Absolution

When I Kept Silent

By Ross Engel –

They say that silence is golden. Sometimes this can most certainly be true. It can be a real treat to find a quiet place to study or read. A quiet afternoon at the beach with the breeze, the ocean waves, a cigar, and a book is my idea of a perfectly relaxing day. Last week, my wife and I got to enjoy a night out. While the night included a lively Irish Dancing show, our evening actually began with an hour of just the two of us lost in conversation in the quiet corner of a mostly empty cocktail lounge. That silence was golden!

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Living Water

By Paul Koch –

Think back to earlier this morning, think back to when your alarm clock went off and you eased out of bed. You gently put your feet on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, not sure if you are excited to be up and moving or if it would just make more sense to roll back under the warm covers. It is a Sunday morning. The plan is to go to church – but for a moment you ask yourself, why? And I don’t mean some great philosophical inquiry into the meaning and purpose of religion, I mean why bother going this morning? Will it be that big of a deal if you just slept in? Would anyone miss you? Is it really all that important? After all, there is always next week or the week after that. It’s not like the church is going anywhere. Why do you go through the process? Getting up and showering, grabbing a cup of coffee and a quick bite to eat, getting the kids ready, rushing through one delay after another to gather in a house of worship… is it really all that important?

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Gnome in the Home

By Joel A. Hess –

A couple months ago, as we were recording another fun episode of Ringside, the guys were trying to figure out an elf on the shelf for Lent. Immediately, Ross Engel threw out “Judas on the jukebox.” It’s a great name, but who has a jukebox? While many eligible and some profane names were tossed around, my buddy Dave Rufner came up with “gnome in the home.”  Get them while they’re hot! 

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Christ Our Example

By Bob Hiller –

This past week, I was caught off guard by a conversation with one of the dear saints in my congregation. In normal pastoral fashion, I was asking him how our church could pray for him. In a typical response, he asked that I pray for his unbearable arthritis pain. It was just your typical pastoral conversation. But then my friend said something that took me by surprise. After asking for prayers he said, “But you know, I just think about Jesus suffering on the cross, bearing the sins of the whole world for those six hours, and the pain he endured for me. If my Lord can do that for me, I’m sure I can deal with this pain if it is His will.”

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Don’t Preach about Christ – Preach Christ, Dangit!

By Scott Keith –

I am not a pastor. I also have a hard time staying in one place for a long time. As a result, I have spent the last several years visiting many different churches. The sad reality is that, even in the blessed LCMS, “the goods” are not always handed over on Sunday morning. By “the goods,” I mean to say that in my admittedly limited experience, Christ and Him crucified for the forgiveness of my sins is infrequently proclaimed to me at church.

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My Daughter’s Song

By Cindy Koch –

The clouds hung low this last Sunday morning. Already shivering as I stepped outside, I called back to the hustling brood to grab their jackets before we piled in the car. Damp palm trees and lonely puddles hinted that it was about to rain, but only a gray mist colored our morning drive to church. The children and I traveled together in unusual silence, taking in the gloom. 

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Is Everyone Hitler?

By Joel A Hess –

Want to win a debate? Call your opponent either Hitler or a Nazi. During Obama’s reign, many called his policies fascist as he pushed to restrict free speech and expression, let alone when he promoted programs also popular in the Nazi era such as euthanasia and abortion. Now during Trump’s short stint, many accuse him of Hitler-like tendencies due to his blunt personality, his views on immigration, and his annoying tendency of calling his critics his enemies. Will the real Hitler please come forward? Actually, if you want to know the true heirs of Nazi Germany, take a look at Gene Edward Veith’s wonderful tome, Modern Fascism.

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Theology of Laundry

By Cindy Koch –

Piles of whites, baskets full of darks. Towels, socks… Oh look, there’s the muddy jacket we’ve been missing. Hours of sorting, stain removing, washing, drying, hanging, folding, returning everything back to the closet drawers. As I’m putting away the last of the PJs and my laundry basket is finally empty, I glance at the little white hamper in my daughters’ room. It’s half full. And the laundry cycle is never over.

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Don’t Touch Me

By Cindy Koch –

There are times when a touch on my skin has made it crawl. I remember this feeling most clearly when I was pregnant and the crazy hormones pulsed throughout my body. Every sense was heightened during that strange and wonderful nine months. During that time, most everything that touched me sent prickles down my spine and registered on a scale of nausea.

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Girls Can’t Forgive Sins

By Cindy Koch –

It’s a hard mouthful to forgive someone their sins. They are some of the most awkward words to come out of your mouth. Firstly, you are bold enough to actually say “I forgive you,” which is not one of our top ten automatic responses in uncomfortable situations. Secondly, by pronouncing forgiveness, you are admitting that this person before you has sinned. In our passive aggressive culture, looking someone in the eye and calling sin a sin is a feat of bravery. Thirdly, this person probably didn’t even sin against you, so you are speaking the powerful words of God in His stead concerning His eternal judgement. You might wonder, who are you to proclaim these life-giving, sin-loosing words? 

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Rogue One and the Church of Death Puppets

By Paul Koch –

On Tuesday morning, the world learned the tragic news of Carrie Fisher’s death. This news had a strange effect on me, as I had just watched her performance the day before when I took my family to go see the new blockbuster Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Although, it wasn’t a performance by the sixty-year-old actress per se but a CGI recreation of the twenty-one-year-old Princess Leia every young boy my age had fallen in love with at one time or another. There she was, full of youthful vigor and elegance, receiving the plans of the Death Star to relay to the Rebel Alliance—at least, it looked like her…  almost.

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The Beatitudes for the Holidays

 By Bob Hiller –

Well, friends, on this blessed day after Thanksgiving, I hope this blog finds you waking up from a day full of food, drink, laughter, and rest. I hope today you are not shopping like a crazy person, but continuing in some blessed rest with friends and family. Thanksgiving is truly a wonderful day to enjoy the marvelous gifts of God’s creation which He has given “out of divine, fatherly goodness and mercy with no merit or worthiness” in us. I hope yesterday was a day for you to enjoy that divine, fatherly goodness and mercy.

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Fly the W!

By Bob Hiller –

One of the first blogs I wrote for The Jagged Word was a little piece on how the Chicago Cubs were cursed and would thus never win the World Series. Well, today I am happy to say that I am no prophet! The 108-year curse has ended! Baseball’s “Loveable Losers” will no longer bear that name! GM Theo Epstein, also famous for breaking the curse of the Boston Red Sox, has once again worked his magic and redeemed the Cubbies from being bound to post-season sorrow! The long night is over! A new day has dawned in the Windy City!

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Guilty and Free

By Paul Koch –

Today in churches across this country, well at least in Lutheran churches (well, at least in some Lutheran churches), they are taking a moment to step aside from the normal flow of things to focus on an event in time 499 years ago in a little town in Germany. On All Hallows Eve in 1517, a young and energetic Augustinian monk and professor of theology named Martin Luther, nailed to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg an invitation to debate on the topic of the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences. An indulgence was a way to reduce the amount of punishment one must undergo for their sins. In Luther’s day the church would sell them to fill the its coffers. So, Luther invites discussion on this issue by putting forward 95 theses that ought to be considered. Little did he know or expect at the time, but this simple act, this honest attempt to resolve a problem that had robbed so many of the sweet assurance of the Gospel, would prove to be the beginning of the great Reformation of the church.

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The Pure Gospel – Absolution

By Jonathan Holmes –

We live in a world where a person who admits their sins and weaknesses is considered cowardly. To actually say one is wrong is often viewed as a sign of frailty and feebleness. Why? Much of it is pride; and for those who are proud they see themselves as strong and ambitious and are willing to trample over anyone in their path for the sake of progressing oneself for any number reasons. Because of this public opinion, popularity, and the so-called “career” are the very things by which we find ourselves being defined. We think we must be strong candidates in these three classifications to show signs that we are winning at the “game of life.” These “successes” are how we show the family, friends, the world, even God that we are worth something. Everything hinges on what people think of us, how well they like us, and how good we are at our jobs – or at least that it appears that we are performing our professions well.

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Walking in Our Neighbor’s Political and Religious Shoes

By Graham Glover –

My two favorite things to talk about are politics and religion. I am a Lutheran pastor, who years ago worked as a lobbyist, am currently working on finishing my PhD in Political Science, while serving my country as an Active Duty Chaplain in the US Army, with a wife that used to run state-level campaigns, and a father-in-law whose professional and political career has been devoted to public service. I suppose you could say such topics are part of my DNA, as they encompass so much of who I am and what I do.

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Locker Room Humor and Male Friendship

By Bob Hiller –

DISCLAIMER: This is not a blog about who you should or should not vote for. It does not seek to endorse either candidate. This is a blog about sin and manhood. It does happen that the foil for my blog today is running for the president of the United States. His comments about women and how they reflect current cultural stereotypes are the focus of this blog. Please do not use the comment section as a place for political fighting. Save that for Graham’s blog.

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Remember Why You Started

By Ross Engel –

I fell in love with weight training the first time I walked into the gym. I was a scrawny 14-year-old kid who barely weighed in at 115 pounds. I was so weak that I could barely lift the 45-pound Olympic bar. I had played soccer and basketball for years, so I was pretty quick on my feet. I had just started doing gymnastics, and I wanted to get stronger and faster. My introduction to weight training was a great awakening to a new world, one that I have now spent the better part of 22 years enjoying. That scrawny, wide-eyed kid who stepped through the doors of the gym those years ago is not recognizable when people see me now, but he’s still there in my mind. He (along with a fair share of life’s tormentors) is the unseen motivation behind every set, rep, and training journal entry.

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Coffee Confession

By Cindy Koch –

Coffee and conversation with a friend can lead to an unknown place. There are things that I don’t even know about myself until that mug warms my hand. Comforting aromas open my mind and release the flow of memories and emotions from the last time we talked. Overstuffed chairs lull me to a safe place, and the intimate dark colors on the celling protect our conversation as it pours out.

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I Am Not Ashamed

By Paul Koch –

St. Paul writes to the young preacher Timothy with words of encouragement and guidance. His words have been a blessing to countless pastors throughout the years even as they have been a comfort to the whole church of God as we struggle to receive and rejoice in the blessings of our life together. For while the church can be a place of immense joy and love and support, at times it can also be a place of division and separation and unrelenting judgment.

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