When Darth Vader Came to Church

It came as a surprise to me, too.  My colleague before Christmas was doing a children's word and got the children excited by telling them that someone was coming to Bethel!  Someone was coming to Bethel!

Of course, in December, the universal response to that announcement is Jesus in the manger.

Not this day.  The organist began playing the "Imperial March", and peoples' heads started to twist in the sanctuary.  Soon there were gasps.  A Storm Trooper came into view from the rear of the sanctuary.

The Storm Trooper had a message for the pastor. Someone was coming to Bethel.  She relayed that excitement to the children!  Surely the answer this time would be Jesus.

Not this day.  The organist played the "Imperial March" again.  And greater gasps marked the entrance of a huge Darth Vader!  With his deep and digitized voice, Darth Vader informed that there was a force greater than Star Wars, and that force was going to come to Bethel and all churches.

Genius.  My colleague is a genius.  I pray that children may never forget the force that defies time.  He is the force for all ages.  Finally, Jesus was the right answer.

Amazing what happens when Darth Vader comes to church.

His Name is Dean

On a cold December morning, a man comes into Bethel while the building is full of children preparing for the morrow's Sunday School programs.

He asks to see a pastor.  Dean tells me that he has been out of prison for two days.  With tears in his eyes he says, "I didn't mean to hurt that person.  I was drunk.  I didn't know what I was doing."  Whatever his offense was, he served seven years.

In the two days since being released from prison, Dean tells me that someone has stolen his sleeping bag and his tarp.  He is hungry and wonders if the church has anything he can eat.  We are blessed to have a pantry of food--a pantry which varies a great deal in quantity depending upon the day.  I tell Dean I will go downstairs and I am sure I will come back with some good food for him.  I say it will take a little while since I need to wind my way through a few hallways to the kitchen.

All of a sudden a look of concern comes to his face, "You aren't going to call the law or something are you?"

It had never occurred to me that someone would be justified in being suspicious of another who might be attempting to help, but who could have other ideas.  I assure Dean that I am not going to call the police but am going for food.

We are fortunate.  There is some good food to share on a Saturday morning.  Dean is so grateful.  He asks if we can pray.  It is common that I offer a prayer and people offer their thanks.  In this case, when I am done, Dean takes over in a prayer of his own.  It is a prayer for me and for the people of Bethel.  It is a prayer that the Christmas message may make a difference in peoples' lives.

Dean thanks me again and walks into the cold December sunshine.

Another man long ago had no shelter--not even for a pregnant wife.  They were forced to Bethlehem by order of the government for census.  Joseph was poor.  Likely he was grateful for whatever was given to him.  To Mary.  To Jesus.

His name is Dean.  He is a child of God who, like all of us, needs the light that will overcome darkness.

Garden of Eden

One Sunday years ago at Bethel Lutheran Church, a visiting pastor from northern Mexico offered a greeting to the congregation as we were partners in mission.  It was late September in Minnesota--our little corner of the world bursting with God's creative impulse of color and beauty.

Through a translator this pastor said, "You people live in the Garden of Eden."

Coming from an area of the world that is more brown than green, more dry than lush, the pastor believed that he had come to a place of immense beauty.

He was right.  It is easy for those of us who live in the beauty of the upper Midwest to take our environment for granted.  Not long ago I took a cup of coffee out onto the deck of a townhouse at Christmas Mountain Village near Wisconsin Dells.  The sun was rising into the morning sky.  The trees stood like vibrant green and brown soldiers. Leaves fluttered in the light wind.

We read in Isaiah 58:  "Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard."

May God grant you a dawn that lifts your spirit and assures you of his loving presence.  It is difficult to look at the beauty of creation and not see God's fingerprints everywhere.

Garden of Eden.  Yes.

Still has Shrapnel in His Body

Tonight's news reveals that the second Boston Marathon Bomber has been captured alive.  Residents in the area immediately surrounding the capture site cheer the officers and emergency personnel who have brought a sad chapter to an end.  People of Boston breathe more freely tonight, even though the carnage of Monday hasn't changed, and there will be an exhaustive investigation as to how these two young men could possibly gain anything by killing some people and injuring hundreds of others.

Through the course of these last four days we have heard a certain resolve from the people of Boston and from an entire country.  Unlike some other tragedies, this one galvanized the will of a people.  More than once I have read or heard people say that forces of evil will not win.

They cannot win.

A few years ago I traveled in Israel for ten days with Shimshon, an Israeli who carried shrapnel in his  body from a suicide bomber twenty years ago.  He happened to be on a bus when the bomber performed his deadly act.  Some on the bus died.  Shimshon survived and vowed that, to his dying breath, he would fight those forces of evil.

The bomber failed miserably in his attempt to frighten a people into submission.  Conversely, it caused one man to step up to the plate in a new way.  Metal fragments cause him pain from time to time, but they also motivate him to tell the truth as he knows it to anyone who will listen.

Evil did not win in Jerusalem that day.  Evil did not win in Boston on Monday.  Instead, the forces of good come together to defeat evil.  Oh, evil will win a battle from time to time, but it will not win the war.  That war has already been won in Christ whose wounds are those of victory.

Prayers for Peace

Did the person or persons responsible for the bombings in Boston today know they would kill an eight year old?  Would it have made a difference?

Certainly that knowledge did not make a difference in the Sandy Hook tragedy in which the shooter took direct aim at young children (and adults, too).

What kind of evil possesses a person to take lives as if life has no value?  This is not something new.  It has been happening since the beginning of recorded history.  Those familiar with the Bible know that very early on a brother killed brother out of jealousy.

Ultimately in this world there is no answer for this kind of evil.  Each generation deals with its mass killings or bombings or acts of hate.  Each time we pray it will be the last.  It won't be.  It won't because of  the evil that lurks in this world.

We are in the season of Easter proclaiming life and new life.  We do not give in to evil but proclaim final victory over death and evil.  Those without conscience can rob us of almost anything in this world, but they cannot take faith and hope.  They cannot take the sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life.

And so we pray.  God in heaven, bring peace to a troubled world.  Bring comfort to those who have suffered loss.  Bring soundness of mind and spirit to all.  In the name of the one who looked evil in the face and won the battle for us, Jesus Christ, we pray.  Amen.

Pure Water

On the way into church this morning, a Bethel couple pointed out a sign just across Third Avenue from Bethel Lutheran. They chuckled that a water service has the "purest water in Rochester."

It was clear that the husband and wife were contrasting that water with the water we commonly use in churches to baptize. As it would happen, there was a little girl baptized in "pure water" this morning.

We are in the season of Easter. We have just come through a long season of Lent following Jesus' path to the cross. We have now spent eight days celebrating the resurrection that brings new life. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews in the Bible weighs in on this pure water: "Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary 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 approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water."

Bodies washed in pure water. Consciences made clean by the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ. What a gift.

I suspect that most of us want to drink "pure water." Is not a body washed clean by the pure water of Christ an even better gift?

Maybe we better put up a sign: "Try our pure water. You will be eternally thankful."

Shout Hosanna!

Almost 2000 years ago, the people of Jerusalem welcomed Jesus into their town with palms.  In 2013, the Wahl family welcomed little Jillian Jo into this world with palms.

Our three children were born on Super Bowl Sunday, Ash Wednesday, and the day before Ascension Day (honestly, Kathy did not want to wait one more day for the last one).  Now we have a Palm Sunday grandchild.

Jillian Jo's parents called us early on Sunday morning to announce the news--news which was a bit unexpected since her due date was Good Friday.  (Side note--Palm Sunday is a far better day to be born than Good Friday.  Good job, Jillian.)  The Rochester grandparents could hardly constrain themselves to get to a Twin Cities hospital to see this new little life.

But there were some delays.  First were the gatherings of hundreds of people in two worship services who would literally sing hosannas to the Son of David.  Palms were raised and waved.  But there were two people whose minds might have been elsewhere, wanting to welcome a new daughter of God.

Another delay.  We were hosting the annual Palm Sunday family gathering.  The extended family is too involved in many churches to break away on Easter, so we gather a week early at our home--this year about twenty of us.  The food and conversation were marvelous.  But there were two whose minds might have been elsewhere.

Finally, we turned our backs on our guests and told them to shut the door on their way out--we were going to meet a new granddaughter!

There is no gift in this world like the gift of a new life.  Lungs breathe life-giving oxygen.  Hearts pump the life to all parts of a new body.  A little finger moves reflexively, if not by will.  Creation is amazing.

There is one gift nearly like new life.  That is new life in Christ, celebrated around the world in a few days.  Jillian Jo may live to be 100 years old--or more, with improving health care.  But there will be a certain end, at least on this earth.  Then that life promised by God in Christ bears full fruit.

I can see palms waving in heaven the day Jillian Jo arrives.  And I can imagine that God will be even more welcoming and proud than a grandfather.  Hosanna!