Letter "D" given by roseleaf

1. Comment on this post with "MEEEEEE!"
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters that start with this letter and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

1. Albus Dumbledore.  The teacher, mentor, father-figure any person would be lucky to have.  He is a brilliant combination of intellect, wisdom, compassion, and silliness.  And he has a somewhat surly history that gives it all an air of authenticity.

2. Dudley Do-Right.  He's the melodramatic archetype of melodramatic archetypes.  For awhile I wanted to be a RCMP because of him.

3. Donald Duck.  Probably my favorite Disney character.  Probably because he's a bit irritable and has a lisp.

4. The Doctor.  The reason I hate Anne of Green Gables on PBS.  She always preempted him.  I still want to be a timelord if I grow up.

5. Darmok.  A personage from the mythology of an alien starship captain's culture in my favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I have not been a friend of President Matt Harrison of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod in the past couple of years.

I have openly and publicly called him a coward.  I have lamented the Missouri Synod's toleration of heresy.  I moved at the Montana District Convention last summer that the Missouri Synod be dissolved.  I have noted that the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod formally became a heterodox church body in 1989 when it created the "office" of lay minister.

I've been impatient and unkind.

I repent.

Yesterday the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod repented of its denial of Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession and returned to a faithful practice of what the Scriptures and Confessions teach regarding the office of the holy ministry.  We are, once again, an orthodox church body which faithfully confesses the Holy Scriptures.

The Missouri Synod isn't perfect and never will be.  It is and ever shall be full of sinners.  But when President Harrison was elected six years ago we were a heterodox church body.  We are heterodox no longer.  I've been saying, "It's been almost six years!  How long is it going to take before President Harrison gets something done!"  The answer, apparently, is: about six years.

President Harrison, I'm sorry.  Last summer you told me that you were going to act pastorally and that when I became synod president I could do things the way I wanted.  You've acted pastorally, and the Lord has blessed your efforts.  I'm sorry for being impatient.  I'm sorry for calling you a coward.  I'm sorry for thinking that we needed to bring down the hammer of the law on those who disagree with our confession of the faith.  You have spent six years teaching the Word of God to the Synod, and God does all things well.

Thank you.

By the way, I don't want to be President of Synod.  I'd be absolutely terrible at the job.  You, most decidedly, are not.

Until two days ago I knew next to nothing about Benedict Arnold.  I knew that he was a revolutionary war figure whose name had become synonymous with treachery, but that's about it.  Then I read an article in Smithsonian Magazine that tried to explore his motivations a bit, but assumed that you knew the details of Arnold's failed plot.  Bad assumption in my case.  So I asked my wife, "Do you know anything about Benedict Arnold?"  And, of course, she did.  She recommended a great biography, which over the past two days I utterly devoured.

The reason that I was so taken with the book is that I found Benedict Arnold to be an absolutely fascinating individual.  Largely, this was because he reminded me of myself, and not in the most complimentary of ways.

Benedict was brilliant, brave, fortunate, prideful, arrogant, short-tempered, principled, slavishly devoted to his reputation, utterly incapable of recognizing his faults, and master of self-justification.

Despite his treachery, many historians believe that were it not for Arnold's achievements in several pivotal battles of the war, our country simply would not exist.  George Washington (probably the only real ally he ever had... and the object of his attempted betrayal) openly agreed with this assessment.

For my part, I'm not brilliant, and I have lousy luck.  But I have had moments of courage, I'm definitely prone to fits of rage, I'm prideful and arrogant, and I do worry way too much about my reputation.  Most of all, I'm very good at self-justification.

It kind of makes me glad I wasn't in the Continental Army.

In any case, looking at the life of Arnold was like looking in the mirror, particularly where his faults are concerned.  Fortunately, there are two big differences between Benedict Arnold and Charles Lehmann.  First, I am not so good at self-deception to believe that I have no faults (though I know that I manage to keep myself unaware of many of them).  Second, my wife checks my self-destructive behavior rather then steering me into it (as Peggy Arnold did).

