Pious Lutheran

Paul and Silas Singing in Prison , Jim Padgett, 1984 Christian Joy in View of the Eternal Resurrection Christians have sorrows on earth Yet, christians have joy, not in the fleeting things, but in the eternal things Richard Wurmbrand was a Lutheran pastor in Romania in the mid-20th century when his country was under communist control. In one of his books, he describes the suffering which many Christians had to endure in communist prisons. He described living conditions where the prisoners were kept practically naked in cold cells, fed rotten cabbage soup daily and a slice of bread once a week. The communists would torture the christians so severely and in such a vile manner it’s not appropriate to describe in polite company. Nevertheless, in spite of their horrible suffering those christians still had joy. One of pastor’s Wurmbrand’s stories reminds me of the time Paul and Silas were stripped, beaten, and thrown in prison in Philippi, and in the night they prayed and sang hymns to God....

Adoration of the Child,  Gerard van Honthorst, circa 1620 A little while of sorrow, but an eternity of Joy. Sorrow is only for a little while. Joy is for eternity. Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Jubilate Sunday is interesting. The name of the day is joy, and yet the readings are fairly sobering; not particularly jubilant. But these readings are exactly what we Christians need to hear right now. This life is not always the most pleasant and easy, we all know this, I think. Being a Christian doesn’t make life easier either. Being a Christian makes life better, I believe that with my whole heart, but it doesn’t make life easier. This is what Jesus teaches us today, that life with Him is better even if it is not easier. We do have a little while of sorrow, but an eternity of joy! “ Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. ” We don’t often need to be told that we...

Ascension , Sebastiano Ricci, 1701 Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! The very best leaders lead by example. For instance, as a boy growing up I learned how to work hard in the garden by watching my father, or I learned how to cook in the kitchen by watching my mother. It used to be that kings went into battle with their soldiers, fighting alongside their men. When you start a new job, it’s easiest to learn how to do the work by watching the example of someone with experience. So it is with Jesus: Christ leads us to the grave, to the resurrection, and to heaven. Jesus prepared His apostles and us for His ascension to heaven when He said: “ A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me. ” 40 days after Jesus rose from the dead He ascended to heaven, and His disciples saw Him no longer. But again, in a little while, when Jesus returns on the last day, we will see Him again. On that day our hearts will rejoice and no one...

Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! “ Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. ” That’s probably not the exact promise you would like to hear from our Lord today, but there it is anyways. In this life we will weep, lament, and be sorrowful, but only so that we might have joy in heaven. Often we probably try to ignore Jesus on this subject of suffering, or His words simply fall on deaf ears. And as Americans living here for the past 50 years, life has really been quite comfortable and relatively safe. War, pestilence, and famine have been far removed from us, relegated to 3rd world countries. We just watch documentaries about those things from our comfortable leather couches. For those reasons, it does seem as though the Corona Crisis has awakened us to this reality of suffering that Christ promises. In the first place, the virus has given us cause to reflect u...

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! We spend far too much time feeling sorry for ourselves. We’re like the prophet Jonah, whom God asks, “ Do you do well to be angry? ” To which we respond with Jonah, “ Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die! ” We feel sorry for ourselves when we see others happy and rich and ourselves poor and downtrodden. We feel sorry for ourselves when we don’t receive the honor we think we deserve. We feel sorry for ourselves when our lives don’t go as planned.  As Christians we even think we have good reasons to feel sorry for ourselves! The world hates us, our friends hate us, even our family hates us because we’re Christians. We’re excluded from things because of our faith. People revile us because of our beliefs and lifestyles. People spurn our names as evil because we proclaim God’s Word faithfully to all around us. So we feel sorry for ourselves!  But that self-pity is not what Christ is talking about in our Gosp...

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! “ Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise! Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!” ” The Lord has done such awesome deeds upon the earth; the scriptures are filled with them! By the power of His Word He created all things. He divided the Red Sea and let Israel pass over on dry ground. He caused water to spring forth from a rock. He preserved the three men in the fiery furnace. He has marked us with the blood of the Lamb so that the angel of death passes us over. Great is our God and awesome are His deeds!  Those words of our introit that we read this morning sure start out joyful, don’t they! But Psalm 66, from which our introit is taken, continues: “ For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you ...