How shall you meditate on the sufferings of Christ so that they have their way with you?

This Wednesday we stand on the cusp of the “Triduum,” or “Three Days,” in which we celebrate the sufferings that our Lord undertook for the redemption of the world.  To guide you in that celebration, I offer you three questions: who, what, and why?

Who suffered?  The Supper tells the story: “given and shed for you.”  The One who suffers is the One who is for you in all that He does and all that He is.

What did He suffer?  Sit with this word: betrayal.  Unwanted at His conception, contradicted in His teachings, blasphemed for His miracles, and abandoned by disciples and nation alike, Jesus suffered great betrayal.  He was truly “given up.”

Why did He do it?  Given and shed for you, He must have done it for you.  His universal betrayal leaves Him standing as the only Trustworthy One.  He breaks us from trusting in ourselves to trust in Him alone.

For these next three days, then, see nothing of your own faithfulness.  See, instead, this Jesus being faithful for you.

LET US PRAY: You, Jesus, are the faithful one; You are the worthy one; You are the Faith of the church and the Grace of God.  Let all creatures in heaven and on earth adore You, even in Your miserable sufferings, for so You have redeemed the universe.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15)

When you look at a dead man, what hope is there?  What hope is there in a serpent?

The serpent lifted in the wilderness was an image of a poisonous snake.  The Israelites had hoped to travel with more ease through the wilderness, and for such hope (such impatience!) God sent these snakes to afflict them.  He then provided for his people’s healing by telling them to look at an image of the snake.  He used the serpent to dash their false hopes and make way for His own work.

By linking Himself to this snake, Jesus casts His crucifixion in the same light.   As St. Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 5:23).  We may hope to avoid the sting of death through good and healthy living, but on the cross God turns us to see the Best and Healthiest Man Ever stung to death!  He dashes our meager hope of escaping death and instead makes way for His best work: the resurrection.

There is our hope: the Resurrection!  We trust in God alone for help; we trust in Him to act.  With Him, we may even look on a dead man, yes, even on our dead selves, and look forward to the salvation of God.

LET US PRAY: O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas: teach me not to dread death, but rather to love Your Son, the Resurrection and the Life, and to live in the hope of His glory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)

Please note: it’s the word of the cross that strikes some people as folly, and not the cross itself.  The world has a weird ability to justify punishment, suffering, and death.  Such crosses are necessary, people say, to discipline society, or to strengthen our character, or to make us appreciate our blessings.  Something in the human soul wants to make the cross reasonable.

But the word of the cross, the preaching of Christ crucified—now here is something wholly unreasonable.  This word proclaims that rule and might, wisdom and power belong to the One whose cross did nothing good.  Who shall dare to justify the murder of God’s Son?  The word of the cross renders all explanations absurd and unmasks the foolishness of the human race.  What horror to hear that the salvation of our race comes from such absurdity!

Yet to you who are being saved, surely this word is the power of God.  By the proclamation of Christ’s absurd death, you are given a Savior who redeems you in your own foolishness.  For now, having risen from the death that did nothing good, He has the authority to bind or release those who do nothing good—and for you, His word is, “Release!”

LET US PRAY: Speak Your word into my flesh daily, O Lord, that my body and soul would revive in faith, endure in hope, and shine with love, to the glory of Your Name.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:35)

Someone once wrote an article reflecting on his grandfather’s decision not to invest in Xerox back when that company first started; instead, he put his money into a company that did not last.  “What could have been?” the article mused.  Some investments go nowhere; others produce more than we could imagine.

Jesus and the gospel are going somewhere: there’s the promise behind our Lord’s words in Mark 8:35.  It’s not as though Jesus were setting up a moral test—“If you try to save your life, I’M GONNA TAKE IT!”  Rather, He sets forth the absolute truth: everything lost for His life is saved, because His life is the true Life that abides forever.

I promise that life of Jesus to you.  How can I not?  He’s not holding onto it!  He let His life go on the cross, planting it in the sinner’s grave.  Even in His resurrection, He hands over His body and blood to sinners—and if He hands over His very body and blood to sinners, what would He ever withhold from them?  Clearly, the life that inherits the kingdom, the only life that bears fruit—it’s for you!

LET US PRAY:  Dear Jesus Christ, true Life: teach me to suffer all losses for Your sake with patience and thanksgiving, so that I may gain all that You promise, to the singular end that Your word be proven in me as in Your flesh, and Your glory thus abound.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12)

We’ve all seen it: a young athlete, less talented than some of his peers and rarely playing on the field or court, nevertheless devotes himself to grueling discipline and practice.  Why does he do it?  Perhaps he does so for the sheer joy of it, or because he wants the camaraderie of a team.

In the Church, we know that we are less equipped than our Savior to endure tests of faith.  Only one man remained steadfast; only one received the crown of life.  Yet now He has promised to share that victory with us.  Indeed, He even promises that whoever becomes like Him in His death (no worldly success there!) will become like Him also in His resurrection.

So why wouldn’t we, assured of His victory for our sake, not endure great hardship and discipline for the sake of this Man?  Why wouldn’t we, like less talented but aspiring athletes, take up the rigor of Christian way for the sheer joy of it, as friends and comrades of our Lord?

