient way. They were expected to make their way to Jerusalem for specific feasts and offer their sacrifices only there in the temple. He set forth the way things were to be and He expected the people to obey.

So, who can blame the prophets when they were only making it easier for the people? For instance, when they allowed for worship of God on any mountain that was nearby, rather than having to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; they were only trying to make it easier for the people to worship God. Or when they began to say that Jehovah was the same God as the Bails; they were only trying to be inclusive and make it a more seamless transition for the foreigners to adopt God as their God.

And of course the relaxing of certain laws was imminent, for as the people became more enlightened, they certainly didn’t need all of those divinely given regulations any more. They belonged to cultural oddities of years gone by.

But God had a little something different to say. “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophecy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord” (v16). In other words, the prophets no longer spoke prophetic words from God; and if not from Him, then who? And if the prophecy was not of God and according to His will, then it could only lead one to disfavor with God and destruction.

For such as these there is only destruction in their future according to the will of God. His wrath has gone out and will burst upon the head of the wicked (v19). The day would soon come when Judah would be overthrown and conquered and her people exiled in a foreign land. God’s justice would be delivered. The despisers of His word would not escape His wrath, nor would the unrighteous escape disaster.

The intent of the Lord’s heart is that His people would be righteous, pure, and undefiled. His laws and His divine rules were established to show the people all that was necessary for them to avoid the Lord’s wrath, but they would not listen. Instead they sought to do what was right in their own eyes and they willingly listened to the prophets that told them the sweet things that they wished to hear. And so, with the Law forgotten, there was no need of the Gospel. If all things were just fine under these smooth talking prophets, then what need was there for a Messiah? If there was no bondage, then why worry about a promise of a Savior?

The Word of the Lord is like a fire that consumes that it might purge and purify; that it might reduce and refine. Even though so many prophets said that all was well, it was Jeremiah’s prophecy from the Lord that bore true. The whirling tempest of God’s wrath went forth and burst upon the people of Judah and God purged them of the wicked. He refined Judah to the remnant that remained and returned to rebuild the walls and the temple of Jerusalem.

But the lies prophesied in the name of the Lord continued and were finally levied against His Son. It is the perfect prophet that spoke only God’s Word. It is the anointed one, Jesus Christ that prophesied of a baptism by fire. It is the righteous One, that would suffer as the unrighteous, the One that honors God’s Word that would meet disaster as a despiser of God’s Word.

God’s wrath would go out as a whirling tempest and would burst upon the head of His Son. His anger would not turn back until He had executed and accomplished the intents of His heart. It is now in these latter days that you can understand it clearly. The Christ must suffer and die as one cursed under the Law. The Law must be fulfilled and honored completely that justice may be complete. In these latter days it should be clear as God’s Word declares that Jesus is the founder and perfecter of our faith and that as the patriarch’s were justified before God through faith in the promise, so too are we justified through in that same promise fulfilled. There is no hope apart from faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. All other councils and prophecies are lies and deceptions.

It is maddening and saddening that these false prophets that distort and upend God’s Word still exist today. So many that directs God’s people to depend upon their works instead Christ’s. So many that undo God’s Law and try to defang it such that the Gospel holds no real promise of hope. Do not listen to those that prophecy and fill you with vain hopes. They speak to satisfy the visions of their own minds and not the will of God.

The intent of the Lord’s heart is that your flesh might be put to death under His wrath and that your faith in the promise would raise you to new life. This is all accomplished in your baptism, where you died with Christ and were raised with Him to new life. There is no need to add your works; Christ has already fulfilled the Law for you. There is no need to lesson the Law; Christ already suffered death as sinner under the Law for you.

That which is to be understood in these latter days is that the promise has been fulfilled. God has followed through and done all that Abraham was looking forward to see; He has fulfilled the promise. The intent of the Lord’s heart is accomplished and His desire is that it be fulfilled also for you through faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.

