It’s Friday
It’s Friday…
And I have been thinking…
My mother used to tell me (and if she were around… she is, just in North Carolina, not in Chicagoland…she would most likely be telling me still…) that doing that… thinking… is dangerous….
And it is true…
We can think ourselves out of a lot of believing and trusting and knowing…
Just as much as we can think ourselves INTO a lot of believing, and knowing things that are not real, true, or good for us…
Into trouble in other words… dangerous, as my mother often said….
My point is that seeing or not seeing, is not believing.
Nor is feeling or not feeling the same thing as believing. Faith has nothing to with feeling anything…
And / or thinking many, or much, of the time!
We can’t see or feel our faith.
Faith is a gift of God and it just trusts Him, at His Word. That is what it does.
We can and often do feel its effects…
We can think about those things we are to believe in—the objects of our faith…(Him from His Words)
And this simply because God is Gracious enough to send His gift of faith (and more of it as we go) in and through simple vehicles… means… modes… containers… ways…
Water, Bread, Wine… and these always with the necessary wrapper of His Words.
These we can touch and taste… can hear and see.
And we are to take them just as they are. Just because He says so.
Understand? Ha! Yeah, you and me… understand? Not a chance!
But that does not matter. We need to know what we need to know so that we are in the place God wants us to be to receive them correctly. That is easy. Church on Sunday morning.
And… especially with regard to the Lord’s Supper, as that has a warning attached. Family only. And family only that agree. Not family that all understand at the same level, but that agree together, that what and why we eat and drink are the same.
It is Holy Communion, after all. How can you be communing with each other if you are not of the same mind? St. Paul’s very point, when teaching the Corithian church (and us, as it was not just for those churches).
No, the Lord’s Supper is not just between you and God. That is why you cannot go to just any church and have communion and be ok. It is not just vertical, but horizontal too. Always.
Anyway, back to faith and how and what we believe.
I may have mentioned this in a sermon…
I used to struggle… and thought I was either (Ye of little faith) lacking faith, or mine was not genuine, because I had a hard time with heaven.
I could not imagine beyond this life. It scared me. If I could not imagine what it was going to be, how could I want to go—death frightened me—not because of how I would die, but what if I would not want what was offered…after getting there…?
I mean, some people have described it (what I grew up hearing) and I want nothing to do with that kind!
Spending all eternity just singing and playing a harp in the clouds? What a bore!
Did I just say that? Yup.
But some people don’t have much of an imagination. And they consider the harp playing thing pious and all godly and stuff…
Sorry… not what I want. Can’t be that… but what…?
So… though…
Just because I cannot imagine it… see it in my mind’s eye…
Does not mean I can’t believe it (in it)!
I am to just take God’s Word on it, that it will be great. I have to trust Him.
I have not had much of a problem with the Lord’s Supper… I can’t think even before I was a Lutheran, that I did…
A little with Baptism… but that did not last too long…
So… just trust Him at His Word about heaven as we do about the Lord’s Supper.
And I am not just talking about the sections that talk about heaven or life and death…
But about what and how God created things… what He gave Adam and Eve to do… (some may not like being gardeners, but there was a lot more in this world… in the universe than just the little patch of acreage in Eden…)
What about all those stars with plantes? I often now wonder how long it would have taken Adam to build a starship…?
I mean had they not fallen into sin…
So, what is the new heavens and earth going to contain, I wonder?
A text that I now keep in mind that has gotten me over this issue of my imagination is:
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. [1 Corinthians 2:9]
So, when Luke is trying to convince Han Solo to help him rescue the princess… he says that she can give him a reward that is “…more wealth than he can imagine…”
Han Solo says: “I don’t know, I can imagine quite a bit!”
So as my mother said, I most likely have been thinking (imagining) far too much!
And yet, what is in store for us is so far beyond that… beyond what I NOW could think about…
So, I am looking forward to our Good and Gracious Lord blowing my mind…
And still, NOW there are things here that we are still discovering that He has built into this creation that still awe and overwhelm us…
Have you seen some of those pictures coming from the new telescope (The James Webb) in orbit?
Not to mention that I still am wowed by reading Scripture. I still find new and amazing things, all the time.
So yes, even though this is Friday, thank God that Sunday is only 2 days…
Where we again get a piece of that which defies all current realities… where the infinite enters into the finite…
God Himself, comes into our world, our lives, our bodies, our minds, our hearts… and…
It is not the way He did so what He created everything. No. This is different.
This is for YOU. For Me.
This is new… this is better… this defies the world, the flesh and the devil.
The cancels death. And its cause.
Imagine it! Can’t. That’s okay. God has said so. That is good enough for me… and for you. You will see.
He can’t wait for that day when these eyes (like Job’s) and your eyes will see it… when you will see Him face to face.
Then a realer, solider, (more-er, biggerer, betterer) life begins. Well, in truth it has already begun… the day that water was applied on your head in His Name…
And God never makes a mistake, O baptized Child of God!
Come and see. Come and hear. Come and taste…. That your God is Good. What He has to give is REAL GOOD. A good that has never been before. One that we cannot make up or create for ourselves. No, it is one to be given us. And He will be there to give… and that in abundance.
Yes, in two days Sunday will dawn and arise in our heart. He will… Because Christ is Risen!
This coming Sunday – Rogate Sunday – Sixth Sunday of Easter – May 10th – 2026
Old Testament – Jeremiah 29:11-14
Psalm – 107
Epistle – James 1:22-27
Gospel – John 16:23-30
Sermon – TO BE DOERS – Based on the Epistle Reading – James 1:22-27
Prayers: For a lasting peace in our world and in our cities. That there would be between the people of Israel and Gaza as well as for the people of Russia and the Ukraine. That the war with Iran would come to an end quickly and that justice would be served. That the people of Iran would be free from tyranny and that the evil there would be put down. For our congregation that it would please our Lord that we would increase in numbers and there remain in this place a congregation that calls upon Him rightly, practicing the faith according to the Scriptures. For those who are being persecuted and murdered because they call upon the name of Jesus—especially in Africa. For the end of violence in our cities and that our schools and congregations would be protected from those who wish them harm. For our families that parents would courageously discipline their children and raise them in the fear of the Lord, teaching them about salvation in Jesus alone.