At this point, I am going to be so bold as to make a very specific comparison between Benedict Arnold and some of my former colleagues in the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod.

There is a story that has repeated itself at least a dozen times over the past couple of decades in the synod.  There are, of course, variations to the narrative, but it usually goes something like this:

A man of at least above average intelligence goes to seminary.  In his study he begins to notice a huge gap between the theology of Luther and the Lutheran Confessions and the congregations he serves as a field worker, vicar, and eventually pastor.  The more he studies the more discontent he becomes.  He knows our confession, and he knows that the practice you find in many of our congregations violates it.  Further, he finds that in his circuit, many of his brother pastors are aware of the problem and either don't care, are too tired to fight, or don't even think that the errors should be corrected.

Within his congregation, the pastor finds the same sorts of attitudes, and when he tries to introduce greater orthopraxy, he is persecuted.  The congregation may openly oppose him or may just use side channels to communicate to the pastor that his idealism isn't welcome or appreciated.  They may leave the congregation.  They may try to oust the pastor and get someone who's willing to cooperate with their abberations.  In any case, the pastor suffers.  His family suffers.  He just wants to be faithful to the confession he studied in seminary, and it's not being allowed.

Back in seminary, this pastor loved to study the history of the church.  In particular he loved the early church fathers.  He read Elert's Eucharistic Fellowship in the First Four Centuries and loved learning that closed communion was a matter of life and death in the early church.  He read the sermons of Leo the Great.  He loved Chrysostom.  He read the early church liturgical work of Hippolytus, Augustine, and Gregory.

At some point he learned that there were churches where these ancient liturgies were still used and the early church fathers were revered on a level close to that of the holy apostles.

Five, ten, or twenty years later he found himself suffering.  He had no support from his brother pastors or his congregation as he strove for orthodox doctrine and practice and he started looking East.  The Orthodox Church didn't mess with the liturgy.  They didn't allow the Lord's body and blood to be thrown in the trash.  They had discipline.  Their clergy seemed unified in a way that we Missourians couldn't dream.

So this pastor read the confessions again.  He saw things that modern Lutherans ignore or reject.  The semper virgo, the clauso utero, the idea of Mary and the saints praying for the church, prayer for the dead not being useless, virginity being a higher estate than marriage, etc.  He saw these things being affirmed in Eastern Orthodoxy every bit as much as they were ignored in Lutheranism.

And so he did what Benedict Arnold did before him.

You see, Benedict saw a country that was so mired in political stupidity that it wouldn't allow him to fight the war.  And no matter how many battles he won, no matter how many times he fought off the British, he received no respect.  His brother generals thought him a loon and a loose cannon.  They poked at his faults and made more of them than they were.  And it seemed that they were going to drag out the war forever and the cause of liberty was going to be extinguished.  And, on top of all of that, he was suffering.  He was financially destitute, accused falsely (and truly), and had to fight for any small accomplishment.

He started looking East too.  If he went to the English, he could end the war and bring peace to the nation he loved.  He convinced himself that betraying his one friend, George Washington, was the right thing to do.  He convinced himself so completely that he razed towns and murdered civilians as a British general.

Back to our pastor... He starts to read Alexander Schmemann and the fathers again.  He visits with local Orthodox priests.  He sneaks to vespers services when his congregation won't know.  He starts catechesis.  And, finally, he announces to his congregation his upcoming chrismation.  He is convinced that by becoming Orthodox he'll have the opportunity to practice true Lutheranism, the Lutheranism he learned in seminary.

He's wrong.  He's self-deceived.  He's abandoning the chief article by which the church stands or falls so that he can pray for the dead, call Mary his mother, and have a pretty liturgy.  He's causing the people God called him to serve to stumble.  He's sending people to hell just as surely as British General Arnold burned American towns to the ground.

