Many Changes, Worries, Transitions In Daily Routines, Yet Rooted In Christ

Suddenly life is happening very quickly. This past month has brought on a lot of changes and new opportunities. A new home, the to-do list of unpacking and settling in, a new job, kids who are now a year older, a looming birthday for myself (yikes 34), a few exciting opportunities, and more responsibilities. All of these things are exciting and worth being quite happy about. Yet, so much change so quickly has a way of stressing me out, making me anxious, and challenging me.

Now, I certainly know that all of these is the normal stuff of life. Such things are not unique to just me and my experience. Everyday life in its own right has a way of being chaotic. When our plates get full we can easily get overwhelmed. Normal life can leave us feeling perplexed as if we are a tumbleweed without any roots.  It's easy to lose track of who we are.

People move all the time.  From one continent to another, or from one state to the next. We simply moved across town.  So what gives when I feel homesick? I think it has a lot to do with leaving good and bad memories behind. I wholeheartedly LOVE our new place, but there is still the gap of not having created many memories in this home yet while the past seems so far out of reach. Also, there are the new routines that come with a new home. Certainly these routines are good, but establishing them takes discipline. Discipline and planning the management of a household is hard work, and not everything always happens the way I'd like. The kids knew their routines before, but it seems much of that has to be retaught because the laundry hamper and toy boxes are in a different location. Establishing new routines challenges my patience... and perhaps my sanity.

It's the same with the kids having birthday's and getting older. All the memories seem so very far away.  My kids grew up so much in the past five years at our old house.  The move draws a lot of attention to this, along with the celebration of three birthdays. I miss the toddler days, the sweet baby smell and soft coo's and silly giggles at their daddy. This is amplified as I still continue to grieve the two that passed away before they were born. Yes, even years later, these things stick with you. Memories that seem so long ago or that never were. The thoughts of what should have been, linger in my mind. I certainly adore watching the kid grow through each stage, I just wish the other stages didn't seem to vanish so quickly.  What if I forget how they were as little kids?

What If????

Changes in life, even when they are good lead me to ponder the "what if" question a lot. Even positive changes can leave one feeling insecure or fearing that somehow everything is going to turn bad. A new job as exciting as it is can bring on a good share of worry too. What if my new boss is difficult? Will I fit in with my co-workers? Will I miss big moments in the life of my kids now? Is my marriage strong enough?  How am I going to spend all of this new income? I quickly can get carried away thinking I should control it all on my own.

Life changes have a way of turn our eyes back to ourselves. We easily can become prideful, greedy, conceded, puffed-up or the stress of it all can cause us to crumble into our anxiety. The devil wants nothing more than to use the circumstances of our life to tempt us and cause us to doubt who we are in Christ.

As much as life changes one thing never does. Christ and His Word. His promises remain the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. When I worry, sin and doubt, Christ takes me up and finds me, calling me through His Word and Sacrament. There in the Divine Service I receive forgiveness, righteousness, salvation and strength. When all the changes wear me down, Christ says come to me and I will give you rest. Our Good Shepherd doesn't send us out to be lost in the pasture of life.  He comes with us.  All our needs He well provides us.

When the tumbleweeds and thorns of a fallen world seek to drag us out of the fertile soil, God's Word reminds us to be still and know that even as life changes we are still redeemed and rooted in Christ. As my family and I gather for devotions and prayer we find rest and stability through the working of the Holy Spirit in this restful routine. We are also reminded that the stuff of life, home, family, love, joy, memories are gracious gifts of our Heavenly Father. As a family, we remember who's we are, children of God in our baptism. We, therefore, are rooted to bear the crosses of life, all life's changes and transitions in peace with each other within our vocations as we live and serve together.

Sweet Friend, Cling To Christ Not Your Dream

It's not a secret, I have a distaste of false spiritual statements that are cheesy, puffed up, legalistic, or self-centered.  I've written about the tumultuous path of false spirituality here and here.   Honestly, most of the stuff produced by women who write and market themselves other women via the mainstream postmodern Christian culture falls into this category of false spirituality. Or a spirituality of glory.  I am not trying to engage in any particular personal attack on any of these women, that's simply not the goal.  My case is against the false teaching that these devotionals and social media posts promote.  Typically many of these things deal with our feelings, personal experience, Christian living, and individual purpose.

Here is a prime example of the kind of material, that sends shivers up my back, and not in a good way.  This was posted a few weeks back by popular author Lysa Terkeurst.

"Sweet friend, I don't know where you are as you read these words. I don't know the circumstances of your life. I don't know the dream God has given you. Maybe you don't either… yet.

But I do know you're reading this post for a reason… to be reminded that God has a plan for you. A dream you can't even imagine, an assignment you can't figure out and wouldn't even dare to consider as being for you.

I pray that you will find great hope in these words today that God really can use any woman who surrenders her inadequacies and circumstances to Him. ‪#‎WalkinFaith‬" 

You may be wondering why this sort of thing bothers me.  Perhaps, you think I am a bit of a curmudgeon and I should learn to lighten up a bit, after all, the advice helps so many, and it makes people feel good.  But what is the hope that is uttered in these few short sentences?  Where is the spiritual center?  At the end of the day, the focus of these words is founded on a dream, and not a very concrete one at that. Sure all of this jibber jabber may be just the therapeutic Facebook post you thought you needed at the end of a long day.  Yet in reality it's lofty, vague, elusive, and abstract. This sort of material confuses Law, Gospel, and the blessing of vocation, by encouraging us to get closer to God and His blessing by what we can produce from within ourselves.  God's will is so much deeper than just achieving our earthly dreams.  I know our Old Adam, our sinful, nature wants to do whatever possible to clamor up to God, to find signs from within that indicate a hidden knowledge of what God's will is.  But the thing about our dreams is that often times they are quickly fleeting and lead us only to want the ideal (fake) green grass on the other side of the fence.  Simply put, statements like this do not genuinely offer the relevancy the modern Christan woman claims to crave, these statements do not offer the truth about the kingdom of God.

We need more. 

We need more than fancy strings of words that only point us back to ourselves.  

We need more than the hopes and dreams of our flesh.  

We need more than the devil's temptation that we can somehow know and hear the will of God deep within ourselves or a self-appointed spiritual guru.  

The path to God and what he wills for our lives is not found through our surrender.  We can never surrender enough.  Christ is our surrender. Our dreams and our imagination can not bring us to God, The path to God is the cross.  We are brought to God through Christ who sought us through His sinless life, death and resurrection.  Jesus says of Himself "I am the truth the life and the way".  Jesus breaks into our lives from outside of ourselves.  He finds us in our inadequacies, brokenness, and dark circumstances. The blood and water that poured from His side is our healing balm.  Salvation from sin, death and the devil is God's will for us.  His will is done, finished on the cross through Christ.  Christ Himself declares it.  This surrender of Christ makes us whole, gives us life and frees us to love and serve our neighbor.  In this new life, there is no dream too small, task too mundane or purpose to trivial.  We are free to be daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, co-workers, friends.  By faith, we know that God uses our hands to care for others, pray for others, and deliver Christ to others. 

Sweet friend, I call you my friend in Christ our Savior.  We may share the life of motherhood together, or our circumstances may be completely different.  We struggle beneath the cross of Christ together, we may have achieved much or our dreams may have been shattered.  Yet, in our brokenness, the light of Christ breaks through.  His loss is our gain.  His Word is our life.  His truth is our truth.  We are yoked together through Christ's surrender so that we may be called redeemed, the apple of His eye, a servant to others, an heir to eternal life. 

Simply Christmas

The clock is ticking down, it's just a matter of hours until the ticks turn into the sound of ringing church bells as people gather for Christmas Eve service or Mass.  The Advent candles have been burning brightly through our preparation and waiting.  The time is almost here!  The tree has been up for a week or so, a little later than usual, but it should last nicely until Epiphany. The shopping is mostly done.  The dinner menu is set.  Church clothes, outfits, and PJ's have been selected.  The house is well decorated with the children's crafts, paper loop garland, and musical lights. Oh, and many Christmas carols, books, and movies have already been enjoyed.  

Yet as I sit and type this post I am fretting over a rather long to-do list.  Actually this post was procrastinated so that I could get some of the list done.  Somehow I think that if I put stuff on a list it will "magically" get done.  Like a bathroom remodel taking place two days before Christmas.  Yeah, not going to happen.  I am not going to be waking up on Christmas morning to a new sink and fresh paint.  If I'm lucky it will get done before school starts.  Even still there is a lot to do.  Ahem..wrapping presents and sending cards (hey cards will make it before the 12th day of Christmas).  And it's not like I can set aside all the normal stuff of every day in order to do the Holiday stuff.  Laundry and dishes still pile up, meals need cooking, kiddo's and dogs still need bathing.  And who can forget the floor, it needs sweeping multiple times a day because of the mud that gets tracked in, and the dog hair. Keeping up with four kids is hard this time of year.  I love it.  But it's hard when school is out and Christmas is right around the corner. They are not wrapped up into Santa.  Well, the two youngest kinds of "believe" in Santa this year, but according to them the guys at the mall are fake. So one thing we don't have to worry about is standing in line for two hours to get a shotty over priced picture. However, this also means that my four precious sinning children can't be fooled into being on their best behavior either.  The Wagner house has been more like the opening scene of The Grinch these past few days. 

So have I made it through my to-do list? Have I checked it twice? Nope. And the list seemingly just gets longer.  It a good thing that Christmas is 12 days long, right?  The advice of many may be to just keep things simple.  But simple can be really complicated sometimes, just take a gander on Pinterest. Simple is simply not simple, but often times just another way of keeping up appearances.  It's just way to easy to get caught up in the details and the way the perfect family Christmas looks on those grocery store commercials that are so sentimental they make me cry.  Yes, I'm a sap!  It seems more like just rushing through the season, going through the motions when the simple details of ideology take over my life.   

So What Should Really Matter? 

Yes, I still have a ton of stuff to do, and a good bit I want to do but... It's not all going to happen. Who cares if there's a huge pile of laundry in my room on Christmas morning. It's all just little details. There really only a few things I care about.  Primarily going to church and receiving Christ's gift of Word and Sacrament.  After all God didn't wait for us to to complete some lofty list before He sent His Son.  That baby was born because we can't be perfect, make things perfect, keep the law, or simply get our lives in order enough.  The Word became flesh to dwell with His creation to take up our ideology and sinfulness to give us His perfect righteousness. God's simple gift is His Lamb.  So as we gather to worship tonight on Christmas Eve and tomorrow on Christmas day, we receive Christ simple gifts of baptismal waters, absolution, and  the supper of simple wine and bread, His very body and blood, for the forgiveness of our sins.  We get a foretaste of the feast to come as we hear and sing the words of the angles.  Glory to God in the highest! 

Having the peace of Christ I can slow down and enjoy the blessings of this Christmas time.  I can then simply enjoy my family.  I can take comfort in the forgiveness that they also have received. I can teach my kids to be grateful and kind to each other. I sit and enjoy time with my wonderful husband.  We can sing together.  We can celebrate.  We can marvel at the Christmas lights. There is no need to fret that our house is not the image of a magazine or that all of the Holiday events are not perfectly orchestrated.   It's a good thing that Christmas is 12 days! Many of the other details, like making  cookies and fudge, will be nice additions to stretching out our celebration of the birth of our Savior.

Out of the Deep We Call

Reflection on Jonah chapter 2

Out of the deep I call  Hymn 327 TLH    

To you oh Lord to Thee

Before Thy throne of grace I fall

Be merciful to me

Out of the deep I cry

The woeful deep of sin

Of evil done in days gone by

Of evil now within

Out of the deep of fear

And dread of coming shame

All night till morning watch is near

I plead the precious name

Lord, there is mercy now

As ever was, with thee

Before thy throne of grace I bow

Be merciful to me

Jonah was desperate!  His life was a mess…. To the point that he faced death

He thought he could run…. What did it matter he thought, God can just get someone else.

I can’t go there! They are some wicked people… why do they even deserve God’s warning!  Besides that they aren’t even the chosen people, they are Gentiles, not Jew!

What is God thinking!

So Jonah hopped ship… and ran… he thought if he could just get to Tarshish, at that time the very edge of the knowen world, he be free of this wrenched responsibility of being God’s messenger!

But now Jonah finds himself sinking, and sinking fast…. In the mist of the storm the sailors had no choice…for the sea to be calm, they had to pitch Jonah over broad….

Hurled into the deep, into the very heart of the seas… the currents swirled about…. The engulfing waters threatened Jonah’s life…

It’s dark down there is the sea.  It just a few hundred feet until you reach complete darkness.  Perhaps you’ve seen the Movie finding Nemo… remember the part when the 2 fish find themselves so deep the sun light could no longer penetrate though the water.  If you saw the movie in the theater it got pretty dark didn’t it?

Suddenly the journey of the fish becomes very uncertain.  They are most defiantly lost in darkness.

In sin we are lost in darkness

We face the stormy darkness of sin daily

The darkness of the world of sin surrounds us all… Just watch the evening news. There’s over 40 murders involving guns in the greater Jacksonville area already this year.  Divorce ravages family’s (it’s the norm now days.)  The financial rope gets tighter and tighter, but the gotta have it list get longer and longer.  Every where we turn there’s gossip and slander, selflessness and greed.  It’s a dark place… and we are a part of it.  Sin is a reality for all of us, and the road of our sins is not a bright future.  The road of sin is shame; it’s stormy and dark.  Often times we find ourselves caught up in this darkness.  The storms of our sins are painful, filled with anger, hurt and hatred.  We behave like animals… we run and hide, which usually amounts to more sin, but it just gets stormier.  The waves of sin engulf life, shattering us to pieces.  And we fall desperate!

Jonah was desperate!  He knew what this storm was about.  He knew he could not hide form God.  Jonah sincerely feared that he would die, and face the eternal darkness of being completely separated form God.  Jonah knew this is what he deserves.  To try to run from God what was he thinking!

 Led to repentance though the storm God had sent, Jonah cries out to the Lord

Unlike the gods the sailors, who thew Jonah over board, Jonah’s God, our God… the one true God is full of mercy and grace. And provides it! But through a whale… why not a boat with a rescue squad…. Or a raft. Or at least some floating dabre that could carry him to dry land.  A whale sure isn’t what I’d expect… But sure enough God’s grace is through a whale.  Jonah is grateful, and full of thanksgiving.  God had responded to His cries, “In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me.”  From the Depths of the Grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry”

In the belly of a whale Jonah experiences Gods Salvation!   

In his prayer Jonah states: “ to the roots of the mountains I sank down: the earth barred me in forever.  But YOU brought my life up form the pit. O LORD my God.”

From the pit, from the grave, from the darkness of sin Jonah was brought up in to new life! 

Some may say that Jonah’s account of all this was mealy fiction, a myth, or allegory.  But fact this miraculous experience of Jonah’s surly is though the hand of God, Jonah’s experience is a kind of foreshadowing of the death of Jesus on a cross, His burial and resurrection.  Jonah was preserved in the Whale’s belly for 3 days, then spit on to dry land. It seems foolish to think that a man could survive such an ordeal.  It seems foolish that Salvation would come thorough death on a cross.  Jesus was not at all what the world expected!  He was humble, and lowly.  He ate with sinners, touched those who were considered to be unclean.  He did not live the life of a great king, he did not sit on a thrown or wear a crown, or lead a great army.  How was a carpenter’s son supposed to rule the world?   But what seems foolish to the world… a world trapped in sin, is God’s compassion, as we take a look closer we see Is God’s great mercy.  A grace so undeserved but so freely given.

As we drown in sin, God gives us life through His Son.  He sets us free, from the captivity of the surrounding darkness, from our sorrows and pain!

Though the darkness Jonah faced was extreme, it is only a tiny sliver of the darkness Christ endured for us can HE confronted and conquered death.  God’s gift of life is far more then an extended earthly life. Jonah’s thankfulness of his salvation is heightened as he realizes God gives an everlasting life, a life that we will spend with him, in His temple, in his arms of love. We have been raised up from the pit of sin!  This is God’s plan, God’s plan set forth before creation, to send his Son to live a perfect life, to take all our sins, the ones committed, the ones we have yet to commit, the ones we know of and the one we do in ignorance. The sins that only give death, Christ takes up, and bears, he suffered and died and rose.  He conquered death so that we may have New Life.  So that we may stand. Forgiven and redeemed, cleansed of our sins though the blood of Christ, not at all because we deserve it, Because we don’t.  This was all done for us in love, a compassionate love of grace and mercy.     

In the things of the world we find only sorrow and death “those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs”

But because of the grace of God we can cling to the cross.  We have been set free from the darkness of sin.  When the storms of life push us down, when we seem to be drowning in sin and shame, when we sink in fear, surrounded with the darkness of sorrow and grief, pain and desperation.  We can cry out to our Lord!

My daughter is very much a daddy’s girl.  They share a truly wonderful relationship.  Though she finds comfort in mommies arms… her daddy can do almost everything and fix just about everything!  Whenever things go wrong her cries are Daddy… Daddy… Help me!   Through Christ we have the privilege to cry out to out our Father in heaven.  Father, Abba… help.  Martin Luther often called out to God “Lord Save Me!”  God heard Jonah’s prayers; he hears our prayers he listens. And he responds with extraordinary mercy.  He can do everything and fix anything!   The climax of Jonah’s prayer is Salvation Comes through the Lord!

This is the climax of our lives, the Salvation freely given to us through God's Son!

With a song of thanksgiving Jonah receives the grace of the Lord, and sacrifices back what he had vowed; to be a servant of the Lord.  To deliver the Good News of God’s compassionate love, and mercy.  Jonah is spit out by the Whale on to dry land, and continued on to Ninavah as God commanded Him.  Through Jonah God takes the news of His mercy and grace to the Gentile’s, it is a clear testimony that God’s Salvation is extended to all people. 

As lay leaders, more importantly as members of the Body of Christ we are, redeemed and Sanctified, and placed on dry land, God’s path.  To be messengers of The Good News.  Everyone we come in contact with, struggles with sin, and has felt its darkness just as we have.  It is the ultimate mission for us as God’s servants to share this comfort of the cross with all people, saved and unsaved.  God will hear our cries, our repentance from sin, He will lift us out of the deep. His love for us is grace and mercy, that we may have life!  Salvation does come Through the Lord!

A Stolen Hero

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming the law for us.” Gal. 3:13a

Spoiler Alert!!!  The hit British TV series Downtown Abby just recently ended its third season.  Over these episodes viewers have gotten to know the aristocratic family and the house staff.  The story line has moved from the sinking of the Titanic though the First World War and into the 20’s.  So much has taken place as viewers have been captivated with the deeply significant roles the large cast has taken on.  However, there has been one who has stood out these past few seasons as what you would envision as the “hero” of the story.  Matthew Crawley, the unlikely heir to the estate, a completely Middle Class stranger to the rest of the family in the beginning, now deeply loved and cherished by all.  Matthew has played the role of hero time and time again.  From the beginning this character has never done anything that would make him unlikable to anyone.  At the end of season three the life of the Hero seemed to just be coming together as he and wife Mary begin their family.  Viewers anticipate watching his life unfold as he takes on managing the estate escorting it though a depression and into a more modern era.  Tragically this is not the case, suddenly during the last minute of the season finale Matthew Crawly is in a car accident where he appears to be fatally wounded.  The way the scene plays out allows for the viewers to get an idea that something bad is about to take place.  Hearts were pounding and eyes covered.  I recall throwing the blanket over my head and yelling at the TV “no no please stop… no oh no…”  I imagine many viewers experienced shock as I did.  The hearts of viewer were crushed!!  The hero of the story was ripped from the story line  never to return again, as millions of viewers posted “how can this be??” on Facebook.

              
 How the hearts of the disciples and friends of Jesus must have been crushed as they watched their Lord suffer the tumultuous events of the Passion.   What agony it must have been for the disciples when just a few hours ago they had been in the Upper Room celebrating the Feast of the Passover with their teacher.  What a future they were looking forward to! After all wasn't he supposed to be the promised Messiah, wasn't he going to be king?  Now their hero was hanging on a cross like a common criminal though he had not committed a single crime or sin.  Who would blame the disciples for their reaction of denial and hiding, their hero was ripped away as they muttered “how can this be”?

               
We today like the disciples find it far more comfortable to take refuge in our denial and hiding.  We hide in the mist of ourselves and what we want and what pleasures the world would have us seek, based on our own reason and strength.  Most of the time we don’t even realize we are doing it. Idolatry has a grip on us and like the disciples we seek and cling to an earthly kingdom.  A kingdom where we make the rules, where culture has become our dictator, and what feels good reigns supreme. The twisty words of the devil even whisper to us “use this method or accept this and you can grow your congregation.”  The root of the problem is the same as it was so long in the Garden, the one liner of the devils temptation “did God really say”?  This lie bends and curbs our eyes inward to doubt and forget the Word of God.

 Most significantly we do this when we forget “who” the story of scripture is about approaching the Bible as if it were about us rather than Christ’s history.  We rip the hero away.  When the bible becomes a guide book to a better life we seek to make the gospel a different gospel.  This is not a new trend in the history of the Church.  Paul admonishes the Galatians for doing this very thing “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel- not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” (Gal. 1:6,7) In our doubt we seek to find God outside of where he has located himself, Word and Sacrament.  Believing the twisty parsel-tongued words of the devil most of the time we seek God within ourselves, our merits and feelings.  As we do in our hearts we whisper against the cross “how can this be?”

But the Word become flesh is not content to let this be.  Jesus has more for us then an earthy kingdom.  Our Lord desires us to be a part of a heavenly kingdom. Therefore this hero refuses to be ripped away from the lives of the disciples, from our lives, and from all of history!  Oh, no the tomb cannot contain him!  He is not content to let our eyes be bent and fixed on how we must save ourselves. On the cross Jesus took all of the twisty words of Satan, our sins, and our doubts, saying “you cannot save yourself but I will suffer for you.  I will fight for you.”  Jesus the everlasting hero has fought for us, for you, winning the war with the shedding of his blood.  In Him the kingdom of God is at hand, as the promise of the empty tomb reconciles us to God for all eternity!  By faith the Holy Spirit unhinges our eyes from the depths of our own navels up to the cross of Christ, so that we can proclaim “Hosanna to the highest”.  In his Word and in the gifts of Baptism, Absolution, and the Lords Supper, Christ locates himself; foreshadowing the Kingdom to come, sanctifying us and preparing us for our heavenly home. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteous and all these things will be added to you.”  (Matt. 6:33)