Life Together

…1 Peter 2:1-6.  1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation-3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Isn’t it an oxymoron?  How can a stone be living?  In itself a stone is without life. It even is the mark of death…a slab of rock to record your epitaph.  And without the Lord Jesus, it is the very thing we are.  Without God, we’re lifeless.  We cannot do anything that is good and we have no fear, no trust, no love for God or his Word.  We despise the Lord Jesus and everything that he speaks.  And so it is that beating within our chest is a heart of stone – a cold rock… to defy, to lie, to deceive, to slander, to hurt and to hinder.

It’s a heart that seeks out an independent road, a path of our own, our own way to salvation.  It’s a heart that ignores the needs of others and exults self.  When the man and the woman ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and their eyes were opened… the first thing they did was cover themselves and hide from God.  In their shame and vice they drew themselves away from God and away from each other. We no longer are born with true love of God—instead we have a true desire to sin and to run from God.  We despise Him and end up alone in the midst of the valley of death with the weeds and thistles of life growing up around us.

As a pastor I’ve heard it said that I should change our Lutheran Worship, change our church body’s stance on closed communion, and that I shouldn’t talk about Jesus and his blood so much… and the reason?  Each individual has a personal relationship with God that is hindered by this teaching and preaching.  This message doesn’t allow for individual stones to be polished and laid in settings of gold or sliver.  It doesn’t let the person have their way with Jesus and his message.  The church should let each person have that individual “God” experience and the pastors have to just learn how to butt out.  That, of course, would make worship more meaningful and moving…

The problem is our Lord Jesus doesn’t fit that mold.  He isn’t a stone to polished and cut the right way so that He glistens and sparkles in the light.  Our Lord Jesus is a cornerstone.  His work is never to stand alone, but to draw all men to Himself.  He makes us like Himself, little Christs, little lights for the world.  Not stones that refract the light, but stones that produce light… not stones that stand alone, but stones that find their strength when they are built up in Him, the chosen and precious cornerstone of Zion.

King David called this world the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  Satan would have it a darkness with a chilling breeze.  He would have our sin be our crutch and our hearts beat to a tune that’s different from God. But there came a man, sent from God, a man that is God, chosen and precious in all of heaven.  True man, born of a peasant girl named Mary and also true God begotten of the Father from all eternity.  This one has come to bring light to the valley and the warmth of life to you.

All this He does through His Word.  That your heart of stone would be ripped from you and a living, beating, heart of flesh take its place and your sins removed from your white knuckled clutches, He drowns you in the waters of Baptism.  And baptized you become a living stone.  A brick, to be placed and used in the building of His spiritual house.  It’s as a living stone that you have a life together with the many members of the church and with Jesus Christ Himself.

He means for it to be a life together.  The Greek word koinwni÷a is often translated as fellowship or communion.  Our life as Christians is made whole as Jesus makes us members of this fellowship — but not just that!  That He continues to sustain us and carry us through the Valley of the Shadow of Death with that fellowship.  When Adam and Eve hid themselves—God went and found them.  He didn’t need to…but He did.  He confronted their sin, but covered their shame with garments made of skin.  In God’s proclamation of the Gospel to Adam — He gave absolution.

In the same way He finds us, sends His Holy Spirit to call us with His Gospel and gathers us unto Himself.  He creates in us a clean heart and restores the joy of His Salvation to us in the partaking of the body and blood of the Cornerstone Himself.  In the eating and drinking of Jesus’ body and blood we are given a right spirit again.  It’s in this beating heart of God that we are forgiven, given new life, and are emboldened in a life together of being little Christs, full of mercy with a mouth opened by God to Witness the praises and the promises of Jesus.

Check out Pastor Scott Murray’s radio program, Dying to Live on Pirate Christian Radio.  He and I will discuss Life Together in March.

Engaging Truth

This Sunday, I’m going to be on KKHT 100.7 FM for Engaging Truth.  Diane Lamberson and I will be talking to Dr. Gene Veith about Christianity and modern culture.  We are going to use Romans 1 and 2 to base our discussion.  I’m looking forward to it.  You can tune in at 7:30p.m. either at 100.7 on the FM dial or at KKHT.com.  Hope you can join us.