A little over ten years ago one of these pastors told me that I was too smart to stay a Lutheran.  I responded that I hoped I'd always be just barely dumb enough.  So far, so good.  Intellectual arrogance combined with a penchant for self-deception is an extraordinarily bad thing, and that, my friends, is why Missouri Synod pastors go East.

In fact, if you aren't a member of Grace Lutheran Church in Three Forks, MT, or Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Belgrade, MT, I'm definitely not your pastor.  Why is this important?  It's important for two reasons:  First, if I'm not your pastor, I shouldn't act as if I am your pastor.  Second, if you're not my parishioner, you should not come to me for pastoral care.

The advent of the Internet has tempted us all to forget this.  I'll give you one specific example.  About four years ago I had a gentleman begin to call me frequently because he was not happy with what his pastor was doing at his congregation.  He was calling me because at the time I was a frequent guest on Issues, Etc., and this man liked what I said there.  I was (at least to this guy) a celebrity pastor.  I tried my best to encourage this man to take his concerns to his pastor, and, if necessary, his District President.  He kept calling.  Eventually I had to block his number on my cell phone.  It was inappropriate for he and I to pretend that we had a pastoral relationship.

In the three or four years since then, celebrity pastors have become a very real phenomenon in the LCMS and the AALC.  There are pastors who in certain corners of these synods are household names.  At least one of them received his first call as a pastor because of his "celebrity theologian" status.

Lutheran celebrity pastors arise in several different ways.  First, through being guests on or hosts of Lutheran radio broadcasts.  A general rule applies:  If you are not a member of the congregations that the hosts serve as pastors, they are not your pastor.  The same applies to guests.  If you are not a member of the congregations that they serve as pastors, they are not your pastor.  And, though this last point should be obvious, it isn't: If they aren't a pastor, they aren't your pastor.

Some radio hosts have been pretty consistent in pointing people back to their pastors for pastoral care.  When I listened to Issues, Etc., Todd Wilken did this almost every week.  Kudos to him for that.  For others, the line was more blurry.  Pastoral counsel would be openly given on the show which potentially drove wedges between a person and their pastor.  This isn't only inappropriate, it violates our confession and brings sinful division into the church.

We confess on the basis of the Scriptures that God calls and sends men to particular congregations.  No pastor is called to provide pastoral care to the whole world.  We are called to serve particular people in a particular place.  We live with and among them.  We are a regularly part of their lives in a real, tangible, face to face sort of way.

I am the pastor of my congregations.  No other pastor is, even the ordained men who are members of those congregations.  God set it up this way.  To give a positive example, my district president is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Harlowton, Montana.  When he visits my congregation, he asks my permission before teaching the Word of God to my people.  I am their pastor.  He isn't.

Celebrity pastors often have difficulty respecting this divinely instituted boundary, and so do the people who listen to them.  If a person respects a pastor because they are teaching the Word of God faithfully, they may, naturally, want to reach out to them for pastoral counsel.  When they do this they are forgetting that God has given them a particular pastor to fill this role.  It is the one who gives them the gifts of God every Sunday.  It is not the one they listen to on the radio, read the blog of, are friends with on Facebook.

These are some other arenas where pastors and parishioners have been tempted to inapproprately cross lines.  I mentioned how this happened with me and Issues, Etc. It also happened at about the same time when I was on the "WETeam."  I was one of the pastors who answered questions posed by viewers on Rev. Jonathan Fisk's video podcast Worldview Everlasting. Viewers would anonymously send in questions that dealt with matters of pastoral care or theology.  The answer should have nearly always been, "Talk to your pastor."  Though that was sometimes part of the answer, it often wasn't included at all.  This was a serious problem.  We weren't pastors to the people we were giving counsel to.  We were violating our confession. We may have been (unintentionally) driving wedges between pastors and their parishioners.  For my part in this I repent and ask the Lord's forgiveness.

The final area I'll mention is very much tied in with the previous ones, but it is probably the most dangerous of them all because it doesn't just tempt celebrity pastors (whether they intend to become such or not), but it also is a pitfall into which the very best intentioned clergy can and do fall.

