God’s Motto of Mercy

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Author: Pastor Horton

Date: January 26, 2025

Passage: Luke 4:16-30

“Forward!” that is the motto here for the State of Wisconsin.  And it’s a good one.  Cities have mottos.  Where I first served in rural Minnesota there were some unique ones out there, like “Home of the Rollie Bollies.”  And “The smallest polka town in America.”  And where I served, in Morton, MN, it was known as “The Oldest Story in North America.”  A bold claim, but one evolution made as rainbow granite deposits supposedly were some of the older rocks.  We know they all dated back to creation.  States have mottos.  Alaska’s is “North to the Future.”  New York’s “Ever Upward.”  And Virginia?  Perhaps said in Latin by John Wilkes Booth after assassinating Abraham Lincoln, jumping onto the stage at Ford’s Theater, and injuring his leg “Thus Always to Tyrants.”  History has viewed his opinion differently regarding Lincoln.

Did you know that today in our reading Jesus shares with us God’s Motto of Mercy?  It was a motto he first shared with his hometown city of Nazareth.  There before the watching eyes of the synagogue worshipers he proclaimed: “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” 

To better understand the scene, it might help to review the setting taking place in the synagogue.  You might not remember these worship houses from the Old Testament accounts, but they seem to be everywhere in the New Testaments.  There’s a reason for that.  You may remember that back in the days of Moses, the children of Israel were to have one focal point of worship, that is the Tabernacle.  It was a specific tented areas that could be taken down and reassembled as Israel moved through the wilderness and into the Promised Land.  It housed, among other things, the Ark of the Covenant with the Ten Commandments inside.  And it was where God spoke to his people.  It was used for some 400 years until Solomon built the Temple, a permanent house of worship in Jerusalem. 

Based off the Tabernacle design, the Temple was then to be the sole location for Israel to make their sacrifices to the Lord as it stood at the heart of the nation’s worship.  There the people would pilgrimage up to Jerusalem for the big festivals throughout the year.  There the morning and evening sacrifices were made.  There blood was shed for sin each and every day.  But now make another 400-year jump forward…

And the Babylonian captivity had begun.  The children of Israel had been sinfully defiant towards God and despite plenty of warning, God allowed for his people to be conquered, uprooted, and in some cases killed or scattered.  The Temple was pillaged and destroyed, and the once vibrant worship life there grew silent.  But not all was lost, for the people repented.  They realized the prized possession they had when it came to the Word of God and wanted to be in the Word and wanted their families to gather together in the Word.  And so they began to meet, as we are this morning, in a local building set aside specifically for worship.  Wherever the Jews went on planet earth, they build synagogues for this purpose.  It is why when we heard of Jesus’ life and times, and also the missionary work of Paul in Acts, there seemed to be a synagogue in every town.

That basic structure from Tabernacle to Temple to synagogue has carried over into Christianity as well.  The apostles used the worship forms in the early Christian church that were familiar to the people.  We still today have tent-like churches, and an elevated altar area which focuses our attention on the Word of God (and in our case a large cross where the ultimate sacrifice once for all took place).  Even portions of the service, the readings, message, and music have some similarities.  But we don’t come to worship today for the architecture, or for the traditions, or even exclusively for the community, but we come to be connected to Jesus and hear from him as he proclaims a Motto of God’s Mercy. 

That’s what he did that day in the synagogue in Nazareth.  “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  Did you notice in our reading?  Where do followers of Jesus follow him?  To his Father’s house!  To church!  According to our reading “as was his custom!”  His sheep want to hear their Good Shepherd’s voice.  We want to be fed by him who is the Word made flesh and a fulfillment of God’s gospel promises. 

And how would this be received in Nazareth?  We’re told in this intense scene, “He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.  The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.”  The worship practice then involved seven scheduled readings (we have three), the first to be read by a priest (if you had one there) then by a Levite (if you had one there) and then by five reputable men of the town who were at least 30 years old.  They would then allow for discussion from the congregational floor so that not just anyone could say anything.  Jesus, a hometown boy, now of proper age to read, carried with him growing excitement over his words and his miracles.  He is asked to participate.  He reads from Isaiah, sits down, and begins to speak.  The Jews read God’s Word standing up to show respect and then would comment from a chair to show humility – that their commentary wasn’t on par with God’s message. 

What would Jesus say?  He would proclaim fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in himself.  As true God it was why he was here on earth – to live under the law for us as a substitute.  It was where he was going, resolutely to suffer, to die, to rise and to save.  All of Scripture was built upon him, and as true God he could perfectly fulfill it.

Nazareth’s reaction?  Stunned.  Impressed.  The listeners spoke well of him…at first.  But then something changed causing that great-gospel-motto to ring hollow in their hearts.  Human reasoning invaded and corrupted God’s truth.  “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”  They had known Jesus through the years.  Maybe he played with their children or was hanging around his father’s shop in his youth.  Him?  Isaiah the inspired prophet was talking about him?  Countless Jews through thousands of years were waiting for…Joey’s kid in this po-dunk hill town?  A young man we know?  How could that possibly be?  And then… things got complicated.

Knowing their hearts and the troubling condition they were in spiritually, Jesus addresses it.  “Do you need to see the same miracles in Capernaum in order to believe it?”  If Nazareth was a state, it might be Missouri, the “Show Me State.”  A slogan that supposedly came from a no-nonsense politician who didn’t want to hear someone talk the talk but walk the walk.  Or, Nazareth’s town motto might be the very quote Jesus speaks in our reading: “’Physician, heal yourself,’ and then, once you are proven, we may choose to believe you.”

What a mess!  It’s no wonder Jesus gives examples and holds up God’s great acts of mercy shown to non-Jews outside of the nation of Isarael.  To “a widow in Zarephath in Sidon.”  And to “Na’aman the Syrian.”  They had nothing special they offered God.  They didn’t choose faith in God.  And yet out of pure mercy and grace Jesus highlights the heart of God.  It is he who gives truth.  He who gives faith.  It is he who saves apart from ourselves.

This remains a good and necessary reminder for you and me today, worshipping in God’s house just like those folks from Nazareth.  Seeing can get in the way of believing.  Doubts and questions and ultimately fears can creep into our minds and hearts of faith.  Virgin birth?  Six day creation?  Jesus as God?  Great acts in lowly sacramental elements?  These are big truths we are asked to simply hear and believe.  They challenge our human reasoning.  As one pastor put it, “What if faith is simply faith and does not require proof?”  God does not need to answer to our intellect how and why he acts to save.  But rejoice because he graciously and mercifully saves us through Jesus. Rejoice that this message of forgiveness is for all.  Rejoice that he wants you and your family and hometown in heaven with him. 

Listen to Jesus who says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” “Blessed are you…for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”  Thanks be to God for his Motto of Mercy proclaimed by Jesus today!  Lord keep us in your word.  Keep our faith and our connection to you living and active and growing.  Keep us from all doubt and unbelief.  Keep us humble.  Keep us believing.  Keep us looking for opportunities to share this message with others.  And keep this motto in our ears, in our hearts, and in our lives until home in heaven with you.  Amen.

Look What God is Able to Do!

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Author: Professor Noah Headrick

Passage: Ephesians 3:14-21

Date: January 19, 2025

To him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,

to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

        Really? God can do immeasurably more than all I can ask or imagine? It doesn’t look like that.

                I had that Powerball ticket in my hand. I prayed like I’ve never prayed before. None of my numbers matched! No money. I didn’t even win my two dollars back. What gives? If God isn’t able to give me a billion-dollar Powerball payout, which I can totally ask and imagine, how is he able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine (3:20)?

                Well, let’s look closer at what God actually says in all these verses. Look what God is able to do! God’s power and ability are limitless, but sometimes God chooses to limit what he gives us based on his love. And that’s where Paul starts – God’s love.

                For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (3:14-17).

                Paul is praying for Jesus to dwell in the hearts of the Ephesians – to permanently reside in them so he can influence every choice they make, every word they speak, and every thought they think. In other words, he’s praying for their faith to be strong and mature.

                And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (3:17-19).

                What is Paul begging God for here? What is he hoping and praying his people grasp? The love of Christ. The enormous, humongous, gigantic love of Jesus Christ for us.

                And when you step back and take it all in, it is amazing. Think of what we were, what we are, and how much God loves us anyway. Earlier in Ephesians Paul wrote, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins; all of us gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts” (2:1, 3).

                All of us have been there. Some of you are still there. You do what you want. If you desire it, you pursue it. You don’t think much about what God wants because you’re too busy thinking about what you want. God’s will? God’s glory? That’s not even on your mind.

                And yet, even then, if you ask God, “How much do you love me?” he will show you. Look what God is able to do! God came to earth. God himself – Jesus Christ – wore our skin.

                Jesus took the burden of your sin into that skin. God nailed that skin, with your sin, to a tree. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Who could have asked for that?

                God’s perfect plan, to give us perfection through a perfect Substitute, was completed when he raised that perfect Substitute from the dead. Who could have imagined that?

                Look what God is able to do! He raised Jesus from the dead! Water to wine? Child’s play for Jesus. Jesus raises the dead! Give you everything you need for your body and your life? Of course. God raises the dead!

                Look what God is able to do! Nowhere is that more evident than in the wide and long and high and deep (3:18) love of Christ, who lived and died and rose for you!

                “Alright Pastor, I get it. Jesus’ love is big. But shouldn’t love give whatever is asked for?”

                Well, if you ask for a billion-dollar Powerball payout, is that what’s best for you? “Obviously!”  Maybe, but maybe God knows better than you do. Plenty of lottery winners have had their lives ruined by it.

                Conversely, plenty of people with cancer have said, “Getting cancer was one of the best things that happened to me, because it taught me to ‘rely on God, who raises the dead’ (2 Corinthians 1:9).”  Maybe God knows better than we do.

                Maybe that’s why Paul prays for spiritual maturity, because immaturity is a problem. Spiritual immaturity makes us pray for the wrong things or stop asking for good things.

                You give up praying for your children to turn around, because you’ve asked enough, and if God wanted it to happen, he would have done it. Or my sinful nature tells me, “I’ve talked to my new neighbor six times. Jesus has come up. He doesn’t seem interested. It’s not worth it. God can’t really do anything anyway.”

                Sometimes we live like sinful pessimists, and we don’t need to. Look what God is able to do: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us (3:20).

                It’s hard to convey the power of God that this verse shows, immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20). Our God is able to go above and beyond anything we could ever ask him for, anything we could ever dream up.

                Look what God is able to do in the big things, like taking away your sins. The miracles of water and Word washing away sin, bread and wine giving the body and blood of Christ? Above and beyond all you ask or imagine!

                Look what God is able to do in the little things, like the blessings you have just in being and breathing. Above and beyond all you ask or imagine!

                So keep on asking big! Keep on thinking big! Who could have bigger, more audacious goals than a Christian? Who could be a bigger optimist than someone who follows the Son of God who rose from the dead? Ask big! Think big! God’s love and power are such that you can never ask too much.

                All this he does according to his power that is at work within us (3:20). Hold on, wait a minute. The power that created the universe is working in you? The power that put your sins on your Savior, the power that raised him from the dead is working in you? Yes!

                And this is not just power for power’s sake; this power of God is working in you, energizing you. Look what God is able to do! God is keeping you in the faith. God is keeping stubborn sinful me close to Jesus. That power is working in you!

                With that kind of power on our side, power that is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20), we will want to ask for more. Don’t stop praying for your kids, even if they haven’t been to church in ten years. Look what God is able to do!

                Don’t stop thinking big! How many people will God bring to your congregation to hear the gospel in 2025? Think, ask, pray big! That’s connecting to God’s power. How many students will learn about the gospel in your school in 2025? Think, ask, pray big!

                Of course, we can’t say that God has to make our churches and schools bigger. Maybe he has other plans. But look what God is able to do, look what God has promised to do – immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20). So pray for great things.

                Martin Luther described it like this: “What would you think, if the richest and mightiest king in the world summons a poor beggar, tells him to ask for whatever he wants, and is ready to give this guy great, kingly gifts, but the fool just asks him for a cup of soup? You’d think the guy was an idiot, who never should have been there in the first place, because he treated the promise of his king like a joke!

                “In the same way, it is a great shame and dishonor to God if we – to whom he promises immeasurable treasures – despise those treasures or don’t have the confidence to ask for them” (adapted from Large Catechism 3:57).

                God gives us some pretty energizing verses here. Don’t let them go to waste. Ask big. Think big. Pray big, trusting God’s power and recognizing that God gives what he knows is best for us, better than we know ourselves.

                Imagine if we all had this attitude, confidence that Godis able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20). Look what God is able to do! What’s left for us to do? Think big, pray big, expect bigger. What’s left to say?

                To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (3:21).

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Preschool & Kindergarten Round Up

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Join us Wednesday, January 29th from 8:30 – 10:30am and see what a day in Preschool or Kindergarten is like here at Eastside Lutheran School! Children ages 3-4 and their caregivers are invited to join our Preschool staff for some learning and fun. Children who will be 5 by September 1, 2025 are welcome to join us in the Kindergarten room for some fun activities including a science project! Please reach out to the following teachers to RSVP.

Preschool Director | Brittni Carran

bcarran@eastsidelutheran.org

Kindergarten Teacher | Marie Laich

mlaich@eastsidelutheran.org

“Baptism: It’s a Miracle!”

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Author: Pastor Horton

Date: January 12, 2025

Passage: Titus 3:4-7

            “Eleven seconds, you got ten seconds, the countdown going on right now.  Five seconds left in the game! Do you believe in miracles?  Yes!” exclaimed ABC sports commentator, Al Michaels.  And then the patriotic celebration ensued as the 1980 U.S. men’s hockey team staged the biggest upset in Olympic history beating the heavily favored Soviet team.  On February 22, 1980, over 1,100 athletes from 37 countries participated in the Winter Games, but the ones people most remember are a bunch of college kids (their average age 22) who beat the unbeatable Russians.  It was an unlikely miracle in sports history.  The Disney movie about it is simply called “Miracle.”

            This morning, we are reminded how unlikely miracles still happen.  The improbable takes place every time we witness a baptism.  Now a baptism may not seem like it packs the same punch as the human drama and emotion of a great sports upset, yet, it is none-the-less a mind-boggling event.  This miracle of God shows us is his love and mercy.  So today as we celebrate the baptism of our Lord, we can quote a phrase from Al Michaels, “Do you believe in miracles?  Yes!”  Because “Baptism!  It’s a Miracle!”

            In his letter to Titus, Paul was writing to a fellow pastor about the work that needed to be done on the island of Crete.  Paul reminded Titus that he needed to teach his congregation sound Bible teachings, and to encourage them, in light of Jesus’ love, to do what is good.  And in order to understand what they had become in Christ, the people first needed to know what they were without Christ: disobedient, foolish, and enslaved by their desire for pleasure.  At one time, it was unlikely, and downright improbable that they’d ever be one with God.  They were steeped in sin: which a holy God has no part of.  They needed saving.  They needed a restored relationship with God.  And they needed to know how this was accomplished for them.

            And this is a need all people have.  A need which wasn’t needed in the very beginning.  Can you imagine being created in the image of God?  Having righteousness and holiness?  Being able to enjoy a perfect relationship with your Creator?  It’s hard to imagine because we have fallen so far into sin.  That reality is so far above us we can’t even begin to picture that reality.  And now from generation to generation we are unable to pass down that status with God, but rather with sin we pass down the reality of death.  That broken relationship is your birthright.  The psalmist David tells us, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”  We had need.  Need for help.  Everyone of us.  Need for God to do something otherwise death and eternal death awaited.  It doesn’t matter our age….

            There is a story of a little girl who once noticed that her mother, with a full head of brunette hair, had several strands of rogue white hair sticking out.  “Why are some of your hairs white, Mom?” she asks.  Her mother replied with a motherly replied: “Well, every time you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white.”  The little girl contemplated that for a few seconds and asked, “So how come ALL of Grandma’s hair is white?”  The painful truth is that we like to think we’re not that bad but our sins stand as a sign that say differently.  We sin against God and each other, and it shows.  We have not kept one commandment perfectly.  Our sin shows itself when our minds drift away during prayer, when we are not willing to sacrifice our living for God’s sake.  And our sin could even cause us to despair, thinking, “maybe I’m a hopeless case.” 

            But Paul tells us: “when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.”  And in baptism, that love of God for us unlovable people appeared.  Paul tells us how God restores our relationship, he writes: “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”  Through this miracle of baptism, the Holy Spirit does the unthinkable.  In our baptism He enters dead hearts, these unclean temples, and he performs this most improbable miracle – he washes and renews.  In our baptism He cleans up our hearts steeped in sin and turns them into throne rooms of Jesus.  In our baptism the Holy Spirit comes to us and creates saving faith in our hearts.  In our baptism we are reborn into a new relationship with God.

            It is almost unthinkable!  Yet think of it like this, Peter did in his first epistle: In the flood, God destroyed all life on this earth with the exception of the occupants in the ark.  The whole world was totally submerged under water.  Everyone and everything was dead, rotting, and decaying.  And yet above, lifted not only by the water but also by the protective hand of God, the ark floated safely.  Above was life, but beneath the water the earth was a worldwide graveyard.  Can you imagine such a thing?  Then the waters receded after washing clean all that death completely away.  The earth was reborn in newness.  In the same way, our baptismal waters have washed away the decay of death and sin from us; returning us to that right relationship with God.  It’s a miracle!

            While reborn, our sinful nature is still lingering in us.  To keep us from losing what we have the Holy Spirit continually renews us.  With His help we are to daily we are to throw off our sinful nature.  No, not snuggle up to or cater to or carefully hide our sinful nature but throw it off and drown it in our baptism so that our new life in Christ can, with the Spirit’s help, be watered, grow, and bear new fruit.  That takes a miracle – for that takes God at personal work in us.

            Throughout history people have considered Holy Baptism to be unlikely.  Why?  Just like salvation, baptism defies human reasoning; and just like the Lord’s Supper the saving gospel is connected to something tangible in front of our eyes.  People have a hard time with it.  But Scripture explains how baptism gives us new live because it joins us to Jesus.  God’s plan of salvation was always focused in Jesus Christ.  Paul tells us, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Jesus shed his innocent blood on the cross, sacrificing himself, as payment for our sin.  Our sin was transferred onto Jesus, the perfect sin offering, the Lamb of God, without defect or sin.  And, with no sin of His own, but to live under the law for us, Jesus even carried out his Father’s will by being baptized.  This agreed with the good will of our Father in heaven.  Luke writes for us, “And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”  

            However, a day would come when the Father would not seem so pleased.  That day was Good Friday.  On the cross, God was silent.  Jesus was undergoing our punishment.  Suffering our death for the sins we commit.  There was no voice from heaven, no cry of approval.  Only the words “My God, my God!  Why have you forsaken me?” under the weight of your sins, my sins, and the sins of the whole world.  

            But the Father was pleased with the sacrifice!  So pleased he raised Jesus from the dead.  So pleased he declared the world no longer guilty for its sin.  Paul tells us in the last verse of our text, “that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”  Did you hear Paul?  We!  We have life in Jesus.  We are no longer dead in sin.  Because of what Jesus has done, we are free from sin, death, and the devil.  Paul tells us, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”  In baptism our sinful flesh was buried with Jesus.  In baptism we rise to new life in Jesus. 

            What an incredible miracle found there in the water and the Word of baptism!  What a personal pledge of forgiveness given to you!  What a great reminder that we are no longer our own, but that our new lives are as God’s children!  God has done it all.  He saved us.  He cleansed us.  And He inspires us.  Death and hell have indeed lost their sting, because as Peter proclaims: “baptism now saves you!”  In baptism God has opened the doors of heaven to you.

            So, to once again quote the sportscaster, Al Michaels, “Do you believe in miracle?” We can answer in confidence with a resounding, “Yes!”  Baptism!  It’s a miracle!  Watch God do what seems impossible!  And live in your baptism grace! Amen.

Annual Meeting Devotional Recap

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Author: Pastor Horton

Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. – Psalm 139:7-10 

What a difference a year makes!  As I write up this newsletter recap, one year ago to the day I was living in northern Michigan nervously preparing to propose to my now wife at a waterfall along the lakeshore.  What a year!  Christmas time and New Years so often gather us together with family.  We also gather as a church family where we once again rejoice over the Christ-child lying in a manger.  This time of year also gives us a chance to reflect and rejoice on the blessings now past, as well as look to the upcoming year of grace with our God. 

What a difference a year makes for Eastside Church & School!  We had an unusual amount of change when it came to our divinely called workers.  As we reflect, we thank God for the many gifts and friendships of those who left us, and say thank you to God for the new faces and abilities we now have at Eastside.  And a year from now?  If our Lord does not return in glory or call us home to heaven first, we could be blessed with even more inbound servants and we are excited to meet them and work alongside them in Jesus’ kingdom.  

There are also many things that do not change depending on the year.  Our God is one of them.  His gospel promises and his success rate in accomplishing his     promises do not change.  He continues, year in and year out, to give and to strengthen faith through his Means of Grace, coming to us and working in us through the Word and Sacrament.  His forgiveness remains real and personal in the Lord’s Supper.  His washing away sin and giving life remains real and personal in baptism – something we at Eastside have had the privilege to do this past year in abundance!

For all the change we have seen over this year, the need for servant ministry has not changed.  We have not gone into a barebones-ministry-mode during vacancy, but rather many of the members have looked for ways to contribute and help with kingdom work and special events.  Thanks to so many of you who regularly volunteer and help with the work while it is day.  Thank you for giving your time, talents, and treasures to the Lord.  Thank you for the prayers you offer up to the Great Shepherd as he cares for our flock here at Eastside.  Thank you for rejoicing in the opportunities to be in God’s house and in your moments in his Word at home.  It is encouraging to see that these things have not changed.

I don’t know what this next year holds for you and your family or for your church and school family.  I do know we have a God who promises and fulfills his Word without any change.  His will for us is always good and gracious.  We see that in Jesus, who promises to be with us and lead us to a heavenly home for an even greater family gathering than the ones we enjoy at this time of year.  Through the changing years, our God knows where we are at, what we are going through, and how best to help us.  Even if we reside on the shores of Lake Michigan or on the shores of Lakes Mendota or Monona, “even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”  Thank you, Lord Jesus!  And God bless your new year!