+ Pastor

The town in which they settled in Texas is still there, but the Wend culture is only a memory. The Wendish names still survive, but the language is now all but forgotten. The property and wealth of the Wendish people is disbursed and distributed having changed hands many times over through inheritance and sale. Truly only one thing of this Wendish people still remains in tact and that is their faith. Through their striving for purity of doctrine, these Lutherans even after all else is gone, have succeeded in keeping the Gospel by which the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, keeping it with Jesus in the one true faith and preserving the Church in which He daily and richly forgives our sins.

Tonight I speak to you – most of whom have given up your homes and lives of past years in order to live here at Ashley River Plantation (an assisted living home), and I think that you can see the vanity and the striving after wind as one seeks to achieve immortality by accumulating things that do not last.

There are many former prisoners of war that will tell you that if not for their faith in God, they would not have survived. When they had been stripped of everything; their possessions, their health; their dignity – the only thing that remained was faith that Christ had not abandoned them and that His atoning blood still had purchased and won them from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil.

All things temporal are just that – they are temporary. But faith in the true God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a faith that leads to eternal life. It is vanity to strive after earthly wealth so that one might have pleasure for a time if hell is the reward for eternity. It is pure foolishness to neglect that which God is offering us daily in His Son thinking it unnecessary because of our great comfort in this life.

If I work only to make a dollar then my reward will last only as long as that dollar. But if I trust in the blood of the eternal Son shed for me, then that which is eternal shall remain forever.

Simple vain endeavors can be easily understood, but how can the preacher, King Solomon say that all is vanity. How can he declare that absolutely everything is vanity? Vanity of vanities! This must be understood in terms of eternity.

We are all faced with our mortality, knowing that our days are numbered; that God could call for our soul this very night. And if we go to sleep wondering if we have done all that is necessary for heaven to be ours, then it is pure vanity. For heaven will never be ours based upon our labor or our accumulation of good deeds. All that we do in this life is simply vanity if we do it to earn salvation.

Here in this obscure Old Testament text is the Gospel being given a primary role. All is vanity if we do not trust in Jesus Christ as the one who has earned salvation for us. All is vanity if we want to rely upon the temporal achievements we make instead of the eternal achievements Christ has made for us.

It is His perfect life that is spotless and without blemish. It is His death that atoned for the sin of the whole world. It is His resurrection that justifies the sinner in the eyes of God through water and the Spirit – baptism and faith.

There are all too many people that want to rely on the vanity of their own filthy rags. But as for you and me, we shall rely upon Jesus who pleases God for us that we might have wisdom and knowledge and joy.

All that we have in this life shall one day be taken away, but nobody can take away from you your Savior Jesus Christ. And as Jesus says, “No one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28). To Him be glory and honor forever and ever. Amen.

+ Pastor Sandeno

As Memorial Day approaches in a few days, I sit in the lobby of a Crystal City hotel waiting for a room to be cleaned so that I may check in. I cannot see the now familiar skyline of Washington, DC with the memorials of Lincoln and Jefferson flanking the Washington Monument as it would appear from my location. Nor can I see the Pentagon with Arlington National Cemetery on the hills above the Potomac River. But I know they are there and tomorrow I will see them all too closely. Tomorrow we lay to rest a friend and patriot at Arlington. Neil Hawley fought a valiant battle against cancer these last several years, but this winter, the Lord, in His wisdom called Neil home to Himself in heaven. Pray with me that the Lord would continue to care for his wife and three young boys.

Neil is a veteran of the Cold War, a war that my children will only read about in history books or hear second hand stories about from teachers too young to remember the fear instilled by the drills of school children as they prepared for an atomic doomsday. Neil was a Naval Aviator that tracked Soviet submarines in the oceans of this world so that we as a nation could always account for them and pinpoint their location. He was one of those that relentlessly stood protecting our freedoms from the enemies that most Americans would never have to know.

