Category: Catechesis

Rev. Michael Keith

As I have written several times here: I love the practices that we have in the Church. I love learning about them and why we do what we do. Coming from an unchurched background, I had to learn everthing. I didn’t know anything. The truth is, as a kid, I didn’t know what a nativity scene had to do with Christmas. Christmas was about Santa. What’s with these people wearing bathrobes anyway?

There are lots of practices, observances, and traditions around this time of year. I love hearing about all the ancient practices of Christians around Christmas time. I love learning about what they mean and why we have kept observing many of them in our day. There are a lot of great practices that we find at this time of year that point us to Jesus, but here is my favorite:

It is an old practice in the Christian church to take the Christmas tree after the Christmas Season is over and make it into a cross. To do so you take all the branches off so that you have just the trunk of the tree and then you cut the trunk into two pieces–one piece roughly twice as long as the other. You then attach the shorter piece to the longer piece with either some cord or some nails making a cross. And there you have it: a cross made out of the Christmas tree. This cross is then often displayed in the church building throughout the Season of Lent.

The reason why I like this practice is because it cuts through all the sappy sentimentality that we often find at this time of year. Truth be told: I am a little Grinch-y this time of year. Christmas has truly become the most “Hallmarkiest” of holy-days. The cute little pictures of the baby Jesus laying in a cozy manger really have a way of distracting our attention away from the fact that this little baby born of the Virgin is the Lamb of God. This Jesus is the Lamb of God who was born to be the sacrificial Lamb and die for the world’s sin. Many of our favorite Christmas hymns do not shy away from this grizzly fact and point us to the cross even as we peer into the manger at Christmas. I encourage you to pay special attention to the words of the familiar hymns this year and take note of how often the cross and Jesus’ sacrificial death is mentioned. The manger without the cross leaves us with empty, sweet sentimentality and a hopeless hope that people will somehow just be nice to each other because, well, look… there is this cute baby in a manger and all .

The practice of taking the Christmas tree and fashioning a cross from it is an explicit reminder and connection that the shadow of the cross always fell on the manger. This Jesus was born to die for you.

Christmas is not about how cute and cuddly Jesus was as a baby. It’s about your dire and desperate need for a Savior from sin, death, and hell. We rejoice and sing with joy because out of His mercy God sent forth His Son, and Jesus came on a rescue mission. He was sent to rescue you from your sin. He came to rescue you from the devil’s grips. He came to rescue you from eternal fire. He came to rescue you from yourself.

And He has accomplished His rescue of you. It is finished. His life, death on the cross, and His resurrection has saved you. We rejoice and sing that we have been saved and that our Savior has come and we are safe with Him! In the waters of holy Baptism He has rescued you from the curse, far as it is found. In the words of Holy Absolution you hear words of truth and grace spoken to you from your Savior through the pastor. As you kneel at the altar, your incarnate Lord comes to you with His Body and Blood for the forgiveness of sins–and we wonder at His love.

Rev. Michael Keith serves as pastor at St. Matthew Lutheran Church and SML Christian Academy in Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada. He can be reached at keith@st-matthew.com.

Rev. Jacob Ehrhard

What a ridiculous thing to say: God is born. A contradiction of terms. God is eternal. Without beginning. How can He be born? There must be some divine trick, some heavenly illusion at work at Christmas. But against all human reason, the angel appears to Mary and says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35 NKJV). No tricks here, just the promise of the ages coming to its fulfillment in time: the Seed of the woman born to crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15).

The question, “Who is Jesus?” was one that kept coming up in the first 400 years of the New Testament church’s history. Four church-wide councils were held to work out this question based upon the witness of Scripture. The statements of these ancient church councils were incorporated into the Lutheran Confessions. The Lutheran church is not a new church, but a continuation of the one, holy, catholic (universal), and apostolic church, and we boldly confess what the church has always confessed concerning our Lord, Jesus Christ.

The Formula of Concord takes up the issue of the person of Christ in its eighth article, and gives us a little Christmas cheer right in the middle:

We believe, teach, and confess that God is man and man is God. This could not be the case if the divine and human natures has (in deed and in truth) absolutely no communion with each other. For how could the man, the Son of Mary, in truth be called or be God, or the Son of God the Most High, if His humanity were not personally united with the Son of God? How could He have no real communion (that is, in deed and in truth) with the Most High, but only share in God’s name? So we believe, teach, and confess that Mary conceived and bore not merely a man and no more, but God’s true Son. Therefore, she also is rightly called and truly is “the mother of God.”

God is born. It’s a ridiculous thing to say according to human reason. But God often does foolish things to put to shame the wise in the world. And His foolishness is wiser than the wisdom of men. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God-who is Himself God-unites Himself so completely with our human nature that the virgin who bore Him receives the title, “the mother of God.” This is not so much to teach us about who Mary is, but about who Jesus is. The nature of God is so intimately united with the nature of man that now of Jesus it can be said, “God is born.”

But even more importantly, because of this personal union of the divine and human natures in Jesus Christ, it can also be said, “God died.” St. Paul writes to the Corinthians: “they crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8). If it was only a man, or only human nature that was crucified, then it would do us no good. But it was no mere man who hung bleeding on the cross. God has purchased us with His own blood (Acts 20:28). No blood except God’s blood could pay such a price.

The great mystery of the Incarnation, of God becoming flesh-which we celebrate this holy day-has one last blessing for us. Because Jesus is risen from the dead and ascended to heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand, this means human nature is also exalted. As true as it is that God was born on that first Christmas, so it is also true now that a man sits at God’s right hand. This man feeds you His Body and Blood-the same Body and Blood born of His virgin mother, the same body that hung on the cross, the same blood that spilled from His veins. And as you join Him in this holy Supper, you also are raised to new life and exalted with the Man who is also God.

Rev. Jacob Ehrhard is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in New Haven, Missouri.

Rev. Christopher Raffa

Life is fragile. Hold onto it too hard and fiercely and you will break it. Hold it too softly and detached and you will miss its giftedness. Tonight almighty God descends to fragile human flesh. Christmas Eve is a fragile flood of emotions fraying our flesh into its greatest need. So much is wrapped up into this night. The jumbled and incriminating past is often relived-its trail of tears an ocean so deep. The present is grasped by any means necessary, by a toy, a cookie, a smile, a hug, a kiss next to the Christmas tree. The future is pregnant with both joy and fear, with hope and skepticism. And although St. Luke pens for us what many envision as a holy and silent night, a moment when angels bent the heavens low in song and shepherds stoically tended their flocks by night, Mary and Joseph were awed by the face of God cooing celestial sounds, it was, in reality, a fragile night. It was a night not unlike yours.

It’s a fragile night. It’s a night that we must not cradle in sentimentality the birth of Jesus nor sanitize Him of our sin and brokenness. We must not strip Christmas from the miracle of divinity coming to humanity, of divine love coming to a warped and weary love, of unmerited grace to those living in the fantasy that the manger need not come into their space. We must not see the time of Christmas as an escape clause, a time to mask our ills, deny our sins, and hide our wounds; a time to leave the world in a cocoon of merriment as its life and hope descends from heaven above; a time of two ships passing in the night, one fleeing from the darkness and the other being born into it. And although the entanglement of December’s miracle on 34th Street can hardly be unwrapped from the miracle on the streets of Bethlehem, this night is about almighty God coming to fragile human flesh, of the Father’s insistence that His Son be born, die, and rise for you.

It’s an almighty God in fragile flesh, bouncing about in His virgin mother’s womb. You hear the beast of burden clopping along in the dust of the earth. Joseph’s voice calms the restless and frightened Mary. You see the shadows of animals milling about as they reach their divine destination. Joseph prepares the cruel and cold cattle stall where God comes for all. Mary’s hour has come. Labor and sweat, cries and tears, pierce the midnight air. Suddenly you hear the cry of God, “This is My beloved Son, He is born for you. He is My fragile flesh joined to your fragile flesh, He has come only to rescue you.” From the hills and pastures of the earth, where shepherds roam and you find no home, you hear this cry of newborn life, a home for eternal life. You see Him, lowly in a manger, heaven on earth, Christ the Son of God, born for man on earth. His presence pierces your body and soul to see that He comes to die for you. His glory is hidden beneath an impending cross. His life is freely given to a world that is lost.

It’s a fragile flesh that covers your bones, holds your heart, and encases your soul. It’s a flesh that had no room for Him-your sin too grievous, too deep, to think that He could rouse you from your sinful sleep. Yet what you failed to see is that He takes this heavy sin-filled life and dies with it on a tree. Yes, you are poor shepherds, who adore God’s holy birth, and yet you are foolish virgins who sit idly by as this gift comes down to earth. You travail this thorny and thistled life, with scars too numerous to cover, yet greater is the One who lies in a manger whose scars will bring you righteous and heavenly life. You are children who sit on the edge of your pew, enchanted by the beauty of this night, with all this candlelight, yet you are grownups filled with the varied emotions of many Christmas nights. Your name is one of many in a grand family tree, perhaps reunited on this Christmas Eve, yet you sit alone as your branches of love are buried beneath the deep winter snow. The saints and Christmas angels surround you, this child’s kingdom spanning from age to age, uniting flesh that lives far away, flesh that lies in the gave, flesh that stand at odds with other flesh, and barren flesh that never gave birth to flesh. This is you. This is me. This is the church on Christmas Eve.

So you come to the manger of Jesus and He looks up at you. In His eyes He sees Himself, joined to you from eternity. This is the joy that is set before Him, to live, to die, to rise for you, His children so frail and so few. It’s that simple and it’s free. This night you come to celebrate the birth of Jesus and yet the birth of Jesus is all about you. Jesus is not the reason for season. You are. The birth of God is your second birth-set free from this thistled and thorny earth. Jesus is born into your incriminating past, wiping the memory of your sins so deep and so fresh into a cradle and cross that doesn’t count the cost. Jesus is born into your time, into your day, into your night, into all of your life, so that you may hold it sacred and be not afraid that it will soon pass away. Jesus is born into your future; a life that you confess will be the masterful work of this child, the beginning of your endless days, never to pass away. There is no part of your life that Jesus has not assumed as His own. He takes full responsibility for your sin and death while you take the place of honor and gladness as He puts away all your sadness.

Indeed, much is wrapped up into this night. It’s not only a flood of emotions, it’s a flood of fleshly mercy and fleshly forgiveness. Jesus is wrapped in the swaddling Word, His flesh audibly heard, a promise spoken that can never be broken. Jesus is wrapped in the Baptismal waters, His flesh new birth to weary sons and daughters. Jesus is wrapped in the Supper, His flesh forgiving food, His blood merciful drink. Jesus is wrapped in your mess to give you new and immortal dress. This is a fragile yet fleshly night. No sentiment lies here, only salvation. No sanitizing or airbrushing of life’s treacherous path, just simple fragile flesh given in love that comes from heaven above. Beloved, Christmas Eve is almighty God in fragile flesh, incarnate and redeeming love, coming to you and to me. It’s that simple. It’s that free.

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

Rev. Harrison Goodman

I’ve never had anyone ask me why I wear the letter ‘t’ on my neck and had the “evangelism opportunity” to explain that it’s actually a cross. I’ve never been misunderstood and asked the follow up question, “…a cross from where?” Even being raised Jewish, I knew Christians used crosses to mark themselves and their religion.

There’s this fallacy some people wave around that there are people in our communities who haven’t ever heard of Christianity. I’ve never met any of them. I just don’t think it’s true. They’ve heard all about Christians. They’re quick to tell me.

They say, “Oh. You’re Christian. So, are you Christian like the people who hold up hate signs at military funerals, or Christian like the people who believe dinosaur bones were planted by the devil to trick you?” I’ve heard, “I knew a Christian once. He beat his wife.” and “Why would I want to go listen to some pedophile priest talk about why I’m a sinner?” They’ve heard a lot about people who wear crosses–they’ve just never heard of Christ.

I don’t know when, but someone once said, “You just might be the only Bible someone ever reads.” That translates roughly to “when people look at you and see that cross you wear they get a little taste of what you believe in…so behave.” I wonder if whoever first said that bothered to read the book before trying to demonstrate it. When I read the Scriptures, all I see are sinners whom God calls righteous because of Christ. I see murderers and thieves and drunkards and adulterers. I see broken men and women. I see sinners. I see a Christ who loves them enough to die for each and every one of them.

You might just be the only Bible someone reads, so do you really want to make sure all they see is law, or maybe admit there’s some gospel in there, too? Secretly, I wish I could answer every criticism of someone who wears a cross by saying, “Those sinners can’t be Christians. I’m embarrassed to be grouped in with them. Real Christians wouldn’t do evil things. Here, look at me. This is what Christians really look like. The truth is, they wouldn’t have to look too hard to find my own hypocrisy and sin. That’s why I wear a cross. I need it.

Maybe we should even wear crucifixes just to be clear. I don’t wear this as a mark of my morality. It’s a mark of my sin that my God died for. My God even loves a sinner like me. It doesn’t make what I do right. It doesn’t make it okay–just died for, and so forgiven. I identify as someone for whom Jesus died. Hi, my name is Baptized. I wear a crucifix because the love that God has for me isn’t a feeling, but a concrete action in time–a sacrifice made for one as undeserving as me. That love can’t exist in a vacuum. It can’t be just a concept. That kind of love looks like a crucifix.

