Bethlehem Lutheran Church – Aloha, OR
The Unstoppable Gospel
From the May 2019 STAR
I don’t know how true the story is—I would like it to be true, but I haven’t been able to find verification of the story. The story is told that back in the 1920s—just after the Bolshevik Revolution established the Communists in power over Russia—a Soviet official visited a Russian Orthodox monastery.
The official wanted the monks to understand that the Soviet man had no need of religion. He lectured them about the superiority of the new ideas, Lenin’s Great Leap Forward and how those things promised by religion were being accomplished by the Party. After he finished, he was greeted at first by silence. He started to smile to himself, convinced that he had left them speechless.
Easter’s news could not be stopped. Period.
Then, one of the monks shouted, “He is risen!” The rest of the group shouted, “He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!” Easter’s news could not be stopped by officials. Easter’s news could not be stopped. Period.
Mark tells us the women that first Easter said nothing to anyone. That didn’t stop Easter’s news. Luke tells us that the disciples didn’t know what to do with what the women told them, it seemed to them an idle tale. That didn’t stop the news of Easter, either. Whatever is going on in the world cannot stop the news. Whatever is going in your world do not stop the news from being shared and heard. Those things don’t win. Jesus has had the victory. He still does!
A friend of mine posted an article on his Facebook page the other day. We’ve heard so much about the decline of Christianity in our culture recently. Sometimes, it seems that those voices are right. This article provided research contradicting those voices. The number of people who pray, who worship regularly, who believe God’s Word in the Bible remains consistent from generation to generation. While the influence of Christians may be declining in Europe, the number of Christians in Asia, Africa and Latin America is multiplying. Missionaries from Africa and Asia are being sent to Europe! Easter’s news cannot be stopped!
So, continue to tell the story. Let the story seep down into the details of your story and speak hope and forgiveness to your heart. Let the story be lived in your actions and dealings with others as you share forgiveness and hope. Easter’s news cannot be stopped! He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Joy in the journey,
Pastor Jeff
Welcome to Bethlehem!
We are glad that you are visiting our site! Please have a look around and see for yourself what makes the people that gather in this place a family. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Cross Shaped Lives
The Church Year reminds us that we Christians are different. We might be tempted to forget that, from time to time. Following the crowd does seem attractive. They seem to know where they are going. But…remember bell-bottom jeans, pet rocks and Beanie Babies? Maybe, the crowd is not always headed in the best direction.
So, we have a Church Year that sends us into Lent. While our neighbors in the Northern Hemisphere are counting the minutes of daylight that are added each week and looking for blooming daffodils and robins, we are standing with Jesus, as He has come down from the mountain-top moment of His transfiguration, looking down the road that leads to the cross.
Oh, you can look for daffodils and robins and count the extra minutes of daylight, too, but Lent reminds us that there is something else going on. In Romans 12, Paul reminds us that we are different: “…I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—alive, holy and pleasing to God—which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this present world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” I offer these verses because they help me get to the point about Lent.
What the NET translates as “reasonable” in Greek is a word that really is difficult to translate. On the one hand, the word is used by philosophers to mean “reasonable (in Greek, logike).” On the other hand, the New Testament only uses this word once, here in Romans 12. There is a similar word used by Peter in his first letter, talking about the “milk” of the Word of God that we should crave, and Paul uses a similar word to talk about how Abraham’s obedience was “credited” to him as righteousness.
I would suggest that there is another word that might help us understand it all. John calls Jesus the Logos. Logos brings with it those Greek ideas about order and structure and connects them with Proverbs 8, in Wisdom describes its role in Creation. In Jesus, Paul will summarize all this for the Colossians, “all things are held together.” So, Romans 12 tells us that our service is “Christ-shaped.” Our identity is “Christ-shaped.”
This makes us different. “Christ-shaped” means that “our citizenship is in heaven—and we await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,” so our focus is beyond the present moment. As we sing with the old hymn, “I’m but a stranger here, Heaven is my home.” “Christ-shaped” also means that we “carry the cross.” We might think of this as a particular burden in our lives, but Jesus means that our lives are “cross-shaped.” “Cross-shaped” means that we look for God to meet us in Jesus in all sorts of places—like the cross. We know He will meet us in our losses and our sorrow—even in our sins—with His help, forgiveness, and love.
The ashes on our foreheads from Ash Wednesday focus our attention on His cross and remind us as we walk out into the world—as He met us in such a place as His cross—He will meet us in those places in our journey that feel “cross-shaped.”
Joy in your Lenten journey,
Pastor Jeff Shearier
Preschool Spring Plant Sale
March 1 – March 20
Plants will be delivered April 21st.
Our Spring Plant Sale is back! The preschool is taking orders for the Spring Plant sale for 3 weeks. You can find the order form by clicking the button below. You may also pick up a printed order form, available in the Fellowship Hall. Orders must be submitted to me no later than Sunday, March 20th. Payment is due at the time of ordering. You may pay by cash, check or credit card. Please make checks out to “BLP”, if you would like to pay using your credit card you may do so with Joel or Mary in the church office, or with me on Sunday. Plants are due to arrive Thursday, April 21st. Pick up only, no delivery.
He Meets Us
I actually learned this in El Paso. Organists do not simply practice. They worship. Each time they sit on that organ bench, it is a devotional time for them. In Saint Louis, the organist saw me coming—the way the balcony was built—and was ready for me; but in El Paso, I would come up behind Blanche and really startle her because she was deep into the hymn she was practicing. Nathan, in Aurora, was the same.
Nathan would get to church about an hour before everyone else. I would come into the narthex, from the church offices, and I would hear Nathan singing his heart out as he played the hymns and whatever other music shaped his devotional time each morning. Sometimes, I would just sit there on a bench and listen. I felt a bit like a little kid who is snuck into the room where a movie I am not supposed to see is playing.
Christmas Eve night is a special time for me. I like to wait until everyone has left the church building after the last worship service is over. I have done this in every congregation that I have served. This means that it is just around midnight and that it is just now Christmas Day. So, I am sitting in Bethlehem on Christmas morning!
I like to turn on the Christmas tree lights. I turn on the lights in the garland, that light up behind the little Bethlehem cityscape up there by the cross and light the candles. Then, I turn off the overhead lights—the chandeliers—and the lights in the hallways. I sit in the quiet of the sanctuary where I can see the “Bethlehem” stained glass window and let the joy of what God is doing and has done just fill my heart. I might even sing a hymn. You do not have to worry about tunes when you are singing just to God.
What do you do to worship at Christmastime?
How do you find/make time to spend in worship or devotion? It does not have to be in the quiet or in the dark. When I was in Colorado and had to drive to a pastors’ conference in the western part of the state, I would have to drive through the Eisenhower Tunnel—like the US 26 tunnel in the West Hills, but longer and deeper in the mountain. I love to turn my CD player up all the way and let the “Hallelujah Chorus” just fill the moment, there in depths of the earth.
As we close out the calendar year and begin the next, we are unsure of what 2022 will bring. One thing about which we can be sure is that our Lord will be with us in each moment. The Babe who laid wrapped in swaddling clothes in that manger wraps Himself up in our moments and meets us there—whether in the quiet or in a noisy room; in a devotional time or in a traffic jam. That is a reason to celebrate! So, celebrate the moments as they come, one by one.
Pastor Jeff Shearier
Bethlehem Lutheran Church - Aloha, OR 