Category: Articles

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.