The area is social media.  I'll focuse on Facebook, because it's what I have the most experience with, but what I'm saying applies also to blogs and anything else that allows for immediate, high-speed, low thought interaction.  The world of social media moves and evolves so quickly that there's no way I can possibly be aware of all the specifics and respond to them, so I'll talk about my experience.

When I was on Facebook, I would often post things that were of theological interest to me (or that really horked me off).  The many Lutheran laity who were friends with me on Facebook would engage me in conversation about the theological point.  Occasionally this would sidebar into some sort of pastoral care driven interaction (usually through private message, but sometimes in the comment stream).

I'm a pastor, and so I wanted to give pastoral care.  What I would forget in these moments (and many other pastors forget this too) is that I wasn't this person's pastor.  That was always the case for me because, as a matter of policy, I never friended my own parishioners on Facebook.  What I should have done (and didn't) was refer these individuals back to their own pastors.  It was never appropriate for me to act as if I was their pastor.  God gave them a particular pastor, and, again... it wasn't me.

Finally, it is important to note that not all inappropriate relationships between pastors and other pastors' parishioners are created equal.  Some pastors, for reasons known only to them, choose to cultivate their "celebrity."  I suspect that some do it because they are pastors of extremely small congregations who don't pay them a wage by which they can support their families.  They cultivate celebrity status in hopes of getting a call to a more affluent congregation, or to supplement their income externally (books, speaking engagements, side-jobs in parachurch organizations).  When I wrote for Concordia Publishing House, this was part of my motivation.

Ultimately, pastors who try to supplement their income through their podcasts, vlogs, blogs, and books would be better served by focusing the energy they are spending on those things on their congregations instead.  That is, in fact, what God has called them to do.  It has been a blessing to me to focus on what God sent me to Montana to do instead of slaving away for my former taskmasters.

Every pastor who is heavily involved in social media would be well served by considering carefully the nature of their call as pastors.  They are called to particular people in a particular place.  Those particular people in that particular place are responsible for providing for their financial needs.  No one else is.  Those particular people in that particular place are in need of their pastoral care.  No one else is.

It is true that the Reformation thrived in large part due to what could be called sixteenth century social media.  Luther's sermons and books were circulated more broadly than anything else had been in world history.  But this happened without the instant and often thoughtless interaction that comment boxes, email, and cell phones provide.  Luther didn't have long, drawn-out debates with someone else's parishioners in Munich because they read his blog post on the Freedom of the Christian.  The long process of writing and delivering letters slowed things down and mitigated the temptation of providing pastoral care to someone else's parishioner. At this moment I'm suspecting that someone is going to cite some point in Luther's life that he did provide pastoral care to somone else's parishioner without their pastor's consent.  To that, I simply say, "So what."   We are not Muslims.  We do not have a Luther Hadith that guides our theological behavior.  We do best to not burden the Reformer with a mantle of infallibility.

God provides a particular man (or set of men) to each particular person to teach them the Word of God and deliver them the forgiveness of sins.  I am calling upon my brother pastors to respect the particularity of their call and to serve only those to whom God has sent them.  I am calling upon the laity to seek pastoral care only from their pastor.

It's a simple thing that the Internet has made difficult.  Fortunately, God has forgiven all of us for our failings to practice what we confess.  That's why we love theology in the first place.

Last night I found that we have a small infestation of ants.  So, off I went to the hardware store to get ant traps so that we could cut this thing off before it gets bad.

While I was there I was looking at various caulking products to see if I could possibly seal off their entrance (I'd seen the wee beasties coming out from under some molding in the dining room).  Over the course of then minutes, I was asked by three staff people if they could help me find anything.  My answer was, "No, I'm fine."

When the fourth came, I'd had it.  I said, "If one more person asks me that question, I'll leave and never come back.  I just want to be left alone so I can do what I came here to do."  The employee didn't say anything, but for the rest of the time I was there he stood in whatever aisle I was in with his arms crossed staring at me.

