Sacraments

Victory

By Paul Koch –

What an incredible week it was here at Grace Lutheran Church! A week of great stories, and games, and food, and songs, and fun. It was, of course, Vacation Bible School this past week and the theme was outstanding. This year we are celebrating the 500th anniversary of the great Reformation of the church. Martin Luther is the center figure in that work, as we think of him standing before the Holy Roman Emperor confessing that he would not be moved from the Word of God.  Luther’s most famous hymn was “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” in which we sing, “Let this world’s tyrant rage; in battle we’ll engage. His might is doomed to fail; God’s judgement must prevail! One little word subdues him.” It was just that, that trust in God’s work that defined our VBS theme: A Mighty Fortress.

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The Church Doesn’t Need People; People Need the Church

By Joel A. Hess –

The Church is dying. We need to save the Church. Why are people leaving? If we don’t get more young families in here, we won’t be here anymore. Christians need to have more kids. Ugh! Have you heard people desperately exclaim these concerns and questions? Probably. Barna Research regularly releases stats to frighten Western church bodies. We see numbers thrown out about diminishing worship attendance. We are given statistics upon statistics about the general perception of Christianity and religion. We have been told that Church needs to do something, anything, to keep afloat.

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The Key

By Paul Koch –

I love maps. But, I don’t think we often use maps these days. Remember when you used to have an L.A. freeway map in your car so you could navigate the impossible web of intersecting arteries to arrive at your destination? Today you simply use Google Maps or Waze or some other app. But maps, good old difficult to fold maps, are still great resources. In fact, part of the curriculum that we use with our own children has a cartography component; they learn to read and navigate using a map. One of the first things that they learn to make sense of a map, is they must understand the key. Every map has a key that tells you what the symbols on the map mean; from distances, to road types, to values of elevation gain on a topographic map. A map without the key loses its precision and its reliability. The key is crucial.

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Hijacking the Mandate

By Paul Koch –

Happy Maundy Thursday. This day in church history is rich in the themes of our faith and the proclamation of our hope as the children of God. After all, it is on this night that our Lord was betrayed with a kiss and that Peter cut off Malchus’ ear just for Jesus to simply put it back on again. On this night, he is taken to Caiaphas and is denied three times before the rooster crows. On this night, he gave his great Supper and delivered unmatched gifts to his beloved.

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Born Again

By Paul Koch –

People by nature are questioning creatures. They are inquisitive and almost always searching for answers. You don’t have to have children for too long to realize that we are all full of curiosity. While it can be annoying at times, it is beautiful to watch their little minds trying to process new data in their ever-expanding world; as they ask you why the sky is blue, or why the weeds grow in the cracks in the driveway, or why our toe nails continue to grow. And I don’t think we slow down our questioning as we get older. Rather, we only become ashamed of asking the questions. So, we question in private. We question in such a way that no one else knows that we might not have the answers, which is strange seeing as how we know that we don’t all have the answers. There is much of our world that is unknown and hidden, and there is much about ourselves that we have not fully understood. So, in our own way we still question.

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Through the Tunnel

By Scott Keith –

A few years ago at the very tail end of my vacation, Joy and I took all of our children and Dr. Mallinson’s son, Auggie Mallinson, to Yosemite. While Joy and I have been several times, by mere coincidence of timing and obligation, most of our children have not seen the grandeur of the Yosemite Valley. Joy, Autumn, and I left Dr. Rosenbladt’s house in Portland and drove to meet everyone else (Caleb, Erika, Joshua, and Auggie) at the Bass Lake resort just outside of Yosemite. We had fun at Bass Lake driving Jet Skis and cooling off in the now almost completely empty lake. Bass Lake is fun, but it is no Yosemite.

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Down the Mountain

By Paul Koch –

Mountains. Big things tend to happen on mountains. After Israel had been delivered from the house of slavery in Egypt and crossed through the Red Sea on dry ground, they made their way to the foot of a great mountain, Mount Sinai. There God would give His holy decrees and blessed commands that would set apart these people as His own people, bearers of His covenant. As was promised through their father Abraham, all the families of the earth will be blessed through them. Up in the heights, on the mountaintops, God came near to His chosen ones. There His glory was on display in the cloud with fire and lightning. Into the cloud of God’s presence Moses entered and received from the Lord instructions on the building of a sanctuary on earth, a Tabernacle where God would dwell with His people. He promised that He would no longer be separated from His people up on the mountaintop, but down right in their midst.

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A Possessive Lord

By Paul Koch –

Sometimes in life we find ourselves looking around at the world in which we live, and we honestly wonder what has happened. It is difficult to recognize the world that we knew through younger eyes. Not that we’re overly innocent or blind to the slow creep of cultural changes but occasionally we find ourselves longing for a world, a country, and even a church that we no longer find around us. Recently we’ve watched the protests and marches on Washington as people fear for what might be happening to this country. We hear the slow roar of divisive rhetoric that deepens an ideological divide among the people. There are those who argue that walls and travel bans are un-American and will not be tolerated. Then there are those who are glad that our President doesn’t fit the usual political mold and will do the unpopular thing to protect the people. So, we watch the news and listen to talk radio and wonder what in the world is happening to our country.

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Something Worth Boasting About

By Ross Engel –

As it exists in my memory, the 1980s were a decade of excess. When I think back to the popular movies of the time, those excesses were paraded before my young eyes. The Griswolds and their National Lampoon’s various Vacations, The Back to the Future trilogy, Goonies, Scarface, Top Gun, the Indiana Jones movies, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Risky Business, and all those John Hughes’ movies (just to name a few) lauded lifestyles that enjoyed the latest and greatest that culture had to offer.

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Preaching: The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent

By Paul Koch –

“But is it terrible everywhere?” My wife asked, interrupting me in the midst of my (almost weekly) tirade about the state of preaching in the church. Now that is a good question. Is preaching really all that poor in the churches or has that only been my experience? Or am I just too damn picky and overly critical of what I hear? While many may think that because I am a preacher I have more of a right than most to critique preaching, the truth is I don’t get out that often to hear preaching. As a friend in Georgia used to remind me, I live in a strange little Lutheran bubble.

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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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The Ears of Faith

By Paul Koch –

Throughout our lives, we have heard the old saying that “seeing is believing.” In order for us to believe in anything we need to verify its authenticity; we need to actually see it unfold or have some proof that it happened. However, more than ever we are finding that this is not so easy to come by. After Christmas I took my family out to go see the new Star Wars movie. In that movie we saw ships jump to hyperspace, laser blasts destroy the enemy, and a space station the size of a small moon. If all that wasn’t enough we even watched as actors that have been dead now for many years were brought back to life and performed on the big screen. Seeing was not believing. With the amazing advancement in computer graphics, the suspension of disbelief has gone far beyond the movie magic of days gone by.

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Drowning to Live

By Paul Koch –

I often wonder just how those outside of the church view those of us that continue to find sanctuary within these walls. How does a person without faith look at the person who gathers with other believers to confess their faith, hear the Word, receive the gifts, and sing the praises of God? Do they think we are foolish or misguided or simply relics from a different time? One thing is for sure, they know that we are not perfect. In fact, they may see us as hypocrites, failing to practice what we preach. Are we those who can live our lives however we want and then just come in here, receive forgiveness, and pretend like nothing happened? In fact, is this part and parcel to being a Christian? Or to put it even more succinctly as St Paul does, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue to sin that grace may abound?”

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Until

By Paul Koch –

The story of Christmas moves pretty fast. Since the beginning of November all the way up until Christmas morning you could find Christmas music on the radio, find the decorations and lights just about everywhere you shop, and people would greet you by saying “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. Then, like the sudden closing of a good book, it all just stops. Everything quickly shifts back to normal. In fact, though there is a great amount of buildup in the churches around Christmas time, we also move quite quickly from that silent, holy night. For the story of our Lord’s birth must move on. He didn’t come to just make a big splash, to be announced by angels and be born of a virgin. No, He came for a purpose and the text of Scripture moves us quickly along to get to the heart of why He came.

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God With Us

By Paul Koch –

We don’t often spend much time talking or ever thinking all that much about Joseph. His story is an incredible story. His call to be the protector and provider for the blessed mother of our Lord gives us a powerful image of Christian faithfulness and strength of character. Instead of abandoning Mary when he learns that she is with child, he lovingly cares for her, protects her, and watches over the child she will bear as a sacred trust. However, Joseph, like any of you, doesn’t work his way into this prominent and place. He doesn’t come to these conclusions and resolve to faithfully go forward all on his own. No, he needs an angel of the Lord to appear to him and reveal this good news that is happening to Mary. So, one of the lessons we learn here at the very beginning of the Christmas story is that God’s plans, gifts, and blessings are not gained by our cleverness. They must be revealed to us.

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White Elephants

By Ross Engel –

Have you ever gone to a Christmas party with a white elephant gift exchange? You know, one of those deals where everyone brings a gift and then a game is played to select and steal gifts until they’re all gone? In my experience, people usually gravitate towards the big, oddly shaped, and cleverly wrapped packages. People will fight over one specific gift—stealing, trading, and hoping that what is inside is worth the effort. If you are a clever white elephant gifter, you can get rid of some terrific junk. One year, my parents had this giant pink ceramic piggy bank. It was a huge eye sore, but they wrapped it up nicely and watched as people fought over this heavy piece of junk, none of them knowing the “treasure” inside.

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