I'm going to defer this week to my dear brother in the ministry, Pastor Jonathan Lange of Evanston, Wyoming. He has written a little piece about the Penn State tragedy. It is appearing in several newspapers this week, including the Casper Star Tribune.
http://trib.com/opinion/columns/penn-state-reminds-us-that-we-are-our-brother-s/article_d0e46479-6bfc-5465-83c3-cc0fab4e36b4.html
Peace of Christ,
Pastor Matt
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
To Love Is to Listen
"Husbands, love your wives" (Eph. 5:25).
"Be quick to listen, slow to speak" (James 1:19).
Listening to your wife is the better part of loving her. What does this mean? A wife needs a husband who spends time listening to her. In this way she will know that he loves her.
I remember meeting with a young couple once, and the wife made it perfectly clear. Fighting back the tears, she explained to her husband, "When I share something with you, I'm not always looking for an answer, but just for you to listen." Her husband had no idea about that. He was focused on a solution. So they took a big step forward in their marriage that day.
It's not that a solution is unimportant. It's just that something else must come first. The primary need a wife has is to be understood by her husband. This is another, more concrete, way of saying that her primary need is to be loved.
Husbands, practice listening to your wives. Make special time for it. Give her your undivided attention. In sincerity say things like, "Tell me more about that part of it," or, "Let me see if I understand." After this, she may well want you to help identify a solution, or the time for that may come later. But sometimes it will be all she needs simply to be understood.
And wives, don't forget that your husbands have a need to be understood too. So the same rules apply.
But husbands, you need to go first. You can do this! Husbands, love your wives. Listen.
And let all of us remember that we have a Lord who listens perfectly to us when we go to Him in prayer.
"Be quick to listen, slow to speak" (James 1:19).
Listening to your wife is the better part of loving her. What does this mean? A wife needs a husband who spends time listening to her. In this way she will know that he loves her.
I remember meeting with a young couple once, and the wife made it perfectly clear. Fighting back the tears, she explained to her husband, "When I share something with you, I'm not always looking for an answer, but just for you to listen." Her husband had no idea about that. He was focused on a solution. So they took a big step forward in their marriage that day.
It's not that a solution is unimportant. It's just that something else must come first. The primary need a wife has is to be understood by her husband. This is another, more concrete, way of saying that her primary need is to be loved.
Husbands, practice listening to your wives. Make special time for it. Give her your undivided attention. In sincerity say things like, "Tell me more about that part of it," or, "Let me see if I understand." After this, she may well want you to help identify a solution, or the time for that may come later. But sometimes it will be all she needs simply to be understood.
And wives, don't forget that your husbands have a need to be understood too. So the same rules apply.
But husbands, you need to go first. You can do this! Husbands, love your wives. Listen.
And let all of us remember that we have a Lord who listens perfectly to us when we go to Him in prayer.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Hymn Notes
"O Let Me Only Jesus See" is a prayer to the Holy Spirit asking Him to show me only God's beloved Son who became man and humbled Himself (Phil. 2:8).
For the two-stanza text of the hymn, see last week's devotion.
The hymn is inspired by Matthew 17:8, a verse which comes at the end of the Transfiguration account: "And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only."
"Jesus only." What does that mean? It means not only that there were no more Moses and Elijah, cloud and voice. It means, most of all, that Jesus went back to being a Lord you could look at. Only Jesus.
"Only Jesus" is God's eternal Son bright-shining as the sun, but who comes and conceals all of that in order to draw near to poor sinners to comfort them.
The day is coming when I will be able to behold Him in His glory forever. But for now, in this life and death, O let me only Jesus see - a vision that becomes complete in gazing at Him on the cross. (And could not the cross be the true Transfiguration and the true glory of God?)
"Fill my eyes" (stanza 2) means no room for anything else - only Jesus crucified for me.
"My Lord" (stanza 1) and "my God" (stanza 2) borrows from the confession of Thomas in John 20:28.
For the two-stanza text of the hymn, see last week's devotion.
The hymn is inspired by Matthew 17:8, a verse which comes at the end of the Transfiguration account: "And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only."
"Jesus only." What does that mean? It means not only that there were no more Moses and Elijah, cloud and voice. It means, most of all, that Jesus went back to being a Lord you could look at. Only Jesus.
"Only Jesus" is God's eternal Son bright-shining as the sun, but who comes and conceals all of that in order to draw near to poor sinners to comfort them.
The day is coming when I will be able to behold Him in His glory forever. But for now, in this life and death, O let me only Jesus see - a vision that becomes complete in gazing at Him on the cross. (And could not the cross be the true Transfiguration and the true glory of God?)
"Fill my eyes" (stanza 2) means no room for anything else - only Jesus crucified for me.
