The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for March 22, 2023

 

I confess, I'm self-righteous. The amazing prophecy in Isaiah 53 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—everyone—to his own way” (v. 6). That’s me, justifying my ways, but not just me.  And it’s not just those people “out there,” outside the Church, outside Jesus, the self-willed individualists promoting themselves and their agendas who often are the targets of righteous condemnation from church people. “All we like sheep have gone astray” includes me sitting in the pew, you in the pew, me active in church, you too.

Forgiveness hasn’t removed our sinfulness. “I’m not the chief of sinners” is the essence of sin against the First Commandment, pride in myself, pride in my churchiness, instead of joining the tax collector in the back of the temple (Luke 18:9-14). Totally forgiven, yes, but still, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; / Prone to leave the God I love” (Lutheran Service Book 686:3).

“All we like sheep have gone astray,” but verse 6 ends, “and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Focus not on your sins but on the Suffering Servant. Wherever individual Israelites were when the venomous snakes bit them, looking to the bronze serpent saved them (Numbers 21:6-9). The centurion overseeing the crucifixion, “stood facing him (Jesus),” and reflection led him to confess, “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39). “Ye who think of sin but lightly / Nor suppose the evil great / Here may view its nature rightly, / Here its guilt may estimate” (LSB, 451:3).

Philip Yancey: “Having spent time around ‘sinners’ and also around purported saints, I have a hunch why Jesus spent so much time with the former group: I think he preferred their company. Because the sinners were honest about themselves and had no pretense, Jesus could deal with them. In contrast, the saints put on airs, judged him, and sought to catch him in a moral trap. In the end it was the saints, not the sinners, who arrested Jesus” (What’s So Amazing about Grace? In unChristian, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, 60).

“Oh, that day when freed from sinning, / I shall see Thy lovely face; / Clothed then in the blood washed linen, / How I’ll sing Thy wondrous grace!” (LSB, 686:4).  

The Meyer Minute for March 21, 2023

Sometimes it all comes together. That happened for me last Sunday when I went up for Holy Communion. In our group at the communion rail was a faithful church member who only weeks before had a heart attack and bypass surgery. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases” (Psalm 103:2-3).

That moment illustrated Isaiah 53:4-5, translated literally by Dr. Christopher Mitchell. “Surely He bore our sicknesses and carried our pains, but we had considered Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. Yet He was pierced for our transgression, crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed” (Our Suffering Savior , p. 12).

Dr. Mitchell asks, “Is Isaiah 53:4-5 a promise that Christians will or do receive physical healing from all sickness?” (p. 65). I remember a seminary classmate who had a terrible, debilitating disease. Some Christians came to campus, prayed over him, but when there was no healing, they said he didn’t have enough faith. No! Sickness is a consequence of sin (e.g., Deuteronomy 28:58-59; Isaiah 1:4-6). Both need healing. “The verse promises both the plenary forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ and eventual healing of all our physical maladies” (p. 65). All that you and I experience in our frail bodies and sinful souls, it’s all laid on Jesus. Everything comes together in Him.

That’s our future, all things together in Him. The Lord’s Supper is not only about the forgiveness of sins. It also looks forward to the heavenly banquet, when we who communed together on earth will be forever free of sickness and sin when we’re with Jesus and all the saints. “From sorrow, toil, and pain, / And sin we shall be free / And perfect love and friendship reign / Through all eternity.” (Lutheran Service Book: 649:5).

The Meyer Minute for March 17, 2023

Two years ago, I wrote, “Is it really St. Patrick’s Day without parades and pubs?” Covid had shut almost everything down, and we coped by going virtual. Now the crisis is past, and today parades and pubs are back, not to mention packed stadiums for March Madness. Are all churchgoers back to live worship? 

Most pastors will say, “No.” Last year Lifeway Research put this statement before survey participants. “Worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church.” 66 percent agreed. Only 10 percent strongly disagreed. Most Americans are saying, “It doesn’t matter where my body is. Spiritual thoughts suffice for worship.” 

Virtual St. Patrick’s Day wasn’t an adequate substitute for today’s real festivities. The word “real,” as in “real estate” comes from the Latin word “res.” Its basic meaning is property, matter. In-person worship is about really being there. For example, the Lord’s Supper is “real” presence, not just a spiritual or virtual presence. In a most mysterious way, Jesus gives you His true body and blood. Obviously, you need to be really present to receive it. I won’t take time to list other reasons for being really present for Sunday worship. Virtual St. Patrick’s Day isn’t the real thing, and neither is virtual church.  

How do we reduce that percentage, 66%, who think you don’t have to be really present? By understanding ourselves that church is bodily participation, not just head knowledge. Bonhoeffer called it living “this-worldly lives,” Christians being in community, addressing the real life body and soul problems of people in and outside of Christ. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, happy March Madness, and here’s hoping you can attend real, bodies and souls getting together, worship this Sunday.  

The Meyer Minute for March 16, 2023

Do you know this feeling? You wake up in the middle of the night and the darkness magnifies your fears? I worry about work. I fret over the taxes. So many unfinished projects in a life that is getting shorter. And whatever else is going on, it all seems worse in the darkness.

I once gave a Lutheran Hour message, titled, “When God’s Darkness Surrounds You.” Just before the giving of the Ten Commandments, there was terrifying darkness. “On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick could on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled…. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly” (Exodus 19:16-19). God surrounded the people with darkness, and they were afraid. Who wouldn’t be?

Let our thoughts about darkness shift. God came to where His people were, not to destroy them but to tell them of His love. God veiled Himself in thick darkness so He could be close, so His people would not die from being close to His almighty holiness but would hear of His love. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2).

Can you think of another mount, another time of darkness, when God was frighteningly close? “From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour” (Matthew 27:45). “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). “Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Oh… Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.”

Now when I wake up afraid in the middle of the night, I make it prayer time. Give it all to God. Eventually I fall asleep, and when morning comes, the sun rises!

The Meyer Minute for March 15, 2023

I’m at a retreat center in Carefree, Arizona (yes, that’s the name) with 14 other pastors. Every morning we gather for devotion. Every evening we have an hour or so of theological talk and then close the day with a devotion. In between? Spring training baseball games!

Taking my morning walk, I’m fascinated by the street names. Sunshine Way, Easy Stret, Nonchalant, Radiant Court, Never Mind Trail, Lucky Lane, and Ho and Hum roads that intersect, obviously at HoHum. The people are smiling and enjoying the good life here in Carefree.

I smile as I write this, not mocking, not envious. One blessing of this spiritual retreat is to learn again where we are carefree. That is in total dependence upon God and our only hope, Jesus. Along with the high-end jewelry and art stores, real estate agents offering expensive properties, and busy banks here in Carefree, you also find doctors’ offices, counseling services, meditation areas and ministries. In other words, life is never carefree.

Martin Luther drew a sharp contrast between the things that attract us and the things we avoid – you might say between life carefree or full of cares. “God’s love does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. Human love comes into being through that which pleasing to it…. (God’s love) is the love of the cross, born of the cross, which turns in the direction where it does not find good, which it may enjoy, but where it may confer good upon the evil and needy person.”

As I was walking, I came upon a sign at an intersection. Turn left onto Bloody Basin Road or turn right onto Tranquil Trail. Where do you find God in your life? Figuratively on “Bloody Basin Road,” the turn Jesus made when He came into our world and chose the way of the cross. “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). And after suffering, what then? The tranquil, heavenly way!

The Meyer Minute for March 14, 2023

“Let not your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1). You can have peace when there is no conflict, but peace when you’re in conflict is difficult. When things are swirling all about, when you're shaken, Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled.”

Unending controversies from Washington, the world, and in our communities can rob us of a feeling of security. What news reports can we trust? Does it make a difference anyway? Even though governments are supposed to be servants to us for good, Romans 13:4, every day we see partisans and power-players promoting their own interests. Can “God save the state,” as we sing? “Let not your hearts be troubled.”

Maybe your heart is burdened with family problems. Home should be a secure place, a safe place, but there may be conflict in the closest relationships, perhaps financial pressures testing love, wayward children, emotional health… You literally feel the weight. “Oh, blest the house whate’er befall”? “Let not your hearts be troubled.”

Thomas Friedman in Thank You for Being Late, says, “The rate of technological change is now accelerating so fast that it has risen above the average rate at which most people can absorb all these changes. Many of us cannot keep pace anymore.” Change disrupts dependable routines. Everything becomes a choice, a challenge. “Let not your hearts be troubled.”

Let faith be your calm. “Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1). Things troubling you are things of sight, of sense, of flesh. Faith is different. Faith is trust hanging onto the promises of Jesus, hanging on for dear life. “I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3). “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3). “Let not your hearts be troubled.”

The Meyer Minute for March 10, 2023

Do I watch Jesus suffer the same way I watch sports or an engaging show – as a spectator? Paul saw no separation between himself and Jesus: “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20). This Lent I ask myself, “How can I more identify my very being with Christ?”

Part of the answer is to realize that forgiveness has not removed my sinfulness. The first of the six traditional penitential psalms is Psalm 6. It is prayed by a man who is godly, like you and me. “Depart from me all you workers of evil” (v. 8) is something a true Christian prays, and yet this spiritual man feels his guilt, feels it deep in his being. “I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord—how long?” (vv. 2-3). Here we have no spectator in the pew, but a true believer still troubled by his sin. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Note that the verse says, “fall short” – present tense, still failing, still sinning, still accountable. Shouldn’t that be troubling?

“They contemplate Christ’s passion properly who look at it with a terrified heart and a despairing conscience,” said Martin Luther in his 1519 “Sermon on the Meditation of Christ’s Passion.” (Fortress Press, “The Roots of Reform,” 172). That is more than looking on as a spectator. It’s desperation focused on Christ, an obsession to know His love for me. “Turn, O Lord, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love” (v. 4). Do you, as a believer, still pray this way?

“Depart from me all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping” (v. 8). Therein the psalmist moves through the conscience troubled by sin to total dependence upon God. Luther again: “If we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we see that it rests on Christ and is overcome by his resurrection, and then boldly believe this, then sin is dead and nullified” (176).

The Meyer Minute for March 9, 2023

Interviewed on TV, an Ohio woman complained she can’t decide who’s telling the truth about the train derailments. Is the government telling the truth or Norfolk Southern? And what’s the truth about January 6, or who’s lying? And what’s the truth about gender, given to us by the Creator or decided by us? Pontius Pilate could have been an American. “What is truth?” (John 18:38).

A society not organized around truths has nothing left but individuals and groups seeking their own interests. If that is where America is today, who’s going to take to heart the Lenten message that we should repent and turn to Jesus for forgiveness? Aren’t we talking past people who live by whatever they think truth might be? “That’s just your opinion. Who are you to tell me how to live?” And so I’ll go out and steal a catalytic converter, shoot someone who crosses me, run a red light because I’m in a hurry, and plenty more.

Maybe we should start our witness with this fascinating person called the “Suffering Servant.” “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3). How do you imagine most Americans view Lent? "This loser is not where it's at."

But then Isaiah says, “Surely.” “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (v. 4). Hebrew scholars say the word “surely” “reverses or restricts what immediately precedes…indicating ‘a sudden recognition in contrast to what was theretofore assumed.’” (In Mitchell, Our Suffering Savior, 63). “Surely” indicates a 180. They first pondered the Suffering Servant. Only then did they understand the truth of sin.  

Many Americans do not view life through the lens of sin and forgiveness, but might they perk up when the church says God is in suffering? Shouldn’t we be fascinated by Someone who chooses to suffer? Then maybe people outside the church will do a 180 and understand why He suffers. “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (v. 5). Surely!

The Meyer Minute for March 7, 2023

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psalm 42:11; 43:5). Sooner or later springtime flowers will bloom in Ukraine. People frail and sick look out the window and see springtime blossoms on trees. Hearts weighed down with problems, do we notice the little springtime signs of hope?

“Earth’s crammed with heaven

And every common bush afire with God.

And only he who sees takes off his shoes.

The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.”

(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

“Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” I like Dr. Christopher Mitchell’s image of Lent. It’s the valley between the glory Jesus showed on the Mount of Transfiguration and the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem. Now you and I are in the valley of the shadow, but even in our troubles, flowers bloom. I love the hellebore, popularly called “Lenten rose.” The first time I saw one bloom, I thought the plant had been faked out by some unseasonably warm weather. Nope. This hellebore blooms in Lent. To me a reminder that we don’t have to be dour and gloomy in Lent, alleluia! “When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites” (Matthew 6:16-18).

We’re in that valley with hope. “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 12:1-2). “Ye flowers, so wondrous sweet and fair, / Ye live to show His praise alone, / With me now make His glory known” (The Lutheran Hymnal, 30:3).

The Meyer Minute for March 3, 2023

“Who has believed our report? (Isaiah 53:1). The unknown speakers giving us the well-known prophecy of Jesus confess they themselves at first didn’t understand the mission of God’s Messiah.

Jennifer O’Neill is a well-known model and actress (“Cover Girl,” “Summer of ‘42”). When she appeared on Lutheran Hour Ministries program “On Main Street, she said there is a hole in the heart that can only be filled by accepting Jesus. Since we Lutherans aren’t keen about “accept Jesus” talk, I pushed to get her to say that faith in Jesus is a gift (see Ephesians 2:8-9). During commercial break, I started to explain but she stopped me. What follows isn’t verbatim but is the essence of what she said. “Dale, I know what you’re trying to do, but you forget. When a person is outside of faith, it makes no sense to say, ‘Faith is a gift, that you don’t have to do anything, that God does it all.’ A person who doesn’t know Jesus will think, ‘My life is messed up and you’re saying I shouldn’t do anything? That’s nonsense.’ It’s in hindsight we see that faith in Jesus is purely a gift of God, not something we have done on our own.”

“Who has believed our report?” Most Jews in the first century were waiting for a Messiah but not one who would suffer and die. The Emmaus disciples were typical. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). The resurrected Christ opened their eyes to understand His suffering and death in hindsight. The unknown speakers in Isaiah 53 “confess their initial ignorance of how the Servant’s torment was the vicarious satisfaction for their sins…. These servants say in retrospect that they finally understand the Servant’s identity, as well as the significance of his suffering, death, and resurrection.” (Reed Lessing, Concordia Commentary: Isaiah 40-56), 612

That was Ms. O’Neill’s point. It takes time to understand the total grace of God in Jesus. For me, it’s taking decades, and I still don’t fully get it. We shouldn’t assume that people outside the church understand our ways of thinking. It takes time and the Spirit.