RWJ Daily: Raised with Jesus (WELS)

Easter Sunday – At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing

4.4.21 | Rev. Dr. Richard Gurgel

Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:7-8)

How will you celebrate Easter? How we celebrate can either make the most of this glorious day or squander all it means for us.

No, it’s not a matter of the right external celebration. What is critical this Easter Day—in fact, every day—is that our hearts celebrate Christ as our Passover Lamb, as Paul urges us.

That’s why Paul urgently cries out, “Let us keep the Festival,” and then proceeds to talk about leavened and unleavened bread. But what does that mean?

To understand Paul’s words, remember not only that Jesus’ death and resurrection happened during Passover. Remember also that Passover was connected to the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days God commanded Israelites to rid their homes of all yeast. Yeast, with its ability for a tiny amount to permeate a whole batch of dough, is a biblical picture for how sin works in our hearts. Even a small sin allowed to grow in our hearts can wreak eternal havoc as it leads our hearts away from God.

So, “Let us keep the festival!” We remember that Christ has died and risen to free us from sin. But that freedom isn’t only from guilt for sins previously committed. Easter also proclaims freedom from sin’s power over us. So each day we “keep the Festival” as we “get rid of the old yeast.” We watch for the yeast of “malice and wickedness” that every day tries to grow anew in our hearts.

Each day we keep the feast as we seek not only the comfort of the Passover Lamb’s forgiveness but also its power to live with a sincere heart that finds strength in his saving truth. Each day we “keep the Festival” as we delight that in his death and resurrection Jesus has declared us to be a new, unleavened batch of dough and has given us the power to live who we are in him!

So how do we “keep the Festival”? Today, and every day, live as his new batch of unleavened bread. Today, and every day, clear out every remnant of that old yeast of malice and wickedness that clings to our hearts. Today, and every day, throw that old yeast of “malice and wickedness” at the foot of his cross. Today, and every day, find at the empty tomb of your Passover Lamb the power that is yours to live in “sincerity and truth.”

That’s why, and that’s also how, we sing today and every day, “At the Lamb’s high feast.” That’s why, and that’s also how, we “Praise our victorious King.” Such is our joy as this Easter day, and every day, we “keep the Festival.”

Easter triumph, Easter joy! This alone can sin destroy; From sin’s pow’r, Lord, set us free, Newborn souls in you to be. Alleluia!

Rev. Dr. Richard Gurgel serves Martin Luther College as president.

Contact the Podcast: [email protected] or www.raisedwithjesus.com/podcast 

Click here to find a nearby congregation or church home.  

yearbook.wels.net

2021 Bible Reading Schedule: https://bit.ly/rwj2021 

All rights reserved.

Produced 2021 by Pastor Hagen

Music from Joseph McDade: https://josephmcdade.com

#raisedwithjesus #lutheran #sanctification #toledome #toledo #welstoledo #jesus #bible #podcast #dailyjesus #jesusdaily #rwjpodcast #jesusfortoledo

Contact the Podcast: [email protected] or www.raisedwithjesus.com/podcast 

Click here to find a nearby congregation or church home.  

yearbook.wels.net

2021 Bible Reading Schedule: https://bit.ly/rwj2021 

All rights reserved.

Produced 2021 by Pastor Hagen

Music from Joseph McDade: https://josephmcdade.com

#raisedwithjesus #lutheran #sanctification #toledome #toledo #welstoledo #jesus #bible #podcast #dailyjesus #jesusdaily #rwjpodcast #jesusfortoledo 

Sunday school lessons courtesy of Northwestern Publishing House.

Contact the Podcast: [email protected] or www.raisedwithjesus.com/podcast 

Click here to find a nearby congregation or church home.  

yearbook.wels.net

2021 Bible Reading Schedule: https://bit.ly/rwj2021 

All rights reserved.

Produced 2021 by Pastor Hagen

Music from Joseph McDade: https://josephmcdade.com

#raisedwithjesus #lutheran #sanctification #toledome #toledo #welstoledo #jesus #bible #podcast #dailyjesus #jesusdaily #rwjpodcast #jesusfortoledo 

Sunday school lessons courtesy of Northwestern Publishing House.

Contact the Podcast: [email protected] or www.raisedwithjesus.com/podcast 

Click here to find a nearby congregation or church home.  

yearbook.wels.net

2021 Bible Reading Schedule: https://bit.ly/rwj2021 

All rights reserved.

Produced 2021 by Pastor Hagen

Music from Joseph McDade: https://josephmcdade.com

#raisedwithjesus #lutheran #sanctification #toledome #toledo #welstoledo #jesus #bible #podcast #dailyjesus #jesusdaily #rwjpodcast #jesusfortoledo 

Sunday school lessons courtesy of Northwestern Publishing House.

Contact the Podcast: [email protected] or www.raisedwithjesus.com/podcast 

Click here to find a nearby congregation or church home.  

yearbook.wels.net

2021 Bible Reading Schedule: https://bit.ly/rwj2021 

All rights reserved.

Produced 2021 by Pastor Hagen

Music from Joseph McDade: https://josephmcdade.com

#raisedwithjesus #lutheran #sanctification #toledome #toledo #welstoledo #jesus #bible #podcast #dailyjesus #jesusdaily #rwjpodcast #jesusfortoledo 

Sunday school lessons courtesy of Northwestern Publishing House.

EHV Passion History audio from Hope Lutheran Lutheran Church of Toronto, ON.

Hope's Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNM1NNdeH2B2FoeeKhYUbtw

Hope's website: https://www.hopetoronto.com 

Contact the Podcast: [email protected] or www.raisedwithjesus.com/podcast 

Click here to find a nearby congregation or church home.  

yearbook.wels.net

2021 Bible Reading Schedule: https://bit.ly/rwj2021 

All rights reserved.