LET US PRAY: Grant me, O Lord, the patience to endure in faith whatever test I must face, not looking to my own strength of will or mind, but only to Your suffering and merit.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people.” (Exodus 24:8)

It sounds like the start to a really bad day, but it was, in fact, a glimmer of the Best Day to come: the day when Christ would redeem the world by His blood, shed on the cross for sinners.  That blood was made for throwing.

What good is the blood of Christ if it never touches you, on your skin, in your ears, up to your lips?  Even as the sacrifices of Israel preached God’s pleasure to that nation, so does the touch of this blood, cast onto you in the ministry of His Church, carry the promise that God has taken pleasure in you.

Washed in the blood, secured in that same blood by its preaching, and nourished with it by the Lord’s own command, we live in the freedom of canceled sin.  Better, we live in the freedom of our Father’s good pleasure.  “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”—He spoke those words for Jesus, and now this Jesus has touched you, making those words yours.

LET US PRAY: O Jesus Christ, Lamb of God: I praise and thank You for Your precious blood, shed for my sake, and the sake of the whole world.  Enliven and keep me always in this saving flood, and bring me through its currents to the fullness of Your kingdom.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”  (Isaiah 40:31)

It’s more than a statement about the future, although it’s at least the future—as our Lord promises, those who die with Him shall rise with Him into the bodily joy and freedom of His victory over death.  Yet even now, as Isaiah declares, faith (the resurrection pressing into “now”!) brings with it a virtue that we sometimes call endurance.

You see it in very human ways all the time: where a hope or dream motivates people, it can often inspire them to endure great physical distress until they reach their goal.  Perhaps you could simply call it grit: suffering produces grit in those who live by a hope greater than their own comfort.

This dynamic that we see in an everyday way comes to its finest expression in the Lord’s way.  He’s given us a great hope, the promise of a new life and new creation in Him, disclosing His friendship with us now and forever—indeed, Christians should never forget the startling promise that His Church will rule with Christ in the world to come.  Such promises are the Church’s grit, its youth and strength, its reason to endure and press forward in confidence.

LET US PRAY: Grant me strength, Lord, to endure patiently all that I may bear in this life, setting my eyes not on things that perish but on Your Word, which never fades.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.” (Deuteronomy 18:20)

“What?  I never told him THAT!”  Whenever we find ourselves misquoted or misrepresented we object and want to set the record straight.  “No, what I really said was . . . .”  If we care so much for our speech, how much more must God care for His!

By His words, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1, Psalm 33:6, Hebrews 11:3).  So also did Jesus heal the sick, cast out demons, and preach good news by His words, and by His word believers are born anew (1 Peter 1:23).  God is jealous for His word for good reason—on it hangs life and salvation!

Here is why preachers and doctrine alike matter so much.  Both have to do with God’s word, the very word of life.  Each generation of the Church seeks to raise a new flood of preachers so that they may carry that word forward, not only to safeguard its truth—“God says THIS, not THAT”—but also to share it, that many may hear and believe.

Whom do you know who would make a good preacher?

LET US PRAY: O Lord of the harvest, raise up preachers after Your own heart who so love Your word as to study it, cherish it, and teach and proclaim it freely; through Christ our Lord.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau

“The body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” (1 Corinthians 6:13)

Perhaps you have heard the first part (“not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord”), but how frequently have you heard the second part (“the Lord for the body”)?  Your body, that two-legged thing that you are, with all its wobbly bits—the Lord is for it.  He is intended for it, you might say.

It’s the promise that the Church may not make frequently enough.  God sent our Lord Jesus for a specific purpose: to become flesh (John 1:14), that He might bring about “the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). These bodies, headed towards the grave—God wants them.  He wants you, flesh and bone, both for your sake and for His glory, that His creation might experience the joy for which He created, namely, His Son.

Thus He sent His Son to cancel the power of sin, death, and the devil and to reveal God’s redemption in His own flesh.  This flesh He now bestows on the Church, His new creation, by joining believers to Himself in the Spirit and promising them a share in His resurrection (what else is Holy Communion?).  Your body (you!) has a Lord, a groom and a guardian, and therefore, it has a future (a happy one!).  And so, as St. Paul writes, glorify God in your body (1 Corinthians 6:20).

LET US PRAY:  O God, who created our father, Adam, from the dust of the earth, and fashioned our mother, Eve, from his side: we praise You for Your new Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son, sent into our flesh that our flesh might rise in His Spirit.  Grant us grace to glorify You in our bodies, living for You, even as You live for us; through Christ our Lord.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau     

“We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him.” (Romans 6:9)

This past Christmas, as we prepared for company, I offered to get the relish tray for my wife.  “You can’t,” she said.  “It broke last year.  Remember?”  So it goes: after 20 years, some of our wedding gifts are wearing out or breaking, a little reminder that most things don’t last forever.  

Yet one thing does: the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Can we even imagine it, a life utterly free of death?  Death sets the boundaries of our life in ways that we don’t even stop to consider, yet Christ’s life has no limits—“death no longer has dominion over Him!”

What such a life really is, we do not yet know.  Yet we know this: the gifts that Jesus gives, coming from this deathless Man, endure forever.  The Name He gives you in Baptism, the forgiveness He declares to you, the feast He sets for you—these things remain true, even at the graveside.  They are eternal life.

LET US PRAY: Immortal God, who became our flesh that we may rise in the flesh and live forever: by the Spirit of Your resurrection, grant us courage.  Banish our fears in the face of death, and free us for faithful service in Your Name, by which we pray.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau