“Come and see.” Jesus gave this response to two disciples who inquired as to where Jesus was staying. Philip gave this same response to Nathanael, who listened to Philip’s testimony about the discovery of the One “of whom Moses...wrote,” and asked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

“Come and see.” Most people in our community have heard the message of John the Baptist: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” What a message to proclaim to a sin-ridden, broken world. The problem is that the majority of the people in most cities have never accepted this message or received Christ in repentance and faith.

While there are various reasons for this – pride, self-sufficiency, blindness to true values – we need to consider the possibility that there may be something wrong with or lacking in the methods the church uses to broadcast this message to the world-at-large. Perhaps the key lies in the interpersonal, eyeball-to-eyeball approach of those first followers of Christ, as exemplified by Philip, who invited Nathanael to “come and see.” 

We are all ministers of the Gospel. We all have our little parishes or arenas of service. We can’t coerce people to faith in Christ. We certainly can’t convert people, that is the task of the Holy Spirit. We can, all of us, in one way or another, invite people to “come and see.” 

They ought to be able to see something of God’s love and saving power in our lives, in the things we say and do, and if we are authentically loving and concerned about them, we may be able, as was Philip, to lead such people to the Lamb of God “who takes away the sin of the world. May our Lord help us be witnesses to others on His behalf by our words, our goals, and our activities.

Galatians 4:4a “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son.”

The time has come. The long-promised Messiah has arrived. Redemption has taken place. God’s salvation is available. We are now the sons and daughters of God.

It is difficult to believe – to keep on believing – in this astounding intervention and activity of God, but it is true! We have been restored to the family of God. It began with Christmas; it culminated in the cross and the Resurrection. “Beloved, we are God’s children now...” wrote John (1John 3:2). And to make this amazing fact an everlasting conviction in the lives of true believers, “God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts...” (Galatians 4:6).

If we had to rely on our worth or status or any ability of ours to make this come to pass, it would never happen. But it is God’s doing. God came to us. He adopted us. We have within us the very Spirit of Christ.

God forbid that this incredible restoration to Himself should even become commonplace or mundane. May it always be exciting, enriching, renewing, and result in a joyful abandonment of all that we are and have to God and God’s eternal purposes.

The consequences of the Christmas event in our lives is so profound and almost unbelievable. But we do believe in God’s grace, and we begin a New Year by celebrating this cosmic event and its glorious consequences for our lives and the lives of all who embrace and follow Jesus.

Many years ago, the wife of a poor man died leaving him with five children, ranging from age six to fifteen. The older children assumed many of the household chores – cooking, cleaning, and helping the younger children.

When the man came home at night, he always brought a bag of groceries, food for the next day. After he set the bag on the table, he hugged each child.

Before they ate, he read from the Scriptures, and they prayed, Many nights before bed, the children begged their father to sing with them. He frequently played his guitar and sang folk tunes.

The first Christmas after his wife died the man said to his children, “This year there is not enough money to buy presents from the store. Instead, we’ll all draw names, and you will make a present for one of your brothers or sisters. My gift to you will be a fine Christmas meal and a special song I am writing. We will learn it in the weeks before Christmas and sing it in church onChristmas Eve.”

True to his word, the father wrote a wonderful song of joy for the children, and began to teach it to them three weeks before the night of the Christmas service. The children loved the song so much they sang it with great gusto and volume.

Another man, who lived above the family, hated Christmas and hated music even more. Night after night he listened to the children sing the new Christmas song. It irritated him so much that he developed a plan to silence the singing. Several days before Christmas he knocked on the door. “I have come to make you an offer.” He said to the father, who listened carefully with his children standing behind him. “I will give you $300 if you promise not to sing for three months.”

The father looked at the children. “That is more money than I can make in a week,” he cried. “We will be able to buy presents for everyone in the entire family.” The children cheered as the father accepted the money, and the man’s terms.

That night they began to plan silently how they would spend the money. The next evening, after they ate, they sat quietly, reading and thinking. On the fourth night, one of the younger children said, “I’d rather have music than any present. This isn’t worth it.”

One by one, the children agreed. So, the father walked into the bedroom, retrieved the money, and walked up the flight of stairs to return the money to its owner. “We have discovered that there is something more important than money,” he said. “I am sorry that our singing irritates you, but it fills us with joy. Our family can’t imagine Christmas, or life itself, without music. When we sing, we celebrate the best news that has ever been given, that God so loved the world that he became one of us, living as a human being.”

When the father rejoined his children he said, “We will learn to sing with greater feeling and less volume. In our joy we don’t want to irritate our neighbor. What do you say to that?”

The oldest child spoke for them all, “We say: ‘let the music begin.’”

Our great God has through the Holy Spirit equipped us redeemed people with all that is needed to make the church a powerful, effective instrument in a power-mad but powerless world today. God is always out to do the impossible: to bring order into disorder, purpose into purposelessness, fullness into emptiness, healing into sickness, and to restore aching, hungry hearts back to God. 

God can do this, however, only through faithful people as individuals and as members of the Church. It seems, however, that we the Church have not discovered or recovered all the missing talents, or have invested God’s gifts to us in ways and matters that serve our own programs and purposes rather than human need in the world about us.

Instead of us finding answers to the problems of our world, we have too often been a part of the problem. May our Lord enable us to fulfill our servanthood by using our talents and gifts to us to communicate God’s love and grace to people in need.

Our Lord’s parable “The Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids” is a forewarning and forearming of His followers for a future event of tremendous significance. It has to do with our Lord’s final coming to our world. This final coming, whenever it happens, may take people by surprise.

This was true about Jesus’ first coming. Though our Lord’s final coming must ultimately be accepted, it is not really expected by many in our world.

The final coming of Jesus will find many not ready for His coming. All ten of the bridesmaids had burning lamps; five of those lamps burned out. Could this happen to us?

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” said Jesus. We are called and empowered by God’s Spirit to be loving, serving, devoted Christians in our world today. By being such, we are thereby hastening the day of Jesus final coming and are prepared for that final coming - whenever it may be.

May we be more enthusiastic and intense and conspicuous in our witness to Jesus and His kingdom as that great Day approaches.

November is almost upon us. Many changes outside will continue to happen that started in October. Living in Minnesota, we are blessed with the changing of the seasons. Mary Jane and I were able to visit both in Minnesota north and south as the colors of the leaves came into brilliance. It’s a grand chance to watch and experience. But it also brings on the changes in temperature that we don’t always appreciate!

November 1 is a Sunday this year and we get to experience an extra hour of sleep as we turn the clocks back an hour to Central Standard Time. The church doors will be open even if you show up for an hour early for worship!

November 3 is Election Day in the U.S. We have a great opportunity to serve our country by voting. It may not be as crowded at many polling places due to the many people who have mailed in their ballots this year. I still prefer to drive to our polling place and vote in person. That many change as age continues to creep up.

November 11 is Veterans Day (and Blood Drive), a time to remember and honor our service men and women.

November 22 is Stewardship Sunday at Christ Lutheran, a time to pledge our time and resources for the coming year as God has blessed us.

It has been a vastly different past ten months with the onset of Covid-19. We hope and pray for an end to the pandemic. I can still remember “the good ole’ days” before the pandemic hit. Hopefully we will return to those days again soon, Deo volente! (God willing.)

We celebrate life and its blessings as we give thanks at our Thanksgiving Eve service at 7 pm on November 25.

Each of us has been blessed in countless little ways, and some big ways, for which we are thankful. Within this setting at Christ, we have been blessed by God to be a blessing to others. And to whom much has been given-yes, you guessed it, much is expected

Let me share with you a story that I heard. The story is titled: “The Cookie Thief.”

A woman was waiting at an airport one night with several long hours before her flight. She hunted for a book at the airport shop, bought a bag of cookies, and found a place to sit while she waited for her flight. She was engrossed in her book but happened to see that the man beside her, as bold as could be, grabbed a cookie from the bag between them. She tried to ignore him, so as to avoid a scene. She read, munched cookies, and watched the clock as the gutsy “cookie thief” diminished her stock. She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by, thinking, “if I wasn’t so nice, I’d blacken his eye!” With each cookie she took, he took one too. When only one was left, she wondered what he’d do. With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and broke it in half. He offered her half as he ate the other half. She snatched it from him and thought, “Oh, brother, this guy has some nerve, and he’s also rude. Why, he didn’t even show any gratitude!” She has never known when she had been so galled and sighed with relief when her flight was called. She gathered her belongings and headed for the gate, refusing to look back at the “thieving ingrate.” She boarded the plane and sank in her seat, then sought her book, which was almost complete. As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise. There was her bag of cookies in front of her eyes! “If mine are here,” she moaned with despair, “Then the others were his, and he tried to share!” Too late to apologize. She realized with grief that she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief! (Author unknown.)
 

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Pastor Drews

Jesus spoke to those who believed while, apparently, the unbelieving Jews were listening too. The tender faith of those new believers needed strengthening. Others whose new faith wavered already had left him. For their faith to grow and for them to be truly Jesus’ disciples, Jesus told them to “hold to his teaching.”

Jesus’ Word leads us to him and keeps us with him. The mark of true followers of Jesus is that they remain true to his Word, where they learn the truth, and the truth makes them free.

We learn that Jesus is God. We learn that we have forgiveness with Jesus. We learn that Jesus leads us to our heavenly Father. Those truths set us free – free from the curse of sin, free from death, free for eternal life.

We praise God for Jesus – the True One from the Father who will set us free!