Bethlehem Lutheran Church – Aloha, OR
Join Us For Christmas Worship Services!
Join us as we celebrate the birth of the Christ Child at Bethlehem!
We have 3 services on Christmas Eve:
-the 5 & 7 pm services will be identical and feature both traditional and contemporary music, a living nativity, and candlelight.
-the 11 pm service will have communion and feature candlelight
On Christmas Day we will worship and celebrate together at 10 am. There will be communion.
You can find more information on our FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE.
Quietly Pointing to Jesus
I think it’s amazing—no, more than amazing, fun—how God puts things together. Sometimes, He does this “Elijah and the prophets of Baal” style, so that there’s no doubt what you just saw. But other times, He does things quietly, in that Luke 2:7 kind of way, where you go, “Wait. Didn’t the hopes and fears of all the years just get met and that’s how you’re going to tell it?”
Quietly making connections is how our Lord seems to prefer to work most of the time. Theologically, we call that “working through the means of grace” and we categorize those means of grace—because that’s what humans do. Take the Church Year for example. It doesn’t follow the calendar on your wall or in your phone. The Church Year points to Jesus, so it doesn’t follow human conventions or expectations. Our calendar is determined to begin January 1 and to stubbornly end on December 31.
Our worship space at Bethlehem is another of those places where our Lord works quietly, connecting ordinary things together to point us to Jesus.
Not so, the Church Year as it sort of runs the beginnings and the endings into one another. The Church Year “ends” on Christ the King Sunday and “begins” the First Sunday in Advent. But, Christ the King Sunday can rehearse the entire life of Jesus, connecting Christmas to Epiphany to Transfiguration to Good Friday and Easter to His Ascension. So, the “beginning” and the “end” kind of run into each other. Even the long season of Pentecost (the season formerly known as Trinity), has moments when the Scripture readings suddenly jump up and remind us of Easter or Christmas or Good Friday, so Jesus is everywhere and every “when,” meeting us in the moments.
Our worship space at Bethlehem is another of those places where our Lord works quietly, connecting ordinary things together to point us to Jesus. We’ve already talked about the way some of the stones in the wall behind the altar can be seen to resemble a hand, holding everything together underneath the cross. Some folks in the 8:30 morning service have noticed in Spring and Summer how the rising sun shines through the middle window (cross surrounded by the fish) and lights up the chancel area—what we do, outlined by who Christ is and what He’s done. (Remember that the fish symbol points to Jesus because the letters in the Greek word for “fish” form an anagram for Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.) I really like this next one
If you stand in the entrance to the nave (the worship space) and look straight in at the processional cross, the red light of the EXIT sign right above you illuminates the center of the cross with red light. This is especially impressive when the sanctuary is dark. As you walk closer to the altar, the light is focused into the center of the cross, reminding you that we have access to God through the cross of Jesus and His sacrifice for us. Often, I park in the north parking lot and exit through the doors past the organ/worship team area. I get to be reminded of John 1:14 every winter evening: “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” He meets me in the moment of darkness with the light of Jesus.
Think about those times when He’s done that for you—met you in those moments of darkness and pointed you to His love, His help, His hope in Jesus. More than think about them, celebrate those moments and give thanks for them.
Joy in the journey,
Pastor Jeff Shearier
Advent at Bethlehem
Come join us for worship! Sunday mornings at 8:30 and 11:00.
Wednesdays During Advent
Join us for worship! Soup luncheon after the service.
Thankful For The Gospel
The years leading up to October 31, 1517 were essential to understanding Martin Luther’s motivation and the purpose of the Reformation. In 1513, as a new professor at the University of Wittenberg, Luther lectured on the Psalms. He then lectured on St. Paul’s epistles to the Romans and Galatians from 1515 to 1517. While Luther studied and taught the Scriptures he wrestled mightily with the established teachings of the church concerning grace and faith.
Later in life, in 1545, Luther described the joy that came in the discovery that had been waiting for him in the Word: “I had already for years read and taught the Holy Scriptures both privately and publicly. I knew most of the Scriptures by heart and, furthermore, had eaten the first fruits of knowledge of, and faith in, Christ, namely, that we are justified not by works, but by faith in Christ.” The prevailing teaching of the Church was “infused grace,” or the grace God puts in the sinner so that he might become righteous.
This bothered Luther because it meant that the Christian life and faith was thus heavily focused upon obedience and behavior; it was a “gradual healing process” in which the sinner “starts to become” righteous as “God creates a new will in man so that he begins to fulfill the Law.” In other words, they held that Christ and the grace of God make salvation a possibility for the believer. At the final judgment God will decide if the Christian has used and done justice to God’s gift of grace. This left Luther—and all believers—wondering if he had done enough to please God.
“This bothered Luther because it meant that the Christian life and faith was thus heavily focused upon obedience and behavior…“
Luther struggled with the biblical phrase “the righteousness of God.” He wrote, “Nevertheless, in spite of the ardor of my heart I was hindered
by the unique word in the first chapter (of Romans): ‘the righteousness of God is revealed in it.’ I hated the word ‘righteousness of God,’ because in accordance with the usage and custom of the doctors I had been taught to understand it philosophically as meaning, as they put it, the formal or active righteousness according to which God is righteous and punishes sinners and the unjust. As a monk I led an irreproachable life. Nevertheless I felt that I was a sinner before God. My conscience was restless, and I could not depend on God being propitiated by my satisfactions. Not only did I not love, but I actually hated the righteous God who punishes sinners…Thus a furious battle raged within my perplexed conscience, but meanwhile I was knocking at the door of this particular Pauline passage, earnestly seeking to know the mind of the great apostle. Day and night I tried to meditate upon the significance of these words: ‘The righteousness of God is revealed in it, as it is written: The righteous shall live by faith.’”
In 1517, then, the Word of God finally was heard by Luther clearly: “Then finally God had mercy on me, and I began to understand that the righteousness of God is a gift of God by which a righteous man lives, namely faith, and that sentence: The righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel, is passive, indicating that the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ Now I felt as though I had been reborn altogether and had entered Paradise. In the same moment the face of the whole of Scripture became apparent to me. My mind ran through the Scriptures, as far as I was able to recollect them, seeking analogies in other phrases, such as the work of God, by which He makes us strong, the wisdom of God, by which He makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God. Just as intensely as I had now hated the expression ‘the righteousness of God,’ I now lovingly praised this most pleasant word. This passage from Paul became to me the very gate to Paradise.”
Luther’s breakthrough was that God justifies the sinner not by giving him the ability to become righteous but by crediting the holiness, obedience, and goodness of Christ to him as righteousness. “Justification is not a change in man but the gracious declaration of God by which He pronounces righteous the sinner who in himself is not righteous.”
As we leave the October celebration of the Reformation behind, we move forward into November with thankful hearts. We are thankful for the Gospel that changes us—our hearts, our mind and our habits. This Gospel changes us so that we can act out our thankfulness in meaningful ways. Look in this newsletter for some opportunities to act out your thankfulness!
Joy in the journey,
Pastor Jeff Shearier
Adapted from an article by Paul Doelinger on the LCMS Facebook page.
Bethlehem Lutheran Church - Aloha, OR 