Month: April 2019

“I led them with cords of kindness,
with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,
and I bent down to them and fed them.”
Hosea 11:4

As a parent lovingly bends down to tie a shoe or kiss a scraped knee, our Lord bends down to protect us and provide for us. Christ did more than bend down. He came down. Christ took on human flesh in the incarnation and lived among us. During His earthly ministry, Jesus healed many people of diseases. In His loving kindness and mercy, Jesus suffered and died in our place on the cross. He overcame death in the Resurrection.

We continually stray from God’s will, going about our own sinful way. The Lord draws us in and leads us with “cords of kindness, with the bands of love” as He makes us His children in Baptism. He feeds us with His very own body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. Our sins are forgiven, and the Holy Spirit strengthens and preserves us in faith. No longer broken, we go into the world, loving and serving our neighbor.

Let us pray: Heavenly Father, in Your mercy You sent Your Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to repair the broken relationship caused by sin. Guide us to follow Your will and bring us to repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

(Kate Phillips, Deaconess Student)

“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”
1 Peter 2:21-24

Submission is one word that the world hates to hear because it’s not the way of the world. The world looks out for no one but itself. It asserts its power and dominance over and against all those who stand in its way because it sees submission as nothing but a sign of great weakness, powerlessness, and inferiority.

But this is not true for us who have been called by the cross of Christ! For we do not see submission as a shameful sign of inferiority, but as an act of love that we have been graciously called to serve in our stations in life. Whether we are husbands or wives, sons or daughters, workers or students, we willingly submit our freedom to care for those in need.

We learn such willing and self-sacrificial submission from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who left for us an example to follow when “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). Christ’s willing self-sacrifice for us on the cross not only secured our forgiveness and salvation from the old evil foe, but also placed us on the path of becoming more Christlike, “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. [For] By his wounds you have been healed.”

Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, we thank and praise You for Your dear Son, who submitted Himself to You by bearing our sins in His body on the tree of the cross. We pray that You may ever direct our eyes to the cross in submission to You and one another, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

(Rob Ricard, Sem IV)

“Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.’”
Revelation 11:15

As we enter Holy Week, our journey in Lent is ending. Jesus, who has slowly been journeying to the cross, is coming even closer to His death. Perhaps some of us are wondering how someone who will die in such a brutal way could be our King? If we had been left in charge of our own salvation, we probably would have managed it differently. The world looks for a mighty and political ruler who will smite all his foes in an act of great power to demonstrate his authority. But Jesus doesn’t follow our program.

He rides into the city in humility and is greeted with loud shouts of “Hosanna!” (save us). And He does save us. He journeyed to the cross to claim His throne, take His power, and reign for us. Our text tells us that, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

The kingdom of the world became Jesus’ when he entered the city and slayed the enemy of us all by His humble death on the cross where He trampled Satan under His feet. He came in humility because He did not come to smite His human enemies, which would have included us, but to save us from the power of sin. Now He reigns over heaven and earth. For this we can say, “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign” (Rev. 11:17).

Let us pray: Almighty and ever living God, in Your tender love for humanity You sent Your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to take upon Himself our nature and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of His great humility. Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of His suffering and share in His resurrection; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

(Jordan Peiser, Sem I)

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Matthew 11:29

“Take my yoke upon you.” This invitation doesn’t sound very appealing by itself. A yoke should mean a burden, or at the very least implies that work is to be done. But Christ tells us that His yoke is where we can find rest for our souls. It is in Christ that we find “Peace mid pain and losses.”

Our terrible burden of sin was removed from our shoulders as Christ bore it for us upon the cross. Christ’s yoke is light because He is bearing the weight for us. Christ continues to bear our burdens, guiding us with His yoke to learn of His gentleness and humbleness. Salvation was won for us when Christ died on the cross. The work has been done so that the yoke we take upon us is no longer a burden, but rest in Christ.

Let us pray: Lord God, heavenly Father, we could not bear the burden of our sin alone, but You sent Your Son, Jesus, to bear it in our stead. Let us rest in the comfort that is found in His gentle yoke, through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

(Matthew Christian, Sem I)

“But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
Psalm 86:15

No clearer demonstration of God’s abundant steadfast love and faithfulness will be found than that which is seen on the cross. Abraham demonstrated his faith and love toward God by his willingness to slay his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah, a sacrifice that goes uncompleted. God, however, shows His love and compassion toward all of mankind by slaying His Son on the cross on Mount Calvary, the only truly complete sacrifice ever offered.

As we progress through Lent and even the stanzas of this hymn, we are led to ponder the excruciating suffering and death that our Lord underwent in His passion. We are also prompted in our meditations on Christ’s suffering to see that our sin is the cause of Christ’s suffering and death, and to view our Lord’s passion with repentant grieving.

However, when we reflect upon our sinfulness, our conscience becomes stricken with guilt. It ought to. What other response is appropriate when realizing that we have broken God’s law and the price Christ had to pay for it?

When we are struck with such grief, we are to turn to that very cross of Christ to find peace of conscience in His suffering and death. For that indeed is where Christ won forgiveness for us. That is where God demonstrated His steadfast love and faithfulness toward us, showing His compassion. For any father willing to give up his only son to save those who rebelled against him, must have compassion.

Let us pray: Lord God, in the suffering and death of Jesus, You show us Your great compassion. Let us find peace for our consciences in the cross of Christ when troubled with sin, that the threats and terrors of the evil one may have no power over us. Through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

(Emmett Bartens, Sem I)

“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”
Romans 13:14

Picture this: Jesus on the cross because of us. We realize, especially in this time of Lent, that we are sinners. We may not want to sin and even pray against it, but we fail every day. We give into living for the flesh and the desires of this world. We look at Christ’s journey to the cross, His passion, and we grieve with repentance. Why? Because it is our sin that Jesus bears and is the reason He must suffer and die. That’s right, it’s our fault. Lent is a time to reflect on this image of our guilt and why Jesus had to die.

That is not the only picture we are to see though! We also see the tremendous love and mercy of God who sent His Son to die for us. He bore what we could not and defeated death, sin, and this world for us! Even in this time of remembering our guilt and repentance, we look towards this hope in His death and resurrection where He proclaims the victory for us. We confess our sins and abundantly receive forgiveness though we do not deserve it. In our baptisms, Jesus Christ is put on us and we are given the promise of eternal life with Him. God no longer sees us in the image of our sin, but in Christ’s image who has covered us with His precious and holy blood.

Let us pray: Merciful Father, You sent Your only Son to bear our sins on the cross, even though we were undeserving. We thank You for Your abundant gift of forgiveness and the promises given in our baptisms; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

(Anna Miels, Deaconess Student)

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”
1 Peter 2:24

What’s heavier? A pound of steel or a pound of feathers? They both weigh a pound, right? Wrong. If you carry a pound of steel, you’re only lifting a pound; but if you lift a pound of feathers, you have to carry the weight of what you did to all those poor birds.

We don’t always think about the weight of our deeds, but God does. The dying Jesus didn’t just carry the weight of the slim man we often gaze upon when we look at our crucifixes; He also carried the weight of my sins—the cause of His crucifixion. And yours too. See, Christ didn’t die alone up there on that cross, we all died there along with Him. That’s what our hymn has us ponder today.

In this season of Lent, we reflect not only on Christ’s journey to the cross, but also the weight of our sins, which He bore in His nail-pierced, thorn-pricked body. As we enter Passiontide, some churches will even cover their crucifixes with a veil and wait until Good Friday to uncover them. This is to remind us that the true weight of the cross is too horrible for us to fully ponder. Martin Luther even remarked that it is only by God’s mercy that we don’t realize the full weight of our original sin. Otherwise, if we could feel it, we would be shocked and disgusted beyond all belief! Therefore, may we this Lent continually be shown our sins and reflect on them in order to repent and lead Christian lives.

Let us pray: O God, You are not a God that takes pleasure in wickedness; neither shall evil dwell with You. Grant, therefore, that we might see as much of our sin as is needed, that the Old Adam in us might, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts. As we walk through this vale of tears, be our help in this and every hour, granting us poor sinners a blessed end when we eventually die as did our Savior; for You live and reign with the Son and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

(Dane Breitung, Sem I)