Author: Higher Things

Rev. Dan Suelzle


“Remember me,” pleads the thief on the cross, “when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). These are words spoken from sinner to Savior-words which cling to life even in the throes of death. “Remember me.”

Lent is a season that brings these words into sharp focus. It is a season when we plead for God to remember His promises in Christ. It is a season when we look more intentionally at what our sin deserves, and how sin’s fatal reward is delivered in the flesh of Jesus on the cross. Luther calls the cross of Jesus an “earnest mirror”, for when we look at it, we see staring back at us, not mere physical pain and suffering, but even more, the wrath of God being poured out upon our own sin. At the cross, we see what our warring with God truly deserves-which is something we often forget. But our response to such a reality is not to make excuses for our sin. Nor is it to make empty promises to God that we will get a handle on our sin and do better next time. No, our response is simply to confess our sin for exactly what it is: hell-deserving enmity with God.

Of course, God does not leave us there in our sin. Jesus says to the thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Through Christ’s death and resurrection, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). The paradise of forgiveness and eternal life is yours today and every day, not because you deserve it, but because your God is a God Who remembers. He remembers, not your sin, but His promises in Christ. He declares to you, “I forgive you all of your sin on account of Christ alone.” These are words spoken from Savior to sinner-words that give life by destroying sin and death; words proclaimed from pulpit, font, and altar.

Such is the rhythm of Lent and is the rhythm of the baptized life: words of confession spoken from sinner to Savior. Words of pure absolution are spoken from Savior to sinner. We confess our hatred of Him; He promises His love for us. We plead for His mercy, and He freely doles it out. We remember our sin; God remembers His Son, whose merciful work on the cross separates our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).

Rev. Dan Suelzle is pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Eugene, Oregon.

Rev. Aaron Richert

With the season of Lent often comes the question of whether or not to give something up. Paul encourages Christians to discipline their bodies and keep them under control so that they don’t lose the gift of salvation (1 Corinthians 9:24-10:13). He uses the analogy of athletes who deny their bodies certain pleasures as they prepare for competition. Think about it like this. When I was in high school I played basketball. I played intramural basketball in college, and even played for the seminary team for a few years. I was never in danger of getting an athletic scholarship or a serious look from an NBA team, but because I practiced and exercised every day, I held my own. A few years ago, after marriage and kids, I played in an alumni game at my high school. I learned quickly that after so much time away from the game I couldn’t do the things I used to. I couldn’t run as fast for as long, I couldn’t jump as high, I couldn’t shoot from the same distance. My skills had slipped from lack of use. When I was sitting in the bleachers, it was easy to see what the players were doing wrong and assume that I could have done better. But reality was a harsh judge. Once I laced up those sneakers for myself, I realized that I wasn’t nearly the player I thought I was in my own mind.

Giving up something for Lent can work the same way. The Augsburg Confession encourages all Christians to train and subdue themselves so that laziness does not tempt us to sin (AC 26).

I think many of us have felt the desire to avoid a situation because we are afraid to fail. Maybe it’s asking someone to prom, or auditioning for that solo, or applying for that scholarship. We stay on the sidelines because life is safer and easier there. Trying something is a bit more frightening, for it will show us whether or not we truly have what it takes. There is certainly a danger in giving something up for Lent if we think that by doing so we are earning God’s favor. But there can also a danger in not giving up something for Lent. It’s the danger of staying in the bleachers. It’s the danger of doing nothing to avoid failing. It’s the danger of convincing ourselves that we have no idols to be concerned with, that we have our sin under control, that we are doing just fine living according to God’s Law. It’s the danger of comfortable complacency.

Trying to give up something for Lent won’t make us righteous in God’s eyes, but it will certainly shine the light on the idols we cling to in this life. If it’s true that you don’t know what you love until you’ve lost it, giving up something for Lent is an opportunity to see just how attached we are to the things of this life. Can you go a week without your phone? Or without Facebook? What about pop or dessert or pizza? While we often wouldn’t think twice about missing church to go on vacation or to a sleepover, we miss our phones within minutes of putting them down. Giving up pleasures of the flesh for Lent is a chance to see the reality of our sin for what it is, and, in the words of Paul, to take heed lest we fall.

Best of all, it’s a chance for repentance. Whether or not you give something up for Lent, it is the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross in our place that makes us right with God. If trying to give something up for Lent shows me my sin and drives me to Christ, praise be to God for that. If I don’t give something up for Lent, I still have Jesus. It ultimately doesn’t matter what I can or can’t sacrifice for 40 days. What matters is the sacrifice of Jesus in my place. So give something up or don’t, but don’t sit in the bleachers and lie to yourself. Confess the reality of your sin and live in the joy of forgiveness, for that is what it means to be a child of God.

Rev. Aaron Richert is Associate Pastor at St. John Lutheran Church and School, Fraser, Missouri.

Dr. Jack Kilcrease

As a liturgical season, Lent is frequently described as a “journey to the cross.” Through the designated readings for the Lenten season and Holy Week, Christians are invited to trace Jesus’ journey to the Jerusalem and eventually to his death on the cross. Nevertheless, as important as our focus on Christ’s Passion is during this particular time of the year may be, in a larger and more significant sense, the Christian life of discipleship throughout the whole year must be seen as a journey with Jesus to the cross. As Jesus himself said: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:24-25).

But what does it mean to follow Jesus to the cross? Throughout Christian history many people have thought that taking up one’s cross primarily meant adopting a particular lifestyle that might make them more like Jesus. For example, in the Middle Ages, many people saw that the Gospels portrayed Jesus as one who was poor and suffered a great deal. Therefore, they sought to live a life of poverty and suffering in order to imitate him. The major problem with this view is that Scripture never tells us to imitate Jesus’ poverty or sufferings. Even worse, by these make-believe good works people sought earn something that Christ had already won and given to them freely.

When thinking about the life of discipleship it is most important to center our hearts and minds on what Christ has done for us, not in any sense on what we believe that we can do for him. Hence, the cross we follow Jesus to is not primarily where we find out what good works we must do, but the place where Jesus manifests his love and promises us forgiveness, life, and salvation.

We come to this cross of love and promise through the Word and the sacraments. Therefore, Luther in his Large Catechism emphasized Paul’s teaching in Romans 6, that Baptism is the means through which we entered into Jesus’ death on the cross. In Baptism, we are united with Christ’s death. Through water and the word of promise, God executes his judgment upon the sin that dwells within us through the application of the merit of Christ and by giving us the Holy Spirit. As a result, we grasp the gospel’s promise of forgiveness and live a new life of holiness in faith.

Our entrance into Christ’s death and resurrection is complete and final in our Baptism. Nevertheless, prior to our earthly death, we live a life of endless tension between what we simultaneously already are through baptism into Christ and what we remain due to our birth as sinful sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. Therefore, the life of discipleship means daily entering again to into Jesus death. This occurs when we recognize our sin and repent of it, while at the same time trusting in the promise of forgiveness found in our Baptism into Christ’s death.

Likewise, dying to sin also means being resurrected into a new life of faith. Faith trusts in God’s word of promise, and therefore out of gratitude seeks to offer up our lives as a “as a living sacrifice” (Rom 12:1). In loving our neighbor and obeying God’s law, we follow Jesus to the cross by dying to our own selfish needs and desires for the sake of others. This act of imitating Christ is a response to what Christ has done for us. It is not the condition for Jesus’ love and acceptance of us.

Therefore, in the season of Lent, it is important for us to focus first on how Christ has sacrificed himself for us, receiving His gifts in the daily remembrance of our baptism, hearing His Word and receiving His Supper, so that we may in turn sacrifice ourselves for our neighbor in the service of love. In doing this, we follow Jesus’ command to take up our crosses and follow him.

Dr. Jack Kilcrease is a member at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Bethany Woelmer

My cousins and I found much joy in playing in the mud when we were younger. We slathered our skin from head to toe with this smooth yet bumpy texture. We encountered every kind of meeting with mud you can imagine–from mudslides in creek adventures to fixing water pipes. We’ve done it all. And we didn’t mind getting dirty. No permanent marks, no worries, just a simple hose-down, and we were good to go.

When it comes to sin, there is nothing clean about it. It is forever a part of us as it infects our entire being with its dirt and grime. We think that we can scrape it off by ourselves, yet we despair with no avail. We are reminded during the Lenten season, beginning with Ash Wednesday, that to dust we are and to dust we shall return. We are essentially made of the dust of the ground because of the Fall into Sin. We wallow in it day and night, crawling from the depths of woe and crying with a penitential fervor, “Create in me a clean heart, O God! O Lord, have mercy upon me!”

Our journey this Lenten season is a journey through the mud of our sin, but it is one in which Jesus steps into the mud to take our filthy heart and all its sin upon Himself on the cross. We continue to live in this daily sin with cries for release, but as those who are redeemed we look to the cross and hear God’s Gospel that says, “I baptize you for the forgiveness of sins,” “I forgive you all your sins,” and “My Body and Blood given to you for the forgiveness of sins,” all in the triune name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

For you. In the thick of suffering. In the midst of sin. All Jesus. All His work. All your salvation. For you.

Luther once said, “Every time you wash your hands, remember your Baptism.” Every dust of sin is a part of us, but in Christ it is washed away. In Christ we are a new creation, and in Christ we return to His promises by faith. We all like sheep have gone astray and are covered in the murkiness of sin, but Christ has covered Himself with our iniquities and has given us a clean heart and a right spirit within Him.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence,
And take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation,
And uphold with thy free spirit.
Amen.

Bethany Woelmer is a member at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Topeka, Kansas and a graduate student in church music at the University of Kansas.

Rev. Christopher Raffa

The season of Lent is an oddity today. We don’t know what to do with it. The American religious scene has essentially blocked it out–unable to incorporate it into its theology that is devoid of suffering and self-examination. Perhaps there are some who still recognize its key importance in the Christian life, yet even they are hard-pressed to admit it. The lamenting tongue is stuck to the roof of the self-righteous mouth. Maybe as we bury our alleluias, fold up our tents on the mount of transfiguration and head into the valley of Lent we can turn our eyes to the kingdom which is coming precisely in a glory we cringe to behold and a salvation that salivates from the seven-word Savior.

Our tongue and its world of unrighteousness is loosened by the Psalms of lamentation. Psalm 6, the first of seven penitential psalms, is profoundly terrifying yet profoundly comforting. It teaches us that in all trials and afflictions we must hurry to God. “O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.” We plead not for the abstaining of the Lord’s discipline, but rather that it not be carried out with any sort of mercy. We know the Law must be spoken, yet we couldn’t bear for that to be the last word. So, “be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.” The weight of the Law is a spiritual malady with physical repercussions. Everything about us–all that we have and are given–passes away before God because of our sin. Nothing is left. Naked and alone we stand, begging to be dressed by the gracious sacramental gift-words of our Lord. “Blessed are they who experience this in life, for every man must finally meet his end. When man thus declines and becomes as nothing in all his power, works, and being, until there is nothing but a lost, condemned and forsaken sinner, then divine help and strength appear, as in Job 11:11-17: “When you think you are devoured, then you shall shine forth as the morning star.” [Luther, LW 14:141].

The Lord is kindly disposed toward those who claim nothingness, who cry and lament unto Him. The Canaanite woman who laments unto Jesus is instructive. The Lord hears the sighs of His broken creatures, but when it comes to the babblings of supposed self-made men, He plugs His ears. Weeping, that is, confession of sin, a repentant heart is always preferred to working, and suffering exceeds all doing. In the Apology of the Augsburg Confession we read, “But God terrifies…in order to make room for consolation and vivification, because hearts that do not feel that wrath of God loath consolation in their smugness” [XII: Repentance]. Trials are the Lord’s alien work, not intrinsic to His nature, but are intended to break down our self-righteousness flesh and bring us to our knees that we might finally turn to the Lord and hear the mercy He desperately wants to give to us. For this reason, Luther, regards the Lord’s chastisement as “blessed comfort.” Strangely, hidden under the Lord’s wrath is His mercy; hidden under His chastisements is His goodness. The horror of human sin and the terror of the Lord’s wrath are real and they must never be blunted or denied.

On the basis of His steadfast love, the Lord has heard our plea for mercy. “For the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord accepts my prayer.” Nothing is worse than having our Father turn His face from us, washing His hands of us. Yet nothing is greater than having our Father turn His face toward us, and engraving our sin-filled hands upon His pierced hands, washing us clean of all iniquity. With the Lord, His face doting upon us, His ears attentive to our pleas, lament turns to praise. Indeed, the praise of the Lord doesn’t come naturally from the lips of the Old Adam. Rather it comes from the Lord who, by His promise-filled Word, creates a new and right Spirit within us–a New Adam to praise and give thanks for the unexpected joy that life has just begun–this in the day that we thought we would be ended by our sin and death. This movement from lament to praise is an act of the Lord’s creation, which like the first creation occurs ex nihilo, out of nothing, through the spoken word. To be moved from pain to joy, lamentation to praise, is to see and hear the true nature of your Lord, that He is gracious and merciful, and His steadfast love endures forever. Bowed down in the dust, the Father’s face shines upon you in His Son and by His Holy Spirit, raising you up to eternal and glorious life.

Rev. Christopher Raffa is the associate pastor of Pilgrim Evangelical Lutheran Church in West Bend, Wisconsin. You can email him at revcraffa@att.net.

Rev. Harrison Goodman

I hope you fail at Lent.

Jesus says when you fast, do not look gloomy sort of like I do when my wife tells me “When you take out the trash, don’t forget the recycling too.” It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of how. So during Lent, we usually end up talking about giving something up for a few weeks.

It usually sounds like one of two things. Either “aim low and you’ll never be disappointed” or “New Year’s Resolutions 2: This time I’m serious.” In other words, we either give up something dumb like chocolate, roll our eyes at how backwards Christianity is, or use it as an excuse to try and make ourselves better people. Hear John the Baptist: “Jesus must increase, but I must decrease.” Lent is not about you. Lent is about a Jesus willing to die for sinners. Lent is about the cross. If your practices in Lent are all focused inward, instead of towards that cross, you’re doing it wrong.

A Lent spent giving up something you’re not all that enamored with in the first place is just an empty motion–a Pharisaical prayer from the street corner that doesn’t accomplish anything other than letting you tell yourself you outwardly followed a religion. Of course there’s no reason to it. Of course you don’t get anything from it other than a chance to wonder why it all matters anyway. That’s because there was no Jesus in the whole practice.

Or maybe we could aim a little higher. Let’s try and do something better with our time. Let’s actually look at God’s Law and find where we fall short. What are my idols? What are my pet sins? Could I maybe tackle those? Don’t get me wrong. A Lent that is nothing more than a Christianized New Year’s resolution won’t save you. But hopefully you’ll try it anyway and fail. Then you’ll see the truth. We don’t know how bad we are until we have tried very hard to be good. Jesus died for failures. Jesus died for you. A Lent that points us away from our egos and our sins is a Lent that draws us outside of ourselves and shows us Jesus. He bore your sins and failures, your ego and your death upon a cross. I hope you fail so hard at Lent you die inside. Then, I hope you receive the crucified Jesus to make you live.

Rev. Harrison Goodman serves as pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Carroll, Nebraska.

Rev. Brandt Hoffman

While walking home one day, a man witnessed a terrible car crash. Without thought, he dialed 911 and ran to the wreckage. There were injured persons in both vehicles. Amidst smoke, glass, and twisted metal, he managed to free the drivers and pull them to safety before one of the cars caught fire. It was a horrible sight to see. A burning wreckage and a trail of blood that stopped at two bodies. Two people lying unconscious on the side of the road.

When the paramedics arrived they took one look at the scene and said to the man, “We need to take care of this guy first!” The man, taken aback, said “Don’t worry about me, take care of those two. I think one or both of them is bleeding.” The paramedic said, “Sir, you need to sit down so we can take care of your injury.”

He looked down then and noticed that the trail of blood wasn’t from the accident victims. It was his own blood. While he rescued the people from the wreckage, he’d drug his arm across a jagged piece of metal. It had drawn a six-inch gash along his forearm, ending at his wrist. The injury, even he could see, could end his life. The paramedic didn’t talk anymore. He treated him. He saved the man’s life.

But what does this story have to do with anything of import for you, the reader? Well, as we are now in the season Lent–a season of repentance, of turning away from chasing that which is not God, to God–there are a couple of points in this story that may serve as a helpful example for you. As your pastor preaches, God will undoubtedly give him His Word of Law to preach to you. It is this Word of Law that says: “That blood there on the ground isn’t someone else’s. It’s your blood. Death is sniffing round for you. It’s got your scent. It’s on your trail.” Then God will give your pastor another Word. Like the paramedic, your pastor will no longer point out the nearness of death. Instead, God will give him the promise, the good news that heals your sin-riddled body–the sweet, wonderful, life-saving Word of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Speaking God’s wonderful Word of Gospel has always been the primary mission of Higher Things, too. It is founded on the life-saving good news of Jesus Christ. For all those souls who have learned of the mortal wound of deathly sin, Higher Things is here to be a salve: preachers who point us all to the hope we have received in Jesus Christ because we are all in desperate need of His life-saving grace. To this end, everyone is invited to take advantage of the many Higher Things® resources, to help you better understand this important Church season.

We pray that this Season of Lent is one that not only alerts you to the deathly reality of sin, but ultimately to the good news of Jesus Christ for you, which God gives to you as free gift in His Word and Sacraments.

Rev. Brandt Hoffman is the Pastor and principal at Christ Lutheran Church and School in Coos Bay, Oregon.