Bishop and Christian*, February 2016

What is a pastor for? I’ve been thinking about that a lot, lately. The answer is obviously of vital importance to me! I think much of the answer that a person might give depends upon expectations. One member of a congregation has certain expectations based on his experience with previous pastors. Another member might have expectations based on what she wants done in the future. One pastor has expectations based on good or bad experiences in the past; another has expectations based on what he’d like to see in the future. Insofar as they are found in the Scriptures, these expectations are not right or wrong in themselves.

But often the expectations of both pastors and congregations are based on abstractions or generic descriptions, rather than on particular contexts and specific people. Normally, when people are hired in the secular business world, it makes sense to identify a need and hire someone who can fill that space. That doesn’t always work well when it comes to pastors and congregations, because the Christian Church is based around a single need and a single solution: dying sinners in need of Christ, who is life.

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Bishop and Christian*, January 2016

A new year. A year of expectation and anticipation. What kind of year are you hoping for? The Christian Church Year begins with expectation in Advent: expecting, hoping, waiting for the coming of our Lord in glory to complete the work He has begun in us and in the whole creation. There is always unfinished work to be done. The close of the year rarely means complete closure on the old year and a completely new start to the new one. We have no clean slate, however much we might want one. And so it is fitting that the same day we celebrate the beginning of our secular year, we also celebrate the circumcision and naming of Jesus. Our year begins with the shedding of blood. “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22, ESV).

The secular year makes us think of metaphors such as “turning over a new leaf,” “turning the page,” beginning again. But it is the Church Year that teaches us where life begins again. It is the Church Year that draws us into the Life which is life abundant. So the Church Year teaches us about a real new beginning, and not just good intentions or resolutions to begin again. It draws us in, further and further, into the Life of Christ from birth (Christmas), revelation to all nations (Epiphany), suffering and death (Lent and Holy Week), all the way through to resurrection (Easter). But it also teaches us to be patient in the long periods of life when nothing seems to change much at all. That is Pentecost, and it reminds us that even when our life seems dry and desert-like, the life of the Church in Christ her Head is ever-green.

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Bishop and Christian*, December 2015

As the days continue to get shorter and the hours of light fewer, the busyness picks up. Many people dread the holiday season, because it reminds them of loved ones who have died, family strife, the stresses of buying gifts and preparing meals. But something I love about Advent and Christmas services is that they slow us down. They make us take time out to meditate and think about what these seasons are really about. “Jesus is the reason for the season” may have become a trite, greeting-card platitude, but it tries to get at the importance of the “Christ” in “Christ-mass.” And Jesus is not only the reason for this season, He is the reason why there is anything at all, rather than nothing. Even the label “X-mas” cannot get away from Him. The letter “X” is really a Greek letter pronounced “kee.” It is the first letter of “Christ” in Greek [Cristovß].

We will have many opportunities for you to celebrate Jesus’ coming (and anticipate His coming again), as well as the Mass of Christ on December 24 and 25:

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Bishop and Christian*, October 2015

In 1897, the pastor H.C. Schwan (who would become the third president of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) wrote about his experiences as preacher at an old preaching station, which would eventually be incorporated as a congregation. When the other pastors asked him to show them that congregation’s constitution, he said that he didn’t have a copy with him, but that he could recite it to them. He said: “Here is its heading: ‘Constitution and organization of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church at X.’ No. 1: In our congregation, God’s Word and Luther’s teaching shall rule as regards all spiritual matters. No. 2: In all other matters, we shall be ruled by love. Period” (At Home in the House of My Fathers. Edited by Matthew C. Harrison. [Lutheran Legacy, 2009], 565).

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Bishop and Christian*, September 2015

“In many and various ways long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets; in the last of these days He spoke to us by the Son” (Hebrews 1:1). How does God tell us what He wants us to know? How does He make known to us His will? How do we discern what really is God’s word to us, especially when all sorts of people are running around telling us that God has said this or God has said that?
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Bishop and Christian*, June 2015

Summer is upon us, and we take vacations from all sorts of things: school, work, regular routines and schedules, etc. Our bodies, created by God, require rest and relaxation—which is the primary reason God instituted the Sabbath in the Old Testament. We normally need a day off from work (which also means making sure that, if we have them, those who work for us receive a day off each week), and occasionally we need more time to visit family and friends. These things are all good, and we should give thanks to God for these blessings, which all come from Him.

At the same time we sometimes, even without thinking it through, take a vacation from those things that we need to live. Which would be a strange thing to do. Normally, we do not take vacations from food, or water, or sleep. Nor do we take vacations from relatively less necessary things such as love and care for our families, or being good stewards of what God has given us, or doing the things required of us by the government. Imagine taking a vacation from drinking water. Imagine taking a vacation from serving your wife, or from telling your husband that you love him. Imagine taking a vacation from obeying traffic signals. And yet, we often take vacations from things that are no less necessary—in fact, far more necessary. Things like hearing the Word of God; receiving Christ’s Body and Blood in the Supper; raising our children in the fear and instruction of the Lord; studying the Bible and praying. These are far greater gifts of God than even bodily gifts, because they, unlike food or government, are eternal. They give us eternal life and forgiveness of sins, and keep us safe from the devil, the temptations of the world, and our own sinful flesh, because they are Jesus’ own ways of coming to us. It can only be a callous, faithless heart, or a mind captive to the devil or the flesh, that would despise these gifts by taking a vacation from them.

Wherever you find yourselves this summer, seek out a congregation with which we are in fellowship (The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod [LCMS] or The American Association of Lutheran Churches [TAALC]) and rejoice that God never takes a vacation from giving you all of the fruits of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension for you in the forms of Word and Sacrament!

The Hymn of the Month for June is Lutheran Service Book 594, “God’s Own Child, I Gladly Say It.” This hymn is a good reminder to us of our fundamental identity: “I am baptized into Christ!” Sin cannot disturb our souls any longer; Satan must hear and give way; even death cannot end our gladness. It sings the full-throated hope of our resurrection: “Open-eyed my grave is staring: even there I’ll sleep secure. Though my flesh awaits its raising, still my soul continues praising: I am baptized into Christ; I’m a child of paradise!” (stanza 5). I suspect that this hymn might have you humming along throughout the summer.

Pr. Winterstein

*St. Augustine (354-430 AD), Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, said, “For you I am a bishop [overseer]; with you I am a Christian.”

Bishop and Christian*, February 2015

The Church of Jesus Christ is never a static, unmoving entity. Even as she lives in the present, she is tied to the past as she waits in hope for what the future will bring. Often, conversations about the Church—what she is, what she should do, how she should look—revolve around various points of time: this is what my congregation used to look like; or, these are the problems here and now; or, this is how she should be in the future. Because the Church is an historical entity, those aspects are all worthy of consideration. But we can never privilege one point of time over another. The Church was not better or purer the closer it was to Jesus and the Apostles; the Church is not smarter or more significant because we’ve had two thousand years to get it right; the Church is not heading toward a utopian future in this creation.

Behind all of the disputes and controversies that have disturbed the Church internally is a failure to hold close to the second phrase of the Third Article of the Creed: “I believe…in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” Just as we cannot look around at the world, or into the circumstances of our own lives, in order to discover what God is doing, neither can we look at what we can see of the Church in order to discover her source, sustenance, or goal. As with Christian faith generally, the only One in whom we can know for certain what God is doing is His Son, Jesus. Just as Jesus’ death and resurrection tell us what the outcome of this world will be for His saints, so they also tell us the truth about the Church’s existence in this world. Jesus is the source and beginning of the Church’s life in the water and blood of His pierced side, He is the ongoing food and drink to sustain the Church’s life in the midst of this world, and He is the goal to which the Church is headed, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesisans 4:13).

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Bishop and Christian*, January 2015

As we begin another calendar year, the Church is already in full celebration mode, with the Circumcision and Name of Jesus (Jan. 1), Epiphany (Jan. 6), and the Baptism of Our Lord (celebrated Jan. 11).

Everywhere, people are talking about New Year’s Resolutions, which no one expects to keep and which no one really wants to, anyway. They are generally distasteful things, which is why we always say things like, “When the holidays are over, then I’ll…”; they are things which we do not want to begin until there’s nothing better to do in the winter months of January and February.

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Bishop and Christian*, December 2014

We are now in the season of Advent, which means “coming.” During Advent, the 20-odd days prior to Christmas, we both celebrate a coming and remind ourselves that we are waiting for a coming. We are celebrating the first coming of our Lord in humility as the Son of a Virgin, but we are also waiting for His second coming in glory to judge the quick and the dead. Advent is a season of being roused by God’s Law to repentance and, hearing His Gospel, we watch in hope and holy fear for His coming in judgment. We do not, of course, fear that we will receive a judgment of damnation—though complacency and apathy can easily set in if we forget that there will be a judgment. We repent of our unfaithfulness and pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to recreate us in the image of our faithful Lord, Jesus. For all of these reasons, we need a full time of Advent. Already the day after Halloween, the ads are out for Christmas shopping. By the time we actually get to December 25, we are worn out and just ready for it all to be over. The way to a proper and fitting celebration of the Nativity of our Lord is by a proper and fitting preparation during Advent.

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