Produced 2021 by Pastor Hagen

Music from Joseph McDade: https://josephmcdade.com

#raisedwithjesus #lutheran #sanctification #toledome #toledo #welstoledo #jesus #bible #podcast #dailyjesus #jesusdaily #rwjpodcast #jesusfortoledo

Saturday – Jesus, Grant that Balm and Healing

4.3.21 | Rev. Dr. Keith Wessel

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)

One can only wonder what kind of quiet talk and sober reflection went on inside Jerusalem homes on Saturday of Holy Week. For the Jewish people of that day it wasn’t, of course, “Holy Week”; it was the Sabbath day of Passover. Though the city had opened her arms to thousands of annual pilgrims, undoubtedly the streets and markets were quiet as people rested and again recounted for their families the events of the Exodus, the deliverance from bondage God had provided.

But how could there not also have been talk about the death of the preacher from Nazareth—the riotous crowds, the darkness and earthquake, the unusually quick death of Jesus, the hasty burial, etc. etc.? St. Luke tells us that eyewitnesses to the crucifixion “beat their breasts and went away” when they saw everything that had happened (Lk 23:38). The unnaturalness of the events at Golgotha even moved a shaken Roman soldier to stop and reflect upon the meaning of it all.

Our Lenten journey has again drawn to a close. Lent is a time for quiet and deep reflection upon the meaning of it all . . . and the marvel of it all. By God’s grace, the Holy Spirit has opened our minds to understand the Scriptures and what the death of Jesus truly means. The hymn writer says, “Jesus, grant that balm and healing in your sacred wounds I find.” Yes. God must grant such faith. God must grant insight and understanding. And, along with such things, our gracious God also grants healing to us through the blood of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

But that blood of the Lamb does more than cause us to pause and reflect upon the death of Jesus. That blood washed us in baptism. That blood, together with his body, still is given to us for the assurance of our forgiveness, and to increase our faith, hope, and love. That blood gives us courage and strength to plod forward through our broken world to our eternal home. Again, our hymn writer: “When I’m weak, your cross revives me, granting new life to my soul.”

The call to faith in Jesus is also the call to a new life—the life of struggling against sin and walking in the freedom Jesus won for us by his sacrifice. The Spirit has “transformed our minds” so that now, “in view of God’s mercy,” we also offer ourselves as “living sacrifices” to God in all we do. “This is our true and proper worship.” And in such worship, our heavenly Father takes great delight.

Lord Jesus, I thank you again for your sacrifice on the cross. Lead me by your Holy Spirit to sacrifice myself for you—a thank-offering to the God of my salvation. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Keith Wessel serves Martin Luther College as a professor of Greek, Latin, and philosophy.

Contact the Podcast: [email protected] or www.raisedwithjesus.com/podcast 

Click here to find a nearby congregation or church home.  

yearbook.wels.net

2021 Bible Reading Schedule: https://bit.ly/rwj2021 

All rights reserved.

Produced 2021 by Pastor Hagen

Music from Joseph McDade: https://josephmcdade.com

#raisedwithjesus #lutheran #sanctification #toledome #toledo #welstoledo #jesus #bible #podcast #dailyjesus #jesusdaily #rwjpodcast #jesusfortoledo

Good Friday – Oh, Darkest Woe

4.2.21 | Rev. Dr. Lawrence Olson

At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. (John 19:41-42)

Their hearts were heavy as they buried Jesus on that dark Friday. They might have thought many things about that day, but as they laid him in the tomb, they almost certainly would not have called it “good.”

Johann Rist (1607-1667), a German Lutheran pastor, was a prolific writer. Two hundred of the approximately 680 hymns that he penned were in common use during his time. “Oh, Darkest Woe” is among those that continue to be used to this day.

Rist wrote “Oh, Darkest Woe” in 1641. When he published it, he included this heading: “A Mournful Graveside Song on the Sorrowful Burial of Our Savior Jesus Christ, to Be Sung on Good Friday.” He noted, “The first verse of this funeral hymn, along with its devotional melody, came accidentally into my hands. As I was greatly pleased with it, I added the other seven verses as they stand here, since I could not be a party to the other verses.” Rist objected to false teachings in those verses, so he took the first verse of what Friedrich Spee wrote in 1628 and added verses faithful to Scripture.

Christian Worship includes five of the original verses in Rist’s “mournful graveside song.” The first two lines of the second verse may reflect one of the thoughts swirling through the minds of those who laid Jesus in his tomb: “Oh, sorrow dread! God’s Son is dead!” The original German is forceful, even startling. “O grosse Not! Gott selbst liegt Tot”: “Oh, great distress! God himself lies dead.”

“God’s Son,” Jesus the Christ, was and is God and man in one person. He was and is “God himself.” Our jaws drop. “God himself lies dead”? How can this be? Why?

Why? The answer is the reason that we call this Friday “good”: on this day Jesus died for the sins of the world. As Rist put it in his hymn, “by his expiation of our guilt upon the cross,” Jesus “gained for us salvation.” “Expiation” refers to taking away guilt through the payment of a penalty. The Bible is clear: “The wages of sin is death.” Jesus paid those wages for the world. “God himself” took our place and shed his innocent blood on the cross. That changes everything. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).

Satan and his demons celebrated when Jesus was laid in the tomb. Hell’s celebration continued Friday night, throughout Saturday, and into Sunday, but it ended early that morning. Jesus, who had been dead, rose to life and left that tomb empty. Jesus is alive, and death is defeated. Remember that while we wait for Sunday.

O Jesus blest, my Help and Rest, With tears I now entreat you: Make me love you to the last Till in heaven I greet you. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Lawrence Olson serves Martin Luther College as a professor of theology and as director of the Staff Ministry Program and Congregational Assistant Program.