Bethlehem Lutheran Church – Aloha, OR
Here Comes 2023
BY JEFF SHEARIER
Eric Oswald explained it to me. I had noticed these grey, green and amber colored boxes on my Facebook friends pages in the morning, but I had no idea what WORDLE was. So, of course, I asked Eric. He explains things to me that a person of a certain generation might not understand.
WORDLE is a word game, now owned by The New York Times. You have six chances to guess the mystery word. You are given no clues by which to solve the mystery. Only by trying different words as guesses do you reveal letters and determine their position in the mystery word. You have six chances to guess before the game ends. With today’s word, I had all of the letters but didn’t see how they fit together into a word right away.
I bring this up as we enter 2023. What the new year will bring is unknown. We will, by experience, make guesses and see what works and what doesn’t work and then see how it all fits together. We do have something going for us that games like “WORDLE” don’t have. We have a guide. We also have a promise.
The promise was given several times in the Scriptures, but I think Jeremiah 29:11 might say it best. The LORD promises that His plan is to prosper His people and not to harm them. Remember, He makes this promise as the Babylonians are swarming Jerusalem and taking her citizens captive. We might think Jeremiah got this part wrong or that the LORD misspoke, but we’d be short-sighted. We would be the WORDLE player having all of the letters but not seeing how they fit together.
The promise is, that even as the LORD works through what comes our way feeling like discipline, He is working everything together for our good. He meets us in whatever we’re experiencing and draws us closer to Himself in Jesus. Even in Babylon, the promise the LORD made to David was intact as 2 Kings ends with the news that David’s descendants live. Out of that promise kept comes a young couple gathered around a manger in Bethlehem about six centuries later. He works things, Paul tells us, together for the good in Christ He has in mind for us.
So here comes 2023. We will have paid down a significant portion of our debt. We are welcoming about ten more people each Sunday in worship than last year. Families from the neighborhood are joining us for worship. People we haven’t met yet are moving into our community and the material and spiritual needs of these people call us into action. How will these pieces fit together?
We have the LORD’s Word that they will fit together in a way that draws us closer to Him and will be His way to bless and prosper us. What will that look like? There may be pieces that we haven’t seen yet, so the fun will be in the discovery.
Looking forward to …joy in the journey,
Pastor Jeff Shearier
People Who Need a Savior
I think that I was in the fifth grade.
In our family, Halloween had been a big deal. We had certain costumes that you “grew into.” A person had to be Frankenstein until either my older brother got tired of trick-and-treating or out-grew the “hobo” costume. The “hobo” costume was the sign that you had left childish things behind. My fifth-grade year was going to be that year. My older brother had decided he was not going to be going out with us that Halloween. He’d been invited to a party.
So, it was my year to be the “hobo.” I was very excited. I really didn’t pay attention to the news reports in the fifth grade. I did have my very own transistor radio. Having that radio was one of those milestones of maturity as well. I could listen to my radio as the Orioles beat the Dodgers in the World Series that year. But I missed the news that there was something going on in Milwaukee that had all the adults in an uproar. I don’t recall what that “something” was, but it meant that we had to “trick-or-treat” in the daylight. I think that’s what took the magic out of Halloween for me. You could see all the reality. Being the “hobo” didn’t mean I was some mysterious traveler just passing through—I was just Jeff in old clothes and a floppy hat. The pretending was over.
Christmas is just the opposite for me. I love the reality. I like the straw in the manger scene. I like babies crying in church as we sing “Silent Night” and light our candles. I like “living nativities.” No plastic figurines on the lawn for me. I imagine Bethlehem that first Christmas was filled with very real people. Crowded with very real people with very real needs—even a need they didn’t even know. However, not knowing you have a need doesn’t mean you don’t really have it.
But there, in the middle of all that reality, all that busy-ness, all that messy-ness, Luke tells us what happened so very simply: a pregnant woman gave birth to her First-born, a Son. Luke, who in so many other places gives us so much detail—shepherds in their fields, the glory of Lord shining all over the place into the darkness—keeps the reality of Jesus’ birth simple. To me, Luke makes the story real by not embellishing it with details. Luke will use the economy of words when he describes Jesus’ crucifixion.
This Advent and Christmas season, we will use the theme, “Be born in us today.” The line is obviously taken from “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” That Bethlehem to our Bethlehem, praying that the reality of Jesus’ birth would continue to be real in our lives. There are—just as there were then—distractions. Did you know that Herod had a fortress not too far from Bethlehem? On that dark night, how could his guards have missed the angelic host? Apparently, they did miss it.
Back in El Paso, years ago a teen-ager told me he didn’t come to church any longer since it was always the same story. We celebrate that same story because it speaks the same good news to our same need for a Savior. We are real people ruined by our self-centeredness who really need a Savior. Join us this Advent and Christmas as we celebrate again the news that we REALLY have one!
Pastor Jeff Shearier
Thanksgiving Worship Service
Please join us as we worship our God in thankful humility for all of the blessings we receive. The service will be at 10am in the Worship Center. Remember to bring a non-perishable food item for our Christmas Food Boxes!
“Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name.“
Psalm 30:4
Seeing Clearly
The eye doctor tells me I have cataracts in both eyes.
It tells you what I know about such things that I thought cataracts were like rapids in a river. The Nile River, for example, in Africa has rapids that are called “cataracts.” So, I imagined cataracts to be like the rocks in a river that make rapids—something that could be removed so the river could flow easier.
I had Jesus’ words about the log in my eye and the splinter in my neighbor’s eye come to mind. Just a matter of removing what’s in the way and vision would be restored. I tend to look at Matthew 7 that way—just take care of the immediate problem, the speck, the splinter or the log—and go forward. Of course, Jesus is talking about a bigger change than that. He’s talking about a change of heart. A change in the way you see yourself, your neighbor and Jesus.
You who have had cataract surgery know there is more involved that scraping off something from your eye. While it’s an easier surgery than it was—remember how people were sandbagged in place for a week (mostly because of the spinal anesthesia)? —it’s still surgery. Something needs to be removed—indeed, replaced—so I can see better.
I have noticed that there’s been a haziness occasionally in my vision. I dismissed it as smoke in the air or the way the light was shining. After all, it couldn’t be me that was wrong! The problem, however, is me. Something wrong with me is keeping me from seeing clearly or properly. So, I will have that fixed.
In John 9, Jesus talks about seeing clearly as opposed to being blind. While He has the man born blind as His sermon example, the Pharisees don’t see His point. In fact, they become Jesus’ point. They don’t see what’s wrong with them—in this case, pride, arrogance and a persevering clinging to the belief that they’re the only ones who really see—and so they are blind to who Jesus is. Jesus fixes what’s wrong with the man born blind. Jesus offers His “fix” to the Pharisees—the “fix” He makes on the cross and through the tomb for us. His actions make the change in me so that I can really see myself and my need to be “fixed.”
I think that it’s kind of fun that we end the church liturgical year with Christ the King Sunday. This year, Thanksgiving follows Christ the King. Now, that’s appropriate! We remember the whole of the “why” Jesus came; the “what” Jesus has done and continues to do as we wait for the final “when” He comes again so that we can truly see Him—and ourselves.
Waiting for that “when” we have…
…Joy in the journey,
Pastor Jeff Shearier
Take Courage
Written by Pastor Jeff Shearier
We have 3 families that arrived to us just after midnight Thursday night. They escaped from 3 different cities in Ukraine – traveling to the Romanian border and the unknown. They did not know each other before they ended up in a transport van together. They left behind all they knew. Originally there were 30 persons on their way to us but as the time got closer to crossing the border all but 10 had turned back. They had heard scary stories of perhaps being trafficked for organ selling or sex-trafficking. But, these 3 brave families traveled on. The refugees were honest to tell me that Romania was one of the last places they wanted to go, wanting to head further West, but now they see that their reality here is so much better than what they imagined. None of them had ever left Ukraine before. They were not in the first groups to leave Ukraine. Those were people leaving with cars or money for traveling on somewhere further. The families we have now and that will come are those without possibilities of traveling further. These words were written by the director of the Heart of Hope International Ministries located in Sibiu, Romania (heartofhope.org)
Sibiu is eight hours from the Ukrainian border. Heart of Hope International Ministries operates a Christian camp that has offered summer camps for orphans housed in the state-run orphanages. Some of you may have travelled there a few years ago with Douglas and Karen Bernhardt. Heart of Hope is now housing refugees from Ukraine. They are offering a safe place, staffed with faith-filled volunteers and staff, for these who are fleeing a very unsafe situation.
I am sharing this information with you for two reasons.
First, living in Oregon, Ukraine seems a place far away—a place seen in new stories on television. It’s hard to know how to help—or even how to pray—when you don’t have a connection. We do have a connection with Heart of Hope. We’ve seen pictures of the place and the staff as they’ve served the orphans in the past. Now they are doing something to help. If you wish, you can go to the website to see pictures of the families and pray for them. The website can direct you to other ways in which you can help as well.
The second reason for sharing this to show that the Christian church is not retreating in fear. So many stories from our chaotic world would suggest that churches are closing, clergy are disrespected, and the Word of God is ignored. A believer could feel that the Church is in retreat. These pictures, these stories would show otherwise.
There are of course other stories that would show otherwise. New churches are being organized—some in places that would surprise you. Believers and church workers are holding faithful to God’s Word even in the face of persecution. Remember when Jesus said, “You will have suffering in this world. Take courage! I have overcome the world?” (John 16:33)
However, we are not waiting for the world to take its best shot. Jesus describes His Church on the move. In Matthew 16, Jesus assures us that He builds His Church on the “rock” of His Word and “the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” We are on the move, pushing against those gates—each one forgiven, each one hoping, each one confessing in Jesus’ name—and Hades doesn’t win. Jesus already has! That’s Easter’s news. That’s the ground of our trust and the reason for our mission. It’s also the basis for our…
Joy in the journey,
Pastor Jeff Shearier
Bethlehem Lutheran Church - Aloha, OR 