And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.   So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:28)

People often think that Christian morality rests on blind commitment to a list of rules.  They think so because Christians will sometimes make moral arguments by quoting one or two commands from the Bible.  In this passage, our Lord Jesus Christ shows us a better way.

Someone throws a law at Him—“You can’t work on the Sabbath!”—and He responds by going back to creation: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  The Redeemer of creation, Jesus unpacks the divine will at work in time and nature alike.  God’s purpose in hallowing the Sabbath was for people to rest in His good work, not to live in the fear of doing work.

So it always goes for Christians.  Morality is not about checking off rules to keep ourselves pure; it’s about living as God has given us to live in His Son, who leads us faithfully into creation as God intends it: pure gift, pure rest, and pure joy.  Forgiven in the blood of Christ, we are free to take up the work He gives us without fear.

LET US PRAY:  O Lord of the Sabbath, You are the rest of the weary and the crown of creation.  Fill the earth with the joy of Your salvation, and write Your law upon our hearts; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God forever.  Amen

Pr. Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.”  (Isaiah 6:3)

Holy, and not Goody or Happy or Nicey, and not even Mighty or Smarty—God is holy.  He is different from all other things, and in that way, He is incomprehensible to us.  The medieval theologian, Thomas Aquinas, described God as truly simple, singular in a way that we cannot imagine.

Yet as the angels also declared to Isaiah, this Holy God is happily available to the earth that He has made—“the whole earth is full of His glory.”  God spoke out of His perfect, undisturbed satisfaction and created a whole world to be loved by Him.  Again, He is holy and therefore different from us.  We, finding ourselves perfectly satisfied, might be inclined not to seek anything more, but God, in His satisfaction, sought the creation of many more, that they too might be satisfied.

Here is the God who would set aside His personal joy to seek the lost.  Here is the Father who would give up His Son to death, that the dead might be saved; here is the Son, who would suffer the absence of His Father to comfort the orphaned; here is the Comforter, who would gladly give all glory to the Son and His Father that a whole world of sinners might believe.

He is holy, not nicey and not goody.  He is different from us, and thank God He is.

LET US PRAY: Holy Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: send Your Holy Spirit of love upon all the earth, and enrapture every creature with the glory of Your Son; in His name, the holy name of Jesus.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

And when [the Spirit] comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me;  about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer;  about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.  (John 16:8-11)

The Lutheran church should give daily thanks for Twitter.  Over the past five years, that steady, online stream of posturing, self-righteousness, and public shaming has done more than all of God’s preachers combined to expose our need for the Gospel.

The Gospel is simple: Jesus alone is righteous.  He returned to the Father and now rules with the Father in glory.  He is the judge, and thanks be to God, He has declared you righteous for the sake of His blood alone.

So what is Twitter but proof that the human heart would prefer a very different kind of judge and rule?  What do the dregs of human speech captured on that digital platform demonstrate but that we are far more ready than God Himself to condemn others and glorify ourselves?

The devil’s in pits; all the rest of you are forgiven for Jesus’ sake.  So says the Spirit, and so say I.  There’s no more wrong to prove, but only the Righteous One to follow.

LET US PRAY: I’m sorry, Father, for not loving my neighbor as You have loved me; and yet I glory in the blood of Your Son, shed for my sake and for the whole world.  By Your Holy Spirit, renew my mind, and thus also my speech, that whatever I speak may be spoken in love, as You are love; for Jesus’ sake.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“One of these men must become with us a witness to His resurrection.” (Acts 1:22)

Must!  The apostles used their words carefully.  When Judas Iscariot proved unfaithful, the remaining 11 apostles knew that they must replace him, not for the sake of numerical consistency or the beauty of balance, but for the central task of their calling: witnessing to the resurrection of Jesus.

That witness is why God had called the apostles: He wanted the 12 men to go forth and testify (first to Israel, then to the world) that Jesus is not dead, but alive.  It is also why we call the Church “apostolic”: the Church’s faith hangs on their witness, and the Church exists to preach and teach that witness still today.

This week concludes the Church’s annual celebration of Easter, but the witness to Jesus’ resurrection continues.  The Church must (must!) bear that witness to be the Church.  Without it, there is no reason to be the Church, but with it, there is reason for everything good, and for hope in the midst of the bad.

LET US PRAY: O God, thank you for the holy apostles.  Grant that their witness to Your Son’s resurrection would still convert hearts today.  Let Your Word spread and spread, and Your Church grow and grow; in Jesus’ name.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:14)

Have you ever met someone who makes it easy to be his or her friend?  Someone, you might imagine, who not only seeks your friendship, but then, in a sort of wonderful, strange way, keeps working to make you a good friend?

It’s the friend who takes you out for her birthday as well as yours; the friend who, when you’re sure you’ve said something wrong, calls you and chit-chats in a way that lets you know all is well; the friend who asks for what he needs, and doesn’t wait for you to offer; the friend who’s ready with a relieving joke when you feel stupid or ashamed—in short, the friend who makes you a friend by being your friend.

That friend is your Lord.  He came to earth to gain friends, lovers of the kingdom, and yet He did not play the hard-to-get, fickle friend.  What He demanded He also provided: His words, His commands, His gifts—these things blaze the path of friendship with Jesus, making you His friend by being your friend.

LET US PRAY: Thank You, good Friend, for being the Lover of my soul, the good friend who I cannot be.  By Your friendly Spirit, teach me to love as You have first loved me, and thus keep Your commandments to the end.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”  And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”  (Acts 8:30-31)

St. Philip was listening to the Ethiopian eunuch, a royal official, read aloud in his chariot.  He could read the words, but could he understand them?  “How can I, unless someone guides me?”

God does not call us to faith all by ourselves.  He reveals His righteousness “from faith to faith,” from the Gospel preached by some sinners to be heard by other sinners who in turn speak what they have believed.

He therefore gives us the Scriptures, that we may hear the prophets and apostles bearing their witness; and He gives us teachers, that we may read, know, and inwardly digest this witness; and He gives us each other to confess, sing, and pray this word together and for our neighbors.  By revealing Himself in words, God chose to reveal Himself in a Church, a fellowship of speakers and listeners.

As God said in the beginning, “It is not good that man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18).  He speaks not only to be heard, but also to gather, setting His newborn children within a communion that not even hell can quiet.

LET US PRAY:  Speak, O Lord, and I will listen; and whenever I don’t listen, please forgive me, and speak again; through Jesus, the Word-made-flesh.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“There is salvation in no one else [but Jesus], for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

Think of the person whom you love the most in this life (I mean other than the three persons of the holy Trinity).

Think of that person’s history (birth, family, friendships, work), interests and likes (kite-flying, apple pie), and ways of acting (the way he walks, the sound of her voice).  In your mind’s eye, trace the contours of your loved one’s face, or the feel of his or her touch, or how your loved one fills a room.

Can you ignore all of those things, or not care about them, and still love that person?

See, here’s the deal with God: He became flesh.  He became Jesus.  He just did—it’s His history.  He spoke and did things after His birth that are also part of His history, and that reveal His character and way of being.  And now God has raised this Jesus from the dead.  No one else lives as Jesus lives.  It simply is.

Can we love God and ignore who He is?  If salvation is life with God, how could we possibly have it without Him?

LET US PRAY: Thank you, dear God, for Your own dear self, in the body and the blood, bearing the name of Jesus.  In You I have received life, for You are life—blessed be Your Name forever!  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets long ago.” (Acts 3:19-21)

Can Marie Antoinette be relevant to you?

You know Marie Antoinette, the infamous queen of France beheaded during the even more infamous “reign of terror.”  Marie had a laundry list of sins to her name, and the French people largely hated her.  Stripped of honor and wealth, her husband executed, her friends murdered, and her children taken from her, she had good reason to be afraid, ashamed, and bitter as she approached the guillotine.

Yet I just recently read her last letter, written to a friend after her condemnation.  It shines with a strange contentment as well as a clear confession of faith in Jesus Christ.  “I sincerely implore pardon of God for all the faults which I may have committed during my life,” she wrote.  “I trust that, in His goodness, He will mercifully accept my last prayers . . . to receive my soul into His mercy . . . . I pardon all my enemies the evils that they have done me.”   Eyewitnesses say that she approached her death with the same sort of serenity.

Marie Antoinette, who may seem to have nothing to do with you, knew what St. Peter described: times of refreshing that come from the presence of the Lord to those who repent.  There’s freedom in being the wrong one, especially when you’re loved by the Wronged One.  Risen, He is present to you and for you, having taken away the sins of the world.

LET US PRAY:  Forgive me, Lord.  Forgive even my poor repentance.  For even as You have pardoned countless souls besides me, I trust that You have pardoned me, shedding Your own blood for my sake.  Buried in those wounds, I confess Your mercy.  Give me Your saving help again, and teach me to find the greatest joy in Your greatness alone; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God forever.  Amen

Pr. Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us.”  (1 John 1:3)

It’s something that you experience in a non-religious way all the time.  Perhaps a few of your friends go on a trip, and when they return, there’s only one way to reconnect: listen to their stories of the trip.  Or maybe a neighbor becomes ill and undergoes a long treatment.  How can you be that neighbor’s friend without hearing about the treatment?

So it goes with the Gospel.  Our God has become flesh—He became a human agent in history who affected the people of a particular place and time in a particular way.  The only way to know this event in God’s life is to know the stories of those who experienced it.  There’s simply no other way.

It’s a reality that stands behind an old saying in the Church: extra ecclesiam nulla salus, “outside of the Church, there is no salvation.”  It’s not a statement of tribal authority (although it has been used that way!), but simply an acknowledgment that the Church is simple: people telling and hearing the history of God, and without knowing His personal history, how can we be His friend?

So now think!  You have heard the story—it’s reached you, touched you, fed you—opening up God’s fellowship and friendship with you.  Are you not amazed?

LET US PRAY: Than you for your Gospel, O Lord, and thank You for the fellowship of those who share, hear, and love it.  Open the ears and hearts of the whole world to Your truth, and thus raise up the harvest of Your Church; in Jesus’ name.  Amen

Pr. Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)

Have you ever seen one of those lists, “Ten Reasons to Go to Church?”  They can sometimes be helpful, reminding us of the benefits and obligations of a believer.  Yet they often miss the mark, too.  Focusing on the social or personal benefits of worship, they can neglect what St. Paul calls the matter of “first importance”: Christ died; Christ rose; and Christ appeared to the disciples.

Whatever else we do in the Church, that proclamation stands at the front and center.  For by undoing death (the “wages of sin”), God has canceled the power of sin, putting forgiveness to work in the flesh of Christ.  By appearing to His disciples, Christ put this same forgiveness to work in His followers, sending them to preach it in His name.

What Christ preaches, He gives, and what He gives keeps giving.  To preach the resurrection and rejoice in its benefits, and thus to ready the world for Him who will appear again—here is why we “go to Church,” or even better, why we are the Church.

LET US PRAY: Almighty Savior, triumphant over death: You live and rule above every authority in heaven and earth, and yet You are pleased to dwell among those who trust in You.  How tender Your mercy, how comforting Your power!  May Your Name be praised into eternity, even by my own lips; for You are the beloved Son of the Father, in the glory of the Holy Spirit, one God forever.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau