Author: Higher Things

by Ryan Fouts

You’ve seen the reports on television. At first, reporters believed that New Orleans had escaped what could have been a much more devastating disaster. Then the levees broke. Eighty percent of the thriving city was flooded. Buildings were destroyed. Homes were destroyed. Thousands of people have perished in the disaster, and many more died in the hospitals. Churches were destroyed. Many faithful congregations will evermore be scattered to different parts of the country.

When tragedies such as this occur, we naturally begin asking questions. How could a loving God allow such a thing to happen? Was this God’s judgment on sin? If it was His judgment, how does one explain the prayers of the faithful who suffered equally in the disaster? If it was God’s will that this occur, how can we avoid the pangs of conscience which tempt us to rebel against the Lord’s apparent tyranny? If it wasn’t His will, why couldn’t He stop it from happening? These questions beg for answers. Attempting to discern the reality of God’s place in such tragedies we’re often tempted to answer these questions for ourselves.

Some answer these questions by concluding that this event was the Lord’s vengeful judgment upon a “city of sin.” It’s no secret that New Orleans, particularly in the French Quarter during Mardi Gras, is known for gross sexual immorality. We saw, in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, people looting stores, not only for survival items, but for jewelry and electronics! There were reports, following the disaster, of shootings and rapes! It isn’t surprising, then, that some popular evangelical preachers have judged from a distance that New Orleans only got “what was coming” for their corruption.

On one hand, this isn’t entirely off base. It certainly isn’t beyond the realm of God’s justice to enact his judgment and wrath upon sin through worldly punishments. Consider the destruction of Sodom and Gamorrah, two cities utterly destroyed by fire from heaven due to their sexual immorality and complete abandonment of the Lord. Was that, though, just the “Old Testament God?” No! God is the same in both testaments. Consider Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts 5. They sell some land and offer their proceeds to the church. They tell Peter that they had given all their profits to the church when, in reality, they had held back a portion for themselves. Suddenly Ananias drops dead! When his wife is questioned she sticks by the lie; then she falls dead too!

The problem with attributing these disasters to God’s judgment isn’t that such judgment is necessarily beyond the realm of God’s dealings with His people. The problem is with the sinner who pronounces such judgment! “Look at how bad they were, they deserve what they got!” To this Jesus responds, “With the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you” (Matt. 7:2). Are the sins of the people of New Orleans any worse than your own? During Jesus’ day a tower fell and killed eighteen people. Jesus poses the question, “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?” Do you think that the sinners in New Orleans are worse offenders than sinners anywhere else? Jesus answers His question, and yours: “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

One reporter observed that “…what men took years to build, Mother Nature destroyed in a single day.” I don’t know what God’s hand was in this tragedy. I don’t know why it happened. He hasn’t revealed these things to us. His inner motives are none of our business. Regardless of what they are, this is a time to repent. This tragedy shows us our creaturely place. What we spend hundreds of years building for ourselves, can be completely cast aside with an single act of nature. Men, who like to make gods of themselves, are shown feeble amid such tragedy. We aren’t self-sufficient, like we thought. We aren’t all-powerful, like we thought.

Some Christians approach these questions in a different way. They attempt to let God off the hook! Desperate to preserve the nice-guy image of God, some go to great measures to excuse God from any involvement in the tragedy. Perhaps, some might suggest, it was just a random tragedy in a world that naturally produces disaster. Perhaps, some might reason, God only allows such things to happen because, after all, man chose his own sinful path in the Garden. Whatever the explanation, some are desperate to excuse God from any involvement in tragedy. This only leads to more questions. Why doesn’t God intervene? Couldn’t he have at least protected the Christians from the disaster?

But the answer to all our questions isn’t found in an “answer” at all! The only answer to suffering is found in Christ. When a Christian looks at suffering, he finds Christ. Before there was Easter, there was the suffering of Good Friday. Our God knows suffering well – He suffered more than any of us could imagine. But no suffering could do Him in. As surely as He suffered, He also rose victorious. When we suffer, we remember that the Lord has suffered before us. He took suffering upon Himself. Now suffering itself is redeemed in His blood.