If I’m the only Bible that someone read, I hope to God they’ll find more than just law. I don’t know how to demonstrate that in myself other than saying “I, a poor miserable sinner” and begging for absolution each chance I get. I go to church because I need what’s there. I go because I embody anger and bitterness and lust and evil and sin. I go because I need Christ. You can come, too. Receive the same gifts that sustain me. Yes, there are sinners here. They need forgiveness. That’s sort of the point. That’s why there’s a cross. There’s help for us sinners. There’s help for you, too. There’s forgiveness for your secrets that keep you from standing with us for fear of being outed as less than ideal. You can find peace here, too. God loves you and has redeemed you from every pit you find yourself in.

Everyone gets touchy when we talk about “witnessing.” Some of it’s because we recognize we have something worth sharing, and don’t want to waste any opportunities. Some of it’s because most people don’t actually want to knock on a stranger’s door and hold out pamphlets, because it’s awkward and scary and we don’t know what to say. This isn’t a call for more or less “mission programs.” It’s just a call to acknowledge reality. Most of us have at least some in our lives who doesn’t know Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who seeks out His lost sheep. Most of us are uncomfortable talking about religion with them. I am.

But I’m not uncomfortable loving them. They are my family and my friends. I don’t need to be told to care for them by a mission program. Loving and serving them is my vocation. God put these specific people in my life for me to serve. He gave you some, too. This service doesn’t look like forced, awkward encounters where I care more about saying I “witnessed” than I do about the person I “witnessed” to. It’s the genuine love and compassion I have for the people in my life that God gave me.

When missions are tied to vocation and we see the people we love hurting, we point them to the only healing we know. Mission is rooted in the source of love, Jesus, not the program or pamphlet. That love doesn’t need to be cajoled into speaking. That love can’t shut up. That love is demonstrated every time you go back to the source of love, given in the Divine Service, because that love isn’t an idea, it takes shape. It’s a cross from Christ.

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

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.

Rev. Gaven Mize

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.

Why has there become such a melding of romance and love? Many criminals have committed the most terrible crimes after “charming over” the opposite sex. Romance never offers the assurance of love. Romance is easy. Love is hard. I can’t tell you how many weddings I have attended and heard the 1 Corinthians 13 passage read with the silent implication that the husband’s love is always patient and the wife’s love is always kind, etc. That’s a clear cut case of misappropriating what the Bible is conveying. The reality is that the love in this 1 Corinthians text is about God’s love for us. God’s agape (one of the Greek words for love) is patient and kind.


Love always comes with a sacrifice or else it isn’t love. Hymn writer Paul Gerhardt knocks this truth out of the park in the second stanza of O Lord How Shall I Meet You:

“Love caused Your incarnation, love brought You down to me;
Your thirst for my salvation procured my liberty.
O love beyond all telling, that led you to embrace;
In love all loves excelling our lost and fallen race.”

Love and awaiting the great humiliation of God being made flesh is what Advent is all about. And where love and the humiliation of God in the flesh is the sacrificial love of Jesus on the cross is never far away. The cross isn’t very romantic, but it is lovely. The cross is made lovely by the holy body of Jesus. Gerhardt makes this point abundantly clear. The love that placed Jesus on the cross for you is the same love that brought Jesus down to earth for you. Now we can’t fully comprehend this type of love. And no matter how many times you add your own name into the 1 Corinthians verse it’s still not about your patience, kindness, and the rest. But, it is about you. God has made it about you. That’s why He came to earth. He came to die and rise for you. That love, as Gerhardt says, is the love that has brought us into the embrace of God Himself.



As we continue to prepare for Advent may we keep this stanza in the forefront of our minds. Love, not romance, was Christ’s motivation for your everlasting salvation. Love, not romance, is patient with you and that love flows from the wounds of Jesus and into the baptismal font. There, in that font we are forced to come face to face with that love. We are killed by that love, and are resurrected in that love. Ain’t love grand? So, no floating door is needed because you have been brought into the arc of the church. You don’t need to feel God’s tug on your heartstrings in the rain on some sappy movie set, because you wake up dripping in your baptismal grace every morning. Think on these things and know that God’s love is absolute. God’s love is for you. It’s what caused Jesus’ incarnation and brought Him down to you. Jesus’ thirst for our salvation has freed you from the bondage of sin, death, and the devil. We now lay in the embrace of God; we have been brought onto the dry ground on the other side.

Rev. Gaven M. Mize serves as pastor at Augustana Lutheran Church, Hickory, North Carolina.

Rev. Randy Sturzenbecher

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.”

In our autonomous, personalized, find-what-fits-you culture, the word “church” is used many ways. I think Inigo might have found himself questioning that as well.

Our modern day understanding of church is driven by our consumer driven society. We have been trained-when we need something-to shop for the best value, the best price, the best product that meets what we need. Because of this mentality, when our perceived need is met, or we are dissatisfied with the service we have received, we move on.

When we talk about church in this manner churches are relegated to competing establishments, vying for a market share. They, in turn, create and recreate themselves to stay on the cutting edge in order to compete with everything else for a market share of your time and resources.

However, the church is not a manmade institution, it is Christ’s. He created it. He shed His holy and precious blood to cleanse it and make it His pure bride. He sustains it through His gifts of Word and Sacrament. He cares for it and calls you into it. The church is not a place where we go to find what we want, but where Christ gives us what He wants for us and what He knows we need. The church is the place where we gather as a community-His community. Whether we’re baby boomers, gen xers, millennials, singles, middle school, high school and college, widowed, married with children, or married without, we all gather into a community that desperately needs that which only Christ can give. We need the forgiveness that Jesus won for us on the cross. We need hope. We need peace. We need to know that our mistakes and sins can be and are forgiven by the blood of Christ shed on the cross. We need to be needed and wanted unconditionally. We need to find truth and guidance and understand our identity. We need the strength to live in His Truth.

The world around us accepts us when we fit the mold it demands. The church accepts us as we are: broken, discouraged, scared, needing guidance, discouraged, damaged and disillusioned. Our brokenness is the very reason Jesus died on the cross. Only the sinless Lamb of God could pay the price demanded by sin. Sin demands death. Sin brings destruction; it tears us down and pulls us away from all that is good. Sin deceives us into thinking our brokenness is actually healthy. Our sin is why Jesus died on the cross. He wants to restore us and make us new.

In His church, Christ Jesus does not take-He gives. He gives us complete and total forgiveness and does not judge you by your past. Christ Jesus gives us a community. In the waters of Holy Baptism we become part of the community of saints redeemed, washed and forgiven by the blood of Jesus shed on the cross. Christ Jesus gives us a family. This family gathers together in worship to receive the gifts that our loving Father gives. This family, our church family, cares for each other, prays for each other and carries one another’s burdens. We eat together at the feast prepared by Jesus, His very true Body and Blood in with and under the bread and wine, for us, for our strength and forgiveness. Christ gives us an identity that is not shaped or molded by the world but shaped by Jesus as He covers us in His holiness.

In Christ’s church we are a part of something much greater than ourselves; we are a part of Christ and His gifts He so willingly gives. His love, forgiveness, and promises for us are evident in every worship service.

And that, dear children, is the true meaning of “church.” It’s a glorious, inconceivable gift from our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Rev. Randy R Sturzenbecher is the pastor at Divine Shepherd Lutheran Church in Black Hawk, South Dakota.

Rev. Michael Keith

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.

In some ways your church sign is like the name Heinz on a ketchup bottle. If I see that your sign has the name Lutheran (and in particular LCMS in the U.S. and LCC in Canada) I know what I should expect. In fact, that is why when I am traveling I will try to find a LCMS/LCC church to visit. The name represents something. It is telling me that at this church there are certain things taught and certain beliefs that are held to by the people there. That’s why I want to go there. I want to hear the Gospel. I want to hear the Law and Gospel properly distinguished and applied. I want to receive Holy Communion. I want to hear the Absolution pronounced by the pastor.

The name on a church is not just a name. It is a confession. It is telling you something about what is believed, taught, and confessed in that church. It’s important. It makes a difference. Just try swapping my ketchup bottle! It makes a difference! If I were to walk into a church building that had the name “Pentecostal” on the sign I would know what to expect and what not to expect. I would be very surprised (pleasantly so!) if I heard the Law and Gospel properly divided and applied there. I would be shocked to hear any teaching that encouraged infant baptism (since that is clearly rejected in Pentecostalism). The pastor would not pronounce holy Absolution because such a teaching is contrary to what is believed in that church body. The differences would be clear.

It does matter what church you attend and to which church you belong. It’s not just a name-it’s what you believe. Do you know why you belong to the church you attend? Do you know what is taught there? Or is it just a name to you? If you don’t know, go talk to your pastor. Ask questions. Find out what you believe and why you believe it. It’s important. That’s the role Confirmation is supposed to play in the church and in your life-so that you know what you believe and why you believe it.

