The Scriptures push two things into your hands as you look toward the future. First, be sober. Drop the illusion that with enough progress, enough education, enough technology, we can engineer ourselves out of suffering, sin, and death. You are not going to “fix” this world. You are not going to build the kingdom of God by your projects. This age will end in fire, not in a human utopia. Your hope is not in the next election, the next medicine, or the next gadget, but in the Lord who says He is coming soon.

Second, do not panic. When things move toward catastrophe, that alone does not mean the last trumpet is about to sound. Every age has had its wars, its plagues, its tyrants, its collapses. The Lord told us ahead of time that this is what a dying world looks like. If these are the last days, they are only what He said they would be. And if they aren’t the very last yet, they are still days under His cross and under His promise. Either way, He has not lost control.

Advent is the season where God puts John in front of you and says, “Listen to him. Learn from him.” Not because John is the Savior, but because John knows he isn’t. He prepares the way by preaching repentance and by baptizing sinners. He shows the church how to live in the in-between time: hear preaching, receive baptism, repent.

At St. John Lutheran Church & School, catechesis is not a program or a hoop to jump through. It is the church’s ordinary work of handing over the faith once delivered to the saints to the next generation (Jude 3). We teach our children to confess what God has said, to trust Christ crucified for them, and to live from His gifts in His church.

Christ does not come to stir your emotions or decorate your December. He comes to forgive your sins. He comes to cleanse your conscience. He comes to break your death and give you His life. He comes into your mouth, into your body, into your grave-bound flesh.

³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; ⁴ that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, ⁵ not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶ that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. ⁷ For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. ⁸ Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit. (1 Th 4:3–8)

Most of all, you give thanks for the gifts that will not burn: Baptism that has buried you with Christ and raised you with Him. Absolution that silences the accusations of your conscience and of the devil. Preaching that keeps dragging you out of yourself and back to Christ. The Supper that feeds you with the very body and blood once offered for you on the cross, now given into your mouth for the forgiveness of sins. That is the real Thanksgiving feast; that is the foretaste of the feast to come.

What does the Bridegroom do? He doesn’t lecture. He doesn’t stand outside the locked door waiting for them to get it together. He walks right in. He stands among the foolish, the fearful, the unprepared, the ashamed. He shows His wounds. He speaks peace. He provides everything they lack. The Groom breaks through locked doors—not to punish, but to give Himself. That is the Gospel. That is the wisdom of faith.

1 Thessalonians is saturated with the expectation of Christ’s coming. Every chapter ends with a reference to the Lord’s return (the parousia). The letter teaches the church how to live “between the comings” of Christ—once in humility, now in Word and Sacrament, and finally in glory.

Thanksgiving is supposed to be a day when we stop and admit something we usually avoid: the best things in life aren’t things we made for ourselves. They’re given. We didn’t invent love. We didn’t manufacture the people who care about us. We didn’t earn the food on our table as much as we like to pretend. Even our breath is borrowed.

And if you can’t forgive—then the place to go is not deeper into your resentment but deeper into Christ. The lack of forgiveness is not a moral deficiency; it is a spiritual emergency. It is unbelief expressing itself in hatred. The fix is not to “try harder.” The fix is to repent—to receive again what Christ won for you on the cross, what He pours on you in Baptism, what He puts into your ears through Absolution, what He sets upon your tongue in the Holy Supper. His forgiveness is the only thing that makes your forgiveness possible.

Forgiveness is the beating heart of the Church. It is the air the Christian breathes. It is the witness the world needs but rarely sees. The greatest scandal in the Church is not that Jesus forgives the wicked. It is that Christians refuse to forgive each other. But not you. Not today. Christ forgives you. All of it. Every debt. Every sin. Every thought you hope no one ever discovers. It is gone. You are free.

¹⁷ But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire. ¹⁸ Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—but Satan hindered us. ¹⁹ For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? ²⁰ For you are our glory and joy.

On a day like this, the Word of God must do the heavy lifting. Your hearts carry sorrow, memories, gratitude, and perhaps even a measure of relief that her long journey is now complete and peaceful. But the Lord carries something greater—His promises. And today, we anchor those promises in the confirmation verse Karen confessed many decades ago: “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will act.”

Whatever has withered in you — your courage, your faith, your marriage, your hope — Christ restores. Whatever guilt still weighs you down, His blood cancels. Whatever shame still clings to you, His mercy covers. Whatever sin still chains you, His outstretched arm breaks it open and pulls you into His embrace.

This is where the kingdom begins to break in. And this is where your repayment begins — not in money or reward, but in resurrection, in mercy, in joy that never ends. So when Jesus says, “Invite the poor,” He’s not just telling you what to do. He’s telling you who you are. You are the poor. You are the blind. You are the one who can’t repay. And still, He invites you.

To be a saint is to be a beggar before God. But to be a beggar before God is to be blessed with the kingdom of heaven. Because God fills what is empty. He lifts what has fallen. He gives what we could never buy.“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” He doesn’t say, “will be.” He says, “is.” Right now. This kingdom already belongs to those who know they’ve got nothing.

For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.

But you can’t patch the old with a little grace. You can’t pour the new life of Christ into the old self that wants to run the show. The old self has to die. The old wineskin has to burst. That’s what happens in Baptism. The old Adam is drowned. The new man rises. That’s what happens in Absolution. The old guilt is forgiven. The new life begins again. That’s what happens in the Supper. The old hunger is met with new wine—Christ’s own Blood poured out for you, filling you with His forgiveness and His life.

And here comes Jesus—with no lecture, no conditions, no delay— “Take heart, son. Your sins are forgiven.” That’s not just a kind word. That’s a word that changes everything. That’s a word that moves you from death to life. We might think Jesus got it wrong—this man came for healing, and Jesus gave forgiveness. But that’s the point. Forgiveness is the healing. The real sickness isn’t in the legs; it’s in the heart. It’s the sin that separates us from God. And Jesus cuts straight to it. This isn’t Jesus showing off for the Pharisees or using the man as an object lesson. No, He loves him. He loves him enough to give him what matters most: peace with God.

The Marks of a Living Church

1. Faith – receiving the Word with the Spirit’s power.

2. Love – laboring for neighbor amid affliction.

3. Hope – steadfastly waiting for Christ’s return.

4. Election – grounded in Christ, not in speculation.

5. Conversion – turning from false gods to the living God.

As Gerhard writes, “Where these three—faith, love, and hope—flourish, there the Church is alive, for Christ Himself dwells there through the Spirit.”