I've lived in Montana for most of my life and was even born here.  I didn't know that introversion and wanting to be left alone while you shop was a crime, but I was sure made to feel like it is.  I won't be going to that store again.

1. Whether stores should be open on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, or any other day.

2. Who to vote for in any particular election.

3. Whether American companies should build facilities overseas and staff them with local workers.

4. Whether Starbucks should serve coffee in pretty red cups.

It does, however, say that we should be kind to sojourners, widows, and orphans, for we were sojourners in Egypt.

Just sayin'.

Rev. Charles Lehmann + Misericordias Domini + Psalm 23

In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”
יִ֭רְדְּפוּנִי is the Qal imperfect third person masculine plural conjugation of רָדַף with a first person singular particle attached at the end. The meaning of the verb רָדַף is fairly straightforward. It means “to pursue with hostile intent.”

Now, if I haven’t already piqued your interest, it’s time to wake up. This is actually very important stuff. You, here’s the deal. In Psalm 23 יִ֭רְדְּפוּנִי is translated “shall follow me.” It’s the word that describes what goodness and mercy are doing. So what would the literal translation of that part of the Psalm be? Goodness and mercy will pursue me with hostile intent all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

That’s right, dear Christian friends. You’re in big trouble. They’re coming for you, and they’re absolutely relentless. They will not stop, they will not be pushed aside, and you will not escape from them.

Goodness and mercy have picked up your scent, and they will have their way with you. If I were you, I’d save my breath and stop running. I’d let the dynamic duo catch me. Why put off the inevitable? In the end, giving in would probably save me a lot of trouble.

But who am I kidding? I’m not going to give in. I’ll run harder. I’ll make my strides longer. I’ll train more aggressively. I’ll become more disciplined. If I work hard enough I might be able to leave goodness and mercy in the dust. All I need is a can do attitude.

And isn’t that how it is with all of us? God sends His goodness and mercy after us. They run us down, knock us over, and maul us with every blessing imaginable. They set the table with a feast. They try to pour a whole bottle of wine into our glass. They destroy our enemies and protect us from those who hate us.

And we run. We try to jump into every ravine. We try to dash our bodies upon the rocks. We slash our arm so that the wolves and bears will get scent of our blood. We do everything we possibly can to escape the good things that God sends after us.

God sends His forgiveness to us in the absolution. We say, “How dare that man think he can forgive our sins.” We think about that one thing that we consider so bad that it can’t be forgiven and we try to hold it outside of the Lord’s mercy. Goodness and mercy pursue us at the very beginning of the Divine Service, and we try our best to escape.

God sends the forgiveness again as we sing about it in the hymn of praise, ask for it in the kyrie, rejoice in it in the collect, and hear it in the readings from Holy Scripture. There is nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. God’s mercy is everpresent in the liturgy. We can’t get away. But we sure do try.

We check Facebook on our smartphones. We text each other about how dumb my jokes are today. We test our skill at sleeping with our eyes closed. We think about where we’re going for lunch after the service.

Then comes the sermon. The Law leaves us dead in our sins. It wakes our guilt and makes us bow before the Lord in contrition and terror. But then, goodness and mercy come at us again. Jesus nailed to a cross for you. Your sin forgiven. Your death killed. The power of the devil destroyed. Life for you. Peace for you. Innocence for you.

And what do we do? We check our email. We enter REM sleep for the second time in the service. We wonder when the pastor’s going to get a haircut. We say, “Oh, come on… It can’t be that easy can it?” And so we dodge and duck. Goodness and mercy keeping coming at us, and we manage to slip away.

But our Lord’s goodness and mercy are relentless. They come at us again from His table. He gives us His body to eat, and His blood to drink. But we try to defend ourselves from the forgiveness, life, and salvation we’re being offered. We use doubt as a defense. We ask, “Did God really say that this is His body? Did He really mean that this is His blood? Can eating a bit of wheat and drinking a sip of wine really turn us sinners into saints who are holy and blessed before the Lord and Creator of the Universe?”

