The Answer Is Always “Repent”

“God doesn’t promise to make sense of things but to make good.”

Barren woman, today’s sermon at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church was for you:

Text: Luke 13:1-9

The Lord your God loves you. Have no doubt about this. Did you notice that the sermon hymn began with a quote from Ezekiel, attributed to God Himself? “‘As surely as I live,’ God said, / ‘I would not see the sinner dead.’” Singing those words to one another, we’re telling each other in so many words this simple truth: God loves you. “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked…” Believe it. This is the will of your Father for you.

That word from the Lord is the foundational truth of your story. In fact, it’s the chief plot point of the story of the whole world throughout time. If you were to sit down and tell your biography that sentence would underlay every moment recounted.

But our life-stories aren’t all ups, are they? There are many downs, for we indeed bear many crosses. How do we account for them? When faced with suffering, disaster, tragedy, how do we as Children of God respond? When a friend or family member takes his own life, or the doctor comes in with the terminal diagnosis, or a sinkhole swallows someone up, or when tsunamis, earthquakes, gunmen, or terrorists seem to rule the day, how do you, Jesus’ disciple, respond?

The answer is always “Repent.” Always. It never changes. Do you say, “But I don’t deserve this!”? “But there are worse sinners than me. Why must I suffer?” Repent. Can you honestly call yourself anything less than the chief of sinners, deserving the wrath of God? And if you say, “Just look at their sin. This is just God’s punishment,” then repent. Take the log out of your own eye that condemns you.

“Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way?.. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?” Do you think that the 27 killed in Newtown were greater transgressors? The 3000+ on September 11th? The 3000+ aborted every day?

What is our answer to these questions? The world asks for an answer, doesn’t it? It wants to know, expects to know, in fact demands to know: why does God let these things happen? Why?

We’re tempted to leap in, defend God, justify God to the world. It seems easy to do this, but then we say the wrong thing or make something up about God that sounds nice and fits our own notion of Him but perhaps isn’t really true. This is our temptation. Yet look how God Himself answers: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Not just perish as in a physical death. Perish as in spiritual, eternal, forever death. Unless you repent.

What about this question: Do you think that you are a worse sinner than all the others because you now have terminal cancer, or you miscarried, or you’re barren, or your spouse left you, or your kids have fallen away, or your job is lost? Do you think this?

The beauty of God’s answer is that it’s exactly the same. The answer is always “Repent.”

One simple word: “Repent.” What does it mean? It’s easy to think it means to “change your ways”; to “want to do better”. But God has no intent to cast His Law upon you in your moment of suffering. Repent simply means to “change your mind”; to have a different outlook, a different perspective, to “re-think”. This is what God tells us to do in light of suffering and death: recognize that death isn’t the worst that can happen to you. Jesus died and now lives. The same is true for you, trusting in your child-of-God status. Suffering isn’t your punishment, at least not spiritually from On-High. That was laid upon the suffering servant Jesus Himself, for you.

So repent, that is, “re-think”; cease the questioning of God. Why suffering? Why evil? Why did God let this happen to me? “Repent.” That’s what Jesus answers, always. The questions themselves reveal our lack of trust in God. Let us not call out “The way of the Lord is not just.” God’s response to our judgement of Him is rooted in complete fairness: “I will judge each of you according to his ways.” The worst thing is to die unbelieving, suffer unbelieving, fall asleep staring at ourselves instead of fixing our eyes on Jesus. To be fairly judged by God is the worst thing for us.

Repent. Re-think. The temptation we all face is to think of God as vengeful, of “making a list and checking it twice,” of always being ready to pay you back for your wrongdoing. Put aside the temptation to explain away God in your suffering, and know that “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” He does indeed provide the way out. It is to hear His words and believe them.

Repent. Re-think. God does not have your end in mind. “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked…” God doesn’t promise to make sense of things, but to make good. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Repent. Re-think. God doesn’t promise to handle the details of each and every disaster that comes along. He is able and willing – He doesn’t leave us in doubt about that. Throughout the Scriptures God is involved in the details. But He rather prefers to make good by sending His Son to become man and handle sin to the point of death, even death on a cross. There on the cross death’s stinger is cut away. There on the cross the grave’s seeming victory is divinely mocked for all eternity.

God’s preference is not to put you in a bubble as you walk through this valley of the shadow of death. Instead he challenges the demonic principalities and powers of this sinful world by adding His word to some water and washing clean your soul and your conscience. God confronts the ongoing accusations that the world, the devil, and even our old sinful flesh lob at Him, each other, and ourselves by speaking the Body and Blood of Jesus in, with, and under the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper.

Your Baptism tells you that all the suffering in the world cannot touch you. The Holy Communion fed to you reminds you that Christ’s suffering and death are the victor over anything that will assault you, both in body and soul. In the Word and these Sacraments God provides the way of escape – namely, faith.

God works for good in everything. Faith comes in and believes this. Faith doesn’t say that cancer or a car wreck or your sin is good. Instead, it says “God will work good and has already worked good in the death of Jesus. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

This is how God bids us to think. We are all sinners. And the answer to our sin is always the same. “Repent.” Think differently, beloved. Think on Christ, who has sealed you in His promise of forgiveness for all eternity.

Amen.

Rev. Michael P. Schuermann

Did They Really Just Say That?

Just remember, whatever it is people say to you in response to your barrenness, they are just saying whatever really comforts themselves.

So, when all of that anger and pain and frustration boil to the surface at being told you should just relax or take more Vitamin D or make an appointment with Dr. Doogie Howser or start the adoption process or lift your cervix for thirty minutes after intercourse or pray harder in order to get pregnant, take a deep breath and think of it this way:

They are not telling you what to do and how to be and how to feel; they are telling you what comforts them. They are helping you know them better.

That’s not so bad, right?

What’s Wrong?

I enjoyed your “Best Weapon against Temptation” post. It’s as if you read my mind, as usual. My husband and I ask ourselves those same questions among others each time we go to some doctor or specialist. We even left a wonderful doctor who was very knowledgeable about PCOS as her main goal was to “get me pregnant as quick as possible.” Granted, I think IVF was even against her particular beliefs, but pregnancy still wasn’t my only goal. My husband and I have always sought a general well-being of my whole body instead of narrowly focusing on just my reproductive health.

Even with keeping that in mind, I find myself tempted to wonder why the doctors haven’t been able to find out what’s wrong, yet. Why can’t they tell me why I’m tired all the time, etc.? Then I realize that even with good intentions it’s easy for me to focus on healing coming from the doctors themselves or to be driven by a desire to figure out all the answers. It leads to nothing but frustration when one looks to doctors alone for healing and answers. As Rev. Petersen alludes to in his sermon, faith built on such “things” instead of God’s Word won’t last. Certainly there’s no comfort in putting one’s trust in things that will pass away. I’m so thankful that we have God’s Word to turn to in such times. The devil sure does know our weaknesses, and I’m even more thankful to have a Savior who has overcome such temptations for me, as I fail pretty miserably on my own!

L. Meyer

Amen, sister. Amen.

The Best Weapon against Temptation

There are reasons for seeking medical attention for infertility that can lead to sin. Answer these questions:

Do you wish to “make a baby” at the risk of hurting, even killing, your neighbor?
Do you think that having a baby is the only thing in life that can make you happy?
Do you put your identity in motherhood rather than in your Baptism?
Will your faith in God’s goodness to you in Christ Jesus be upset if you do not conceive?

These reasons for seeking medical intervention for infertility are temptations from the devil. These reasons entice us to serve our own desires and wishes, even when it means trusting the words of our doctors over the words of our Creator. We should be wary of these emotional snares that would bind our faith to things temporal rather than to things eternal.

What is our best weapon against such temptations and snares?

Rev. David H. Petersen gives us the answer in his sermon for the First Sunday in Lent – Invocabit (Genesis 3:1-21; 2 Corinthians 6:1-10; St. Matthew 4:1-11) as it appears in Thy Kingdom Come from Emmanuel Press:

All the temptations [of Jesus in the wilderness] show us something of the character of sin and the character of the God who overcomes sin. But the Lord’s response also shows us the best weapon we have against temptation and the only weapon we need. He says, again and again, “It is written.”

The strategy of the devil against our first parents, and then against our Savior, was to plant doubt. He wants us to place ourselves into the role of judge. We will decide what is good for food, pleasing to the eye, and capable of making us wise. We will decide if He is worthy of being our God. This is what we do when we declare, “My God would’t do this or say that.” But, in fact, we don’t get to decide who God is or what He should do. He tells us who He is and what He does in His Word. Faith built on emotions and feelings or our own reason and goodness is like seed sown on rocky ground. It has no root. In time of temptation, it withers and dies.

The answer to doubt is God’s Word. It is written. It is not fleeting, corruptible, or changing. It is solid, lasting, eternal. All things pass away, but the Word of God does not pass away. It is written, in the first place, on the page, not in our hearts. Even the Lord Himself, in the desert, submits to the written Word. It is the written, objective, unchanging Word. (Petersen, 29-30)

I sang with Renée Fleming.

I really did.

Well, okay, I and the rest of the audience.

And it may have been an encore, but still. I sang with Renée.

You know what, we can even scrap the singing part. I was in the SAME ROOM as Renée!! I sat about 150 feet away from her as she messa di voce-d the ducks out of the water on Strauss’s “Morgen!” and made even my husband tear up on “O mio babbino caro.”

I sat here. She stood there.

I sat in the same room as Renée, and this once-in-a-lifetime experience was made possible by the enterprising (a.k.a. sold some electronic equipment in order to buy tickets) generosity of my husband.

