Author: Higher Things

by Jonathan Kohlmeier

This world isn’t very peaceful is it? You are always hearing about hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, flooding and other natural disasters. The news is plagued with stories of tragic accidents, homicides, suicides, rape, or the constant slandering of public officials. Just viewing the world from the outside can show that it is not a peaceful place. In fact, all the evil may even lead one to become extremely depressed.

But it doesn’t stop there, does it? The violent attacks of sin, death and the devil don’t just stay “out there;” they hit close to home. You don’t do as well as you know you should in school. Your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you. Your parents go through an ugly divorce. A friend is killed in a car accident. You lose your own house to a natural disaster. You finally get up the courage to ask that special girl out – only to be turned down. You cry when you find out that the guy who you have liked for as long as you can remember changes his Facebook relationship status to “In a relationship.” That peace thing… it seems like a distant memory, if not some old fairy tale. How can there possibly be any peace in a world like this?

Depressed. That’s where it leaves us; in a dark hole that we have no hope of ever getting out of. Hopeless. Depressed with no reason left to go on.

“Now, wait a second Jon. That can’t be right. We’re still going on, sometimes even with a little happiness in our lives.”

Unfortunately, that IS all the world offers to you. That’s all you can achieve on your own. Left to yourself, you are just “going on,” but empty and void of peace.

But, there is hope! You are baptized!

Christ says in Matthew 11, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” His yoke is easy and His burden light because He bares them for you! He takes all the evil and sin of the world onto Himself and leaves you with rest and peace. And in John 14 his promise of peace is heard, “Peace I leave with you; My Peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

The above passages are two of the recommended readings for the Order of Compline (LSB p.253), a beautiful prayer service for use at the close of the day. An overriding theme is peace, both throughout the night and at the end of our lives. In fact the first line is, “The Lord Almighty grant us a quiet night and peace at the last. Amen.” Psalm 4, which is historically chanted during Compline, ends by saying, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

This sure peace that we are given comes from the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was first given to you at your baptism! You are washed clean of all sin! The devil has no power over you! You are no longer of this world! You are of Christ! Therefore you have hope and you have that peace of God which passes all human understanding.

This sure peace is granted to you in Holy Absolution. Those sins that you have committed in thought, word and deed by no fault but your own have been pardoned, forgiven and absolved. The full price was paid by Christ’s Death.

This sure peace is granted to you at the Lord’s Supper. That peace enters your mouth in the Body and Blood of Christ in, with, and under the bread and the wine. It is given to you for the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life. Not some forgiveness and everlasting life to come later; but In Christ you have forgiveness and everlasting life now!

Now violence, depression and death will always be a part of this world. But, you are baptized! You have hope and peace even amidst all the evil of this world. You can repeat another of the readings from Compline in full confidence. “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

“Guide us waking O Lord, and guard us sleeping,

that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace. Amen.”

Pax Christi.

by The Rev. Jonathan Naumann

As we recently contemplated during Christmastime, the Gospel of St. John says, “[Christ] was in the world, . . . the world did not recognize Him” (John 1:10). Unfortunately, even when Jesus walked the earth in human form, many people failed to “see God”.   Also today, it is a sad reality that many people do not understand God’s plan  of salvation properly.

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul was inspired to write:   “I pray . . . that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18).

God’s Word tells us that the ability to see with the heart comes from God who pours into our hearts the gift of faith. And an instrument God’s Holy Spirit uses to accomplish that is the Bible. “Faith comes by hearing the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

To encourage our faith, Holy Scripture gives us examples of human beings who had “hearts that see”. Remember Simeon and Anna, a righteous and devout pair who were among the first in Jerusalem to recognize that Jesus was the Messiah even while He was still a baby.  We are told that they waited patiently year after year for the consolation of Israel and the redemption of Jerusalem. Simeon and Anna had been seeing their Savior, through faith, for years.  On that very special day, however, when He was brought as an infant to the temple, they saw Him with their eyes.

True seeing takes place in the heart – through faith.  Faith in our hearts can see further than our physical surroundings.  Faith can see all the way through this life to the eternal promises of God.  That precious gift of “inner sight” – our faith – which we receive from God, produces a hope that works for today!  It works for us in the real world of pain and problems, struggle and mess, in which we must live and function.

That heaven-sent hope says, with the voice of God, “Remember, you are holy and blameless in my sight.”  (Ephesians 1:4) Knowing that God sees us with a heart of love gives us all the reassurance we need to make it through today.  When He gives us the faith to believe it, we see with our heart that He loves and forgives us.  For when God looks at you and me with His heart, He always looks at us in mercy, for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ.  If God were to look at us the other way, through His Law rather than His Gospel, it would be better for us NOT to be found!

Epiphany reminds us again to look with our hearts:  to “look where your treasure is – for there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34).  The Magi saw a star in the sky, but their hearts saw a new born king, so they ventured on a long journey to a foreign country (Matthew 2:1-2).  Shepherds saw angels in a starry sky, but their hearts saw the fulfillment of a long awaited promise.  Two new parents saw midnight feedings, sleepless nights, and diapers, but their hearts saw Immanuel – “God with us”.

Today we can think of beliefs and objects of faith that cannot be seen but are nonetheless true:  We can’t see Baptism’s water and Word washing away sin and breaking the hold of the devil; we can’t see the old Adam die and the new Adam arise; we can’t see the body and blood in, with, and under the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.  We can’t see God with us always; we can’t see Jesus carrying our sins and defeating the Devil.  We can’t see the Holy Spirit giving the gift of faith and interceding with sighs too deep for words. We can’t see heaven’s angels protecting and defending.  Yet all these things are true.  God is doing His work, according to His Word.

Though our physical eyes don’t see, we Christians believe these promises from God.  We know they are true because He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  Yes, thanks be to God!  He has given us a spiritual vision, – a “heart that sees.”

by Rev. William C. Cwirla

From the moment of our birth, God places us in an order. We have a father and a mother who have begotten and birthed us. Even if we have been adopted or have stepfathers or mothers, God has set us into the holy order of a household as children under the authority of our parents.

This is the very heart of the 4th commandment. ” Honor your father and your mother.” Out of fear and love of God we should not despise or anger our fathers and mothers, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them. Father and mother are God’s deputies; they share a verb normally reserved for the Lord alone: to honor. Their rules are God’s law for us. This is why the apostle Paul warns fathers not to exasperate their children. Don’t frustrate them with endless, useless rules, which will only make them worse and teach them to despise God’s Law.

Rather parents, with fathers at the head, are to bring up their children in the nurture and instruction of the Lord. This begins with bringing their child to Baptism, where the life of being a disciple of Jesus begins. It means bringing the kids to church, teaching them how to sit still in the pews, how to use the hymnal, how to hear and speak and sing with your fellow believers. It means involving the children in devotions at home, teaching them the Scriptures and the catechism, confessing and forgiving each other, and training them to live as God’s free and forgiven children.

Parents are for our blessing, even though it may not always seem that way, especially when we as children don’t get what we want. They protect us, provide for us, nurture us, and mentor us into adulthood. The apostle Paul reminds us that this commandment is the first one that contains a promise: “…that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

While obedience to parents doesn’t necessarily increase your life span, life does tend to go a lot better when you live at peace within the order God places you. You don’t get into trouble with your teachers. You don’t run afoul of the government and wind up in jail. You aren’t a nuisance to your neighbors. In short, you become a good citizen, member of the household, and congregation member.

Our problem is that we have this old Adam, our inborn “brat” who doesn’t want to be under anyone’s authority and even despises father and mother. Our old Adam is why we act up at home and in school, why we don’t help with the dishes or clean our rooms or come home at the appointed hour or don’t listen with respect to our parents. The Old Adam is why we resent their place in our lives. God’s order of the household is intended to reign in that old brat of ours.

Like the Law itself, parents are a curb, a mirror, and a guide. They curb the effects of sin with curfews, rules, and expectations. They show us where we have fallen short of the glory of God and how we have failed to live up to standards. They guide and instruct us into adulthood, apprenticing us, and teaching us by example. This literally kills our old brat, Adam, and that’s precisely what’s supposed to happen. Daily we die to sin; daily we rise to new life in Christ, until we attain full maturity in Christ (Ephesians 4).

The evangelist St. Luke tells us that Jesus, as a 12-year-old young man, was obedient to his parents, Mary and Joseph, and lived under their authority in Nazareth (Luke 2). Imagine that. The Son of God in the flesh, the second Person of the eternal holy Trinity, lived in the household of Mary and Joseph under their authority and was obedient to them. He did this for us and for our salvation. He did this to redeem our broken homes by His obedience, suffering and death. He became the obedient child for us all, so that in Him, our lives might again be ordered as God’s children, and we would receive the gift of an ordered household as God’s good and gracious gift to us.

Where sin has disrupted the holy order between parent and child, Christ brings forgiveness and reconciliation. Where we have sinned against one another, confess to one another and forgive one another as you have been forgiven in Jesus.

Gracious Father, bless our homes with ordered peace. Bless fathers and mothers in their holy vocations of raising their children in Your nurture and instruction. Bless children in their vocations as they apprentice to adulthood and train to form their own households. Bring healing and forgiveness to homes that are broken by sin, and turn the hearts of parents to their children and children to their parents, for the sake of Your Son, our Savior, Jesus. Amen.

Rev. William M. Cwirla is the pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Hacienda Heights, California.