Tag: Repentance

DIVINE GRACE & PRESENCE

There are two ways of living… One is the way of resisting Almighty God, and the other is the way of surrender to God’s eternal grace and steadfast love. Resistance to God brings anxiety and distress, restlessness and hopelessness. Surrender to God, however, brings inner peace and joy, true happiness and hope. It really is that simple.

The worldly person is always in a state of resistance and inner conflict. The spiritual person, on the other hand, has given up the struggle through their sweet surrender to God. For as St. Augustine famously stated in his autobiographical Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

True religion, therefore, is about surrender, and a wonderful symbolic representation of this is the California condor. When it steps out off the cliff, it simply stretches wide its wings and floats in the rising air thermals. Likewise, as we yield to God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior, we are freed to no longer flap our spiritual wings to exhaustion. Rather, by the uplifting power of God’s Holy Spirit, we are free to float weightless on God’s limitless atmosphere.

“Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles [and condors], they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” – (Isaiah 40:30-31)

So, truly, all the weight in our hearts and minds can be tied in some way to our willful and sinful resistance to the Way and Truth and Life of God in our lives. The more you fight God, the lower you fall. The more you yield and surrender to him, the lighter you become and the higher you soar spiritually.

The Season of Lent is all about dying to our sinful rebellion, and rising up unto the abundant Life and Light and Love of our Heavenly Father. This is what our Lord Jesus meant when he declared in Luke 17:33, “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.”

Consequently, as we move into Lent (meaning “length”) when the days lengthen toward springtime, may we ever seek to give up the fight, surrendering to the forgiveness and renewal of the Lord our God given freely to us in Christ. Moreover, may we also be ever mindful of God’s Holy Presence with us and for us in the here and now, realizing that we stand before the amazing Throne of the Eternal God each and every moment of our daily lives.

As the days lengthen and become warmer, may we come to understand more fully that the grass and flowers of the field, the trees and mountains, the rocks and rivers, Christ’s Word and Sacraments, as well as our hearts and souls, are all together the amazing Throne of God’s Presence. In reality, we stand before the Throne of God Most High now… Forever right now… So, for this Lenten Season, and for the rest of our God-given life, let us remember our most Wonder-Full Lord God every single day, the ever-present Source of all creation and salvation, in whom “we live, move and have our being” (Acts 17:28a).

Blessed Lent to All of You! Pastor Tim

CROSSES OF ASHES

The Church Season of Lent starts with the words “Remember that you are dust…”

On the day we call Ash Wednesday, we hear this annual reminder of our mortality in order to encourage us to turn toward God in self-reflection and repentance. In addition, this special day begins our annual spiritual journey of increased devotion in preparation for the coming of Holy Week and Easter. And of course, the seventh Sunday following Ash Wednesday is Easter Sunday, which celebrates the glorious good news of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I have to say that there’s something truly amazing about Ash Wednesday; something deeply compelling that draws us together for a special midweek service every single year. It’s more than just religious observance, and somehow more than just the beginning of Lent, because what we do and say on this special Wednesday has power. There’s gospel power for our souls when we receive the imposition of ashes on our foreheads and the proclamation of those solemn words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

With this simple phrase on Ash Wednesday, we are reminded that we are mortal. Or as a very matter-of-fact social media post I’ve seen states, “We all came here by birth and we all will leave here by death.” Or in traditional poetic terms, we say we are “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” And as if hearing this were not enough, these words are literally rubbed into our faces! With an ashen cross upon our foreheads, our mortality is strangely visible for all to see, including for ourselves in the mirror — and all of this seems like bad news. So how is there gospel power for us on Ash Wednesday? How is there good news in all of this?

Firstly, we need to begin with the ancient past, with the Christian theology that we and the entire universe are intelligently designed and created by Almighty God. In other words, the universal scrambled eggs of the Big Bang did not just unscramble themselves without the cosmic fine-tuning of God over the eons. In fact, every fundamental constant of our universe (from the very first moment of the Big Bang) needed to be exactly tuned for all matter and life to exist. If anything was off by even the smallest infinitesimal degree, then we and all life would not exist. Therefore, the “dust” of our ancient beginnings is not a cosmic fluke. It was and is orchestrated, and fine-tuned on a razor’s edge, to produce the beautifully complex universe in which all life can flourish. So our lives are 100% wonderfully-made gifts from God, nothing less.

As the late Pope Benedict XVI famously wrote: “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”

Because the energy, matter, space and time of the universe are continually shaped and molded by God our Supreme Maker, this means that our ancient evolutionary dust is a sacred and holy dust. And God’s grace and love from before the beginning of this universal creation shall carry us through our physical disintegration and death unto an immortal embodiment beyond this present life.

Secondly, these ashes on Ash Wednesday are not just randomly smeared on our foreheads without design. They are intentionally placed on us in the form of a cross. Therefore, with the symbol of the cross on our flesh, we mortals are connected with the eternal love of God expressed on Good Friday and the eternal life of God revealed on Easter Sunday. On Ash Wednesday we remember the promise that, just as we have come from cosmic stardust to occupy this mortal life, we shall also arise from the dust of death unto glorious immortality with Jesus our Savior and Lord! Yes, to dust we shall return, but THROUGH this dust and ashes we shall rise up to life everlasting in Jesus Christ!

Consequently, crosses of ashes on our foreheads are actually good news for us. Crosses of ashes point us toward the love and life of God, both at the beginning of all things and at the end of all things — from the Alpha to the Omega, from everlasting to everlasting. And crosses of ashes remind us that, because of this wonderful good news, we are called to self-reflect, repent, and to turn toward the Lord more fully in our daily lives.

The good news of Ash Wednesday centers on God’s love that is at the very heart of the entire cosmos itself, and that is most fully revealed through the cross and empty tomb of Jesus our Savior. So as an ashen cross is smeared upon your forehead, let this be a sacred occasion to return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful.

Blessed Lent to all of you!  Pastor Tim

CHRISTUS VICTOR!

The term Christus Victor literally means “Christ the Victorious” and it refers to the total victory of Christ Jesus our Savior over the cosmic enemies to life, light and love. As Martin Luther put it in his explanation of the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed:

“Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father in eternity, and also a true human being, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord. He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human being. He has purchased and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. He has done all this in order that I may belong to him, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in eternal righteousness, innocence and blessedness, just as he is risen from the dead and lives and rules eternally.”

Martin Luther’s Small Catechism

However, if you’ve ever felt spiritually beaten down by negative circumstances in life, as though you were under some kind of demonic attack, then it could sometimes seem like Christ’s victory over “sin, death and the devil” is insufficient. Nevertheless, the biblical good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that his victory over these ancient enemies is, in fact, absolute — even though it’s not yet completely manifested within our lives and world at present.

I prefer to liken this spiritual warfare to literal historical warfare, similar to the United States victory over the Empire of Japan during WWII. Even though the USA was victorious, there were still Imperial sailors and soldiers throughout the Pacific who continued to fight until they finally surrendered. Similarly, the victory of our Lord Jesus is truly won, but there is still a universal spiritual mopping-up operation going on until Jesus’ return at his great Second Advent to come.

Therefore, the victory and power and glory belong to Christ forever and ever (see Revelation 5:11-13), but we do not yet fully enjoy this great victory. In the meantime, as we await the fulfillment of the already accomplished victory, we still confront the powers of sin, death and the devil within and around us. In fact, the Church of Jesus Christ throughout the world is quite literally under attack, with the growing repression and persecution of Christians worldwide, even in our own land.

I think, from within and without, the Body of Christ is under assault, but we know that Christ is already victorious. So as we hold fast to our profession of faith and trust in Jesus, we also know that “the gates of Hades will not prevail” against the advance of the gospel (see Matthew 16:16-18). In addition, even though we often don’t see it perfectly manifested in our lives, we have the eternal covenant promise of Almighty God that, by God’s amazing grace in Christ, we are “new creations” of God.

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

Second Corinthians 5:17

While we always seek to live our lives according to the faith, hope and love of Jesus, we often fail, but then we confess our failure and repent, and receive the eternal renewal of God’s mercy and grace in Christ.

“Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and he relents from punishing.”

Joel 2:13

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

First John 1:8-9

God created us for himself. We are made to be in relationship with God, so all people need the Lord (whether people recognize this truth yet or not). And everyone needs to be set free from “unclean spirits” (as the Bible says) of various sorts from time to time, and Jesus is the Great Physician who heals us from our every ill.

In the midst of the storms and battles of life, our victorious Lord Jesus is there healing, cleansing, protecting, loving and delivering. For Christ is the Victor! So we claim this truth for our lives, community, nation and world by God’s grace and power.

The peace of Christ the Victorious One be with us always!!!

Pastor Tim