Pastoral Thoughts

I will meditate on your precepts
     and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
    I will not forget your word.
                        Psalm 119:15-16

Grace and Peace be to you from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I picked up a recent mailing the church occasionally gets of businesses selling products and programs they feel will benefit the church. This one advertisement wanted to give me a challenge. It was not in arm wrestling or some other sport but in evangelism. “I guarantee that if your church focuses more on praising God and not on things that make them sad, your church will grow.” I questioned back in my mind, “What kind of growth?” Of course, I contemplated this notion, concluding that they were trying to “sell” their materials and marketing them to other congregations. I thought about it and realized that our church year explains our faith as Lutherans and helps us focus on the total picture of our faith, not just the joyful points. Faith can become very superficial if one aspect is lifted, ignoring the complete picture of our lives and God’s relation to it. Sadness occurs, and realizing what God has done for us and the sin we have done to cause the plight of Jesus must be reflected upon to help us understand our faith in its totality now and then. After much thought, I placed the letter and the challenge in the “circular” file for recycling.

We need times of reflection and not just the glory of God. We need to focus on why our Lord and Savior had to die for us. Lent is that time! We are challenged to hear, see, touch, and taste the redemption we all receive through Jesus Christ. We come together, realizing that God’s son made the ultimate sacrifice because of who we are. We confess our sins. We pray that our Lord may be merciful and that we all have trouble following the greatest commandment: to love one another.

Lent is a time for reflection, to see the value of the grace given to us through Christ Jesus. This reflection helps us to understand the ultimate joy we find every Easter Sunday. How can we know the magnitude of God’s grace if we do not fully reflect on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? How can we express that joy to others, to truly delight in the commandments given?

Let us not be fooled into thinking that we do not have to reflect, think, or ask questions to be faithful people of God, and real growth comes from understanding the joy and the sadness found in our relationship with God and each other. Let us take the challenge That the season of Lent provides us. By Easter Sunday, we will see the glory of the Lord in a new light where true joy abounds.

Peace, Pastor Brian