Salespeople

It frustrates me to no end when I'm working in my study on a Tuesday (the one day when we don't have a secretary at the chapel) and I get a sales call on the telephone. I try to be polite, but the fact of the matter is that most of the time it is a waste of both of our time (the caller's and mine) to be talking in the first place.

Most of our supplies, 'overhead', etc. are operated out of Zion Lutheran Church, and aside from that we don't have a lot of money to spend either. When it comes to things like software and publications, we're generally supportive of the things our own church body has worked together to create - CPH is our first choice for materials, we use the Concordia Plan, the Church Extension Fund is where we turned first when we were building. These organizations exist to serve LCMS congregations and because of this they are often better suited than others to cater to our particular needs.

Today I get a telephone call from someone interested in sending us medical insurance. Doesn't tell me where he's calling from, says he's not selling anything, and asks me to confirm the address so they may send information. He gives it to me, and I confirm it, okay so far. Then he asks my name, which I give him (it's on the website, very publicly available so I'm not worried about that). Then he asks my age, and I lie (it's none of his business). Then he asks my wife's age, and I say that I prefer not to give that information out. He asks about children, and again I say that I'd prefer to not share that information. He then asks whether we have insurance (yes), and then which kind. I tell him it's the Concordia plan, which only LCMS congregations may participate in, and that we're very happy with the plan and its coverage. Then he asks if he can send me information from them. I repeat that we're very happy with the insurance we have. He just says, 'Rude Pastor!' and hangs up. Thanks for wasting my time, friend.

Why do these companies believe that churches have money to burn? We don't! If we wanted your stuff we'd have found it. Thanks!

SOLA Conference in Grand Rapids

Last week I attended what was, for me, the best single week event in my life as a Lutheran pastor. I've had days to equal the days I had last week, but never all together like that. Never before has a week so refreshed, so energized, and so excited me about being a Lutheran pastor.

I'm speaking about the Higher Things 'Sola' youth conference held from July 21-24 in Grand Rapids, MI on the campus of Calvin College. This year, as I did last year in St. Louis, MO for the 'Amen' conference, I served as the manager for the Christ on Campus Volunteers (CCVs), the people who help make everything work for the conference by doing a lot of jobs that simply needed to be done. I couldn't have been blessed with a more cheerful and willing staff to work with and they made the week so wonderful.

The highlight of the conference for me was definitely all of the services in the chapel (and Compline in the dorms). Every day began and ended singing the Lord's praises to one another as we received the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation through word and sacrament. I know that receiving God's gifts isn't about 'the experience', but it is a profoundly moving thing to be joining with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven, and 900 fellow young Lutherans in the liturgies of the church, singing with our full voices of the hope we have in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Aside from the services, it was simply great to be around so many young (and some not-so-young) Lutherans who care so much about being Lutheran. In four years, nearly every one of those youth will be in college or university somewhere, some may even be here at CMU. I pray that they continue in the faith as they mature and grow more and more curious about the depths of the riches that are there for them and us in God's Holy Word.

'Dare to be Lutheran' is the Higher Things slogan, and that's what I intend to continue doing with the college students here in the fall, Lord willing!

Confessing on Campus

Today is the 479th anniversary of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession. Even though others included in the 1580 Book of Concord are considered equally normative for Lutherans, the Augsburg Confession has a place of primacy because it was the first official statement of faith from those who were disputing the false practices of the Pope's church, some of which remain to this day.

To this day it remains the starting point for dialogue with non-Lutherans and even with other Lutherans who subscribe to these confessions in a different way. If someone is serious about learning what Lutherans believe, the catechisms are great, but nothing puts it forth point by point like the Augsburg Confession.

It is a great reminder to campus pastors and others involved in campus ministry that Lutherans are confessors - we exist, we grow, we live, and ultimately, we will die as confessors. There is a temptation in academic environments to breathe deeply of the rarefied air of enlightenment and higher wisdom. This air will tell you that there is great knowledge out there to be found if you wait for it patiently without closing your mind to new and strange ideas. Constructing truth for yourself in this way takes time, and one only impedes such 'development' if one exercises hasty judgment upon one idea or another. Contributing knowledge to the discussion is only for those who are sure that their constructed realities are appealing enough to all. This air is abundant at the public university, but if you breathe deeply enough of these notions you'll suffocate in the noxious gas of relevance and tolerance.

