April 22, 2012
Dear friends in Christ.
Roughly 30 years ago, our synod officials, our
Seminary professors, as well as all the pastors of our synod together with our
members wrestled with the question of which Bible Translation we should use for
our publications. We considered
translations like the New American Standard Bible. We considered translations like An American
Translation, which was also known as the Beck Bible or Beck Translation. In
fact, I’m not even sure how many translations our synod leaders looked at in
those years as they sought to find a Bible Translation that conveyed the Word
of God as clearly as possible in a way that was as readable as possible. All I remember of the Transition from the
King James Version to the New International Version was that in second grade
all the passages I’d memorized the year before were a little different than I
remembered. Yet, through all of that
transition we still were able to celebrate the fellowship that we have with
each other which is formed in the Word of God and founded on faith in Jesus
Christ.
Now, 30 years later, we are again visiting a similar
question. For the past two years we’ve
been exploring which translation is the best for our synod to use in its
publications. Though no translation will
ever be perfect, we are looking for the translation that will most clearly and
most readably convey the Word of God; the translation that will be most clearly
and easily understood as our children memorize their Bible Passages, and as we
hear it in worship. In fact, at our
Pastor’s Conference this past week, we took time to look at different
translations of the Bible. We
specifically looked at the 2011 version of the NIV. We looked at the English Standard Version
(ESV) and we looked at the Holman Christian Standard Version (HCSB). As we looked at these translations, we all
had different opinions about the translation style, word choices, readability,
and at least a few of us wished that we could take the best strengths from each
translation and put them into a single Bible Translation. Yet in all of this, our fellowship was not
divided in anyway. Throughout our
conference we celebrated our fellowship.
We celebrated the fact that the fellowship we had with each other was a
fellowship that had been formed in the Word of God and was founded in our
common faith in Jesus Christ. We
recognized the enormity of the task taken up by the Translation Evaluation
Committee, and we all confidently placed our trust in those who are diligently
working as part of the committee that God will bless their efforts and they
will be able to give us the very best recommendation when their work is
done. All this we were able to do
because we recognized the fellowship we have with each other through faith in
Jesus, which has come to us through the Word of our God.
In fact, it is this very fellowship that we
celebrate today; the fellowship that united us as Pastors at Pastor’s
Conference, which also unites each and every one of us together as believers in
our Lord and Savior, Jesus. It is this
fellowship about which the Apostle John writes in our lesson this morning from
1 John 1:1-5. “That which was from the
beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of
life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to
you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We
proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have
fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son,
Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is the message we
have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no
darkness at all.” (1 John 1:1-5)
As John writes these words, he reminds us of the
fellowship we have with each other, with God the Father, and with Jesus Christ
his Son; the fellowship that was formed through the Word of God that was
proclaimed to us! For the word which we
have come to know and to believe and to trust is the very Word of God recorded
for us through eye-witnesses like John.
John was there on the banks of the Jordan River when John the Baptist
pointed to Jesus and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world!” John was there with Jesus for
three years, and he saw the miracles that Jesus performed, which marked him as
the Savior, the Christ, the Promised Messiah who had come into the world to
save sinners. John was there on that
Mountain of Glory as Jesus was transfigured before his eyes. John was there in Gethsemane as Jesus was
arrested and taken away for trial. John
was there before the Cross as Jesus suffered untold agony all so that he could
cleans us from any hint of unrighteousness.
John was there on Easter morning as the Women came back and reported
that Jesus was alive. He ran with Peter
to the tomb to see for himself that Jesus had been raised. John was there with the disciples behind
locked doors when Jesus appeared to them, and John was there when Jesus
returned to his heavenly home! He was
there for everything, as an eye-witness, and now he is writing to you and me,
to tell us and assure us of what he had heard and seen so that we might have
fellowship with him, with our Lord, and with each other—fellowship that is
founded on nothing less than the Word of God.
And that is what we are celebrating today! We are celebrating the great and the precious
fellowship that we have through the Holy Scriptures. We are celebrating that priceless fellowship
that assures us that we never have to wonder if a preacher is going to preach
according to the Bible or if he will preach on some other faith. You can go down the list of Pastors who have
served this congregation, and whenever a new Pastor came you never had to ask
yourself, will he preach the same gospel that our beloved pastor who just left
had preached all his time here. Not only
that, but because of the fellowship we have in the Word of God, we can enjoy
the rotations we have during the seasons of Advent and Lent. We can enjoy guest speakers who proclaim to
us God’s Word during our Mission Festival celebrations or when our Pastor is on
vacation. Because of our fellowship
through the truth of God’s Word we can enjoy choirs such as those from
Minnesota Valley Lutheran and our other Lutheran High Schools that have sung
here in the past. We can travel to
Martin Luther College for the Christmas Concert and other sacred concerts and
know that even in their music they are proclaiming the truth of God’s Word for
the strengthening of our faith and the building up of our fellowship as
believers in our Lord Jesus Christ. Not
only that, but when you travel to other parts of the country, or even if you
should move away at one time or another, when you find yourself worshiping in a
WELS or an ELS church, you are able to celebrate the fact that these strangers
are actually brothers and sisters through the faith created in their hearts by
the Holy Spirit by his working through the Word of God. You are even able to celebrate your
fellowship by joining with your brothers and sisters in eating of our Lord’s
Supper as an expression of your unity in the faith formed in the Word of God
and founded in Jesus Christ our Savior.
How incredible it is for us to be able to celebrate
this fellowship that we have with each other—a fellowship that has its
foundation in Jesus Christ our Savior!
For it is through Jesus and his cleansing us from our sins by his blood
that we now have fellowship with him, with our God and Father, and with each
other as believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Just as John writes, “This is the message we have heard from him and
declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim
to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by
the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have
fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from
all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is
not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us
our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not
sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. My
dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody
does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the
Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but
also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 1:5-2:2)
Yet, even as we celebrate this great fellowship we
have through faith in Jesus Christ, the Apostle John calls on us to work at
maintaining that fellowship through the teaching of Jesus Christ and the
forgiveness of sins that he has won. He
calls on us to guard our fellowship in Christ so that no false ideas, no false
teachings, no false doctrines creep in and ultimately destroy the fellowship
that we have. It is because of this
admonition, that as we celebrate our fellowship through faith in Jesus as a
congregation we practice what has come to be known as Close Communion. We practice Close Communion, meaning that we
allow only those who are in fellowship with us as members of Wisconsin
Evangelical Lutheran Synod congregations or Evangelical Lutheran Synod
congregations to participate with us in the meal of the Lord’s Supper. This is by no means a judgment upon any
body’s faith! Rather, this is our
recognition that as we celebrate our fellowship in Communion, it is our
responsibility to each other as Christians as well as to the Lord our God, that
our fellowship be based on complete agreement of faith as we eat the Lord’s
great fellowship meal of his body and blood.
Thus, if a visitor from outside our fellowship joins us for worship on
the day we celebrate Holy Communion, it is out of love for the Lord and for the
fellowship we have with him and with each other, that we do not allow that
visitor to join us in the Lord’s Supper, until we can be certain that he or she
knows what we are doing, understands that the bread is at the same time Jesus’
body just as the wine is at the same time Jesus’ blood, and has joined us in
our fellowship which is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ our Savior.
Not only is this the case with Communion, but the
fellowship we have through faith in Christ Jesus, is also the reason why we so
strongly encourage our members who have moved away to join a local Wisconsin
Synod or Evangelical Lutheran Synod church in their area as quickly as they can
after they move. This is also why our
elders work as they do to lovingly encourage our members to gather with us
regularly for worship, especially if they are members who have not been attending
worship on a regular basis. They do this
so that we all might once again enjoy the blessings of fellowship that we have
through faith in Christ Jesus.
This is the fellowship that we have with each other
that has been founded on our faith in Jesus Christ, our Savior, through the
Word of God that was proclaimed to us.
This is the fellowship through which we are reminded of all that our
Savior did for us. How our Savior freed
us from our sins by his death and resurrection.
This is the fellowship through which we grow together as a family of
believers who know and believe the precious truths of the Bible through our
faith in Jesus Christ created by God’s Word.
As Christians, our fellowship with each other is a
great blessing that the Lord has bestowed upon us. It is a blessing that has been formed in the
Word of God and it is built on the foundation of faith in Jesus Christ our
Savior. Even as we looked at different
translations at Conference, we celebrated that fellowship. Even as we move forward as districts and as a
synod to decide which translation is best for our use in publications because
it most clearly conveys God’s Word, we will continue to enjoy the fellowship we
have. We will continue to enjoy the
fellowship that is ours in the Word of God and Christ Jesus our Savior—the fellowship
we have with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ our Savior!
Amen.
Pastor
David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
