January Pastor Letter

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

When you think of the weather lately, what comes to mind?  It’s cold, of course.  Yes, we have had brief times when we experienced normal temperatures, but mostly it has just been unseasonably cold.  But being cold can mean several different things.  For example, a person can be described as cold, but what does that mean?

Well they can be a cold fish.  What that means is that they just don’t seem to have very much personality.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Some people are just more outgoing than others.    

Being cold could also mean that a person has been outside without a coat and in this weather I have no doubt that person would be cold.  

But a person can be described as cold in the middle of August.  It means that the person is unfeeling, heartless, uncaring, perhaps even cruel and calculating.  Such a person cares little about you or what happens to you.  Now that is a problem.  

God wants us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. In other words, he wants us to treat others as we would want to be treated.  But in this world, that is the easy way out.  Just mind my own business, and look the other way.  “Whatever is going on, it doesn’t involve me.”  Or does it?  Considering that our neighbors are the people around us in our lives, and God wants us to love them, yes it does involve you.  Yes, I am my brother's keeper.  

So, what in the world could motivate us to love rather than be cold?  Heat is the simple answer, but a specific kind of heat.  When Jesus walked with the two disciples who were going to Emmaus, he explained how the Savior had to die and rise again from the dead.  When their encounter with the risen Jesus was over, “They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’” (Luke 24:32)   The burning they are talking about is faith, and faith can motivate a person to do all sorts of things.  In the case of the Emmaus disciples, they ran back to Jerusalem to tell the others that they had seen the risen Lord.  

In our case, remember that there was a price demanded for sin.  All sin deserves to be punished in hell, and that little fact is enough to condemn us all.  But Jesus stepped in and took our sins upon himself and gave us his righteousness.  As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Jesus was punished, instead of us, for our sins.  What would motivate him to do that for us?  Love, a love that is unearned and undeserved.  So “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)  Loving your neighbor is a fruit of faith.  

So next time you are feeling a little cold, maybe a little uncaring, dig into God’s Word and remember what God has done for you.  “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Stay warm brothers and sisters!    

Your Brother in Christ,

Pastor Scott Muske

St. Matthew and St. John Lutheran Churches  

989-573-8456