I thank Neil and the countless others that have given so much of their lives in service to country in order to preserve a way of life that most around the world only dream about. I’m sure that each of you reading this will be able to begin listing those patriots from your family as well. I know of my grandmother’s grandfather that was a member of the Minnesota 10^th during the Civil War. I have a copy of a postcard picture with my great-grandfather “Shorty” in his Army knickers circa 1917. Then there is my grandfather and his several brothers in WW II, Korea and into Vietnam. There is my father, whom I recall dropping off at the armory for his drill weekends with the National Guard and the long Navy deployment of 1974, when I first began to understand loss. I remember not knowing how to say goodbye to my brother when he began his enlistment with the Army soon after graduating from high school. I say thanks to these men for their many years of service as well as the uncles and cousins and the many veteran members and families of both Good Shepherd and Grace congregations that I so greatly appreciate.

For the last few years my family has paid our respects to our veterans by visiting the grave of our neighbor’s son, a former Marine, by placing a bouquet and giving thanks to God for his and other veterans’ service. This year, I think it will be a Memorial Day celebrated with more earnest appreciation than in the past.

I am proud of my more than 26 years of combined civilian, active and reserve Naval service, but I was humbled during my flight home from Washington last Saturday when I was seated next to a couple with a sobering story. I made my way to the back of the aircraft in my summer whites (white from hat to shoes) when I find that the couple seated next to me are enjoying, all too much, their chocolate ice cream cones. I didn’t know if I dared sit. (For those that may not be aware, summer whites seem to act like a magnet to things like spaghetti sauce and I would assume also chocolate ice cream.) I sat and introduced myself. It was only a matter of a minute before the gate agent approached me and offered me a seat in first class, but having heard the beginning of their story, I could not leave them now.

This couple was returning from Texas where they had attended the funeral of their nephew, Corporal Jeffery Johnson, USMC. Jeffery was a 21 year old that was proud to follow in a family line of military service to country similar to mine, but Jeffery was called upon to give more than most of us ever will. On May 11, while walking point during a patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Jeffery was killed by an improvised explosive device.

It is tragic that one so young should lose his life, yet it is what each member of the service is prepared to do for the sake of love. It is love for family, country, and the elusive idea of freedom. Love also gave courage to Neil that he could fight so vigorously; love for others.

I cannot imagine the loss felt by either family. Neither can I imagine ever allowing another Memorial Day to pass without honoring our country’s fallen heroes. This past Sunday, we prayed for the Johnson family in church that God would comfort them and I know that after this week, my perspective will never be the same. I cannot imagine simply enjoying Memorial Day as a “day off.” I am compelled to honor our men and woman that have given their lives in service to our country and our way of life. I ask that you do the same.

Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Certainly, He was talking of Himself. But, as it rings true for our Savior, it also rings true for our many veterans as they willingly sacrificed their lives for their friends; their countrymen. I am forever grateful for their sacrifice. They sacrificed to preserve a way of life for us and as I am compelled to remember and speak of them, and even more so am I compelled to remember and speak of Jesus who sacrificed to provide for salvation and true peace unknown in this life

The Lord bless you this Memorial Day.   Tim

Yesterday I celebrated another birthday. It seems that each year they come and go with less hoopla and fanfare than the year before, but this year I received a wonderful surprise. I had a couple of wonderful cards waiting for me in strategic locations when I woke (the middle of my desk and in front of the coffee maker). They were loving and nice and the words enclosed in those warmed my heart, but my surprise this year came when I checked my online calendar.

My calendar includes the commemoration days of the Church Year and I was surprised to find all that we commemorate this week. My birthday is sandwiched between commemorations of Athanasius, Bishop of Antioch and orthodox participant in the formation of the Nicean Creed in A.D. 325; and Friedrich Wyneken, one of the foremost influences in the Missouri Synod. Pastor Wyneken was a confessional Lutheran that served in a number of congregations and enjoyed positions as a missionary to the American Indians, the second president of Synod, an instrumental portion in the establishment of a practical seminary in Fort Wayne, IN, and taking a firm stand against unionism and indifference.

