Reflections

4,6 (9)
RELIGION ET SPIRITUALITÉ
TOUS LES JOURS

Join HT for a reading of the days Higher Things Reflection. A short devotion directed toward the youth of our church, written by the Pastors and Deaconesses of our church, clearly proclaiming the true Gospel of Jesus Christ! Find out more about HT at our website, www.higherthings.org

-12 H

Saturday of the Week of Easter

Today's Reading: Introit for Easter 2 - Psalm 81:1, 7a, 10, 16b; antiphon: 1 Peter 2:2a Daily Lectionary: Exodus 19:1-25; Hebrews 13:1-21 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” (Psalm 81:10) In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. “Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob! Raise a song; sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp. Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our feast day.” For Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Asaph was a Levite, a member of David’s court. The words of this psalm open to us the scriptures, giving us certainty of who God is, what He has done, and continues to do for His people. The people of Israel are described as stubborn, as those who do not listen or submit to God. Yet God conquers their enemies, delivers them from the land of Egypt. Despite their unfaithfulness and constant idolatry, God continues to care and deliver them. The same is true for us. We have seen all that God has done for us, and yet we still sin much and deserve nothing but God’s wrath and punishment. We cannot, by our own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ as our God and Lord, or even come to Him. So God becomes the doer, the rescuer, the redeemer of us His people. God comes down, that ancient Word that gave life to all flesh, puts on human flesh. The Word made flesh comes down, begotten of His Father, born of woman, to subdue our enemies of sin, death, and the devil. He does this not with gold or silver, but with His holy and precious blood by His innocent suffering and death. What is left for us to do then? Die. That’s all we can do. God sees our stubbornness, our stopped-up ears, our sin and brokenness, and He overcomes them. His holy Law adjusts our stiff necks, and opens our ears, it kills our sinfulness, our very broken bodies, and kills all free will and go-getter attitude we might bring to the table. All we can do in history towards God is die. That’s exactly what God does. He comes, and He dies to the Law in our place, bearing our sin that He might raise us the dead up and declare us His holy people. There’s nothing we contribute. We die to sin, and are raised to new life. This is a daily reality we live in, that we would remember the God who brought His people out of Egypt, who fed them, and delivered them. God does the same for us. He does the redeeming, the saving, the life-giving, the absolving. We die to sin in our baptisms daily, and emerge in the daily resurrection to receive our daily bread. That we might receive the bread of life to fill us with the life that we will know fully on the Last Day. We are stubborn and unworthy, so we do all we can do is die. Yet united to our Lord and Savior Jesus, who came down, bore the cross, and rose again. We too shall rise. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Help us to serve you evermore with hearts both pure and lowly; and may your Word, that light divine, shine on in splendor holy that we repentance show, in faith ever grow; the pow'r of sin destroy and evils that annoy. O make us faithful Christians. (LSB 647:3)

7 min
-1 J

Friday of the Week of Easter

Today's Reading: 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 or 1 Corinthians 15:51-57 Daily Lectionary: Exodus 18:5-27; Hebrews 12:1-24 “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:56-57) In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Behold! Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Paul tells of a mystery. A mystery that will unfold at the fullness of time, at the sound of the trumpet. The perishable will put on the imperishable. Your mortal body must put on immortality. On the Last Day, Christ will return and raise you and me, and all the dead, and the words of the prophet Hosea that Paul writes to them will be fulfilled. A timeless truth, the promise Hosea proclaimed was as good as fulfilled when God spoke it to His prophet. In Jesus, that promise is fulfilled. In Jesus, death is swallowed up by His death; in Christ’s victory over the grave, death is overcome. Death’s sting is no more. In Jesus, God’s promises are fulfilled. In Jesus, the Law of God is satisfied. Death is swallowed up forever, sin has no power over you, and the Law is silent towards you. In Jesus, the victory is won; God’s timeless truths foretold by His prophets of old, by His apostles, and to you by His preachers are true and effective for you still today. In Holy Baptism are united to this truth, and the reality of the perishable putting on the unperishable, your mortal body puts on the immortality of Christ Jesus your Savior who you are united as baptized children of God through the water that washed you and claimed you from the sting of death, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Nothing for you to do according to the Law, truly a mystery that is proclaimed to us by God’s mouthpieces from this time forth and forevermore. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. “Laugh to scorn the gloomy grave And at death no longer tremble; He, the Lord, who came to save Will at last His own assemble. They will go their Lord to meet, Treading death beneath their feet.” (LSB 741:7)

5 min
-2 J

Thursday of the Week of Easter

Today's Reading: Job 19:23-27 Daily Lectionary: Exodus 17:1-16; Hebrews 11:1-29 “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.” (Job 19:25) In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Job endured the cross God had laid on him. That sure didn’t seem fair. Yet Job is not without hope; he knows that God has not abandoned him. Job had everything taken away from him. Lives of his children and wife, his own health, and his fortune. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness had died and left Job for dead. Yet sitting down in the midst of such darkness, Job bears his cross and knows God is with him. His God is with him, even through the worst of times, through the worst of friends, through the darkness; God is there. Job’s words were written; they were inscribed in a book. That by reading Job’s words, you would believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing in Him, you, as Job did, would have life in His Name. Job’s words—written with iron, or lead, engraved in rock, or ink engraved on paper, forever. It is in Job’s suffering that He sees how much he has lost, and yet it is in that suffering that he makes that great confession, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.” Job knew he was a sinner, deserving nothing. Yet, despite losing everything, he had not lost God. “And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” So it was for Job, and it still remains true for us today. Though we suffer and bear crosses laid on us by God, though we live in an unfair world, we are not without hope. We who deserve nothing better than Job, who no man was like, who feared God and turned away from evil cling to the God who lays the cross, and at the proper time when my skin has been destroyed we may see the God who also took on flesh, who suffered, who wept, who cried out, took up His cross and died. The God who suffers and dies is Jesus of Nazareth, your Redeemer who rose again, and lives and reigns at the right hand of His Father. He will stand upon the earth at the last, and you who suffer, who have conquered as a baptized child of God, joined to your Redeemer, will rise, live, and serve Him in His Kingdom for all eternity. It’s not fair, yet it is glorious. Christ is risen, He is risen indeed! Alleluia! In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Jesus, my Redeemer, lives; Likewise I to life shall waken. He will bring me where He is; Shall my courage then be shaken? Shall I fear, or could the Head Rise and leave His members dead? (LSB 741:2)

6 min
-3 J

Easter Wednesday

Today's Reading: John 21:1-14 Daily Lectionary: Exodus 16:13-35; Hebrews 10:19-39 “That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.” (John 21:7) In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. They went fishing; it was Peter’s idea. There were seven of them, and all through the night they caught nothing. As day would break, Jesus stood on the shore, though the disciples would not know Him. This man told them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat, and they obliged. What followed was a catch so numerous that they were not able to haul it in—153 fish. John realized it first. He confessed his Lord. Peter, out of embarrassment or humility of seeing His Lord whom He denied and abandoned to the cross, hurled Himself like Jonah into the Sea of Tiberias. The other disciples bring their boat ashore, net full of fish, and as Simon Peter, son of Jonah, brings the fish to his Lord for breakfast. This was the third time Jesus had revealed Himself to the disciples after He was raised from the dead. Peter had denied Jesus as His Lord had told him he would. Peter floundered to the Sea, bringing what came from the Sea to His Lord for their meal and the conversation that would follow. Jesus would absolve and restore Peter shortly after this meal. None of the disciples asked, “Who are you?” They had no reason. Their Lord, who walked on water to them, calmed storms in front of them, and had worked a miraculous catch once before this was among them again. Peter throws himself into the Sea, and Jesus restores Him out of it. This is exactly what Jesus came down from heaven for: that Peter would die to his sin, die with his crucified Lord, and emerge from the waters of the Sea of Tiberias to be received by His Lord, to be absolved of His sins, and to take his place as apostle and evangelist. The disciples see their Lord, confess their Lord, and eat with Him. Jesus, crucified, died, and was buried, stood on the shore and revealed Himself again to His disciples in this way. That just as we die to sin, thrown into the waters of our baptisms, we rise from those waters in the reality of Christ’s resurrection. Christ gives us the boat, rather the ark of His bride, the church, to keep us afloat on our baptisms. He sustains us with daily bread, nourishes us with His grace of the Gospel given through His Word joined to water, bread, and wine. That just as He has been raised from the dead, we, too, shall rise and in the reality already given in your baptisms, you will abide in His presence and rejoice with Him in eternal glory. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Almighty God, by the glorious resurrection of Your Son, Jesus Christ, You destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light. Grant that we who have been raised with Him may abide in His presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. (Collect for Easter Wednesday)

