Pastor's blog

The crowd made him who he was. This last week Julie and I watched a movie called The Wrestler. The movie follows Randy through the high’s and low’s of a professional wrestler. Don’t worry, no spoiler alerts. But I will tell you that it’s about a guy named Robin who likes to be called Randy. When he’s wrestling in the ring he goes by the name, “Ram.” He’s Randy “the Ram” Robinson. Randy has bleached blond hair, a dark tan, and big muscles. He looked the part of a professional wrestler, but it was the crowd that made him who he was.

Here are some familiar statistics. 85% of our country considers itself Christian even though 40% of Americans can’t name more than 4 commandments, only 35% make it to church every week, and 12% think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. I find that last one hard to believe. But here’s something that really ought to catch our attention. 75% of the people in this Christian nation believe that “God helps those who help themselves” is a verse in the Bible. ¾ of this Bible-reading, church-going nation attribute to the Bible words that came from Benjamin Franklin.

At the coming of Jesus, Mary burst into a joyful song because all of her hopes for peace and love had come true. This Advent season, as we await the coming of Jesus Christ, we will join in Mary’s song because we share her hope for peace and love among all peoples. We will listen to four different voices being intentional to include both genders and some of the diversity of this world that God has saved through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I’m sure we can all think of a number of times in life when we have felt justified. Just think of an argument or disagreement or friendly wager with a spouse or friend or co-worker. Think of a time when one of you was going to be right and the other wrong; one of those heated conversations that ends in, “Well, we’ll see won’t we.” We all love to say, “I told you so.” We feel so proud. We feel so right. We feel so justified. We also know what it’s like to have to justify our actions. Every golf season I need to justify to Julie why I need to buy more golf balls even though I’ve been telling her how well I played. In other words, I need to prove to her why it’s right for me to do so.

What is it? We often hear that it is somehow tied to our salvation. We have been "saved by grace through faith."

Ransom. Substitution. Satisfaction. Words that we can define that describe Jesus' death on the cross. They just don't do much for our spirit. Expiation. Propitiation. Words that not many of us can define that do the same thing. Still nothing for our spirit. What words can we use to understand the atonement and draw us closer to God?

Wrath is a rather ominous word. I wasn't sure what ominous meant actually, so I looked it up. Here are some synonyms: threatening, menacing, fateful. Those words definitely seem to capture some feelings we have about wrath. We think of Sodom and Gomorrah or the plagues of Egypt. No doubt thinking of wrath leads us to think about God. God seems threatening and menacing too.

To be righteous is to be committed to what is right. God is righteous. We can all agree on that. The question is, what is it that God is committed to? It makes a difference.

Gospel means good news. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote gospels (other people did too, but they aren't in the Bible). Some of the things they wrote don't sound very good. What's up?

Baptism is an important ritual in the Christian church. It represents a lot of the blessings and benefits that God promises. We know that Jesus was baptized. We know that Jesus instructed his disciples to baptize. But, did Jesus ever baptize anyone? If not, why not?