It is a joy to celebrate my birthday in between days of commemoration for such great churchmen as Athanasius and Wyneken. But the week is not complete. It seems that every day of this week celebrates something, May 5 is Cinco de Mayo, May 6 is the national Day of Prayer, and May 7 commemorates our first Synod president – C. F. W. Walther. But I find one other thing to be of great significance as well. For the last couple of years, I have been able to remember also the birth of two members of Good Shepherd because they both were born in the same year as myself. One eight days before me, the other eight days after me.

It is encouraging to look at the great churchmen of years past and celebrate their victories, but it is an even greater encouragement to share the ongoing struggles and victories of the great churchmen and women that rely upon God in the midst of life. To think on and give thanks for the achievements of saints in ages past is wonderful, but to read God’s Word and share a prayer with the saints of this present age is a blessing that surpasses any commemoration.

Happy Birthday to Matthew and Beth and God’s richest blessings to all of you that continue to share yourselves with me allowing me to pray, rejoice, and mourn with you as the saints of God in Christ Jesus. My birthday reminds me that God has granted me the completion of another year in service to Him and as pastor to you. By His continued grace, He will preserve each of us in baptismal faith in His Son until we fully realize that Birthday Surprise and enjoy the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom alongside all those saints of former days.

In these months of May and June we celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. I’ve often thought of them as just made up holidays that give us a chance to buy more cards and gifts. But whether we buy gifts for our parents or not, God’s Word does direct us to give attention to the words of our parents, for they will adorn us and shape us in an outward manner in our lives.

We all know the story of how the young man who told his father, “You know Dad, the older you get, the smarter you get.” He had not realized that it was then that he finally was beginning to listen to the wisdom that his father had been sharing all along. God has given us parents to raise us and train us. While all possess different abilities, they have done their best. I encourage you thank your parents or perhaps one of your wiser friends (of age or youth) for

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 1:7

+Pastor

St. Patrick must have been mad. Why else would he have ventured back to the land that held him captive in slavery for roughly six years of his youth? But his madness was not craziness. His madness was love. St. Patrick, in the love of Christ crucified for the sinner, sought the salvation of his former captors. As St. Patrick had learned what it really meant to be free, he wanted his former slave owners to know real freedom as well.

We might say that St. Patrick was infected with the madness of the Gospel, because it sure doesn’t make sense to the enlightened mind. It was a certain madness that caused Jesus to seek the freedom from sin, death, and devil for His persecutors. St. Patrick was following the calling of a disciple in bringing freedom to the captive; freedom from the Law, because it has been fulfilled in Christ; freedom from slavery to sin, because it has been conquered in Christ; freedom from the devil, because he has been vanquished; freedom from death, because it has been swallowed up in victory.

March 17 will always mark March Madness for me because of the “madness” that is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (Psalm 23:5a).

+ Pastor Sandeno

St. Polycarp was perhaps the last living link to the last of the living apostles, being a disciple of St. John the beloved apostle. St. Polycarp (whose name means “much fruit”) was martyred about 155 or 156 AD, in the ninth decade of his life on this side of the grave, for his refusal to worship Caesar. While waiting for the flames that would blaze around him at the stake, Father Polycarp was promised his freedom if he would only renounce Christ and just burn a pinch of incense in acknowledgment of the emperor’s divinity.

The grizzled warrior of the cross replied: “Eighty and six years I have served him, how then can I blaspheme my King and Savior? Bring forth what you will.” Instead of offering a pagan sacrifice to the imperial false deity, he defied the emperor by offering his life as a thank offering to the True God.

St. Polycarp’s heroic witness for the Gospel was a powerful testimony of Christ and His Church, serving to fortify the thousands of Christians who were persecuted and martyred by the Roman government. Even today, St. Polycarp continues to give courage to our brothers and sisters around the world who are still being put to the sword for the sake of our Blessed Lord and as a consequence of their good confession.

St. Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians (c. 110-140 AD) is here: (http://networkedblogs.com/zgmj). It is the only surviving written work of Bishop Polycarp, and it is chock full of quotations from Holy Scripture – showing the reverence and submission the apostolic fathers had for the Word of God. St. Polycarp was the teacher and pastor of St. Irenaeus, one of the greatest theologians and defenders of orthodoxy against the attacks of the numerous heretics and heresies of his day – whose heirs continue to this very day to do Satan’s work in attacking the two natures of our Blessed Lord Christ and the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.

We give thanks to God for the testimony of the apostolic fathers, those who learned at the beautiful feet of the holy apostles of Jesus; men who served humbly and faithfully in perilous times and places, even unto death: doctors and presbyters of the Church whose preaching was backed by their works – even the work of following Jesus by taking up the cross of suffering and martyrdom. In this, they bore “much fruit” and offered their lives as a fragrant offering to the Lord, the “Savior of our souls, the Governor of our bodies, and the Shepherd of the catholic church throughout the world” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 1:43).

May we be graced with their courage, faith, devotion to pure doctrine, and most of all, love.

(Thank you to the Rev.  Larry Beane for allowing this post of his writing. If you wish to read St. Polycarp’s epistle, it is located http://networkedblogs.com/zgmj here.)

Sometimes there is a plain square package placed under the tree. It is not too big; not to small; not heavy and not light. It doesn’t rattle and doesn’t move around inside the box. It is one of those presents that the recipient just can’t wait to open. I know you have had one. We all have. It seems that Christmas morning can’t come soon enough in order to find out what that gift can be. Will you like it? Is it something that you’ve really wanted? Sometimes the anticipation can be unbearable.

Oh, but I guess I forget to whom it is that I am writing. You are mature adults. You don’t get giddy with anticipation over a gift under the tree at Christmas. Or, at least, you’ve learned to control your emotions enough to not get carried away. In a way, it is a shame that the anticipation lessens with maturity, because there is still a nondescript package yet wrapped and waiting to be opened by you.

Christmas and its central part as a feast day within the Church Year has not always been the same. Before Christmas was recognized, Epiphany reigned as the most recognized feast day, behind Easter. It is upon Epiphany that the season of Advent was originally based as well as the twelve days of Christmas that fall between December 25 and January 6. While we celebrate the birth of the King on Christmas Day, it is the unwrapping of that child that we celebrate in the Savior of all nations on Epiphany.

“When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.”

Matthew 2:10, 11 (ESV)

The Epiphany Season, which lasts for only six Sundays this year, begins with the manifestation or revealing of the incarnate God in the child Jesus. The Wise Men worship him and give him gifts. They, representing the nations other than Israel, recognize and receive this child of Mary as God come to save them.

We will receive the same unwrapping of our God and Savior this season from the humble abodes of a manger in a stable to the house of a carpenter in Bethlehem, until we shall see him fulfill all righteousness in a baptism with water administered by John, perform the works of God in miracles, and be transfigured in glory upon a mountain as he speaks with prophets of old.

While God did humble himself and take the form of a servant, He did not keep His creation suspended in undue anticipation. He unwrapped His present for us and all the world to see. And as is the case with most gifts; some are excited, some disgruntled, and some just apathetic. May God, who has saved us from our sins by the sending of His Son, also by the power of the Holy Spirit, save us from being disgruntled and apathetic. May he grant us a joy, in the gift that he has given, that reflects from us as much as it did from Moses after he descended from Mt. Sinai. Only let us not be so mature that we feel we must veil that joy from the sight of others.

God bless you in the New Year and bring to completion the joy that He has worked in you to your everlasting salvation.

Soli Deo Gloria, Pastor

All Saints’ Day is one of those special days of the church year that we celebrate every year on November 1. It is a feast day, when we change the paraments to white from the green that we have seen for so many weeks during the long season after Pentecost. It is a day that we celebrate the glorious mystery of the church that is Christ’s body. White represents the righteousness of Christ that each of us has been clothed with in our baptism through faith.

“And behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes. These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Revelation 7:9, 14

Maybe you don’t think of yourself as being in the great tribulation. After all, you haven’t been asked to give your life for the sake of faith in Christ. Or have you. Aren’t you the one that gives freely of your time and your money and your talent all that Christ may be glorified? Sure you do it so that the church may continue here; so that all the things that this congregation does may continue to flourish and prosper. Maybe that doesn’t make you a martyr in the strictest sense, but it does mean that you are sacrificing yourself in one way or another for the sake Christ and the spread of the Gospel.

The tribulation involves temptation by the devil, persecution by individuals and governments, but it also includes the turmoil you suffer within as your own sinful nature tries to steal your joy in giving and caring and sacrificing what you want so that others may have the chance to know that Jesus died so that they may live. That is what a saint is; one who dies so that others may live. You have died to self so that Christ may live in you.

The church is truly found in that place where God’s Word is preached and the sacraments are administered. It is also where the saints and martyrs gather to receive blessing and give praise and honor to God and the Lamb. It is where all the saints, you, me and all those that have gone before us, gather around the throne. You are a saint and I give thanks to God for you who bear that title, for as such, you also strive to live a sacrificial life that gives testimony to your faith in Christ as the only way to salvation.

God continue to strengthen and bless you in your support of the church and the spread of the Gospel, for it is in this communion of the saints that we will be able to persevere through this time of tribulation.

Oh, blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia! Alleluia!                           (LSB 677)

In Christ, Pastor

The Fourth of July is a great holiday for us. What do you think of when someone mentions the 4^th? A picnic in the park? A family get together? Fireworks? The holiday has been around as long as each of us and many of us have developed traditional things that we do on the July 4^th. It is wonderful to mark such a special day in our history and to remember it every year. It makes that first 4^th of July apart of our own history almost as if we were a part of that original party that declared independence from tyranny.

With all the things that we do on the 4^th, I know that I don’t often think about the battle that followed that original Independence Day. Our country’s fathers declared independence, but it was another eight years or so before that independence was realized by the citizenry. Imagine the joy and the celebrations of those early July 4^ths when the participants could remember the hard fought battles that gained that independence from tyranny. The food maybe wasn’t as plentiful as now and the fireworks maybe didn’t exist, but those celebrations must have been grand for the joy that each shared as people that once were at the mercy of a far away government but now were independent and free. I imagine that they celebrated as often as they were able, regardless of the date or a declared holiday. Can you imagine not celebrating our Independence?

“But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” Romans 6:17-18

Your independence from the law and freedom from the slavery to sin is something you get to celebrate daily in the joys a praying and knowing that your prayers are heard by God because He has promised to hear the prayers of His children. Freedom from slavery to sin is something you get to celebrate every Sunday as the forgiveness of sins is given to you through the means of grace.

Every Sunday you get to celebrate your independence from the tyranny under the devil who only sought your demise. In the Divine Service we have God’s Word of promise declared and sung in the liturgy; you remember the declaration of your freedom in Holy Baptism immediately in the invocation and you celebrate throughout as God’s Word bursts forth grander than any fireworks display.

But it is there on Sundays also that you get to participate in the sacrificial battle and not just remember it as something that happened long ago. Jesus continues to give you Himself in His body and blood that you may be nourished and strengthened for your daily battles with that old evil foe who lingers around trying to pull you back into slavery.

You have a day set aside every week that you get to celebrate the great victory over sin, death, and the devil; a holiday every week that reminds you of your freedom. It is a day of rest, when we greatly remember that our labor under the law is completed in Jesus and a day in which we celebrate that great declaration of justification for us in the resurrection of Jesus. I cannot imagine trading this liberty we have in Christ by failing to celebrate it at every opportunity.

I look forward to seeing you at our Sunday celebrations of freedom.

+ Pastor