The Lord has provided you with His Church so that you might receive His gifts. He gives you His gifts through His Word and Sacraments. He has called a pastor to serve you with those gifts. Sadly, the Church on earth is fractured and divided. It is a result of living in the fallen world. However, the Lord has and will preserve His Church through the ages. He has preserved it for you wherever you find the Word of God proclaimed and the Sacraments administered faithfully. Find such a church and joyfully receive the gifts Jesus has for you there!

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

Rev. Donavon Riley

All creation praises it’s Creator (Psalm 148). And yet, because God subjected creation “to futility” (Romans 8:20) because of sin, it cries out every day in hope for the greatness that is still to come. The most sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner, the most savory foods, the most exciting conversations-all these things stir up our appetite for more. They nudge us to imagine more stuff that lasts longer than a holiday feast. We can’t help ourselves. No matter how much hot apple cider, eggnog, or mulled wine we drink, it doesn’t slake our thirst…not really. They whet our appetite for more. As soon as we push ourselves away from the table-while we look around for the nearest piece of furniture that promises a nap before the invasion of the leftovers begins-our hearts are in motion. By the time we wake up, bleary-eyed, dry-mouthed, the taste of the feast has faded from our mouths. The great things they inspired in us-the laughter, the delight, the joy-have escaped. The world is solid. It can be picked up with our forks, chewed, swallowed. But it struggles in us. It declares itself a pilgrim in our digestive tracts and reminds us that our hunger can only be satisfied for a moment. Every meal, especially holiday feasts, reminds us of what we are about.

Why do we ask, “Will you marry me?” Why do we fuse paint to canvas? Why do we lose sleep over a smoked turkey? Why do we go for after-dinner walks in the woods? Because we delight in God’s created stuff. We become like children again when we wonder at creation’s goodness. And still, no matter how good the food or conversation, we feel like we are strangers in a strange place. We’re out of step with what’s real, as if there’s got to be a better version of this family, this feast, this holiday somewhere else. For Christians, we appreciate that feeling of strangeness, a nostalgia for what hasn’t happened yet. We know why we hunger and thirst for that “somewhere else” to come to us at the last. Family, food, special days all point to the New Jerusalem. In Baptism we are given appetites, not to devour the world and forget about it, but to taste its goodness and hunger for what can satisfy all of us one time for all time.

When we pray at table, “Bless us Father, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bountiful goodness through Jesus Christ our Lord,” we acknowledge not only what’s been laid out in front of us on disposable aluminum trays, in Pyrex bowls, and ceramic pie pans. We express our desire to sit at a table where grace is received with greater thanks than Aunt Debbie’s cheesy mashed potatoes-where we may drink enough heavenly wine to drown envy, pride, resentment, bitterness, and shame; where we rejoice that dry turkey meat and runny cranberry sauce are replaced by the Body and Blood of the Word who created and recreated us, and where unsettled men and women, who struggle to escape their birthright, are baked into one joyous family in Christ Jesus. One excessive, laugh out loud, endless holiday party. The feast of the Lamb without end, where singing goes on into all hours of the night, and old jokes never feel worn out, where even the sun, moon, and stars howl in laughter at the telling.

For now, we must be satisfied with a foretaste of the eternal feast to come. At the Lord’s Supper, all creation praises its Creator. But because of sin, we eat and drink in hope for our final satisfaction at the Last Day. That doesn’t mean sin has ruined family and feasts for us. It hasn’t. Creation is good. That’s what God said, so that’s the way of it, even if Grandma Clements smells like a wet cat. The way to the eternal party then doesn’t run around God’s good creation, but through it. At the Supper of the Lamb the way is made straight and true for us. We aren’t saved so that we can run amok, trampling creation’s goodness under foot. God made us to be given to, from Him for each other today.

When He brings us to His table, He gathers us to himself, His beloved “given-to.” We are called to the party to eat well, to drink and rejoice, to love and serve each other as we have been loved and served by our heavenly Father. At the Lord’s Table it is revealed to us that all creation is the gorgeousness of God’s Fatherly heart made solid. And from His table all our feasts, every gravy-smeared plate, every wine stain on the couch, every pie crumb ground into the carpet, will cause us to give thanks for the giftedness of creation. Those things remind us again that in this life all of our thank-yous are but a foretaste of the Great Thanksgiving to come — the Supper of the Lamb without end. Amen.

Rev. Donavon Riley is pastor at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota.