by Sal Huckel
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Read Matthew 3:1–12
Today’s passage invites us to the banks of the Jordan, where John the Baptist was preparing the way for Jesus’ ministry. His humble lifestyle and calls to repentance were already bringing the people to respond to their sins and be baptised by John in the river. Not surprisingly, also came the conflict with the Pharisees and Sadducees.
John’s reprimand and call to repentance is stark. We might feel that it was well deserved. After all, we do know much about the Pharisees and the Sadducees and their apparent hypocrisy. Paul himself was a Pharisee. While the Pharisees and Sadducees had doctrinal disagreements, they were united in their efforts against Jesus. Here, John’s warning is for them all.
What can we learn here today? We can study the baptism John was bringing, how Jesus’ baptism is the one we need and the meaning it has for us now to be baptised into Jesus’ baptism. We can also ponder what it means to ‘produce fruit in keeping with repentance’. How does that look? What do we need to repent of? We sometimes hear that Jesus simplified the Ten Commandments and that we don’t need to worry about all of those anymore; we are not ‘under the law’. However, Jesus said he did not come to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfil them (Matthew 5:17).
Unless we understand God’s law, we cannot properly repent. We may feel the law is less prescriptive and onerous ‘since Jesus’, but if we begin to unpack the Ten Commandments and look at Martin Luther’s explanations – the Small Catechism is very helpful on this – we will see that they go further than we might expect. It’s a misleading idea that ‘Jesus replaced them’. Helpfully, rather like the ways in which it is best to teach children, Luther offers positive instruction to further expand on the negatives.
Start today with commandment number one: ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ We don’t have to look very far to see the things that compete for our attention, love and trust. How can you fear, love and trust God above all things today? To produce fruit in keeping with repentance, we need to follow through with this.
Father God, help me to more fully understand the law written in our hearts (Romans 2:15) and produce fruit in keeping with repentance. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Sal is married to Pastor Matthew Huckel, and they live in Victoria with their six children, enjoying their ministry with Moorabbin–Dandenong Lutheran Church. Their two eldest children are excited to study at undergraduate and postgraduate levels during term time in Sydney. Theology, music, philosophy, literature and history are passions the family shares and explores together. Sal loves writing, speaking and walking to the beach at every opportunity.
Cholesterol hasn’t a chance
by Shane Altmann
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I will fulfil my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord – in your midst, Jerusalem. Praise the Lord (Psalm 116:18,19).
Read Psalm 116:1–4,12–19
It takes me about 15 minutes to drive to work. Recently, I have been working my way through some random things I used to listen to in the 1980s. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an 80s music nut. I was there 40 years ago – I don’t need to go back and stay there, but there are a few eclectic things I like to revisit.
Like Chess. The musical, not the game.
Smash hits like ‘One Night in Bangkok’ and ‘I Know Him So Well’ are mingled in with some other fun songs and lyrics. I laughed out loud in the car this morning listening to the opening number titled ‘Merano’. The song describes a Tyrolean spa town where the chess world championships were being held at the beginning of the show (Bangkok later on, thus that song).
My favourite classic descriptor of the town of Merano is ‘This is the place where your arteries soften, cholesterol hasn’t a chance.’ People are clever, aren’t they? So funny. What a classic, what a place.
And so is today’s psalm – a classic, I mean. I remember so vividly being a young lad going off to church every Sunday. We always sat near the front (although, where I went to church, that was also not that far from the back, as it was only small), and we sang the liturgy. The pastor would chant the first line, and the congregation would bellow out the reply.
Today’s reading forms a significant part of that memory. If you turn to page 25 of the Lutheran Hymnal (aka the black book) – I happen to have one in my office that apparently belongs to Ascension Lutheran Church Rockingham (sorry) – you will find halfway down the page, the offertory, that prayer you sing when the offerings are being taken forward to the altar. I remember singing that thing so loud:
In the courts of the house of the LOOOOORD,
In your midst, O Jeru-uuu-sa-lem!
What a fervent young Christian I was! But I loved it, particularly because it was part of the service without communion, which was always shorter than the one with communion.
Or maybe because, even then, I knew God was listening. Maybe the psalmist nailed how I felt in the first verse.
I love the Lord, for he heard my voice.
God’s word speaks so beautifully into every part of our lives. It reminds us that he is the source of our joy, the comfort in our suffering, our fortress and our guide, our shepherd and our friend. That he is for us, he hears us, he loves us, and he is active in the world, moving things forward for us. He prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. He provides us with green pastures. He is our Tyrolean spa, our mountain air.
Seriously, cholesterol hasn’t a chance.
Lord, what shall we offer to you for all your goodness to us? If it were silver or gold, we would bring it. But we know through your word that the offering you desire is a willing and contrite heart. So, Lord, create in us a pure heart and put a new and right spirit within us. Grow us into lives of service. In Jesus’ name, and for his sake. Amen.
Shane Altmann is the principal of Faith Lutheran College Redlands in Queensland and has served in education for more than 35 years. Married to Monica and father of two children, Harry and Zoe, Shane has learnt that he is largely helpless without the love and support of the people with whom he lives and works. A pilgrim of multiple Caminos de Santiago, a Penrith Panthers tragic and a restorer of old stuff, Shane loves a project and, when he is able, fills his days tinkering with something.
You can’t ask for what you already have
by Shane Altmann
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God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life (1 John 5:11b,12).
Read 1 John 5:4–12
Let’s take a moment for a bit of ‘me time’.
Think of that thing, that object, that highly desirable and unattainable thing that you wish you had. No, not a healthy family or world peace – they are a given. I mean actual stuff.
A huge TV, one of those massive tool chests with drawers full of cool tools, a whole mechanics workshop, a fancy KitchenAid mixer with all the attachments, a new kitchen, a new house, a house on the beach, a bigger boat, a huge boat, one of those boats that you have to leave in the water it’s so big. Your fantasy, you choose.
Now, imagine you turn up at home this afternoon, and there it is. Wrapped up with a fancy bow.
‘What is that?’ you ask. ‘Can I have it?’
‘It’s already yours,’ says the giver.
You can’t ask for what you already have.
When you receive a gift, you have two choices: you can say ‘thank you’, or you can say, ‘Get that mega yacht off my driveway.’
Our focus verse today reminds us, yet again, that God is the author of our faith, the giver of eternal life. It’s always God-work.
God has given us eternal life. God is the architect and builder of our everlasting joy. God is the one who, even now, is preparing a place for us with him in paradise, that heavenly home, with him and together with the saints before us, that blessed reunion. Hallelujah and thank you, Jesus.
And it is that precious treasure, that certain hope of something better, with which we overcome the world. Yep, we can suffer and struggle, times can be difficult, and everything can feel like it is slipping away, but we are more than conquerors through Christ. Our reading today reminds us that our faith, given by God, is that instrument, that victory.
And here’s the heart of it: that’s enough. We don’t need a mega yacht or a fancy toolbox. The Christian life, that simple existence with Jesus, comforted by his word, in fellowship with other believers and the people we love, active in service in the world, called to have a crack and serve as best we can. Well, that’s enough.
Jesus, thank you for coming into the world because of your great love for us. Thank you for living a fully human life. You understand us and know exactly how life feels. We praise you, Lord, that by your Holy Spirit and because of your great redeeming work and precious blood, you call us to yourself. Thank you for giving us eternal life. Bless us as we do our best in this life. In your name, we pray. Amen.
Sledgehammer obvious
by Shane Altmann
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He has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time (2 Timothy 1:9).
Read 2 Timothy 1:5–10
It’s hard to be a Lutheran and not get excited by this passage from 2 Timothy. I mean, not ‘new footy season’ excited, but you know, kind of ‘cool day at church’ excited.
Following a meeting with some colleagues a few years ago, in which I felt the need to be rather direct, I reflected afterwards on how it went with another person who was also present.
‘Well, Shane,’ they said, ‘some people use the side of a plate to crack an egg, and others use the edge of a knife. You used a sledgehammer.’ I don’t know if he was being critical or amusing, but I thought it was great!
I can be subtle when needed. However, if you have been paying any attention to my reflections over the past days, you will have seen that my position is rather obvious. Sledgehammer obvious.
It’s always God’s work.
Here, in this verse from 2 Timothy, we get it again: ‘… not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.’ Sledgehammer obvious.
This beautiful extended reading for today speaks to intergenerational faith, passed down from grandparents and parents. It reminds us that God works through people, through relationships, through love, and it exhorts us to authentic Christian living. It calls us to understand and join in the suffering that comes with the Christian life, to understand the theology of the cross, that our God is hidden in ordinary stuff and is with us when we suffer, indeed that he suffers with us, fully human and fully divine. Still.
It cries out, ‘faith alone, grace alone, Scripture alone’, and points us to our heavenly home, that great camping spot and feast in the sky, with Jesus in that blessed reunion.
What a passage!
And if it’s always God’s work, then maybe it’s not us cracking the egg.
God of Love, Lord of Life, thank you that you are active in the world, working with us and through us in our vocations as parents and friends, workers and leaders, servants and citizens. We thank you, Jesus, for the revelation in your word that, by your eternal grace, you reach down to us, you both build the bridge and walk over it, to us, and for us. Bless us as we go this day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Shane Altmann is the principal of Faith Lutheran College Redlands in Queensland and has served in education for more than 35 years. Married to Monica and father of two children, Harry and Zoe, Shane has learnt that he is largely helpless without the love and support of the people with whom he lives and works. A pilgrim of multiple Caminos de Santiago, a Penrith Panthers tragic and a restorer of old stuff, Shane loves a project and, when he is able, fills his days tinkering with something.