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Redeemer Lutheran Church - LCMS

 

A message From Pastor

(Spoiler Alert: I’m going to use something similar to my newsletter article for the children’s time on December 13.  Read on if you don’t mind a “rerun” on Sunday.)

 

Dear Members and Friends of Redeemer

 

What do you want for Christmas?  Every Sunday, the very same day we go to the Lord’s house, the Saint Cloud Times arrives at our homes, fatter than Saint Claus with a bag full of gifts.  We are presented with pictures of toys and TVs, tools and technology, yearning to be “on our list” for Christmas.  What do you want for Christmas? 

 

Have you ever thought about why you want so much?  Deaconess Kimberly and I are reading a book for our morning devotions entitled The Genius of Luther’s Theology:  A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church.  The book was written by Dr. Robert Kolb and Dr. Charles Arand , both professors at Concordia Seminary, Saint Louis.  This past week we came across some profound insights from Dr. Luther on “Why we want so much?”

 

Luther recognized that people may substitute another human being’s approval for the approval of God, or seek affirmation and security in material goods.  The human heart makes many idols, but Luther refers to mammon (an expression for material wealth, especially ill-gotten gains or money) as the most common idol on earth.  Those who lack it lust to acquire it.  Those who have it fear losing it.  (p. 86)

 

Contemporary “Mammonites” seek security, happiness, fulfillment, and pleasure in the acquisition of material goods …. To obtain these benefits, people devote much of their time to acquiring as much money as they can, not for physical needs, but for the “spiritual” satisfaction that they think it can bring.  As the money comes in, they purchase things they hope will provide them with identity, image, self-confidence, and the like.  Their style of living increases, and with it their expectations.  The stuff they acquire satisfies for a short while, but then it leaves them empty and wanting more.  This then feeds another cycle in which they have to serve mammon by working to obtain ever-increasing amounts of it in order to finance the ever-greater expectations of a particular lifestyle.  In this way it proves to be a cruel god that ever promises but never satisfies.  (p. 87) (Emphasis mine)

 

In the 3rd Petition of the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  In its simplest explanation this means we pray that God’s will becomes our will or, stated another way, that we want what God wants.

 

What does God want?  He wants us.  He created Adam and Eve to receive His gifts and His love and be His own people.  He called Abraham to be the father in faith of all who believe.  He preserved Israel in slavery and rescued them from Egypt and brought them to the promised land.  Even after He cut His people and their kings down to a stump for their rebellion against Him, He raised a tender shoot from that stump of Jesse.  That tender shoot was Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, a descendent of King David who was one of the sons of Jesse.

 

What does God want?  He wants us.  That is why He sent His Son into the flesh, conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of Mary.  That is why He gave His Son over to death on a cross for our sins.  That is why Jesus ascended into heaven and now sits at God’s right hand ruling all the events of the world for the sake of the church—for our sake.

 

One of my favorite pages in The Lutheran Study Bible is the Presentation page found at the front of the Bible.  It reads, “The Lutheran Study Bible, the story of the salvation of _____________.”  Mine, of course, reads, “The Lutheran Study Bible, the story of the salvation Bruce Alan Timm.”  The Lutheran Study Bible is heavier than the heaviest Saint Cloud Times ever published.  The Bible is God’s Holy Word, covering 4,000 years of history in which God worked, planned, promised and finally delivered His Son Jesus Christ so that He could have us.   God wants us to be His own dear children.  That is what He wants at Christmas, at Easter, from the very beginning, until the last day, and every Lord’s day in between.  Contrary to the cruel god of mammon, the true God is gracious and giving.  Therefore we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

 

In Christ,

Pastor Timm