My wife and I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with some friends of ours on Sunday. We got to sit and laugh and talk with them about all topics great and small. One of the rather interesting things we discussed was our children. They have two wonderful little boys, and we have one of our own, and of course, as parents, we all want the best for them. But the conversation turned to the idea of how to help the children to grow outside of our overprotective nature as parents.

The word that came out in the discussion was “suffering.” Not suffering in the sense of painful agony, or torment and torture, but rather, suffering as a struggle to proceed through life. We all know that type of suffering. The grind of work, the frustration of relationships with other, or the issues we have to work through with ourselves are all examples of suffering. Our friend told the story of moving in the summer before his 5th grade year, and how hard was to be in that situation with new friends and a new school. I think of the death of my grandfather, and how my son learned about the loss of a loved one. Then there are the times when it’s just tough to be a kid (or an adult), and learn about consequence and disappointment when things just don’t go the way they should.

We always want to protect our children, and to help them to understand the world. We don’t want them to experience the harshness that life has until we think they are old enough to handle it. Which is the protection that parents should give to their children. The world is not a happy and nurturing place, like Sesame Street. But it is important to temper the understand children have of suffering the pains of a sinful world with the message of the Gospel. We all do things that are wrong. We all “sin and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). And still Christ has made atonement for our sins. He has taken away the power of the evil one and given us life and salvation. That is the message that our children should learn about suffering. It is a time to teach about faith, and to build faith in a child through the Word. “Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3-4). And that hope is the faith we have in our Lord Jesus, who has taken away the suffering of this life by His suffering on the cross.

At the end of the conversation with our friends, we agreed that the kids would learn suffering soon enough. But we can take comfort and hope in knowing that they will have their Savior to lean on when they do suffer.

“Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” –Romans 10:17

I started reading The Story Bible from Concordia Publishing House to my son in the evenings at bedtime.  It’s a wonderful collection of Bible narratives geared toward children.  There are life-like pictures, rather than the cartoonish images in many Bibles.  They help my son to understand that what happened in the Bible is true, instead of a story that someone made up to get a message across like the other books on his shelf.

He’s starting to ask for Bible readings every night.  Just another example of the Word building faith!  We know that the Holy Spirit works faith in us when we hear God’s Word.  It is God’s Word that drives us to Him who is The Word, Jesus Christ.

My son is becoming to me a model for this belief.  We read the narratives and he asks questions sometimes about what happened.  He likes to hear about Samson (he’s into superheroes right now, so I think there’s a connection).  But he always listens, and then tells me why reading the Bible is important.  “So we can know about Jesus and go to heaven.”  What a proclamation of the Gospel!  Mark 10:15, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

He believes the Bible because, to him, it’s true.  Not because I tell him so, although we certainly have taught him about Jesus.  He believes the Bible is true because his faith tells him so.  I find that when I don’t think so hard about God and Faith and eternity and Sacraments and Confessions and Commentaries and Catechisms, and instead listen like a child, the sweet message of the Gospel, of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, gives me more peace than I could ever seek in books or the so-called powers of my mind.  Sometimes, just sitting down with my son to read a story about Jesus is all I truly need.

You’ll notice that this post contains the same as the previous post. It had that kind of effect…

As I was listening to Issues, Etc.(shameless name-dropping and gratuitous plug) in the car the other day on podcast, I heard a commercial which included a soundbite from the LCMS President Matthew Harrison. In the audio clip, he says,

“My friends, Jesus comes only for sinners.”

I found myself rewinding and playing the clip over and over again (thank you, iPhone, for the 30 seconds reverse scan feature!), which is what I’m doing now, actually. I kept hearing the phrase in my head for days afterwards. And only just recently did it finally occur to me why I cannot stop thinking about that statement. This is the perfect, one sentence proclamation of Law and Gospel

You may look at the sentence and say, “Where is the Law? It says that Jesus comes!” True, but it also says that Jesus come ONLY for sinners. So, who are the sinners? Is Rev. Harrison talking only of the really horrible, wretched souls? The ones who make our blood boil when they splash on the evening news, or on the news websites? Are we discussing Pharisees and tax collectors, perverts and murderers and thieves? Is this the trash of the Earth whom Jesus comes for, and we are caught up in the net of salvation?

If your answer is “No, we are all sinners” then you are right! (Amazing…it’s like we know we are sinful in our hearts…) We are the sinners! Jesus did not come to save perfect people, of which their are none. Paul says in Romans 3, while speaking about the Law, that “None is righteous, no, not one” and, later, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are all, as the liturgy for Holy Baptism says, “conceived and born sinful.” When we look to the Word of God to find out who it is that Christ ONLY came to save, we find that we are all part of the wretched, the lost, the really horrible souls.

And yet, we look to the whole sentence to find the answer to that sinfulness. JESUS! “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” says 1 Timothy 1:15. We look to Jesus and find that Gospel, the sweet, everlasting Gospel, which says, quite plainly and clearly, that Christ comes to redeem us from our sins. He comes to this Earth to bring “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” – Romans 3:22

Through simple act of hearing this message from Rev. Harrison are we given the demands of the Law and the message of the Gospel. Praise God for our Lord Christ, who DOES come only for sinners.