Faith will hold Service tomorrow at 10:00 AM. It’ll be online, so you can come in you pajamas if you want!
For those with computers and internet access use this link:
https://webconferencing.cuchicago.edu/witte
For those without computers or internet access call:
1-571-392-7650
And use conference number:
468 843 8423#
Please check in 15 to 30 minutes early. Remember that we are all learning this first week, so be patient. God bless and keep you. Pastor Becker
Thank you Dennis Witte and Concordia University Chicago for the tech and tools to make this switch! In the face of the Governor’s ban on meeting in groups greater than 10, we are moving Sunday Morning Divine Service online. Denny is our point and technology guy and deserves our thanks. Make sure that everyone knows that we are making this move. Don’t have a computer, that’s okay. A phone will work. Ready for instructions, here we go…
For those with computers and internet access use this link:
https://webconferencing.cuchicago.edu/witte
For those without computers or internet access call:
1-571-392-7650
And use conference number:
468 843 8423#
Please check in 15 to 30 minutes early. Remember that we are all learning this first week, so be patient. God bless and keep you. Pastor Becker
Greetings in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ,
As we and our community continue to work with the effects of the coronavirus, or Covid-19, I would like to take a moment to answer a couple of questions. The first is a question regarding why God would cause this virus. The answer is that God did not cause this virus. The world has been fallen since sin entered the picture with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. There the world was broken so completely that it ceased to run like God had intended. Death entered the world along with sin. It is from that fallen condition that our current pandemic stems. God will use even plague for the good of the world according to His own design, and we trust in Him to do the right thing for us and all who believe.
The second question is, “what can I do”. Always start with prayer. Pray for all of those who are suffering, out of work, sick, out of groceries, or in danger. They need your prayers. Yes, God cares when we pray. It is not “merely wasted words in an empty room” as someone online recently stated. God cares, listens, hears, and responds to prayer. So pray. Also remember that as Christians, God’s people, you can show God’s love to all those around you. If someone needs groceries, pick them up for them. If someone needs meals, let us know. God’s Church at Faith in Buena Vista is ready to respond. Let us bring people God’s love!
The final question is what is Faith going to do? We will conduct our last regular Service for a couple of weeks on Wednesday, March 18th. Services will then be shifted to an online format. We are working toward accomplishing that already. Don’t have a computer? Don’t worry. You will be able to check in to Service with a phone. Continue steadily to hear God’s Word. From that Word comes faith and strength, strength that you will need even more in this time of crisis. We are also working out arrangements for Holy Communion. We will not neglect Word and Sacrament even in the face of national emergency, but we will be smart and care for our brothers and sisters even as we continue.
More coming soon,
God bless and keep you,
Andrew Becker
Pastor
Faith Lutheran Church Buena Vista
What an incredibly fluid situation we are in.
Since yesterday’s announcement that we would go forward with Lenten Soup Supper and Service we have gotten more information. In light of this information we are canceling the soup supper portion of our Wednesday night. As we continue to review more information we will make announcements as necessary. As of right now we are planning on going forward with Wednesday Lent Service while practicing social distancing. If there are changes we will endeavor to get them to everyone in a timely manner.
God bless you all.
Andrew Becker
Pastor
Faith Lutheran Church
There is never a time that your Pastor’s attention wavers from its laser beam-like focus on God’s Word. Well, except for basketball season. Oh yeah, and when driving cool cars. Or when something comes up with his wife or kids. Or friends. But other than that, laser beam focus. Yeah.
In seminary, I was taught that your first vocation, or calling, is always to God, then your family, then your work. But it is sometimes really hard to keep things in order. Your eyes and mind get distracted, pulled away, by the things of the world. I know the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me”, (Exodus 20:3) but it is so easy to let other gods slip in.
I know, I know, we aren’t building golden calves in our backyard and saying, “this is my god” but anything that displaces God from the center of your life can become an idol so quickly. People bow at the altars of sports, and money, and sleep, and popularity, and so many other things, quickly losing their focus on God. People try to change God from the God revealed to us in His Word into something more to their tastes, making their own God in this way, as well. Idols are so easily built. But what can you do?
First things first. Make God’s Word a priority. A recent survey showed that only about 20% of those identifying as Christian read their Bible regularly. I don’t know about you, but I have to read books in order to ingest the material in them. Sleeping on them doesn’t really help. And the Word of God is more important than any other book. The Word of God comes with a promise, “so shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I purpose, And shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 5:11) So get into God’s Word regularly and with joy knowing that, through it, He is doing wonderful things, like giving you strength and faith to make it through whatever would distract you, and bringing you back to God.
Also, remember to gather together. God has given you a wonderful gift, a Church. You have a family forged in the water of baptism. It is a place of refuge, a place of strength. So be in it. “Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:25) God meets you in Church with Word and Sacrament. He meets you there with loving arms in His people and body and blood in His Sacrament.
There we gather and are strengthened, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1) Our focus may waver, but Jesus’ does not. He is there waiting for you, ready to strengthen you. Ready to help you focus as you run your race.
There was an old documentary called, “On Any Sunday.” It was over motorcycle sports. I think it even won an academy award a long time ago. However, motorcycles aren’t my topic today. My topic is the title “On Any Sunday.” On any Sunday people sleep in. On any Sunday people enjoy time with their family. On any Sunday people go to church. I know, churches may not have as many people attending as they once did, but it is still true. Jesus’ Church still exists. Wherever God’s Word is faithfully taught, and the sacraments, instituted by Jesus, are faithfully observed, there Jesus’ Church meets, and will continue to meet until our Lord returns.
The world is in a constant state of turmoil. Society changes and ideas change. God does not change. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17 ESV) There is comfort in God, who never changes and whose word does not come and go like the shadows around us. There is peace in the constant presence of God’s Law and God’s Gospel, God’s commands that never change and God’s constant promise of forgiveness in Jesus. The world may debate what is right and what is wrong. We see wars and rumors of war, calamity, and disaster. Jesus warned us this would be the case. (Matthew 24:6, Mark 13:7) We need a place of stability and sanity. While we debate such trivial matters as, “is there a chicken sandwich place that is closer to God?” Jesus waits. Culture turns on a dime. On any Sunday Jesus’ Church waits with His unchanging Word.
Are we sinners in need of hearing God’s law and being called to repentance. Yes. And in church god’s law waits. Are we sinners weighed down with sin and needing God’s forgiving Gospel, the good news of Jesus forgiveness? Yes. And in church that Gospel waits. In Church Jesus waits in His Word, and in the water and Word of Baptism, and the bread and wine that He tells us is His body and blood. In Church God waits to give you His gifts of eternal life and salvation. In Church God waits to strengthen you with words that do not change, and comfort you with promises that do not change. No matter how wild or scary the world looks, Jesus Word is stronger, and it waits for you, any given Sunday.
One of my favorite authors is a British writer named Terry Pratchett. A thread that traveled through his books, was called narrativium. Narrativium was an element that all people had built into them. What Pratchett meant by using Narrativium was that a part of what made people into human beings was stories. The stronger the story, or the narrative, the more that it changed the life of the person involved.
Terry Pratchett was not a Christian. He was a humanist and either an agnostic or atheist depending on the day. However in this thread of narrativium I believe that he catches an essential truth about Christianity.
Christianity is a strong narrative, driven through the very Word of God, that changes us from those who are lost to children of God. That narrative begins, “God said.” God spoke the world into existence. The first thing that was said was the beginning of the most powerful story ever told. God made the world, and everything in it from angels to crickets by speaking. Man would require a hands-on approach. God formed man from the dirt of His created world and breathed into him the breath of life. What a story!
Some of us know how the story goes. Adam and Eve defied God and the perfect world that God had created sputtered and began to grind. Things didn’t run as they were meant to. People died! But God didn’t leave things there. He promised a Redeemer. One who would buy back and set right this broken world.
This Redeemer was there in the beginning, and always part of the story. The beginning of The Gospel of John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
No matter how the world sputtered and groaned, here was the Redeemer that was there from the beginning. God Himself becomes man and begins the monumental task of setting things right. John the Baptist doing his work of preparing the way for Jesus sees Him and announces God made man to the crowd surrounding him. Once again from the Gospel of John, “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’”
What an introduction! And the story just keeps getting stronger and stronger. Jesus, God made man, takes on the sins, the things we do that separate us from God, of the world, in His baptism. Therefore He carries all of our sins with Him to the cross. As we are baptized into Him when He dies our sins die. Every time that we look upon a cross and remember that this is true, we can remember that God and man are reconciled. Once again from John, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” What a story, this is a dialogue so strong that it changes us.
That Narrative changes people. It is so important that the story begins to drive us. One last clip from the beginning of the Gospel of John, “Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” We, who have been saved, are so moved so changed that we cannot help but to echo Philip, “Come and See.” See where I find peace. Hear the ancient story. This is why I am who I am. This is why I do what I do. The narrativium takes over through the Word of God. We gain an identity and a purpose. We are Christians. We follow Jesus.
“Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for His steadfast love endure forever!” (Psalm 118:29 ESV) Here we go! Holiday time is coming up fast. We have Halloween, oops I mean Reformation, and Thanksgiving, the ladies have the Gingerbread Bazaar that they work toward all year, then Advent, then Christmas, does it feel like the clock is ticking, are you worried that you are behind. Don’t worry nobody is perfect, well, one man was, but He was God and man. The rest of us are a bundle of worry, stress and often failure, and the devil and the sinful world would love to point out your inadequacies.
“Behold I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalm 51:5 ESV) “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:19 ESV) “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-9 ESV) “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosedin heaven.” (Matthew 18:18) This is the state of everyone. Even all of those who look like they have it all together. As a Pastor you get to see behind the curtains. Behind the curtains everyone has faults, everyone has struggles. We are all ducks on a pond attempting to look serene while paddling like crazy. One of the oaths taken by Pastors is to take the sins and shortcomings of those who confess their sin to him to his grave. An old saying is that the ear of your Pastor is a tomb for your sins. They go in, and don’t come out. It is comforting that someone is there to hear you when you know that you have sinned and that your confession of sins will go nowhere. However, there is something even better.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 ESV) Those sins that are confessed, and even those sins that we are not aware of, are carried by Jesus to the cross. There the one who had no sin, God and man together, died so that we may live. We are not found innocent because we have done well enough, or struggled hard enough. We are found innocent because Jesus called us His own. We are baptized into Him. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:3-5) Go on. Walk in that newness of life. Live sure of the resurrection. As you struggle and paddle like crazy know who you are. A child of God. An heir of heaven. One forgiven by Jesus’ incredible sacrifice. Feel the burden lifted from you. You are free in Christ Jesus and forgiven. Have a blessed Thanksgiving and holidays. Give thanks, and enjoy the hustle and bustle. “Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for His steadfast love endure forever!” (Psalm 118:29 ESV)
The Gospel of John records the calling of Nathanael. John 1:43-46 reads: The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Faith Lutheran Church is looking for a mission that leads us all to such excitement at serving Jesus that we can’t wait to tell those we meet, “come and see.” To begin this process we will have a vision meeting on September 29th following service. This meeting will be to gather ideas to begin, implement, and work together in Jesus’ name under the theme 1 Mission, 1 Year, 1 faith. What we need to begin this process are your ideas of a mission or ministry where Faith can serve Jesus, our Lord, and our community in a focused manner for 1 year and beyond. If you have suggestions and cannot make the meeting please include them in the suggestion box in the narthex. If you can make the meeting help all of us with your ideas as we brainstorm together. Let’s be a blessing to each other and the community in Jesus’ holy name.
