Pious Lutheran

Entry Into Jerusalem , Giotto, 1266-1337 Happy new year! The world celebrates the new year on December 31st and January 1st by eating junk food and getting drunk, but the Chrsitian church celebrates the new year at the beginning of Advent by preparing for the second coming of Christ. The world hopes to make the next year better by making resolutions. The church looks ahead to the next year and hopes in the Lord; during this new year of grace we prepare to meet the King who comes to save us. Whenever we look ahead and come to something new, there’s bound to be fear in the unknown. None of us know what the next year will bring, let alone what this very day will bring! Many European countries have been reimplementing their strict covid restrictions about where people can go and who they can gather with. Will those restrictions come back here in Iowa? I don’t know. On December 1st the Supreme Court is scheduled to begin hearing arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and...

The Parable of the Rich Fool , Rembrandt, 1627 Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is helpful for us Christians to have our minds and hearts properly reoriented toward the Giver of all good gifts. Between Halloween and New Year’s Eve American life is all about the stuff; it’s all about having ample goods and relaxing, eating, drinking, and being merry. Even though Thanksgiving is for many people little more than another day to fill our bellies with food, this is a great opportunity to take a break from consuming and be reminded of what truly matters. Namely, life is not all about the abundance of possessions and living comfortably, but life is about seeking the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus reorients our minds toward heaven when He teaches us the parable of the rich fool. This parable is a challenging one for us to listen to mainly because we so easily identify with the rich fool! Here’s a man who’s already rich, he has land and barns to store the crops. He has everything and more to meet his ...

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, 1788-1862 How wonderful it will be when Christ, our Bridegroom, returns and we enter with Him into paradise! That’s what our beautiful hymn of the day, which we just sang, is all about. Philipp Nicolai, the author of that hymn, was a zealous and staunch Lutheran pastor of the 16th century. After being driven out of his first parish by Roman Catholics, in 1596 pastor Nicolai became the pastor in a small town of 2,500 people called Unna in Westphalia, Germany. But the next year a plague broke out, and between July of 1597 and January of 1598, six months, 1,400 people died. Over half the town in just six months! At times he was burying more than 30 people a day. Yet, it was during that time, while sitting in his office overlooking the church graveyard, which he said exuded an evil smelling vapor, that he wrote a 400 page book of consolation and hope titled Mirror of the Joys of Eternal Life . In that book he wrote the...

The Healing of a Bleeding Woman,  The Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter near Rome, 4th Century “ And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.” Quite obviously, this woman experienced shame. Shame is the feeling of being guilty, of being filthy, unclean, embarrassed. Shame has two aspects, it comes when you do wicked things and it comes when wicked things are done to you. Regardless of the type of shame you wear, Jesus cleanses you from all shame. In some cultures shame is still a pretty big deal, especially in the East or particularly throughout Asia. But in the West, and particularly in the US, we’re not big on shame, in fact we’re fairly anti-shame. For example, in nearly every large town and city across the country people march in gay pride parades. These parades are dedicated to feeling pride, instead of shame...

Agnus Dei , Jose Campeche, 1751-1809 Dear children, grandchildren, relatives and friends of Lorma, God’s peace be with you. When you’re heavy laden with grief and sorrow, listen to the comforting words of your Savior: “ Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ” Christ our Lord promises you rest and peace in the midst of your sorrows, so lay your burdens on Him, and rest a while. Lorma, she is already resting. Her soul is resting with the Lord in heaven, and her body will soon be laid to rest in the grave as she awaits the day of resurrection!  After labor comes rest, and Lorma has indeed labored as a Christian for many years. If you read her obituary you will have noticed that she was involved in so many things in the church, from the LWML to the choir to serving in Laborer for Christ where she travelled around renovating churches. Lorma and her Husband Ray even moved the family farm from West Bend to Whittemore in order for their kids to attend the...

Ghent Altarpiece: The Adoration of the Lamb Upon the Throne,  Jan van Eyck, 1430 What is a saint? Often when we think of saints we probably immediately think of the sainthood the Roman Catholic church confers upon certain individuals who lived particularly moral lives, experienced at least two miracles during their earthly life, and are not in purgatory but in heaven. Well it’s a lot simpler than that. According to how the term is used in the Bible and its basic meaning, a saint is a holy person, a person set aside by God for God. So for example we have the holy Bible, it’s not just any book, but it’s God’s book. We have holy Baptism, it’s not just any washing, but it’s washing by God. We have holy Communion, it’s not just being united with ordinary things, but it’s being united with God. So a saint is a holy person set aside by God for God. This means those beloved Christians in heaven are saints, and it also means that we Christians alive today are saints with them. Now, historic...