We here at NRP hope you have a wonderful Resurrection Day, filled with the grace-filled preaching of the Gospel of Christ for your salvation. After taking your sins to death on the cross in order that you might be freed from the shackles of sin, your debt paid forever, our Lord Jesus rose from the dead, just as was foretold, defeating sin, death and the devil for all eternity.

Our Father loves us, his flock, so dearly that He gave His only begotten Son that we might have eternal live with Him. What a wondrous and glorious gift.

In His gift of faith, we are clothed in Christ’s perfection, all His perfect works imputed to us, credited as righteousness. It is finished. The battle is won, fought by the great Healer and King in our stead, stepping in and fighting the fight which we could not.

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blest.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

But, lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day:
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of Glory passes on His way.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia! Alleluia!

He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Excerpt from “For All The Saints”, LSB #677;
You’ll hear me quote this, my favorite hymn, fairly often

Like many others, I was a bit shocked to hear the abrupt cancellation of the wonderful Issues, Etc. radio program and termination of Pastor Todd Wilken and Jeff Schwarz by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), which owns the KFUO radio station. But, I do have to say that this news is not completely surprising. Honestly, this sort of thing has been brewing for a long time.

Many have been trying to guess as to what is behind this seemingly sudden move, and I won’t try to join that crowd here, but I would like to focus on a couple things. Please keep both Pastor Wilken and Mr. Schwarz, as well as Jeff’s wife who is pretty sick right now, in your prayers. This is of the utmost importance.

Secondly, especially during this Holy Week, please remember what we Christians celebrate and recognize was done for the sins of the world in Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is easy at times like this to get lost in the wickedness in this kingdom and forget that our Father can create wonderful and great things from such tragedies as this. I already have suspicions about some truly great possibilities in the future that could dwarf what came before. I would recommend that we all hold tight in this respect, be as patient as we can, and see what comes of this.

This isn’t to say that anger and indignation isn’t appropriate. Sometimes lines are crossed that simply demand a visceral reaction. If anyone understands the need to sometimes be loud and angry, it is I.

But I would ask that, as you pray for our dear friends from the former Issues, Etc. radio program, please remember that this is not hopeless. We celebrate the most hopeful event this week that any sinner could wish for.

Our Lord became man and took the sins of the world to Himself and took them to death that we would have eternal life with Him. All thanks be to God!

Under the completely sufficient imputed righteousness.

I was talking with a friend the other day and we were discussing lent in general and Holy Week in particular. Personally, I love the Church year, especially Advent and Lent. Of course my favorite days are the Twelve days of Christmas and Easter, but I digress. Joe and I were pondering the emotional roller coaster ride that the disciples must have gone through the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and how that compares with the “solemnity” and “repentance ” that we often feel obligated to drum up during lent and Holy Week. In reality there is no comparison. Foregoing meat or sweets or whatever else we deny ourselves for lent just never made sense to me. It seems unrelated to the subject at hand.

Imagine that you are one of the disciples. You have cashed in whatever life you once had and thrown your lot in with Jesus. You spent the last three years with Him, wandering around the country side, listening, watching and learning. Every once in awhile He says some things about dying and rising that you really don’t understand, but other than that you think you have a pretty good grip on His program, and those ‘hard sayings’ are just metaphors you haven’t figured out yet.

His hour has finally come and you are jubilantly riding on His coat tails as He is welcomed as the King of Israel in Jerusalem. All the sacrifice is about to pay off and you will be an important officer in His kingdom. Your wildest hopes and dreams are coming true right before your eyes. Your country will be restored to it’s former glory, and you are working with the Messiah-King, right in the center of things, helping Him to restore God’s rule over the land. It doesn’t get any better than this. You are in the right place at the right time.

Then things literally start to go to hell. Betrayed by an insider, Jesus’ inner circle prayer meeting is raided by the religious police. You are woken from a comfortable sleep. A brawl and a knife fight ensue. Someone is stabbed. You all flee from the authorities. Jesus is taken prisoner. In moments the whole plan comes unraveled. Your life as you had come to know it is over. You went from being an important official of the new kingdom to a wanted fugitive in just a few minutes. The next morning a kangaroo court is hastily convened, and by that afternoon Jesus is dead, and you and your friends are in hiding. Although sudden, Good Friday must have unfolded like a slow motion train wreck, going from bad to worse. Everything you had worked for is gone. Everything Jesus had promised you is gone. You cannot return to your old life, its gone too. You have nothing left.

Two days later Jesus appears to you and your friends, having risen from the dead. Your hopes and dreams are thrust back upon you in such a shocking fashion (albeit greatly changed) that you really don’t begin to grasp its true significance until Pentecost.

This is what they would call back home a “whipsaw,” to be suddenly and violently wrenched from one position to another and back again. How do you even begin to get your mind around it? The amazing euphoria, the rage and grief, the jarring return of hope. How does someone handle something like this?

The apostle John seems to have handled it. He followed Jesus at a distance during His trial, even attending the crucifixion and comforting Jesus’ mother.

Peter, on the other hand, doesn’t do so well. He starts a brawl, cuts off a guy’s ear, then runs away. He too follows at a distance, but denies Jesus by telling the lie/truth that he “knows not the man.” The statement is a lie because Peter is clearly a disciple and has talked to Jesus almost every day. It is also true because after three years Peter really had no idea what Jesus had been saying all this time or how He was bringing His plan to pass. This is Peter’s confession of his failure to understand Christ and to hear Jesus’ words in faith.

As for the other disciples, the Scriptures are largely silent, but it can be assumed that they went off and hid.

Even after all this time, the recounting of these events leaves us with many questions, and a couple of answers, and that is why I think that there is value in revisiting the events of Holy Week each year. What happens to our hopes and dreams, and even our lives, when all we have left is a dead Jesus? As believers, how do we deal with the Peter, John, and missing disciples that dwell simultaneously in each one of us? How well do any of us really understand Jesus? I think this is the repentance that lent and Good Friday call us to.

God has answered all this by reconciling all things to Himself in the death of His Son, and raising Him to life so that we may obtain the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. In light of this I am convinced that no matter what happens to me in this life, in the end it will be okay, and Jesus will make it so. The resurrection is the guarantee that “whoever trusts in Him will never be put to shame.”

It is my hope that our readers will avail themselves of the many worship opportunities available this Holy Week, culminating in the Feast of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, and ponder the lessons of lent and Easter throughout the coming year.

God’s Peace