6 min
-4 J

Easter Tuesday

Today's Reading: Luke 24:36-49 Daily Lectionary: Exodus 15:19-16:12; Hebrews 10:1-18 “As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you!’” (Luke 24:36) In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. See Jesus. When your anxieties and doubts fill your mind. When you feel your best isn’t good enough, or you’re at your worst. When you know you’ve said hurtful things, done hurt to others, and caused yourself harm. See Jesus. Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners, talked with adulterers, healed the sick and the unclean, and associated with those unassociated members of society. Jesus called ordinary fishermen to be His disciples and taught them despite their unbelief and designs for the kingdom of God. For those disciples, Jesus appeared and stood among them. What they had done had to come to mind. They abandoned Him, betrayed Him, denied Him, witnessed His death and shame before the world as He hung on the cross. Yet they see Jesus Himself, among them, and He said to them, “Peace to you!” Then Jesus shows them His hands and His feet, inviting them to touch Him. As if a ghost stood before them to haunt them, He asks them for something to eat and ate the broiled fish they offered Him. What the women from the tomb and the men from Emmaus had said was true. He has risen! Their master stood among them. Proclaiming peace, Absolution— they were forgiven before God and man. Then Jesus opened their minds to understand all that the scriptures had written from the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Jesus, the crucified, fulfilled them; Jesus, the resurrected, fulfilled and proclaimed this to them, and now they, His preachers, would go and proclaim this truth to you. That you would know in your darkness, your suffering, your time of death, God is with you. See Jesus in His Word, in your Baptism, in bread and wine. These are where He comes to you, stands among you, and through your pastor proclaims, “Peace to you!” before God and man. Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia! He sees you, is with you, and has secured peace for you, and has proclaimed this to you in His Gospel promises, that trusting in Jesus, you may come at last to the Kingdom of your heavenly Father, and see Jesus. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Almighty God, through the resurrection of Your Son You have secured peace for our troubled consciences. Grant us this peace evermore that trusting in the merit of Your Son we may come at last to the perfect peace of heaven; through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. (Collect for Easter Tuesday)

6 min
-5 J

Easter Monday

Today's Reading: Luke 24:13-35Daily Lectionary: Exodus 15:1-18; Hebrews 9:1-28 “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27) In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. One can only imagine the smile Jesus might have hidden from the two men on the Emmaus road as He asked them “what things” had occurred in Jerusalem. The two men were shocked. This stranger walking with them had to be the only man who had not seen, not even heard of, the events that had happened in Jerusalem in those days. So the men tell Him. Hiding that smile, Jesus speaks as only He can. “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” These men, who had been in the company of the astonished women, had no answer. Dead men tell no tales. Jesus of Nazareth showed promise, but in the end, He died. Yet it is for fools like them, for fools such as us, that Christ comes. The women did not see Him, yet they proclaimed what their eyes did see, and what their ears heard from the lips of their angel preacher. The men did see, yet they did not yet believe what their ears heard from the lips of their hidden Lord. So Jesus teaches them, opening all the Scriptures and things concerning Himself. Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God and Son of Mary, proclaims the promise of God’s mighty deeds of old fulfilled in the promise of God’s anointed one who would come, suffer, and on the third day rise. Yet these men still did not know who was among them. Who walked with them. So Jesus finally, perhaps, lets that smile slip a bit. “So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther…” On the night He was with those whose minds would confess their unbelief, their wonder of this man, Jesus breaks bread with them. More than that, though, He opens the scriptures to them, gives them the words of Gospel promise concerning Himself, and breaks bread and gave it to the men as He did on the night in which He was betrayed. Jesus had revealed Himself by the breaking of the bread. This would be how the Gospel would go out, from the preachers Jesus would send to His church, to teach the scriptures concerning Himself, to preach the Gospel that opens our eyes and makes us alive, and to strengthen and sustain us in the breaking of the bread, His very body for us to eat, and His true and precious Blood for us to drink. Given and shed for you. For the forgiveness of sins. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. O God, in the paschal feast You restore all creation. Continue to send Your heavenly gifts upon Your people that they may walk in perfect freedom and receive eternal life; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. (Collect for Easter Evening/Easter Monday)

6 min
-6 J

The Resurrection of Our Lord

Today's Reading: Mark 16:1-8 Daily Lectionary: Exodus 14:10-31; Hebrews 7:23-8:13 “And he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.” (Mark 16:6) In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. The Sabbath was past, and it was time to do everything as it should be according to their customs. The women bought spices to anoint the body of Jesus for his burial. They were willing to go where He had lain for three days; they were willing to make themselves unclean according to the Law of Moses to anoint their Lord’s body. Like so many other times in Mark’s Gospel, God emphatically intervenes. Three women had no chance of rolling away the stone blocking Jesus' tomb. They were as curious as to how they would roll the stone away as they were to see an open tomb at their tomb. No more would everything be as it should be according to their customs, according to the Law of Moses. God emphatically proclaims the Gospel through the white robed young preacher. God’s anointed Jesus of Nazareth, whom they cared for; He is risen! He is not in the tomb. The messenger of God, the angel appearing as a young man, proclaims the Gospel, the Good News of the empty tomb. No more will the stench of death claim you, nor will death’s sting have any power over you. No more will the Law declare you unclean. Jesus died to your sin, making them His own dying to the curse of the Law. Swallowing up death in His death, and emphatically crying out from the cross, from the empty tomb before His Father, and before these women who saw Him die, that death is no more. No more doing everything as it should be, no more would everything be how it had been. “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” As the women ran away, trembling, astonished at this proclamation. You also go from here free, astonished at what God has done. The God who emphatically came down from heaven, taken on human flesh, ripped the heavens open at His Son’s Baptism and walked among us, died for us, and rose that we, too, shall rise. The life of Jesus is your life. God emphatically unites you to Him in your Baptism. That you would be free in Christ indeed, and go into your daily life, astonished at what God has done. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Almighty God, through Your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, You overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life. We humbly pray that we may live before You in righteousness and purity forever; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. (Collect for the Resurrection of Our Lord)

6 min
4 AVR.

Holy Saturday

Today's Reading: Matthew 27:57-66 Daily Lectionary: Exodus 13:17-14:9; Hebrews 7:1-22 "The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ”After three days I will rise.” Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, “He has risen from the dead,” and the last fraud will be worse than the first.’” (Matthew 27:62-64) In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Holy Saturday can be a difficult day to reflect on, because it is the in-between time where it seems the forces of evil have won, the Lord is dead, but we can still catch a glimpse of Sunday out of the corner of our eyes. We know what tomorrow brings, and we want to jump to that. But let’s sit on Holy Saturday. Holy Saturday is a day where we reflect on the victory of the powers of darkness as they gloat, celebrate, and mock. The Lord told us just yesterday that His kingdom is not of this world, so there will be many times when it appears that the world is governed only by malice and cruelty. Turning on the evening news on any given night can be a strain on any normal person’s assertion that the world is governed by an all-powerful, benevolent God. There is little we see with our eyes that convinces us of the Lordship of Jesus. In a world teeming with terror, genocide, fear, and brutality, it looks like the darkness has won. This Holy Saturday we read about was no different. The chief priests and Pharisees think they’ve won, and all they need to seal their victory is for Jesus to stay dead. But here Matthew gives us a glimpse into the victors’ mindsets. Even while victorious, they are afraid. They remember Jesus' promise that after his death, he would rise in three days, and instead of finding hope in that promise, they find a threat. Frightened, they do everything they can to protect themselves from what they assume will be a mere mythologizing of Jesus. On the surface, it seems perfectly rational: wait three days, let everyone see Jesus was speaking nonsense, and move along as if nothing happened. As if nothing has changed. It's a logic that makes sense on Saturday, when Jesus is still cold in his grave. Unlike the chief priests and Pharisees, however, we know the rest of the story. We know what’s coming. We know how foolish their logic will look in the daylight tomorrow. Armed with that knowledge, we can look at the Holy Saturdays in our own lives and world, where the Lord seems silent, absent, defeated, and know that the gloating will not last the morning. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Oh perfect life of love! All, all, is finished now, All that He left His throne above To do for us below. (LSB 452:1)

7 min

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Great start to my day

06/05/2024

JoyfullyRedeemed

Wonderful program. Great start to my day. Reminds me of what we we have in Christ. The transcripts are much appreciated. Thank you..