"My Lord" (stanza 1) and "my God" (stanza 2) borrows from the confession of Thomas in John 20:28.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
O Let Me Only Jesus See
In Matthew 17, toward the end of the story of Jesus' transfiguration, we read:
"And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only" (Matt. 17:8).
In meditation on this verse, I was led to write the following little hymn. It may be sung to the tune of "Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow."
O let me only Jesus see,
My Lord in His humility!
No other God, no other sight,
Can take away my sinful fright.
O let me only Jesus see,
My God in my humanity!
O Spirit, come, lift up my eyes,
And fill them with the Crucified!
Next week I'll offer a few notes on this prayer and the meaning it holds for me.
Note: A special solo arrangement of this hymn will be sung this coming Sunday, July 15, at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church.
"And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only" (Matt. 17:8).
In meditation on this verse, I was led to write the following little hymn. It may be sung to the tune of "Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow."
O let me only Jesus see,
My Lord in His humility!
No other God, no other sight,
Can take away my sinful fright.
O let me only Jesus see,
My God in my humanity!
O Spirit, come, lift up my eyes,
And fill them with the Crucified!
Next week I'll offer a few notes on this prayer and the meaning it holds for me.
Note: A special solo arrangement of this hymn will be sung this coming Sunday, July 15, at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
But a Slumber
"The child is not dead but sleeping" (Mark 5:39).
We could live without death. It wouldn't be missed. Woody Allen said, "I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." But Benjamin Franklin wrote in a 1789 letter, "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." He died five months later.
The Word of God could be summed up in the following way: Nothing is certain but death and the power of Jesus Christ over it.
In Mark 5 Jesus raises the twelve-year-old daughter of a man named Jairus. Yet before doing so, He makes a startling announcement: "The child is not dead but sleeping." And this is truly a monumental moment in the Gospel. It is the Son of God coming and renaming death. It is the day Christ changed death's name to "sleep." With these seven words, among the most powerful in the Gospel, our Lord Jesus is doing three things.
He is teaching us faith. Faith, by way of definition, is to call something what God calls it, even though our eyes, mind, and experience say otherwise. A Christian dies and we hold a funeral, yet by faith we conclude and confess that the person has merely fallen asleep. I receive a small piece of bread at Holy Communion yet believe that it is what our Lord calls it: His body.
He is showing how easily He alone can raise the dead. "'Little girl, I say to you, arise.' And immediately the girl got up and began walking" (Mark 5:41-42). He is just like a mother here, waking up her dear child in the morning. "Time to get up!" How difficult is that? And it is with the same ease and love that He will waken you, His dear child, on the Last Day.
He is taking away the fear of death from which we suffered. He has, by these words and His own death, altered both the name and the reality of death. It is now, to quote Luther, "but a slumber." Which of you is afraid to take a nap or go to sleep tonight? Such is the Christian faith and view of death. This hymn line makes it memorable: "Teach me to live that I may dread the grave as little as my bed."
Also memorize these seven words: "The child is not dead but sleeping."
We could live without death. It wouldn't be missed. Woody Allen said, "I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." But Benjamin Franklin wrote in a 1789 letter, "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." He died five months later.
The Word of God could be summed up in the following way: Nothing is certain but death and the power of Jesus Christ over it.
In Mark 5 Jesus raises the twelve-year-old daughter of a man named Jairus. Yet before doing so, He makes a startling announcement: "The child is not dead but sleeping." And this is truly a monumental moment in the Gospel. It is the Son of God coming and renaming death. It is the day Christ changed death's name to "sleep." With these seven words, among the most powerful in the Gospel, our Lord Jesus is doing three things.
He is teaching us faith. Faith, by way of definition, is to call something what God calls it, even though our eyes, mind, and experience say otherwise. A Christian dies and we hold a funeral, yet by faith we conclude and confess that the person has merely fallen asleep. I receive a small piece of bread at Holy Communion yet believe that it is what our Lord calls it: His body.
He is showing how easily He alone can raise the dead. "'Little girl, I say to you, arise.' And immediately the girl got up and began walking" (Mark 5:41-42). He is just like a mother here, waking up her dear child in the morning. "Time to get up!" How difficult is that? And it is with the same ease and love that He will waken you, His dear child, on the Last Day.
He is taking away the fear of death from which we suffered. He has, by these words and His own death, altered both the name and the reality of death. It is now, to quote Luther, "but a slumber." Which of you is afraid to take a nap or go to sleep tonight? Such is the Christian faith and view of death. This hymn line makes it memorable: "Teach me to live that I may dread the grave as little as my bed."
Also memorize these seven words: "The child is not dead but sleeping."
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