Author: Higher Things

By Rev. Michael J. Schmidt

It was July 1994, the Major League Baseball All Star game had ended, and I was getting ready to go to bed. I put on my PJ’s, brushed my teeth, and then I prayed. Now I had prayed before, during church and before meals, but this was serious: A player’s strike was imminent, and the baseball season was in danger. After years of watching the Yankees lose, they were finally having a playoff season (the first in my lifetime), and now a strike was threatening everything.

From June through August 1994, I was on my knees every single night, praying like crazy, offering God anything and everything if He would just do the seemingly impossible and bring the players and the owners together and save the baseball season. But it was not meant to be. On August 12th, the players went on strike. Then in mid-September the commissioner announced that there would be no World Series that year. I was crushed. Football meant nothing to me, and I had not really gotten into basketball. Baseball was everything and now it was gone. And if you think that maybe that’s a bit too idolatrous, well, read on and see how the Lord works even our selfish prayers for good!

As I think back, I can grin about it and realize how, amidst all the other problems of the world, I was praying for baseball. However, it did teach me some things.

First, it taught me that whenever we pray, we are placing all of our trust and hope in God—that He can bring about a desired outcome. In 1994, President Clinton invited the players and owners to the White House to try to find a resolution, only to find that there was nothing he could do to bring the sides to a compromise. There was literally no human way to find a resolution. This, of course, led me to place all of my hope in God, that He might solve the problem.

Second, it taught me how to pray. At first my prayers were basically, “Dear God, please help the players and owners so they do not go on strike. Amen.” As the summer wore on the prayers grew, not only in length and detail, but also in structure and form. Believe it or not, the prayers began to follow the five parts of the traditional collect form: address; thanksgiving, request, desired result, and closing.

Third, it got me in the habit of praying. During those months of praying for baseball, I also began to pray for other things: weather, safe travels, the sick and world events. It eventually got to the point where I did not really stop praying before bed even after the strike and canceling of the World Series; how could I when all these other things needed to be prayed for?

Fourth, and probably most importantly, praying also led me to accept God’s answers. There was a strike in 1994 and it did cancel the rest of the season and the World Series; not to mention the beginning of the 1995 season. But that is how God works when answering prayer: Sometimes God answers, “Yes” and sometimes, “No” and then there are those times when He just says, “Wait.” I was crushed when the players went on strike, but by then I knew that it must have been what God wanted.

God seemed to have had something bigger in mind through all of this. He used a baseball strike to get me into the habit of praying. I pray daily to this very day: in the morning, at meals, in church, and before bed, or simply whenever the opportunity arises. It’s a great reminder that the same Lord who has commanded us to pray and promised to hear us didn’t hold my selfish desire against me, but in His mercy and grace taught me to trust in Him even more for ALL things.

Rev. Michael Schmidt serves at Peace Lutheran Church in Natoma, Kansas and blogs at http://revschmidt.wordpress.com and can be emailed at revschmidt@yahoo.com

Jonathan Kohlmeier

The Feast of All Saints is celebrated on November 1st. Many churches celebrate it on the following Sunday.

*TOLL*

…

*TOLL*

…

*TOLL*

…

…goes the bell. In between each, a name. A name of one who has fallen asleep. A name of one who has died. A name of a saint.

Names of grandparents, parents, family, friends. Names of congregation members, those murdered, and those never born. Even if the name isn’t audibly heard, we hear it in our hearts and minds. We hear the name of a loved one lost.

This Sunday we celebrated All Saints’ Day. Part of that service was the reading of the faithful who had fallen asleep this past year with ties to our congregation. Among those names read was the name of my grandfather, Rev. William Kohlmeier. Other names were not heard audibly, but were in my thoughts. A former classmate, parents and grandparents of friends, my third grade teacher, and friend’s children who died in the womb. As we go further back the list grows and grows.

Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones, the conference hymn for TWELVE, was the first hymn sung at the All Saints’ Divine Service. It immediately reminded me of when I received news that my grandfather had died. At the time I was in St. Catherines at the final conference of the season. That night, I helped Pr. Buetow lead a group in Compline. The reading was this from 1 Corinthians 15:

“51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Death is swallowed up in victory! Where is your sting, death? Where is your victory? My grandfather died on the anniversary of his Holy Baptism, in which he received the sign of the Holy Cross marking him as one redeemed by Christ the Crucified. He received the victory won by Him.

Yet, we weep when faced with the death of those around us or our own death. And rightly so, I think. Death isn’t natural. We weren’t created to die. That’s probably why I hate death so much. It gives the impression that God isn’t on the scene and the enemy is winning. It’s extremely difficult to receive as gift. But as Christians we have this comfort: Christ too was faced with death – the death of loved ones, death on a cross, and the enemy Death itself. He struggled with it, endured it, and beat it. The victory remains with life, the reign of death was ended. In Christ, we don’t fear death. Death is defeated.

Above the handle where I lifted my grandfather’s casket was an engraving of the Last Supper. It was a great reminder that here on earth we stand with the church militant. In the Lord’s Supper, we are joined with the saints who have gone before us. We share in that feast of victory over death. With angels and archangels and all the company of heaven we are joined into the song and feast of heaven. We are joined with those loved ones who have fallen asleep in a far greater way than we were in most of our memories of them.

Thanks be to God that He can take the ugly abomination of death and turn it into a thing of beauty and a feast of victory.

Jon Kohlmeier is a member of Mount Zion Lutheran Church in Greenfield, WI. He is also IT Assistant for Higher Things and co-host of HT-Radio.