Hope in Houston

My mind has been captivated in outreach and evangelism.  I work in the midst of inner-citty Houston.  Our Redeemer Lutheran Church is in north Houston and we are located in the middle of a large hispanic community.  But what does it mean to be a Christian congregation in a community and what should and could we be doing for the community and for the city.  I’d love to hear from those of you that are working in inner-city parishes.  I’m really excited about the months ahead.  Building hope in the midst of Houston.  Christ died for the lost.  We’re there.  Christ is there.  Let’s rejoice.

September’s Newsletter Article

It is a testimony to the grace of God that he chooses to use sinful men to be his ambassadors, his undershepherds.  I’ve often thought that there must be a better way to care and tend the sheep of God then to send a sinful lamb to lead them.  Of course, then God reminds me that his ways are not my ways and his thoughts are not my thoughts and that he is in charge of the church and not me.  The best way then – it’s to have pastors.  It’s God’s will that a man come to Our Redeemer Lutheran Church to stand in the stead of Jesus and at his command give the good news of heaven to the lambs of his church.

God’s good grace is seen and given to you nestled in the things of creation.  That is what your Lord is after all.  God has become a man.  He has veins and a brain, a fingerprint, and ten toe nails…  Your God is a man.  He uses water and bread and wine.  He bids that a man be sent to you with his message, with the explicit instructions to forgive their sins and to wash them in the blood of the Lamb.  A pastor must feed the sheep, care and tend for the flock, scrub behind their ears and make sure they are brought to the quiet waters of the sacraments.

I love it.  A flock of lambs, the beloved of God, his bride and holy stones…your head is Jesus Christ.  St. Paul would have you be imitators of Christ.  Give up your life for your neighbors and die loving those who hate you.  Its impossible.  You cannot by your own reason or even with every bit of your strength love anyone but yourself.  It takes the interjection of the God-man, Jesus Christ.  You need the Holy Spirit to whip you into shape.  Without Jesus you would be like the world, looking out for yourselves, storing up treasures of earthly stuff, and in the end loosing everything when you thought you had it.  The rich man feasted everyday, but in the end he had to look up from hades to see the beloved Lazarus.  It’s easy to curse and to hurt and to hinder.  It’s easy to ignore and to refuse to love.  Repent of your earthly pride and loose the bitterness of the world.

You’ve heard it said, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”  Its human nature to dislike those that hurt you and to hold in your heart a grudge.  It’s easy to gossip and ruin a reputation and to trash those that are easy to walk all over.  But Christ Jesus says that his body and blood shed for you shatters the human nature.  In the cross of Christ every evil plan and purpose of your heart is broken and hindered.  “But I say, love your enemy and pray for those that persecute you.”  (Matthew 5:44)

WHAT??!  Love your enemy?  Pray for those that hurt you and do all kinds of bad things to you?  Jesus can’t really be serious, can he?  How can we insist that people LOVE one another?  How can we insist that people stop speaking all kinds of evil and start loving and lifting up each other?

Jesus picked you.  He pours out his life-blood for you.  He dies in love for you.  In that death is life and salvation.  He dies and makes you a holy stone, a loving, lovely mini-Christ.  Together, you are a holy priesthood and a bride – without spot or blemish.  Our Redeemer Lutheran Church is all about this love.  You are a flock of mini-Christs, loving each other and loving the world.  You are called to be a light on a hill, to love those that persecute you, and to reach out to those that sit in this congregation with you.  We pray in the divine service, “We give thanks to Thee, Almighty God, that Thou hast refreshed us through this salutary gift (the sacrament); and we beseech Thee that of Thy mercy Thou wouldst strengthen us through the same in faith toward Thee and in fervent love toward one another; through Jesus Christ, our Lord…” (emphasis mine)

We must insist that love abound at Our Redeemer.  We love each other, every member, and we reach forth into the neighborhood and beyond with the love of Christ.  It’s time to end the gossip of our poisoned tongues and to hold each other accountable to the love, of which we know we have been made a part.  Love means forgiveness.  Love means reaching out to the lost and the missing.  We love because Christ first loved us.  AND he keeps loving us.  He loves us and sends his Spirit to call you back to the altar to give you rest and restoration in the shadow of his wings.  Come and be refreshed.  Be encouraged in the Word of God.  Eat and drink his body and blood.  You are a priest and a prince in the kingdom of God.  His good favor abounds, his grace is free and it is for you.

Why we sing…

Lutherans don’t sing because we’re happy.  It just isn’t true.  Sometimes we sing when we’re happy, but it isn’t the reason we sing.  This is the peculiar nature of the Lutheran Church, we sing because we confess our faith in the hymnody.  The rich hymnody of the Lutheran church is another avenue by which we learn about the greatness of the Lord Christ and by which we teach the faithful about his merits and by which we declare to the world that he is our Lord.  Other church bodies may sing because their happy, although I haven’t ever seen it.  They may even sing about what would make them happy, I don’t know.  However, Lutherans sing specifically because God has opened our mouths with his Word.  Lutheran singing therefore has to be his Word coming back out.  So Lutheran singing isn’t something that can be done without.  Singing is a must for Lutherans.

The thing that distinguishes the singing of Lutherans from all others is that it confesses our faith.  Not only does it lift us out of our reality, which I might suggest is why any human being sings, but it lifts us into the specific reality of the angels and archangels and the Lamb of God.  Church for Lutherans is a heaven experience and therefore our music is unlike that of the world.  It may have similar notes or even similar instruments, but its words are what cull it from the world’s music library.  Most times the notes and instruments are quite different from the worlds and the whole thing sounds different.  Yet it is the Word of God nestled in the midst of our music that makes it unique.  Our music would echo the work of John the Baptizer and the Holy Spirit… “I must decrease and He must increase.”  It must be pointed to the great work and merit of the cross of Christ.   It does not point in to the heart of the Christian, but rather to the wounds in the Jesus’ hands and feet.

I might add that unique to the church is that we chant.  In other words, we sing everything.  The very experience of church is unlike anything the world could throw at us.  It sounds different, it looks different, it smells different, and even tastes different.  God uses our senses to touch us in a unique way.  Together they altogether call us to a alter reality.  Lutherans are experiences a foretaste of heaven when they attend the Divine Service.  They are in the presence of God Almighty.  They are clothed different, they are speaking (singing) different, and they are eating and drinking different.

It is a beautiful thing that we have a rich musical heritage in the Lutheran Church.  Let our church always remember why it sings and specifically what we are doing when we sing.  Our kingdom is not of this world.

iPhone 4

I’m completely excited about the new iPhone.  It comes out in a few weeks and we can pre-order one on Monday.  There is capability for video chat (which Apple is calling “Facetime”).  For that they put a camera on the front and the back of the phone.  Finally.  The other thing I’m hoping for… the new case will transmit better.  The edge of the phone is part of its antenna.  Before the antenna was built into the innards of the phone.  Now it will be on the outside for all the AT&T towers to see and talk to loud and clear.  There is a bit of glass on both the front and the back of the phone… making it a shiny beauty.  Not to mention multitasking, folders, and a 5 pixel camera.  Check it out on www.apple.com.

Luther Quote on Baptism

Since we know now what Baptism is and how it is to be regarded, we must also learn why and for what purpose it is institution.  We must learn what it profits, gives, and works.  For this also we cannot find a better resource than Christ’s words quoted above, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” [Mark 16:16].  Therefore, state it most simply in this way: the power, work, profit, fruit, and purpose of Baptism is this– to save [1 Peter 3:21].  For no one is baptized in order that he may become a prince, but, as the words say, that he “be saved.”  We know that to be saved is nothing other than to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil [Colossians 1:13-14].  It means to enter into Christ’s kingdom [John 3:5], and to live with Him forever.

–Large Catechism, Part IV.

Alleluia… Christ is Risen!

He has risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Holy Week

So here it is. Holy Week has descended upon us. Palm Sunday at Our Redeemer was a wonderful celebration and yet a sense of restrained joy. Our alleluias were still hidden. The crosses were veiled. We removed the gloria patri. Yet at the same time we sang our hosannas as loud and as clear as we could. This week we’ll have services on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and (of course) Sunday. Come join us if you can. We’d love to have you. The weekday services are at 6:30 p.m. and Easter morning is at 9:00 a.m. Blessed holy week to all.

Quote of the Day

“By his partaking of the Sacrament in a church a Christian declares that the confession of that church is his confession. Since a man cannot at the same time hold differing confessions, he cannot communicate in two churches of differing confessions. If anyone does this nevertheless, he denies his own confession or has none at all.”

– Werner Elert