In the past month, a member of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church died, who was a veteran of the second World War. He was present on D-Day, which we are commemorating the 75thanniversary of this week. His first combat mission was offering air support for the D-Day landings. At age 19, he was responsible for navigating a crew of six safely to and from the target, amidst enemy aircraft, anti-aircraft fire, and the general chaos and tension found in the midst of one of the most significant operations of the war. The average B-26 bomber crew (a bomber whose affectionate nickname was “The Widowmaker”) survival rate was 25-30 missions. This member, by age 20, had flown sixty-six (66). A second member of Grace who died a couple of years earlier was in the Navy in the Pacific. He served on the U.S.S. Missouri battleship, which sustained multiple hits from enemy aircraft at Okinawa, and survived travel through a typhoon with 80 mile per hour winds, and waves 100 feet tall. Such was the severity of that storm that a nearby cruiser was split in two by the force of the waves. He was 19 years old in that storm, and at age 20 witnessed the surrender of Japan tendered on that ship in 1945. In the Bible of the D-Day veteran, was as bookmark in Psalm 116: “I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call upon him as long as I live…The snares of death encompassed me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then, I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I pray, save my life!...Return, O my soul to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.” One could imagine the meaning of those words in a tin can 10,000 feet above the ground over enemy territory on D-Day. And the words of Psalm 139 in the Bible of the navy veteran: “O Lord, you search and know me, where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven you are there, if my I make my bed in Sheol, the depths of the earth, you are there…” One can imagine what those words of scripture might mean to a sailor in the engine room of a battleship riding 100 foot waves up to the sky, and then down to the ocean depths. There’s the bleak joke that has been often shared that everyone, in the foxhole of war, becomes religious and quick to prayer. But the lives of these veterans indicate differently: their prayers were not merely for rescue, but a trust in a God that is present and active and at work in this world, even if at times that activity is mysterious, and not full of easy answers. It also showed in the way they lived their lives, and gave word to what was important in their lives. The D-Day veteran was a regular in both a breakfast and a lunch group of guys, ROMEO’s (Retired Old Men Eating Out). He shared that their discussions – well, many times the debates the group often got in – politics, daily life, religion, contained disagreements a-plenty, but their friendships remained strong. If there were any troubles with health, family, or other distress, these friends were among the first to respond. In the Church, we celebrate Pentecost Sunday on June 9th. It’s the ”birthday of the Church,” when the Holy Spirit rested on the disciples who were told to wait for power on high in order to give witness to the world of God’s desire to make the world right through Jesus Christ: that God is present and active and at work in this world, and that that makes all the difference. The book of Acts, which records the story of Pentecost, goes on to describe all the surprising ways God’s faithful people are led – to new people, to new situations, to surprising new conclusions about what’s important to God and what is not. These World War II Veterans, once 19 and 20, are now in their ‘90’s, if still alive. I give thanks for their example of faith in this living, active God, that what WE do FOLLOWS from what GOD is doing, and that God makes a way forward for the sake of life, even when there doesn’t appear to be any. The Bible gives thanks for the wisdom of those who are older and wiser. There’s no more appropriate time than today to follow in their faithful example.
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This month, most Churches in our area will be celebrating Easter, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus. But before we celebrate new life, we need to walk with Jesus to the Cross and death. All four gospels in the New Testament of the Bible tell us the story of Jesus, and all four gospels end up at the Cross. The Cross was an instrument of torture and death in the Roman Empire. It was used as the most humiliating and most terrible method of putting someone to death – and it was reserved for rebellious slaves, violent criminals, and those who were politically opposed to the rule of Rome. If you think about who was normally nailed to a Cross, the Cross was reserved for those people and times when the powers-that-be wanted to make an example of somebody; to make a point; to send a warning out to everybody; to make people afraid. But like so many other things, Jesus turns the regular way of thinking about the Cross on its head - not about fear and punishment, and death – but instead, about love, and life. I’m indebted to a colleague and friend of mine, Wes Smith, pastor at Zion Lutheran here in Waynesboro, for doing some research into the gospel of John. If you’ve ever read the gospel of John, you know that loveis an incredibly important word in John’s gospel. You may have seen “John 3:16” on a sign in the end zone of a football game, or heard the term “gospel in a nutshell” spoken of that scripture passage from John’s gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” That’s John 3:16. What’s interesting is that the word “love” (or “loved”) appears seven times in John’s gospel prior to the time Jesus is about to be arrested. But from the time in John’s gospel (chapter 13:1) when Jesus gathers with his disciples in an upper room to the time he’s arrested and lifted up on the cross, John records Jesus using the word thirty (30) times! He