The answer, of course, is yes. And even faith such as a mustard seed will receive all the blessings that are pursuing you in the Supper. In it, our Lord catches us in a way that we can only avoid through the most stubborn unbelief.

The reason we run from God’s goodness and mercy is that we don’t want to admit our need for it. We don’t want to even think that we might be wretched enough to be forgiven. We want the cross to be for someone else. Maybe someone next to us or a couple of pews away. Maybe someone who’s not here. They’re the ones that need forgiveness. Goodness and mercy don’t need to waste their time on us. We’re fine, thankyouverymuch.

No, we’re not. We are so far down in the muck that we can’t even see it. Our situation is so dire that we can’t even see the bloody cross that is right in front of us proclaiming that God’s wrath has been turned aside and that we are forgiven and free.

Sin numbs us to reality. We get so used to our misery that we run away from that which could put an end to it. We like the disease so much that we turn aside the cure. We think it’s just the way the world works. It’s natural. It’s the way it is. Why fight against nature? We can’t possibly win.

Right on. We can’t win, but God can. We can’t rescue ourselves from this body of death, but Jesus already has. Our Good Shepherd has come to the ravine and lifted us up. He has smitten the wolf with His sling and slain the bear with His staff.

Jesus is absolutely dogged in His pursuit of those for whom He died. He never gives up. He never surrenders. He never stops until He has shown us the depth of our sin and brought us out of our self-chosen purgatory at the cost of His own precious blood and His innocent sufferings and death.

That’s right. It is Jesus who pursues you. When I said the Lord’s goodness and mercy were coming for you, I didn’t mean some vague feeling of well-being and forgiveness. God doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t give theoretical well-being. He doesn’t win imaginary health for you.

Jesus is goodness and mercy made flesh. He is goodness and mercy with bone connected to bone. He is goodness with sinews and mercy with skin. He is filled with the Holy Spirit, the very breath of life, and He comes at you with all His gifts. Everything He won for you on the cross. He took on your sin, your fear, and even your hatred of Him. He suffered what you deserve on the cross. He paid the price you couldn’t pay so that you could receive what you could never earn.

You can’t escape. Jesus is coming. He is waiting for the full number of the elect to receive the gift of faith and then He will descend on the clouds. The dead in Him will rise first, and then we who are alive will meet Him in the air. Goodness and mercy will have their way with us, and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

It is sure. It is certain. It is every bit as much of a done deal as our Lord’s death and resurrection for us are. Stop running, dear Christian friends. Let Jesus catch you.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Rev. Charles Lehmann + Judica Midweek + Day of Wrath, st. 6

In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.

“Therefore hear this, you who are afflicted, who are drunk, but not with wine: Thus says your Lord, the LORD, your God who pleads the cause of his people: ‘Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more.’”

Dear Christian friends, the bowl of wrath is empty. You couldn’t drink from it if you wanted. For two thousand years it’s been as dry as the bones that our Lord will raise from the dead on the last day.

You deserve to drink it. You deserved to be strapped down and have the bowl of God’s wrath poured down your throat for all eternity.

You deserve it because you’ve been filling the bowl all your life. You do it even now. Every stray thought, every glance at the watch, every dream about bedtime condemns you. If any of us had a chance to look in the bowl, we’d see our sins staring right back at us.

But the bowl isn’t for you, and it isn’t for me. It belongs to Jesus. God the Father prepared it for Him. You remember this, of course, because of the prayer that Jesus prayed in Gethsemane. “Take this cup from me, but not my will but thine be done.” Jesus knew what was in the cup, and no one in his right mind would want to drink it. Jesus knew that when He drank that He would suffer more than any other man ever had. But He did it anyway. He fulfilled the words of Isaiah the prophet.