Human nature demands answers before it can be satisfied. But what hope is found in having all the answers? The peace of God surpasses all understanding, it reaches into the unanswerable with a promise that is greater than the wisest of human answers. Answers do nothing more than appease curiosity. Christ didn’t die to fulfill your curiosity. Curiosity once led man to eat a fruit forbidden by God – the serpent said it would even make man like God! But though man was once overcome by the Tempter’s tree, by a Tree the Lord also overcame the fallings of our curiosity, the pit of sin, despair, and suffering.

Thank God for suffering. It is through suffering, through the Cross, that we are saved by His grace. Before the pain and suffering of this world can do you in, it has to go through Christ. The world has already done its worst to Christ, and couldn’t keep Him down. He was raised from the dead. Suffering couldn’t do away with Christ. It can’t do away with you either. You’ve been united to Him, baptized into His death and resurrection. He has the victory. You do too.

Ryan Fouts is a fourth year M. Div. student at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO. Check out his blog at http://blog.higherthings.org/ryanfouts. You can email him at RyanLCMS@hotmail.com.

Rev. Dr. Paul Anderson

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

Matthew 18:19-20 “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us to pray, “Dear Father, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Actually, the prayer He taught US to pray begins this way, “OUR Father, Who art in heaven.” Joy that cannot be contained! Jesus rescues us today from running off by ourselves and doing our own isolated little religion for our own sake – “You and me, Jesus, that’s all we need!” Oh, no! The Lord teaches us in the Gospel today about His Body, His Fullness, His Bride, His people, the ones He came to die for, rise for, ascend for, and come again for. The Lord Jesus today tells us what it means to be His Church.

“If your brother sins, even against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.” It all starts privately, one to one. NOT what we see all day, every day in our world: men blabbing about the faults of others. Just whose fault is it that there were bumps in the road in the hurricane relief? This wicked world has no end of finger-pointers; because Satan is the chief pointer-outer of sins to others, and he is the prince of this world. “Deliver us from the evil one.”

The One Named Jesus, Who came to save His people from their sins, rescues us today from total disaster. If your brother sins, don’t be surprised, shocked, offended. Go to him! Pull him aside! Speak to him. Plead with him, in the words and by the authority of the Son of Man Who came preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!”

The Lord calls each one of us here today to a disaster relief so many men sadly do not know. The worst thing you and I will ever face is not made by man, by wind or wave; not even made by God! Instead, the worst we will ever face is if we must stand before the Uncreated God, Whom we don’t know, Whom we have offended, Whom we have told by our thoughts, words and deeds, that we will do as we please, when we please – and what if we must explain away all the ways we fall short? Our God is a consuming fire. Who can stand in His presence?

You will stand in His presence, One Day soon, my dearly beloved. For you will not stand before God naked, alone, with all your faults for heaven and earth to see. Instead, you will rise from this earth, from your grave, from every evil, and see your Maker face to face, with confidence and boldness, because Jesus calls you His Church; and you are covered by Him.

Jesus builds His Church upon the confession of Saint Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And Jesus makes disciples in His Church, through Holy Baptism and by teaching the nations everything He commanded His first disciples. And today we hear what good His Church is in this world. Each one, turning to his brother: “Dear brother, you have sinned, missed the mark; you have been called to be more than what you are doing now. Hear me; let us pray our Savior together to forgive us both. And let me tell you again that Christ lived the life we do not, died the death we are due, and now sits at the right hand of the Father.”

And the Church of Jesus never gives up! If your brother does not hear you, go get two or three more. You are not alone. You belong to His Church! Bring more; to win your brother; to teach him to confess his sins and call on God for mercy, for the sake of Jesus our Savior. And if the two or three others do not work – to win your brother, tell it to the Church.

The Church is that place, and those people, where, as Jesus says, “Two or three come together in My Name. There are two or three of us here today, plus! What are we doing here? Are we here to admire each other, to boast about how wonderful we are, to make a lot of noise to catch God’s attention? The world has enough of that already. No, the Divine Service opens with words for us poor sinners to trust, words that shake the foundation of heaven itself, as the Father in heaven leaps up to hear us: In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Meaning, “God will hear our prayers this day, and be our Father. NOT because of us, but because the Father sent the Son Whom He loves to take our place; the Father and the Son have sent us the Holy Spirit in His Holy Word; and now, we have been baptized into this God, this Name, the Name of Jesus, that He gave us. So the Father in heaven will hear us on earth. We must be Jesus’ Church!”

My dear Christian friends:

The members of Good Shepherd thank God that two, three, more!, Christian brothers and sisters are here with us today. We are sorry for the wind that blew y’all this way. We truly want to help you, to comfort and support you, if you stay in our area long term, or get back home in a short time. Our prayers are with you, in the turmoil of your lives. Our hearts belong to you now. This congregation and our lives are open. Please let us follow Jesus with you, as we love one another.

But let us all, my dear ones, disciples of Baton Rouge and honored guests and friends – let us all learn from our Lord this day what true disaster relief is all about: the forgiveness of our sins; and forgiving the sins of others in turn. Jesus came to grant true pardon to those who are sinners, and who call on Him for mercy. And He teaches us in the Bible that He gives full authority to forgive sins on earth to His Church: “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

When Jesus speaks of binding and loosing, He is not talking about shoes. He is talking about what He is always talking about: our sins; and the way He has come to take them away.

If you are not a sinner, in your own eyes, then you are a disaster no one can remedy. For our only Hope declared, “I have not come to call those who have their act together, who never slip up, those who are so quickly disappointed in others but never in themselves, the righteous. I have come to call sinner, sinners only, to repentance.”

If nothing else, the nasty storm this last week laid bare our sins, didn’t it? The lives of so many were lost; so many turned upside down; so much flooded and so many tears. But I didn’t need all of that to stir up sin in my life! All I needed was for my power to go out! That’s all the jump-start this old engine needed to lose my patience, bark and snap, sigh about this disappointment or that. No A/C – and we may play tyrant? Anyone join me in this last week?

Or is it the traffic that does it for you? Do all those, what we call “idiots on the road” – does that strip off of you that mask of piety we think we’re wearing? Or is it gas lines? Or do you get all worked up, with me, about rumors of upheaval and danger in our midst? Or do you allow yourself to be selfish and nasty and rude to others, because you are going through the worst thing in the world: your cable is out?!

Friends, we have all just gone through tough times. And there is more to come, I fear. But there is no excuse for not glorifying our Maker in our lives. And there is never an excuse to despise the command of Jesus to love one another, especially our enemies. Examine your own life, by way of the Ten Commandments, so that you can confess to God this day that you are indeed a sinner. And if you have offended God, ask Him to forgive you for Jesus’ sake. And if you have sinned against your brother, you go to him and ask his pardon. And if your conscience is full of doubts and fears and guilt over your recent performance, God has given to His Church ministers, to hear your sins, teach you God’s Word, and to pardon you by His command.

And today, we hear, that Jesus has deputized every last one of us, every last disciple, to do what He came to do!

If your brothers sins, even against you, you go show him his fault. To win him over; so that he admits his sin, seeks God’s pardon. So that he can go again, for his good and salvation, to the Sacrament of the Altar. There, penitent, your brother can eat and drink the Body and Blood of the One Who died on the cross in place of sinners. And your brother can rise again with all his sins forgiven. And then, just watch him go out, forgiving others!

Dear Christian friends, let us pitch in in our community, to help men for whom Christ died, with creature comforts and concerns, as God gives us strength. Let us not simply love in word, but also in deed, as the apostle James teaches us.

But the true disaster we all face is our sinful condition, ignorance of God, and the way we so quickly fall from wanting to please God, to defaming His Name. And we, dear disciples, have been given all the authority of heaven, here on earth, to forgive men their sins.

When you run across those burdened by the storm, or by other storms in their lives, don’t just talk to them about God, or about what a nice fellow Jesus is. Do something useful! Forgive! Pardon! Loose on earth and it will be loosed in heaven! We don’t see Jesus walking around pardoning people today. But what do we see? His Church. Not just this individual or that. But the people of God, together, in His Name, asking together that in this world, on earth, would be done the will of God in heaven.

But what if, finally, someone does not want to hear what the whole Church has to say? What then? Then do we finally get to give up and move on? Let’s check with Jesus! “If he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” And how does Jesus teach pagans and tax collectors? Today, Jesus makes us smile.

At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, He sent the Eleven out to make disciples of all pagans, by baptism and teaching. That’s how you treat pagans. And the tradition of the Church agrees together that the man who recorded these words for us was named Matthew. And what was his job, at least for a while? See Saint Matthew smiling as he wrote down these words; see Jesus look out the corner of His eye when He taught His first Twelve, “treat him like a tax collector.”

“Oh, I see Jesus. Never give up.”

Our confidence for the days ahead is that God is our Father in heaven now, because of His Son Who walked this earth, lived as we won’t, died what we should get but won’t, and has now ascended from earth to heaven. As we, His Church, await His return, we only have two things really to do. Pray to Him, as we commune together, agree together, receiving the Body and Blood of the One Who died on the cross. And second, we love our neighbor, pardon our brother, never stop the work Jesus has given us, the work He is always doing Himself.

Welcome, new faces, brothers and sisters in Christ. Welcome to our midst; and agree together with us, as we pray together to our Father in heaven. All of us: let us bind together and loose together; let us seek and save the lost; let us pardon, give as we have been given to. And let us do this all, two, three, or even more of us, with real confidence. Let us believe and show love, not in our name, but in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Paul Anderson is pastor at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is a member of the LCMS Board of Mission Services. His email address is revdranderson@cox.net.

by Rev. George F. Borghardt III

In the name of Jesus. Amen. Beloved in the Lord, in Christ Jesus you are a child of God, heaven is yours, even if you have lost everything. Right now, this morning, all that Christ deserved with His holy life and innocent suffering and death is already yours. No matter what else seems true about you, right now this morning heaven is yours.

Don’t worry. Don’t fret. Don’t fear. Don’t worry about what you will eat. Don’t worry about what you will drink. Don’t worry about you wear. Don’t worry about what will happen to you.

Everything is yours right now – don’t worry. In a time of anxiety and shock, where we kind of feel like a deer in the headlights waiting for something else to rock our fragile world, our Lord puts before us the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.

Isn’t that just like Him? When our eyes are lifted toward the heavens wondering what will fallen down on us next, He directs us to His gifts – down to earth and every day – look at the birds of the air… consider the lilies of the field.

Don’t worry, the Father loves you in the cross of Christ. Don’t be afraid, He has not abandoned you. Don’t be uneasy or nervous, for the Son of God has taken upon Himself all that you have ever done and He has died in your place.

He hasn’t left you; He won’t – not after He put His name on you with the water and the Word. Don’t be anxious, for He has fed you salvation in His Body and Blood given for you to eat and drink for the remission of all your sins.

Beloved in the Lord, don’t worry about what you have, you have everything in Christ already. So, today our Lord directs us away from the weather, away from worrying, away from fear, to fix our gaze upon the birds of air and the lilies of the field.

Take your eyes off Katrina and consider how the birds, who don’t sow, reap, or work, they don’t store stuff in barns or houses, but yet the Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they? Of course you are. But, not in the way you think. We tend to think that there is something valuable inside of us – whether it be what we do, what we feel, what we say, or even just simply who we are.

We find our certainty before God based upon how things look around us. When things are going well, we think that it shows that God loves us. When things are going poorly for us, we begin to doubt and despair.

Does God care for me? The evidence around me is mixed. If He is caring for me, He certainly sometimes doesn’t seem to be caring for me in the way I think I need to be cared for. That is our own idolatry, which centers around our circumstances – our job, our family, our money, our house, our family, and the stuff we have. Happiness and certainty is then determined by what stuff – what mammon – is around us.

Now, it is not idolatry to be sad that you have lost everything. What you have is a gift from God, as we say in the Catechism – “He gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all that I have.” To be sad that something given to you by God is lost is not a sin.

The sin is the unbelief which forgets that God the Father has given us all things in Christ. That “He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life.”

Despair and worry stem from forgetting that He has given us all that we have – even heaven itself in Christ. We forget that He gives and gives like He did to the widow in our Old Testament lesson. The flour in the bin and joy of oil just kept giving forth more gifts.

That’s the way He is toward us in Christ Jesus – an eternal fountain that just gushes forth more gifts to us and He would have us receive them – good and bad – as gift from His hand.

Consider the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor reap, but Solomon in all his glory isn’t dressed up like one of these.

If He clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the oven, how much more will he tend to you?

He’s already tended to you with the Cross. The Son of God has taken on your flesh. He alone lived the truth that no hair, no bird falls, without the care of your Heavenly Father.

No storm occurs, no sickness, apart from Your Heavenly Father’s caring for you in Christ Jesus. Nothing happens to you apart from your baptism – that is apart from the Father giving up His Son for you.

Nothing happens to the grass of the field either apart from God – which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven. Jesus too was thrown into the oven – for you and for all. What you have suffered, He suffered more. The pain you feel, He felt more. He has taken upon Himself your sins – your suffering, your pain, even your death—and taken it away.

There is His Cross and there is His Resurrection. His – then yours delivered to your. Yours delivered to you in Baptism. His life for your life. A newness of life, from Him, with Him, and so, no more living as if He did not die and rise again for you. And so, no more worrying and no more anxiety.[1]

No more anxiety, because all things are yours in Him. No more worrying, for the Son of God took on your flesh and died in your place. Nothing will happen to you apart from the care of your Heavenly Father, who loved you in the giving up His Son.

No more fear, for the Son of God clothed you with His righteousness in Holy Baptism and gave you new life in Him. The absolute worst thing that could happen to you – death – has already happen to you in the waters of your baptism. He drowned you – under the Word and the water. That’s a happy flood which washes you unto eternal life.

No more worrying about what you will eat, for today the Son of God will put into your mouth His Body to eat and His blood to drink at His Supper for the forgiveness of sins. There forgiveness is given into your mouth at His Table and “…where there is forgiveness of sins, there is life and salvation.”

Eternal life is yours – despite what’s going on around you. Salvation is yours right now at His Supper.

Beloved in the Lord, take your eyes off the weather today. Look at the birds of the air. Consider the lilies of the field. He tends to you more than the grass of the field and the birds of the air. He tends with the Cross of Christ. All things are yours. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

“His oath, His covenant, and blood Support me in the whelming flood; When every earthly prop gives way, He then is all my Hope and Stay. On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.” (TLH 370, v. 3)

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[1] Dr. Norman E. Nagel, Sermon on St. Matthew 6:25-34 (Pentecost 20), Concordia Seminary, 10-14-1985

Rev. George F. Borghardt III is the Assistant Pastor of St. Mark Lutheran Church in Conroe, Texas and a member of the Editorial Board and Web Committee of Higher Things. His email address is revborghardt@higherthings.org, Check out his blog at http://blog.higherthings.org/borghardt/.

by Rev. Daniel J. Feusse

Where can you find the glory of God in a hurricane? Some might say that if God caused the hurricane to happen the glory of God might be found in the massive destruction brought on by the hurricane. “What an awesome God we have! Just look what He can do when He puts His mind to it! Can you imagine what kind of destruction He could bring about if He were really angry?”

But this kind of thinking brings us to some troubling questions, doesn’t it? Is this really the kind of God that we have? A God that would send a terrible hurricane to wipe out an entire region of our country? A God who takes out His anger by the brutal killing of thousands of people and the massive destruction of property? A God that waits for us to do a bunch of things that He doesn’t like and then arbitrarily dishes out His punishment upon us? And, by the way, how sinful must those people in New Orleans have been to cause God to be so angry that He wiped out the entire city? What might He do to us because of our sin?

These questions are indeed troubling. But what lies behind each of them is “why?” Why did this happen? The answer is deceptively simple, but one which is hard to face. This hurricane happened for the same reason that all natural disasters happen – we live in a fallen world. It is not the Lord who brought this destruction on the Gulf coast – somehow plotting His perfect revenge upon a particularly sinful part of our country. No. This happened because all of creation now suffers as a result of that first rebellious act in the Garden of Eden. Disease, war, pestilence, earthquakes, floods – these are all the writhings and groanings of a fallen world.

But this then raises another question. Why didn’t God stop this from happening? Do we really have a God that is powerless against the destructive forces of this world? The answer to this question is also deceptively simple, and is also one which is difficult to face. It is through the evil and suffering in this world – it is through the continual writhing and groaning of a fallen creation – that the glory of God is seen the clearest.

The glory of God is not found in the awesome power of a category five hurricane. Rather, the glory of God is seen the clearest in the face of suffering and death. “This sickness…is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” These are the words of Jesus speaking about the impending death of Lazarus.

Again, we have the account of the man born blind in John chapter nine:

Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.

The blindness of this man was the result of being born into a sinful, fallen world. It is not the Lord punishing this man for some horrible sin that he or his parents had committed. But what Jesus is telling His disciples here is that God will be glorified through this man’s earthly suffering.

This then leads us to the ultimate glorification of God. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” Jesus tells His disciples in the John, chapter twelve. What will show the greatest glory of God will be the suffering and death of His Son, Jesus Christ? Jesus will glorify His Father by going to Cross to suffer and die for all that is evil and sinful – for all that is fallen in His creation.

The glory of God is not seen in the awesome power of earthquakes, floods or hurricanes. The glory of God is seen in the suffering and death of Christ for this world. When people have nothing left in this world upon which they can rely, their only hope is found in Cross of Jesus Christ.

To His glory, our Lord uses the earthly realities of this fallen creation to turn us toward our spiritual need for Christ and His mercy and forgiveness. The highest praise and glory that we can offer to the Lord is by turning to Him in all helplessness – with nothing left in this world to cling to – crying out in faith and trust, “Lord, have mercy,” and then seeking the answer to our utter helplessness in Jesus Christ our Savior.

Why did this happen? Was the Lord was punishing New Orleans and the Gulf coast because the people there were such great sinners? No. This happened because we live in a fallen world, and in a fallen world these things are bound to happen time and again. But when things like this do happen, the Lord is glorified through them. In suffering and death, the face of Jesus Christ is seen. We are reminded of our utter helplessness in this world and are turned to the One who is our only hope in time of need – the One is the very glory of God, Jesus Christ.

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” These are the words spoken by Jesus the night before His crucifixion. Three days later, He rose from the tomb showing His victory over sin and death – even over all that is fallen and wrong with the creation itself. To you this peace – this victory – has been given in Holy Baptism as you have been crucified and resurrected with Jesus. You also then, with Christ, have overcome the world.

Rev. Daniel J. Feusse is pastor at Concordia Lutheran Church in Clearwater, Nebraska. His email is Seelsorg@aol.com.

by Stan C. Lemon

A storm has brewed and struck the Golf coast, a storm called Katrina. This storm destroyed everything in its path and has caused problems that compound each day. Katrina is God’s Judgment and it has been poured out on sinners. God sent Katrina, He sent the rain.

God sent the rain, and God cares in the rain. God once sent another large storm, one much greater then Katrina, and He flooded the world for forty days and forty nights. Then, after the rain stopped the water stayed. People were dead, animals were gone and houses demolished. Yet, some survived. They floated alive on the surface for days, because the water didn’t recede. They waited, just like those people in New Orleans. Patiently, because their Lord would deliver. He does deliver. He delivers in Christ, Himself. He pours Himself out in the rain. The rain does care. That baptismal storm which covered the earth for forty days is a gift.

God call us to repent in storms. In storms, like that of Katrina, we stand in awe as we realize how truly fragile our poor miserable sinful lives are. Everything we know and everything worldly that we might trust in can slip from our hands. There is judgment in the waters of New Orleans, judgment in the dead bodies floating in the flooded streets. That same judgment is in our dead body, floating in the waters of our Baptism. That judgment is true for those in New Orleans and it is true for you and me. That judgment is real, and that judgment kills.

Through the water he saves us, and Katrina is a gift, a reminder of the gift we received in Christ, the gift of Holy Baptism. Katrina comes as a raging storm. So do we keep our eyes on Christ, or shall we look at the waves? If we look at the waves we’ll get lost in them, we shall sink and die. If, by virtue of our baptism, we keep our on the Author and Perfector of our faith, Jesus Christ, then even in this storm He shall preserve us. Everything may not be as OK as we think, but between our heavenly Father, and us everything is perfect, for we are baptized.

Katrina is our inheritance from Christ; it is a gift in our baptism. It is received with hope and joy, trusting in a faithful Lord who keeps His promises.

What is God’s judgment in Katrina? What is His will for the sinners who are suffering from its terrible effects? In Christ, God’s judgment is that you are saved. In Christ, God’s judgment is that you shall receive the riches of heaven above. In Christ, God’s judgment is that you shall be with Him. This is what God pours out on those who see the waters of Katrina, that terrible storm, and rejoice in their waters, in their baptismal storm.

New Orleans is filled with filthy water right now. Dead bodies are floating in this water. Our Baptism was filled with filthy water. A dead body was floating in that water. All of our sins washed away in a forty-day storm marked by the name of our Triune God. Those sins were left in the water, rain that flooded the earth, and they made that water filthy, but they made you clean. A dead man, named Adam died in that water, and He was left there, and from that water a new man rose in Christ. That man is you, resurrected from the judgment of death, now living in the Gospel received in Christ.

Does God care in the rain? My baptism says even in the flood, He cares for me in Christ. Even in the storm, He saves me in Christ. Even in death, I am in Christ.

Stan Lemon is a pre-seminary student of Theological Language and Theology at Concordia University River Forest. He is also the webmaster for the Higher Things website. His email address is mail@stanlemon.net.

by Rev. David Petersen

The earth, wind and wave, lava and plates, were not meant to be violent. They were not violent at first. At first, they were good. Earth was peaceful. But the earth, even to the point of rock and fur, streams and mountains, and all the universe, the planets, comets, and stars, are corrupt. Thermodynamics began when Adam left order for chaos and chose to choose his own way. Now the rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous farmer alike. Or it doesn’t fall on either. Or it comes in waves that wash away not only the crops but also house and home. But it comes always on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Because the rain doesn’t care. Hurricane Katrina is our inheritance from Adam.

So don’t judge the people of New Orleans. Certainly there were wicked men and wicked things there. But there were righteous as well, saints given to good works, striving not only to bring order and decency to the city but also to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. And the rain fell on all of them alike. Some who survived are wicked. Some who died are righteous and are now in heaven. Because the rain doesn’t care. And none of our cities are better, none of our futures are more certain or safe. The rain doesn’t care.

At the time of Our Lord there was a tragedy in Jerusalem. The tower of Siloam fell and killed eighteen men. Our Lord asked His hearers if they thought those eighteen were worse sinners than all the other inhabitants of Jerusalem. Their response isn’t recorded. But Jesus answered His own question. He said “I tell you no.” They were not worse sinners, but they were sinners. Jesus rejected the idea that the tower’s fall was retribution for specific sins. That tragedy was part of the chaos that sin inflicts upon all men, forgiven believers and wicked unbelievers alike. Still, our Lord does not shy away from using it as a call to repentance. He says: “I tell you no. But unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:1-5)

No man has the right to complain about death. For no man, according to his deeds, deserves better than death. All the good things of this life, food, wine, music, laughter, friendship, and the like, all the good things of this life God gives in mercy and in grace. We do not deserve them. For the most part we enjoy them, or are denied them, as an accident of birth. The bulk of those reading this were fortunate enough to be born in America instead of the Sudan or communist Russia. Those good things are good. But they are also dangerous. We can become complacent and greedy like the rich man in the parable of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus. (Luke 16:19-31)

So in that same mercy God sends warnings. He would use the violence of this fallen world to call us to repentance, to change our mind, our attitude, our hearts. He would teach us vulnerability and dependency. He would turn us from ourselves to Him. If He must, He will even make us as the beggar Lazarus rather than lose us. He did not send His Son to die in vain. He will get what He paid for. He will get you. For the violence of hurricanes is incomparable to the violence of Hell that He endured on the Cross to win humanity from death. And the separation of body and soul, of loved ones, this hurricane has brought is only temporary.

This tragedy will bring out the worst and the best in men. We’ve already seen the worst in the looters. Soon we’ll start to hear about the heroes, the ordinary men and women who sacrificed themselves for others. Some of the worst and some of the best will be righteous, and some will be unrighteous. But the lesson for us remains the same: repent and believe that despite the seeming evidence God is good. He has already now delivered some of His saints to Himself in this way. He has brought them home. He has already now caused us to rethink ourselves, to seek His mercy, and to thank Him for the peace and joy we know on earth.

And if we have to endure inflation and a broken economy, find new jobs and ways to live, so be it. God is still good. We survived this hurricane by His mercy. It could be far worse. We’ve deserved far worse. But God has not given up on us. He has not forgotten us. He loves us.

Rev. David Petersen is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and on the Higher Things Editorial Board. Check out his blog at http://www.redeemer-fortwayne.org/blog.php. His e-mail address is David.H.Petersen@att.net.