talks about the love shared between God the Father and himself, he urges the disciples to love one another, and to abide in God’s love – if you’ve ever seen a couple holding hands, happy in each other’s company, that’s abiding- wanting to be close with each other. The closer Jesus gets to the Cross, the more he talks about love. The Bible also contains three letters of John, and in the first of the three, John is very deliberate to make the connection between Jesus and God and love. “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins…there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” (I John 3:10, 18) Remember, the Cross was designed by the Romans to be a symbol of fear. But Jesus changes it into something different! It’s a sign of God’s love for the world, so that fear can be CAST OUT, and punishment with it. The message of the Cross and the Easter message which follows is not about Fear, but about the LIFE God wants for this world, and for you and me. That’s the Good News we celebrate, as we follow Jesus to the Cross on Good Friday, and then find the empty tomb on Easter, and Jesus risen to new life. In Jesus we are FREE FROM FEAR AND PUNISHMENT. The closer you get to the Cross, the more Jesus talks about love. I hope this Gospel (which means Good News) message finds its way into your heart and mind – and life! – as you celebrate the Cross and Resurrection this month! This past week was quite a week to be driving around Waynesboro. Traveling on Lew Dewitt Blvd., I came to a stoplight, and a pick-up truck pulled into the turn lane next to me. On the back of the pick-up was a bumper sticker with a drawing of a rifle stood on its end so it looked like an “f”, and another rifle also pictured vertically and arranged so it looked like a “k”. In between these two arranged guns were two additional letters, “u”, and “c” in regular type, and below that surprising word were the words “gun control.” You can put the three words together. A few days earlier I had come to a different stop light on U.S. 250, and pulled up behind another vehicle with a different bumper sticker. It spelled out two words. The first word spelled the same first word as the example above, but had a space where the “u” was. The second word spelled out our current President’s name, but again with a space where the “u” was supposed to be. And in smaller letters, was a reference to the TV show Wheel of Fortune as it said “I’d like to buy a vowel, Pat.” Any look at our history as a nation, the United States of America reveals we have had disagreements. We know all too well from Virginia and Shenandoah Valley history the battles on this land, and the blood, and the lives that were spent on some of those disagreements. From our nation’s history, we describe these battles and the offering of life as a struggle for Freedom. Freedom is an important word for our nation. Many would argue strenuously and strongly for the right to freedom of speech, and others for the right to bear arms, two freedoms that are enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and the first two amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In a way the examples above are clear examples of the exercise of freedom. At the same time those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ know that the word Freedom is an important word for other reasons. “For Freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul says in his letter to the Galatians (5:1). It is the conclusion to a section of the letter where Paul writes that we are not enslaved to the sinfulness of the world, but we are made free for other reasons. “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become servants to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.” (5:13-15) The amazing freedom we have in our nation many say is God-given. So if it IS God-given, then the freedom we have is FOR something. It’s not simply for each of us individually, it is a freedom that regards our neighbor, even, or perhaps especially, in our disagreements. There is the biblical caution that if we use our freedom to “bite and devour one another,” it may consume us. The apostle Paul follows these descriptions of Freedom with two lists of what to avoid, and what to live by. I invite you to look at those lists (Galatians 5:16-26) in their entirety, but want to highlight one word that Paul uses under the list of things to avoid: “licentiousness.” The word, you might see from its first few letters, has the same root as our word “license,” like when we talk about getting a driver’s license. It’s a permit, or a freedom. “Licentiousness” literally means “unrestrained freedom:” something the Bible tells us to avoid. If you read the letters of Paul regularly enough, you will find out quickly that Paul’s urging of love of neighbor, and avoiding unrestrained freedom doesn’t come from some Pollyanna or goody-goody sense. Paul was often writing to communities of faith that disagreed over fundamentally important issues and were in danger of tearing apart. It’s as simple as asking a question I ask as a parent: what good do we do, what example do we set for our children, or how do we serve our disagreements, to voice our deeply held beliefs or fears or disagreements in such an unrestrained way on our car bumpers? And it’s as complex as asking a deeper question: how do we move forward in this time and place of deep disagreement as a community, and as a Commonwealth, and as a nation (and as Christians)? The answer, God says is in the exercise of Freedom; one in which we have our neighbor in mind even when we disagree. It’s worth spelling that out. |
AuthorPastor Paul came to Grace to serve as our Pastor in October 2012. After a first career in product and graphic design, he was ordained in 1993, and has served as a parish pastor in Virginia and South Carolina. He is married to Jill and they have two daughters, one at Roanoke College and one at James Madison University. Archives
December 2021
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