When Jesus was exalted on the cross, He fit the prophet’s description perfectly. “His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.” Isaiah is not only talking about the physical torture that our Lord suffered. Others had received the forty lashes less one. Others had carried their crosses to Golgotha. Others had been spat upon and beaten with sticks. Others had been punched, kicked, and jeered.

But only one would ever experience all of those things while carrying an infinitely greater weight. Only one climbed Golgotha while carrying the sins of the world that He had taken up on the day of His baptism three years before. Only one was climbing the mountain like the Titan Atlas, carrying a weight that no one else could ever carry.

When Jesus arrived at the top of the mountain, His arms and feet were nailed to the cross, and the blood He shed forgave the sins of the world. But on that Good Friday, no one understood what was happening. He sprinkled many nations, and kings shut their mouths because of Him. Never had anyone suffered being tortured to death with such grace. But Jesus went as a lamb to the slaughter. He opened not His mouth except to drink the cup of wrath and speak words of love and forgiveness.

And so, on the last day, our Crucified God will come to us with that same love and mercy. He will separate all people as one separates sheep from goats.

To you He will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

You will be confused. Jesus ascended into heaven nearly two millennia ago. You will assume that Jesus is mistaking you for someone else. And so you and all the other sheep will say, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?”

It’s a bit funny, isn’t it. On the last day, all of the righteous, all who have received the forgiveness which Christ won for them on the cross, all who have trusted Jesus alone for their salvation will be stereotypically Lutheran. They will plead not guilty of being righteous.

But quit protesting, my dear Christian friends. You have served Christ in your neighbor. The love that Jesus has showered upon you must bear fruit. It has no choice. It’s okay to let Jesus reward you for the things He’s done in and through you.

The cup of wrath really is empty. He’s drunk it to the very dregs for you. You are free.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Rev. Charles Lehmann + Phyllis Johnson + Various

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.

On November 2nd, 1934, three months to the day after Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany, a much less noticed but more wonderful thing happened in Sioux City, Iowa. Vern and Clara Miile welcomed Phyllis into the world.

I suspect it’s always the same for parents with newborn babies. On that day Phyllis was their world, and because of her their lives would never be the same again. But they knew something about Phyllis that was impossible to see at the time. They knew their little girl was a sinner. She had been conceived and born in iniquity. They knew that because of her sinful condition, the wrath of God rested on her. They knew she needed Jesus. They knew that she needed to be washed in the waters that He had promised would cleanse her from all her sin.

That is why Phyllis’ faithful parents brought her to the waters of Holy Baptism so that her sinful nature would be drowned and die and she would rise out of the waters a new person, a Christian, a child of the Lord Most High.

Phyllis was just shy of nineteen when she married Don. He’d just finished basic training and was heading off to leadership school and then a nine month tour in Korea. The memory of war was fresh in people’s minds in those days and everyone knew that almost half a million boys hadn’t come home from World War II.

So Don and Phyllis got married when they could, and when Don came home the next year, he got to meet Don Junior for the first time. God then blessed Don and Phyllis with Marnie and with nearly sixty-two years of wedded bliss. You know better than I do the sort of wife, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother that Phyllis was. But I do know what sort of Christian she was.

She was, like all of us, a sinner. Try as she might, she could never free herself from the consequences of living in her sinful flesh. Whenever I visited her she confessed her sins honestly and plainly. She did this because she wanted nothing more than to hear the words of absolution. She knew that Jesus had taken her sin to the cross and died for it there. And even though every fiber of her being was sure of that, she always wanted to hear it again. And she did. She heard that God was forgiving her sins with my lips and His words. And then she received the body and blood of her Savior. And in that body, crucified for her, and in that blood, shed for her, she received life and forgiveness. And Jesus promised, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” Phyllis knew this.

You see, God’s not done with her yet. As wonderful as what Phyllis is experiencing now is, her Lord has still more to give to her. When Jesus was comforting Martha, He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

Jesus didn’t suffer and die on the cross and then rise on the third day so that Phyllis’s soul could go to heaven. There’s nothing in the Bible about God’s saints sitting on puffy clouds and playing harps. Heaven is not an ethereal, spiritual reality. The inheritance that God promises to every Christian is life. Real, physical life. Blood flowing through Phyllis’s veins again. Air going in and out of her lungs again. Her eyes gazing upon her Savior’s face. Her arms embracing her children and grandchildren.

Right now Phyllis is dead. But she won’t be forever. Right now Phyllis’s body is in an urn. But that’s only temporary. Phyllis’s soul is in perfect peace and joy, but Jesus still has more to give to His beloved sister.

The comfort Jesus has for you today is the same comfort that He had for Mary and Martha. Their brother was dead. They loved him. They missed him. Like Phyllis, he’d been dead for several days. Like Phyllis, he had left a gaping hole in the lives of those who loved him.

And when Jesus, Mary, and Martha arrived at Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus was moved by the grief he saw in the sisters’ faces. He saw that the loss of their brother had wounded them deeply. And Jesus knew what He was going to do. He had been planning it for nearly a week. He was going to speak a word of command, and Lazarus was going to rise from the dead. Lazarus was going to walk out of the tomb on his own power. Jesus knew this. It was more sure and certain to Him than the ground He was standing on.

But even though Jesus knew that in a few minutes Lazarus would be embracing his sisters, our Lord was still moved by the grief on their faces. He could see the pain. He could see the trembling limbs. He could hear the sobs. And, it got to him. Jesus wept.

The Eternal Son of the Most High God cried. Tears flowed down the face of the one by whom the heavens and the earth had been made. The one who breathed life into Adam in the garden felt tears stream down his cheeks. The one who judged Egypt with the ten plagues and brought His people across the Red Sea trembled with grief.

Think about it, my friends. God cries at funerals. But why? Why would Jesus cry? He knew what He was about to do. He knew Lazarus was going to live. He knew that the story was going to have a happy ending. Why did Jesus cry? Because He hates death. Death is evil. Death robs us of the companionship of those whom we love. Death makes it seem like the unending life that Jesus promises is a lie. Death tries to suck every drop of joy and peace out of us.

Death is the greatest weapon in Satan’s arsenal. Satan wants you to grieve like those who have no hope. He wants you to think that you’ll never see Phyllis again. He wants you to think that you’ll never hold her in your arms, never kiss her, never hear her voice. Satan wants you to be a slave of misery and despair. He hates you, and he hates Phyllis.

And Jesus hates Satan. He hates what Satan does to us when a loved one dies. He hates that the devil crushes your spirit and robs you of hope. And that, dear Christians, is why God cries at funerals. He cries because it’s a horrible and evil thing that Satan is trying to do to you. But here the word of the Lord, dear friends! Satan has lost. He is utterly defeated. He has no power over you. The old evil foe has been felled forever.

Jesus defeated him when He went to the cross in your place. Jesus robbed the devil of all of his power when He suffered all of the wrath that we sinners deserve. God the Father has poured out all of His rage against the world’s sin on His only begotten son. And that, dear Christian friends, means that when you cry at this funeral, you can spit in the devil’s face at the same time.

It makes perfect sense to cry. Phyllis is dead, and that’s an evil thing. We miss her. We want her to be here right now. We want to hold her. We want to tell her we love her. So, we cry. Jesus cries at funerals too, and so don’t let anyone tell you that it’s wrong to shed those tears.

But, rejoice too. Phyllis died well. She died trusting her Savior for life and salvation. She died wrapped in the cloak of Christ’s righteousness. She died as a forgiven sinner who delighted in receiving all of the gifts that Christ won for us on the cross.

And now, Phyllis is in a greater peace and a greater joy than we can imagine. She, in the words of the book of Hebrews is “come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.”

And she will rest in peace. Perfect heavenly peace. Peace that surpasses our understanding. The peace that comes from being with your Savior and knowing that at the end of days you will live again. That was Phyllis’s hope in this life, and it is her reality now. Our dear sister will live again. Her Savior has made sure of it.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.