Lutheran ministries on college campuses serve students best when we represent ourselves as we really are - confessing Christians who know what we believe and aren't afraid to say it. Talk about fresh air in this kind of environment! This doesn't mean we proselytize nor does it mean we have to be mean or arrogant about what we believe. We have a treasure in this confessed faith and it is a treasure for sharing. On this anniversary which commemorates the presentation of the Augsburg Confession, take some time to read what the confessors wrote in the face of a hostile environment, and let us learn from them to boldly confess the same faith in our time wherever we are.

Sermon for Easter 7

The Heart of Easter

John 17:11b-19

Seventh Sunday of Easter B 2009

Zion Lutheran Church

Mount Pleasant, Michigan

Pastor Jonathon Bakker

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, amen. The Holy Scripture for our consideration this day is the Gospel from St. John.

[Jesus said:] “Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it appears to be a little out of place for our Lord to be saying these words to the disciples at the particular point in time he was saying them. These words seem even further out of place when we consider that this is still the Easter season, the season of celebration of Christ’s resurrection. Yet today we are directed to these words Jesus prayed with his disciples not after he was raised from the dead; nor even at the time of his ascension into heaven, which the church observed this past Thursday; no, our Lord prayed this prayer on the night when he was betrayed. It was so far along in the events of that evening, in fact, that Judas had already left them. Our Lord had already washed the disciples’ feet, and he had instituted the Lord’s Supper.

With so little time left before he would be handed over by Judas, surely there were more important things for Jesus to be doing than praying with and for his disciples. Yet here we hear with our own ears the words of his prayer. No more miracles for the pleading public; no more casting demons out of the possessed; and no more teachings for the gathered masses. Jesus instead took the time to pray for his disciples, and on this, the last Sunday of the Easter season in our church year; we are directed to this prayer of Jesus to send us forth next Sunday into the Pentecost Season.

It may seem like a strange way to leave Easter by focusing on the events of Maundy Thursday, but it is not so out of place if we consider that we are concerned with more in this season than the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead alone. We heard the testimony of the women, of Thomas, and of Jesus himself to the Emmaus disciples establishing that he bodily rose on the third day, according to the Scriptures. We have even learned from the passages these past weeks from John’s Gospel about the vine and the branches that we receive the fruits of Jesus’ resurrection as we abide in him and he abides in us. Today, however, Jesus’ prayer teaches us what he desired that his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead would give to humanity. Not that he did not already know what was coming – he was the subject of the prophecies and writings of the Old Testament; he knew that his death would mean forgiveness for humanity and that his resurrection from the dead would set the pattern for the eternal life of all who believed in him. Jesus’ prayer was not that his death and resurrection would accomplish what he already knew it would accomplish; his prayer was instead that the people for whom he would die would be kept and protected in the faith he had given them during their lives. It should also be said, though it is not included in the portion of this prayer that makes up our reading this morning, that Jesus was also praying for those who would believe through his disciples. In other words, Jesus has the Christian church in mind as he prays. In this Gospel, Jesus prays these things for us.

Jesus knew the weaknesses of humanity. He knew that the next few days of his disciples’ lives would be very trying. The Scriptures tell us of the denials, desertion, and disbelief of the Twelve in the days following this prayer. Jesus also knew the temptations humanity faces from the devil and the world. He conquered the temptations of the evil one in his own life, but he knew that others did not have his capacity as the Son of God to resist temptation in thought, word, and deed. St. Paul hadn’t written it yet, but it had been true since Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation of the devil. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Our Lord knew all of this, and so he prayed for his disciples, and for us. ‘Holy Father,’ he said, ‘keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.’ It is no small thing to consider the unique relationship of the Father and the Son and then to have it applied to Jesus’ followers, but this is what Jesus prays. Like a son bears his father’s name and receives the inheritance, Jesus also gave them his Father’s name – a name that would be fully revealed to them as he instituted baptism – so that they might also receive the inheritance of his Father in heaven.

Jesus went on, ‘While I was with them, I kept them in your name…but now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.’ For Jesus to pray to have his joy fulfilled in his people creates an awful juxtaposition with what is about to come – even before he will go through his arrest, trial, scourging, and crucifixion, he will pray again in anguish to his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. The fulfillment of Jesus’ joy in himself is being one with his Father and carrying out the work he was sent to accomplish. The fulfillment of Jesus’ joy in his followers, though, is different. He prayed before that they would be one as he and the Father are one, and now he asks that his joy would be theirs as well.

This is an important aspect of Jesus’ prayer because it teaches us a crucial distinction of which we must always be aware. Jesus’ death forgives the sin of the entire world, but that alone does not mean that the entire world receives everlasting life with the Father and Son in heaven. There is a difference between the accomplishment of salvation by Jesus on the cross, and the delivery of that salvation by the Holy Spirit to humanity through the Means of Grace. A hungry infant is not nourished by the fact that his mother has plenty of food in the cupboard – his parents must prepare the food and feed it to him for him to receive the benefit of the stores in the cupboard. In the same way, humanity does not automatically receive the benefits of Jesus’ victory over sin, death, and the devil simply because the events took place – the Holy Spirit must create faith in each person that Jesus did all of these things for us, so that we might live forever in heaven with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Even though he willingly went to his death on the cross, Jesus’ joy was not solely in his obedience to the Father and his resurrection from the dead. Jesus’ joy was not merely that he did what he had to do to defeat sin and open the hope of eternal life to humanity – Jesus’ joy is fulfilled in humanity when the Holy Spirit causes us to repent and call upon God for forgiveness. Jesus’ joy is fulfilled in humanity when the Holy Spirit speaks the creative word of faith into the hearts and souls of fallen men, and guards and keeps us in that faith so that there will be a harvest of believers when our Lord returns for judgment. The death and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins does not grant its benefit apart from the faith that he did it for us – just as staring at a pill in the doctor’s hand does not cure us of our illness. Likewise, faith in anything apart from Jesus’ death and resurrection receives nothing from God – it is as beneficial to a truly sick person as receiving a sugar pill. Eternal life requires both Jesus’ victory over sin, death, and the devil and the Spirit given faith that Jesus’ accomplishments are also for us.

Jesus’ prayer is that, in spite of the assaults he knows his followers will face in this world, we would not be left to face the evil one. He does not pray that we be removed from the world; in fact he asks that we be protected while in the world, that we be guarded from the attacks of the devil. Christians are not of the world just as Jesus is not of the world, but that does not mean that we have nothing to do with the world. This is why, I believe, this prayer is actually a profound bridge from the Easter season to Pentecost. Next week at Pentecost you will hear of the Spirit coming upon the Apostles as the Christian church begins its missionary work to the world. The salvation Jesus accomplished on the cross is delivered throughout the world by the power of the Holy Spirit working in unworthy men.

This is the beginning of the church for whom Jesus is praying. He asks, finally, that they be sanctified in truth; the Father’s word is truth. As the Father sent the Son into the world, so has Jesus sent his followers into the world. And for their sake he has dedicated himself to the sacred task that would follow this prayer and the events in the Garden of Gethsemane. He does is that they might be made holy by God in his word. He does it that we may be one, as he and the Father are one.

So, dear friends, this is the heart of Easter – this is why Jesus went to the cross. He did it so that we may be one – one with one another in love and service; one with one another in the hope we have in the Christian faith; but above all else, he did it so that we may be one with himself and the Father in heaven; our earthly lives sanctified in the truth of the forgiveness of sins, consecrated for everlasting life, and delivered in the end to eternal salvation.

To Christ alone be all the glory, forever and ever, amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, amen.

June Newsletter Article

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4

Dear Brothers and sisters in Christ, there are important things, and then there are important things. Knowing what time we must show up for our jobs or classes is important. Making sure you have all the ingredients before you begin baking a cake is important. Remembering which child goes to which practice at what time – and when to pick them up – is also important. None of these things, however, is equal to another in importance.

I think we would all agree that while we want to be sure to have everything in place before we begin mixing the shortening and the sugar, we would first want to watch the clock to be certain we can arrive in time to meet our work or school commitments. I think we’d also agree that if forced to make the choice, we would sacrifice time for our career to ensure our children are not left alone for hours, waiting for a ride. Everything is important, but not everything is equally important.

I write this because I have been struck in recent weeks at how carefully and cleverly the world, the devil, and our own fallen flesh work to undermine the gifts our Lord has given us. Christians are generally well prepared for the obvious and blatant attacks – few of us, I hope, would give credence to the so-called scholarship of Dan Brown in his popular novels, just like few of us are convinced that James Cameron will ever find the lost tomb of Jesus. We Christians struggle, however, when we assume that things are fine and that there is no assault taking place on our soul and against the faith we have been given, for that is when our enemies work the hardest – when they can fool us into believing that nothing is happening at all.

Our enemies often accomplish this toxic task by simply adjusting our priorities. The one I see (and experience myself!) most often is the gentle shift from seeing Christianity as ‘the Christian faith’ to seeing it as ‘the Christian moral code’ or ‘the Christian ethical guidebook to life.’ It is not that we are denying the former and asserting the latter – again, the world, the devil, and our flesh do not work against us so visibly – but rather that we acquiesce to the temptation that God cares just as much about what we do as he does about what we believe. Both are certainly important, but in God’s eyes they are most definitely not equal in importance!

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians – a congregation exhibiting a multitude of moral and theological problems – puts our priorities in order when he writes that he delivered to them (and us) first of all that which he also received: that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that he was buried and rose again the third day, all of this according to the Scriptures. In other words, the most important thing to Paul (and to God!) is not a moral exhortation to bring the sinful flesh into submission; the most important thing is that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and that he rose again as the victor over death! Paul did also wrote about the moral problems in Corinth, and those words are no less true today than they were then, but Jesus’ death and resurrection is, first of all, the most important thing and the essence of Christianity. As we celebrate one year in the new facility this coming month and embark upon a much anticipated summer of warm weather, let us not give any way to the world, the devil, or our sinful flesh in rearranging the important things in our lives as Christians. Christ has risen from the dead and our sins are forgiven!

To him alone be all the glory, forever and ever, Amen.

Pastor Bakker

The Onion on Death

Leave it to The Onion to make a profound statement about day to day death.

I truly enjoy satire and irony, and find them to be immensely powerful tools for both humor and for making a point. The Onion does both extremely well, and sometimes their 'articles' are so well written that they (knowingly or not) go far beyond an impolite jab at this or that issue or person in the news to expose a deep truth.

Today's update on 'millions of people dying every month' is an example of just such an item. It is funny because it takes something that has been happening the same way for hundreds of years (indeed, since the fall of humanity in the Garden) and treats it as if it is headline worthy news. What we all know, though, is that nobody would bother publishing such a report in a non-satirical newspaper. They would not publish it because people die every day, especially of 'natural causes.'

But that's the thing, is it not? People die every day, and for the most part little changes in our lives. Most of us do not personally know someone that dies every day. Even when we lose loved ones, we set up protective boundaries to soften the blow. Life insurance - clearly a necessity these days - is a great example of how we're already working while we're alive to ensure that our own death is least disruptive to those we love and who love us. It is not bad or evil to be prepared - I have life insurance myself. Just because I don't believe society has an appropriate understanding of death does not mean I will neglect my family when my time does come.

What's more important to me as a pastor is that I proclaim without ceasing that we in the Christian church have the answers that doctors, scientists, philosophers, kings and politicians cannot provide - we have an answer for why everyone is dying. Of course, the professionals can tell you a multitude of causes of death - murder, collision, cancer, drowning, etc. - but they cannot tell you the cause behind the cause. We in the church believe that sin is ultimately behind every death. We believe that apart from sin there would be no death. When someone dies of 'natural causes,' it should actually be said that they died 'because of their nature.' Truly, every death, from the first murder in history to each one of our deaths, happens on account of our nature.

Far more important than proclaiming the cause of death, however, is that I proclaim even more without ceasing the cause for life - the forgiveness and salvation won by Christ on the cross and given to us sacramentally in his church. Only Christ gives life, and at that gives it eternally! We can never lose sight of the promised redemption we have in eternity, and we can never stop proclaiming it to the world around us.

College students are notoriously bad about considering their own death in the future - and so I will keep preaching the same message of death and life; Jesus' death for our eternal life, that is, so that they need not fear this grave pandemic that truly threatens all of us.

How Do I Connect With God?

This was a presentation I gave about a year ago in a religious forum on campus here at Central Michigan University. The 'Campus Religious Leadership Association' here, a group of leaders involved in campus ministry at CMU, hosted it and I offered to speak. We had a decent turnout (about 45, including clergy), and received some excellent questions afterward. The topic of the night was, 'How Do I Connect With God?' Obviously, that raises flags for Lutherans right away, and you'll see that I address that right off the top. I offer it here because it is a decent summary of how everything in theology is interconnected, and finally finds its beginning and end in Jesus Christ. Remember that it was written with a non-Lutheran audience in mind.

How Do I Connect With God?

Four Views: The Sacramental Life

Pastor Jonathon Bakker

Christ The King Lutheran Chapel

Mount Pleasant, Michigan

To begin speaking about ‘connecting with God’ puts Lutherans in somewhat of a conundrum. Lutherans, you see, are not so concerned with how we connect with God, but rather with how God connects with us. Now, to the average ear that sounds like two ways of saying the same thing, but to Lutherans that point makes all the difference in the world.

Connection with God all begins with creation. “In the beginning…” God created the heavens and the earth, night and day, land and sea, the sun and the moon, stars and planets, plants and animals, and finally man. When God created these things out of nothing, he created them by his Word and called all of them ‘good.’ When God created man, he fashioned man out of the dust of the earth and called him ‘m’od tov’/very good.

Humanity is special in God’s eyes. We are the crown of creation, created in the image and likeness of God himself. And from the very beginning, God has had a plan and destiny for humanity. The end for which he created us is eternal fellowship with him, but humanity wasn’t ready for the end yet when they had just begun. God had a plan for humanity along the way. Be fruitful and multiply, he said, fill the earth and subdue it. Along with a beginning and end, God also gave humanity a middle, a period in which to mature and develop and grow. Like a puppy is not ready for full freedom in a home without gradual training and discipline, humanity also was not ready in the beginning for eternal fellowship with God. God’s connection to humanity began with the creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Without getting into too much detail, the subsequent fall into sin in the Garden put humanity on a different course throughout history. Creation was turned upside down in the fall into sin. Instead of looking to God for every good thing they needed to live and thrive, humanity looked to themselves. God’s connection to humanity was corrupted by human desire. God’s plan for his creation, though, never changed. There was still beginning, middle, and end for humanity. The middle, though, consisted of a different kind of maturation and growth. Death changed everything. Adam and Eve had been created for eternity. They would eventually get there, but now they had to die first.

I have to apologize at this point because I haven’t spoken explicitly about sacraments, but stay with me, I will. There was one promise made to the serpent in the Garden before they were all banished about a Savior who would crush the head of the serpent. That Savior, of course, is the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Though this is an enormous generalization, Lutherans believe that the Bible is basically about the Son of God; before, and after his birth. The Old Testament, then, served the people of God by preparing them to meet this Savior, and Jesus Christ is therefore for us the fulfillment of the Old Testament. God worked in the Old Testament through many means and events to defend and deliver his people Israel. Looking back at the Old Testament after Jesus birth and death and resurrection, though, we see that there is much more to it than that.

Looking at the Old Testament this way, we see God at work establishing patterns of salvation for his people. Wood, water, bread, and blood all play recurring and prominent parts in God’s work for his people in the Old Testament. The great flood destroyed all of humanity with water except for the eight members of Noah’s family in the wooden ark. The blood of the Lamb spread around the doorposts protected the children of Israel from the last plague wrought against their Egyptian captors – the killing of the firstborn sons. Those same children of Israel escaped hard-hearted Pharaoh’s army on dry ground as they crossed the Red Sea between walls of water, and that same water again drowned Pharaoh’s army to the deep. When they were hungry in the wilderness, God sent them manna – bread from heaven. When they made sacrifices for their sins, the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled on the altar and on them. When Naaman, commander of the Syrian army, had leprosy and sought a cure, the prophet Elisha instructed him to bathe seven times in water of the Jordan River.

We could go on, but the point is that in all of these things, God was preparing his people to recognize what it looks like when God works in the world for the salvation of humanity. In other words, in these things, God connected with humanity to bring them toward the eventual destiny which he still has in mind for us. If similar things were to happen again, it would only make sense to see God in them.

When Jesus was born, these patterns began to show themselves again, only this time God wasn’t in the background. In Jesus, heaven meets earth and God acts to fulfill his plan for humanity in a very direct way. In Jesus you have the consummation of creation.

When he is baptized, and then later when he institutes baptism for those who follow him, you see that water was created for something more than quenching thirst and sustaining life. Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea and Namaan’s washing prefigure a fuller meaning. When Jesus turns water into wine, and then wine becomes his blood (all questions of how this is possible aside), you see that wine and blood were created for more than enjoyable drinks and bodily fluids. The sacrifices of Israel and the Passover meal take on a greater significance. When Jesus feeds thousands with a few loaves of bread, and then bread becomes his body, again, bread is more than just food. Manna from heaven never did these things, but God was at work in them all the same. Finally, when Jesus makes his living as a carpenter, and then makes his death on a wooden cross, all wood, including Noah’s ark, takes on a deeper salvific meaning.

In all of these things, Lutherans speak about God acting sacramentally to bring about his intended plan for humanity. We believe that God still works through these sacramental means, to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify the whole Christian church on earth. The discussion of what is and what isn’t a sacrament is a discussion for another time, but for us, in these sacramental actions, we believe that God binds himself to creation to bring about the eternal fellowship with him for which we were created in the beginning. For Lutherans, the Sacramental Life is the means by which God connects with us and brings us to eternal life.

Thank you.