Rev. Michael Keith
I am a long distance runner. I run 5-6 times a week. I have run lots of half marathons and one full marathon (I am still trying to convince myself that I want to do that again!). To be a long distance runner you have to build up your endurance. This takes consistent training. You can’t just wake up one day and decide to run 26.2 miles without stopping. You won’t have the endurance. When I first started running I could barely run a mile, but I kept at it and slowly began to run further before thinking I was going to puke. I remember clearly when I finally ran my first 5 K without stopping-it seemed as if I had done the impossible. Now, after a few years of running and hundreds of miles behind me, a 5-K run is barely a warm up. My endurance has been built up. However, no matter how much I train, I eventually will need to stop. At some point, I will run out of energy. My endurance will fail.
Jesus says: “…the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13). How do you endure to the end? It is not by your own strength or endurance, for if you try to endure on your own, you will fail. You will not endure. You don’t have it in you. I don’t have it in me. My faith is too weak and my trust is too wavering. I must confess: Lord, I believe, help me in my unbelief (Mark 9:24).
The strength to endure comes not from inside of you, but from outside of you. It is Jesus, and only Jesus, who will give you the strength. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23). He promised you in your baptism to be with you always and He is faithful to His promise. Through hearing God’s Word and receiving the Holy Supper Jesus gives you what you need to endure. So, let’s not play games. Runners run and Christians go to church. If the last time I ran was in 1986, could I honestly call myself a runner today? Christians come to church. They come here because this is where Jesus has promised to be for them: to feed and strengthen them to endure and to grant them forgiveness and life. He has not promised to do so anywhere else. So let’s stop pretending.
That is why the writer to the Hebrews says we should not neglect “to meet together, as is the habit of some” (Hebrews 10:25). Just as if you stop running you will lose your endurance and eventually cease to be a runner, so also if you stop receiving from Jesus you will lose your endurance of faith and run the very real risk of ceasing to be a Christian
Jesus, through His Church, continues to give out His gifts and His gifts He will keep you strong, He will give you the strength to endure to the end, for He is the One who endures. He is the One who endured the cross for you. He is the One who endured damnation to hell for you. He is the One who endured death for you. And because He endured to the end, He was victorious over sin, death, and the devil for you. And through your baptism, through His name being placed on you, you are in Christ. And because you are in Christ you will endure to the end and will be saved.
“…the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Who is this? That’s you. For you are in Christ Jesus. and He who has promised is faithful.
Rev. Michael Keith serves as pastor at St. Matthew Lutheran Church and SML Christian Academy in Stony Plain, AB Canada. He can be reached at keith@st-matthew.com.
Love is a difficult thing to understand in the age of American romance. When the movie Titanic came out all the girls in school loved it and all the boys hated it. Love it or hate it, it’s hard to forget about the scene where Jack easily could have fit on the floating door at the end. But that scene brings up a good point. Sure, the movie had romance, but it didn’t have much love. It had “love breaking down the barriers of the classes,” but, no incarnation.
If you’re a fan of the movie The Princess Bride you might be familiar with the dialog between Vizzini and Inigo Montoya. Vizzini loved to use the interjection, “Inconceivable!” After hearing it a few times, Inigo responded to Vizzini, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
I like Heinz ketchup. It tastes good to me. I like it on hamburgers and hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches. I like it on my macaroni and cheese, but only on leftover macaroni and cheese. (It is a terrible sin to put ketchup on freshly made, creamy macaroni and cheese. That must be enjoyed in its natural state.) I like ketchup on a lot of things. Heinz ketchup. However, sometimes another brand of ketchup will end up on the table. This is a scary thing to deal with. I look at it suspiciously. I poke at it. I sniff it. I try to determine if it will hurt me. I wonder if it will be as good as Heinz? Could it be better? Doubtful. Will it leave me disappointed and sad? I don’t know-it’s not Heinz. With a bottle of Heinz ketchup I know what I am going to get. It’s what I want. It won’t let me down. It’s going to taste good on my food.
The Leviathan-while perhaps not the great sea monster or dinosaur-like creature from Job-might easily be seen as a great dragon, fierce and breathing the fires of hell. Many interpret this image, this passage as referring to the devil, the prince of the world, the one who, according to Matthew 25, is destined for the eternal, unquenchable lake of fire.
In the movie Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Greg Gaines has made it through three years of high school without being associated with any single group. He’s not a jock, but he gives the basketball players in their letter jackets high-fives as he passes. He’s not a goth, but they nod at him from behind their leather and metal and eyeliner when he goes into school. He’s not a nerd or a geek, but they respect him for his nerdy tendencies. This ability to keep himself from being singled out as different, he thinks, is the key to surviving high school.
God’s Word is a creating Word. It is a Word of blessing which, thanks to the faithfulness of God, never ceases to have effect. It also lays itself open-like the One who has no place to lay His head in this world-to misjudgment and distortion and is greeted with ingratitude by human beings. The ancient account of Genesis 1 and 2 is not foremost about individual characters-the man Adam and his wife Eve-but is the history of every human being; it is the history of every man and woman. Although it’s an old story, it’s a new story-our story. “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion.'” And, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden.” This indeed, is God’s first word to human beings.
Many things coalesced and urged Martin Luther to write his catechetical material. As early as July 1516 Luther preached on the catechism, i.e., Ten Commandments, Creed, and Lord’s Prayer. By 1522, the practice had been established in Wittenberg of preaching on the Catechism four times a year. In 1524, Pastor Nicholas Hausmann had requested catechetical material from Luther to be used with the common folk. Luther also sought to settle a dispute that had arisen between John Agricola and Phillip Melanchthon concerning the place of the law in the Christian life (see A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord, p.521ff). Indeed, the greatest reason for Luther’s writing of the Small Catechism was to address the maladies diagnosed in the Saxon Visitation of 1528. In his preface to the Small Catechism, Luther writes, “The deplorable, miserable conditions which I recently observed when visiting the parishes have constrained and pressed me to put this catechism of Christian doctrine into this brief, plain, and simple form. How pitiable, so help me God, were the things I saw: The common man, especially in the villages, knows practically nothing of Christian doctrine, and many of the pastors are almost entirely incompetent and unable to teach. Yet all the people are supposed to be Christians, have been baptized, and receive the Holy Sacrament, even though they do not know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, or The Ten Commandments and live like poor animals of the barnyard and pigpen. What these people have mastered, however, is the fine art of tearing all Christian liberty to shreds.”
