He bestows what is good ungrudgingly

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With God there are simultaneously exhibited power, wisdom, and goodness. His power and goodness [appear] in this, that of His own will He called into being and fashioned things having no previous existence; His wisdom [is shown] in His having made created things parts of one harmonious and consistent whole; and those things which, through His super-eminent kindness, receive growth and a long period of existence, do reflect the glory of the uncreated One, of that God who bestows what is good ungrudgingly.

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Have We Failed?

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Christians are now a minority in America. When I mentioned this somewhere else I was speaking, someone asked me afterwards, “Does this mean we’ve failed?”

What do you think? If you look at our statistics, the Missouri Synod is in decline, and doesn’t seem to be turning around. How’s the Ohio District doing? What about your own congregation? If the answer is, “Not great,” then does that mean you failed? Have we failed? …

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Our Lord's Gifts Are Not Garbage

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While still a seminary student, I was assisting in the distribution of Holy Communion when I heard a little girl say something jarring. "Daddy, can I throw that in the trash?" The church used disposable plastic cups at Communion, and there was a basket near the altar rail to deposit the used cups. It was a natural question for this little girl to ask. Children like to participate in what the adults are doing, and the ritual action of the Sacrament leads to curiosity….

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Holy Spirit, Holy People

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Dear Brothers and Sisters: In the Divine Service we have received from our fathers, just before communion the Celebrant holds up the Body and Blood of Jesus and says, “The peace of the Lord be with you always.” Then we sing to Christ the Lamb of God and approach.

In the earliest recorded Divine Service, at that spot, the pastor says, “May grace come and may this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If anyone is holy, let him approach; if anyone is not, let him repent” (Didache 10.6). “If anyone is holy, let him approach.” Who qualifies? Are you holy? …

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Rogate 2022

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Sometimes you’ll hear folks slander Luther by saying things like, “He took James out of the Bible.” That’s nonsense. He included James, and the entire apocrypha, in his German translation of the Bible. But even if he had removed a book from the Bible, one of the great things about being Lutheran is we don’t have to regard him, or any man, as infallible. But did Luther in his later years keep saying the same things about James? …

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Invocation for the Investiture of the Honorable Liam P. Hardy

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The honorable Liam Hardy is indeed an honorable man. A devoted husband and father, he is also deeply devoted to the mission of this court to balance the needs of the military with an impartial application of constitutional protections to those who appear before this bench. He gave me a certain liberty to give a few remarks prior to our prayer of invocation. As a Lutheran, I’d like to very briefly reflect on the nature and source of law through the lens of a Reformation controversy….

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Ascension Choral Evening Prayer

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The Ascension of Jesus, like the virgin birth and the resurrection, challenge us with things that seem more like story or myth than actual events. And yet the epic stories capture our imaginations. There is a longing for them to be true, because they make sense of the world.

For many years C.S. Lewis, captivated by myths, remained an atheist. His conversion to Christianity, thanks in part to J.R.R. Tolkien, was in recognizing in Christ the “true myth.” …

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Jubilate 2022

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Jesus says, “human being,” (anthropos in Greek), and not “child” or “baby” or “infant.” Why? Because in this little parable Jesus is referring to Himself. Jesus is the human being, the man, the anthropos; He is the One born of a woman, born of a virgin, born under the law that He might redeem those who were under the law.

The whole story of mankind, our fall, our death, and our salvation, is here, in these little words, “joy that a human being—[a man]—has been born into the world.” …

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The Resurrection of Our Lord 2022

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The T in LGBTQIA+ has overwhelmed all the other letters. The T, of course, is for transgender. Transgenderism rejects biological reality, the givenness of creation. There is also another T, another trans, that is somewhat less known: Transhumanism. Transhumanism, at the risk of oversimplifying, proposes joining technology to humans for the purpose of enhancing and lengthening life. For many, this includes a goal of achieving immortality.

Both of these contemporary trans movements seek to address real human problems: dysphoria, discomfort, disability, dissolution, death. There is something wrong with us. There is something wrong with the world. A trans movement seeks to change the problem. That’s what trans means: change. It can also mean cross, like to cross a barrier or a distance. Hence, transportation. Or, transformation.

These contemporary trans movements, like others that have come before (such as Transcendentalism), are all doomed to fail, because they have the wrong starting point….

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