proclamation

Lions don’t make good pets

By Joel A. Hess –

Lions don’t make good pets. Every year we read a story about some poor fool who wanted to have a wild animal as a pet. A couple of years ago, a woman’s monkey mauled her friend. I remember trying to have a raccoon as a pet. It didn’t work out for either of us. Then, of course, there are pythons sneaking in the neighbor’s bushes, alligators in New York sewers, and from time to time a Lion leaping over his owner’s fence and rambling down Highway 131. Wild animals don’t make good pets. Yet we can’t help trying to domesticate them.

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Out of Control

By Paul Koch –

When you go to a church, not just this church but really any church, you enter a place that is intentionally designed and laid out for a specific purpose. There are places to sit, these days padded pews or even chairs that are designed to keep you engaged and comfortable but not drowsy. There are the places where music is played and where the word is preached. There may or may not be various symbols of the faith in a church, there to give the wandering eyes something to focus on. Often times there is a large cross that serves as a focal point. There could be screens upon which images are projected that are used to help convey the message and set the mood, to keep the hearers up to speed on what is coming next. We have things like air conditioning for the warms summer days and heaters to keep us toasty during the winter. All in all, church is something we’ve come to see as a comfortable, predictable, reliable place—something that is well established and controlled.

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Buried and Risen

By Paul Koch –

The moment when our Lord steps into the waters of the Jordan River to be baptized by John is of great significance for the understanding of our faith. Here the identity and purpose of our Lord’s arrival come into focus. John the Baptist is doing what his namesake calls for him to do: He is baptizing. He is washing the repentant children of God in the Jordan River as a testimony of their confession of sins and their longing for a new hope in the coming Messiah. Remember, John is preparing the way for the Messiah. He is the voice calling out in the wilderness. Things are going well. People are flocking out to him, to be part of this new thing. But all of it takes a strange turn when Jesus enters into those waters. The people had been entering the water to repent and so be ready to receive the Christ, but why does Jesus enter? What does he have to repent of? What sins does he confess?

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Reconciling Pastors

By Paul Koch –

Once a month I gather with a group of my local colleagues. These fellow pastors in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod come together to worship and study and discuss any pressing issues that need our attention. It is a gathering that I rarely miss. Not that it is always inspiring, but it is important to gather together to receive the gifts of our Lord and discuss contemporary issues facing the children of God. And it quite often turns out to be inspiring, or at least we manage to go out for a few beers when we’re all done, and that is inspiring.

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Unlikely Guests

By Paul Koch –

Today we arrive at the twelfth day of Christmas. On the first day of Christmas, we celebrated the arrival of our Lord Jesus Christ, a partridge in a pear tree, born of Mary in the little town of Bethlehem. He came with the herald of God’s angels, appearing to shepherds tending their flocks by night. God had come to his people, and his people worshiped him. This was the long-awaited Messiah, and as we learn from the story of Simeon in the temple, the arrival of Jesus was the arrival of the consolation of Israel. Here was hope and assurance, comfort and promise. However, on the twelfth day of Christmas, we recall another group that came to worship our Lord, a band of unlikely guests that search him out and bring their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

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Christmas Clothes

By Paul Koch –

When I was a child, I disliked clothes shopping. You remember the days when mom would hold up outfit after outfit and have you try them on one after another to try to get the perfect size (which was usually just a little too big so that you had room to grow). Getting new clothes back then was necessary, but it wasn’t all that memorable. However, these days, getting new clothes is a lot of fun. While it’s been a while since I’ve bought a new suit, there is an awesome feeling when you wear a new outfit. The clothes can actually make you feel better. Perhaps they make you feel more accomplished or more respectable. You can buy clothes that make you feel more free or spontaneous. Clothes go far beyond being practical and protective. They can make a statement or even help you achieve your goals. There is truth in that old saying that you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that clothes are the driving force in your life, but they aren’t impartial to who you are or what you want to be, or at least they can be.

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When Christmas dies, it finally becomes real

By Joel A. Hess –

Every year, a little bit of my love for Christmas dies. I don’t want it to. I hold on tightly in November. I turn up the tunes and decorate my office right after Thanksgiving. Each year, the tree goes up faster and with less ceremony. Each year, I pause less with each ornament. Each year, the season goes by faster. I barely have time to be anxious, excited, or even mournful.

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Is This Your Jesus?

By Paul Koch –

There is nothing worse than the feeling that comes over you when reality beats back your wish dreams. When you imagine what something would be like—how it would look, act, or feel—and then you experience it in real life and finally take it all in only to find that it’s not what you imagined. In that moment, your expectations, your ideal is shattered. And in a way, a big part of what our Lord does as he walks the earth is tear down the images and dreams people had concerning the Messiah. Everyone was waiting for the Messiah, eager to receive the Anointed One, and they all had their own detailed understanding of just how he would act and what sort of things he would accomplish. Would he be compassionate, kind, and forgiving? Would he be a critical judge and immovable threat? A liberator of the people of God? A deliverer from oppression or a political king? Everyone took the title of Messiah and filled it with their own wish dreams, and everything went along wonderfully until it crashed into reality.

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Guiding Light

By Cindy Koch –

Wandering around in the darkness, I wish I knew the way to go. Every once in a while, I see a glimmer of light and I run towards it. I know what the light looks like, but I don’t always see where to follow. The tiny spark is sometimes so very far away. In the cold dark night, the light may seem to go out, and I can’t see it at all. Where do I look to find this light?

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What Shall I Do?

By Paul Koch –

I’m not going to lie, I have always wanted to get a response to my preaching like John the Baptist had. I’m serious. Just once I wanted to preach the Word of God and have someone cry out in distress and longing, “What shall I do?” Not all the time, mind you. I would settle for just once. Just once I would love to have someone respond in a very real way seeking to change something about the way he conducted himself because of the preaching that I was called to do. Some visible reminder that the Word proclaimed actually sunk that deep into her, that she is then moved to do something in response. Sometimes I see people shed a tear or two, sometimes there are the smiles and the nodding of heads. I had a guy back in Georgia who would occasionally give me an audible, “Amen!” when I was preaching. But imagine how cool it would be if there was a person or two, or a whole congregation, that said, “We want to do things differently! We want to live differently! What shall we do?”

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The Advent of our King

By Paul Koch –

Every year when the season of Advent rolls around, the church throws us a bit of a curveball. I mean, we have the tree up in the sanctuary and I’m sure you all have either begun or even finished decorating your homes. There is Christmas music on the radio and everyone is beginning to plan for the big holiday. But as we gather here today, as we listened to the readings, we get a mixed message. Instead of baby Jesus and warm feelings of family and friends, we are greeted with the famous triumphal entry of our Lord into Jerusalem, humble and riding on a donkey. Instead of Advent it seems like we are in Lent. Instead of getting ready for Christmas, this is the text we always read on Palm Sunday in preparation for Holy week and the death and resurrection of our Lord.

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Stay Awake

By Paul Koch –

As the 13th chapter of Mark’s Gospel comes to an end the focus or intended purpose of our Lord’s teaching becomes quite clear. It is summed up perfectly in the closing line, “What I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.” (Mark 13:37) Over and again the call of our Lord’s words have been to be on guard, to stay vigilant, to be watchful, to stay awake. All this comes from a discussion that he has been having with disciples concerning their questions about the end of times. When Jesus had told them that the temple itself would be thrown down, they wanted some assurance, some comfort about the unknowable future. “Tell us,” they said, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the signs when all these things are about to be accomplished.” (13:4) And so he has been telling them about the signs of the end: about what sort of things they might expect. He has spoken about wars and earthquakes and famines, about persecution and injustice. He has addressed false teaching and broken fidelity.

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Did God Really Say?

By Joel A. Hess –

In his argument with Erasmus about free will, Luther makes a profound case for the clarity of Holy Scripture and knowing the mind of God. One of Erasmus’ methods of dismantling Luther’s assertions was to point to the mystery and unknownness of God. He called to his side verses such as Isaiah 40, “Who has known the mind of the Lord?” and Paul’s similar statement that “his judgments are incomprehensible.” (Romans 11:33). At first these words seem to make the case that we should always be wary of ever talking about God as if He is comprehensible. Many quickly shut down any conversation about the interpretation of Scripture by pointing to these verses. How often do aspiring theologians on the airplane conclude their opinions by waxing eloquent about God’s incomprehensibility, pretending to preserve God’s godhood?

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Drawing Near – Together

By Paul Koch –

“Therefore since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from and evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Heb. 10:19-22) This text calls us to courageously draw near, to enter with full confidence into the holy places of God. Now to champion such an idea may seem somewhat absurd these days. At the very least, to make a big deal out of it seems a bit misplaced. I mean, of course we want to draw near. Of course we want to enter into the holy places of God, but isn’t this what we have always done? Isn’t this somewhat of a foregone conclusion? You see, we’ve grown accustomed to believing that we have a right to enter into the dwelling place of God. We have managed to take a hold of his glory and might and bring Him down to a nice acceptable level that we can all manage.

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