It gets even better. My husband researched the local restaurants and took me out for my favorite meal before the recital: a burger and sweet potato fries. That, my classy friends, is how it’s done. True love in action.

Why am I writing about a burger and the best soprano in the world on a blog about barrenness?

Because, dear readers, even a barren woman can have a really good day.

Phantom

Physical pain is a phantom.

It is terrifying, all-consuming when it visits. It makes you shiver in a cold sweat. It makes you lose control of your bodily functions. It chases away your language and leaves only muffled banshee moans in its wake.

Then, when it suddenly, mysteriously disappears, when it releases its raging grip on your existence, you can’t help but look around and ask, “Was it real, or did I just imagine it?”

Either way, the memory continues to haunt you.

Embryonic Adoption

Question Submitted: What do you think of embryonic adoption?

Rebecca and I have spent hours on the phone, on the road, and over our dinner plates talking about this, and here is what we think:

Before we engage in a conversation about embryonic adoption in the Church, we first need to come to an agreement in the Church that embryos should cease being produced and frozen through the procedure of IVF.

In an effort to get that conversation on IVF rolling, we are engaging various LCMS pastors across the Midwest in a series of roundtable discussions on the topic. We’ll check in with you later about embryonic adoption once we’ve listened to what our pastors have to say.

In the meantime, let’s continue to pray for our littlest neighbors frozen in time. Lord, have mercy.

All Depends on Our Possessing

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When with sorrow I am stricken,
Hope anew my heart will quicken;
All my longing shall be stilled.
To His lovingkindness tender
Soul and body I surrender,
For on God alone I build.

Well He knows what best to grant me;
All the longing hopes that haunt me,
Joy and sorrow, have their day.
I shall doubt His wisdom never;
As God wills, so be it ever;
I commit to Him my way.

If my days on earth He lengthen,
God my weary soul will strengthen;
All my trust in Him I place.
Earthly wealth is not abiding,
Like a stream away is gliding;
Safe I anchor in His grace.

“All Depends on Our Possessing,” Lutheran Service Book, 732 s.4-6

First Officer

Question Submitted: I’ve noticed that several of your hosts have adopted children this year. Does it hurt that you are the only HRTB host not to have been given the gift of a child?

Don’t gasp, readers. This is not an audacious question. It is an honest one, and, frankly, I get asked it quite often. So, here is my honest answer:

First, from this website’s conception, my goal was never to have only childless hosts. In fact, if you have ever referred to the host page of this site, you already know that Rebecca, Kristi, Melissa, and Sandra have been mothers for years, whether through the gift of conception or adoption. I invited these sage women to cohost this site with me, because I am terribly aware of my own shortcomings. I am not an authority on every topic we cover on this site, and I rely heavily on their experience, wisdom, prudence, and compassion in responding to such issues as miscarriage, secondary infertility, adoption, and other concerns that touch upon the subject of barrenness.

Now, in response to the hurting portion of your question:

It does not hurt that I am the only HRTB host not to have children; it hurts that I don’t have children, period.

Yet.

It is remarkably easy to rejoice with my fellow hosts in the gifts they have been given this year, because I, too, have been given special gifts from God. I have been given the gift of knowledge from God’s Word that children are His gift to give and that He is wise in His giving; I have been given the gift of faith which trusts in the goodness of God’s giving and His not giving; I have been given the gift of fellowship in the Body of Christ, and I get to participate in the joy of my mother-sisters; I have been given the gift of assurance that my own prayers and sorrows are made known to my Father in heaven, because I have a Mediator who always intercedes on my behalf at God’s right hand; I have been given the gift of a Comforter who, through Word and Sacrament, grants me peace that surpasses all understanding; and, last but not least, I have been given a special vocation in the lives of my fellow HRTB hosts: First Officer of the Starship Motherhood.

What, exactly, does the First Officer do?

The First Officer receives stunned, amazed, blessed, joyous, play-by-play texts when Baby Mayes arrives.

The First Officer gets to share meals with Baby DeGroot and Big Boy Ostapowich.

The First Officer gets the privilege of being one of the first people to receive updates and pictures of Baby Leckband in China so that she can post said updates and pictures to Mama Leckband’s website for her while international internet access is limited.

Most importantly, the First Officer receives tender empathy at all times, even from across an ocean in the middle of a sleepless night just after Baby Leckband has been put into the arms of her family for the first time:

“I know there is joy and pain for you personally on this day. Know this, dear sister, you are loved for who you are TODAY. Your worth is found in the shadow of the One who has borne all of our suffering. His gifts are yours each and every day, despite your earthly pains and sorrows. You. Are. Loved!”

Does it hurt? Not as much as it could, thanks to the compassionate generosity of my fellow hosts who never leave me out but put me right in the middle of the celebration.

I am one blessed, barren woman.

Salute,

First Officer Schuermann