Should I use the Palomar knot?  Uni knot?  Or Snell knot?   Who knows?  With the neuropathy I have in my fingers, any knot prompts an almost-impossible struggle, especially when working with 3-pound test while being pelted with stinging, cold rain driven by 25 mph wind gusts. 

And button-down collars?  Don’t get me started.  Now days when I buy a dress shirt, it’s got to be collar-button-free!

Yet I fear that I belly-ache far too often about my struggles with neuropathy.  After all. what if I had no hands? How would I button my shirt? How would I comb my hair or brush my teeth? How would I cut my food and put it into my mouth? How would I live?

I know of cases where people can do amazing things with their toes, or paint beautiful landscapes while holding the paintbrush in their mouth, but that’s not me!  My toes aren’t that talented (or flexible).  And if I were to paint with my mouth, I’d drag “modern art” down even further.

Thank God that most of us don’t need to fret over such things.  God has given us hands--two of them!  And we use our hands almost constantly. We use them to work and to play. We use them around the house, when we’re fishing or hunting, when we’re putzing around in the garden, doing carpentry, or fixing a leaky faucet.  We use them to drive, to turn the pages of our books, to type on our computers, and to play our games. Some of us can’t even talk without using our hands!  (I almost knocked the coffee cup out of another pastor’s hand at a conference once.  I got a bit carried away while I was talking about fishing.)

Who benefits from the use of our hands?  We do, of course!  It is our paycheck they sign, our shirt or blouse they button, and our mouth they feed.

And there is certainly nothing wrong with that. God gave us the gift of our hands so that we could use them to work and play and live.  The Psalmist King David once wrote, “For you created my inner organs. You wove me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and my soul knows that very well.”  (Psalm 139:13-14)  God expects our hands to be a blessing to us--to make our lives easier and happier.

But it shouldn’t stop there!  God has another purpose for giving us hands. He wants us to use our hands to serve others. As the Apostle Paul once instructed the elders of the church at Ephesus:  “You yourselves know that these hands have provided for my needs and for those who were with me. In every way I gave you an example that, by working hard like this, we need to help the weak and to remember the words that the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”  (Acts 20:34-35) When we lend a helping hand to a friend, a neighbor, or a fellow church member, our hands become blessings to them and make their lives easier and happier. 

Of course, in all of this, Jesus, God himself, is our example. He offered his hands to be nailed to a cross for us. The blood that flowed from those nail wounds washed all our sins away. There is no greater service anyone has done for us than that!  (John 15:13) 

In response to his love for us, God wants us to love him and love others. He wants us to show that love with service. When we use our hands to serve others, we also serve God.  And on the Judgment Day, our gracious Lord will beam at us in love and say, “Amen I tell you: Just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.”  (Matthew 25:40)
 
Privileged to serve,
​Rev. Glenn Schwanke

Bam! Bam! Bam! Pound! Pound! Pound! Actually, it was more like BamBamBamBamBam… PoundPoundPoundPound!!!!
 
Last Thursday - Saturday, the shingles on the peaked roofs over Trinity’s church and school gym were replaced. To linger long beneath the hammering and the pounding was to invite a pounding headache.
 
However, if such a replacement could be done in silence, would it seem like it was real?
 
Think of how we accumulate debt. These days we incur debt silently – online, sliding debit/credit cards through electronic machines, phone apps, maybe a quick beep to confirm the transaction. It’s easy to rack up debt quickly this way. Remember the old days, the old credit card machines (one is in the accompanying picture)? Every time you incurred debt, you heard it. RackRack!
 
Imagine some divine accounting room somewhere, racking up our debt/guilt, making this annoying sound every time we sinned.

• Every time you put you first and God second. RackRack!
• Every time you wanted to hurt someone, or get even. RackRack!
• Every time you lusted. RackRack!
• Every time you coveted. RackRack!
• Every time you envied someone else’s possessions or positions. RackRack!
• Every single sin. RackRack!
• You have taken that which was not yours. RackRack!
• You have grieved and dishonored your parents. RackRack!
• You have hated and been angry and impatient. RackRack!
• You have sought to serve self and made your own happiness top priority rather than seek to serve others and meet their needs. RackRack!
• You and I have treated God like some desperate little child, so eager for our attention that he will endure our little games, our sports, our parties, and our vacations all taking his place – robbing him of the time, devotion, love and attention he deserves. RackRack!
• You and I have judged our neighbors and gossiped about them. RackRack!
• We have griped and complained about one another, about our church, about our God. RackRack! RackRack! RackRack!
• Everysingle sin. Rack!Rack! BamBamBamBamBamPoundPoundPoundPound!!!!

 
Guilt. Your guilt is crushing. It is damning. Mine too. Unpayable. Irreversible. How can we give it up?
 
We don’t. We can’t. Jesus takes it on himself. Does it work? Can he pay the price? Your guilt? Mine? That of the whole world?
 
Get the credit card racker ready, follow Jesus’ life and it will…remain silent. He was holy, blameless, pure, sinless. Old Testament priests always had to symbolically sacrifice for their own sins before they began their work of offering symbolic sacrifices for the sins of others. Every day. Not Jesus. “He sacrificed for sins once and for all when he offered himself.” (Hebrews 7:27b) Once for all. Scripture, especially the book of Hebrews, makes this abundantly clear. “He has appeared once and for all, at the climax of the ages, in order to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebrews 9:26b) “By this will, we have been sanctified once and for all, through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ.” (Hebrews 10:10)
 
Can we be sure – absolutely sure, sure beyond any doubt – that guilt is gone, paid for, finished? That the Rack?Rack! of sin’s debt has been satisfied? We can. We are. Thanks to Jesus. Praise him!
 
Grateful with you,
Pastor Stephen Luchterhand

Did you hop in your car or book a flight so you could join the crowds gathered at Niagara Falls, or on the tracks of the Indy 500 Speedway so you could be smack-dab in the center of the “Path of Totality”?   Or did you join fellow “eclipsers” down in Del Rio, Texas, the first location in the good old USA where the much-hyped Total Solar Eclipse of 2024 could be seen?

After all that effort, did you miss it?  Did a raging atmospheric river wash out the precious four minutes and 27 seconds when you hoped to view the great Total Solar Eclipse of 2024?  What a bummer!  That means you’ll need to wait until August 22, 2044, for the next eclipse.  But that path of totality will only occur in North Dakota, Montana, and northern Canada.   You’ll need to wait until August 12, 2045, for a path of totality that will span the Lower 48. 

And the maximum width of that path?  124 miles.

Yawn.  Despite the hype, these total solar eclipses are nothing compared to what happened some 2,000 years ago. 

The Gospel writers Matthew and Mark inform us,  “From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.”  (Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33)   That’s noon till 3 PM as we reckon time.  The day?  Good Friday. On that day there were three hours of total darkness “over all the land.”   Not just a few minutes!

Three hours of total darkness over what land?  Israel?  If so, that would mean the path of totality was about 71 miles wide.  That’s how far Israel stretches from east to west at its widest point.  To put that into perspective, that would be a band of darkness that stretches from my front door down to Merrill, WI.  Wow!  Kind of impressive, right?

No!  What happened 2,000 years ago on Good Friday was no mere solar eclipse, and the land it covered wasn’t just the puny nation of Israel.  Ancient records from Rome, Greece, Egypt, and as far away as China make mention of it, because this unique phenomenon didn’t coincide with any known astronomical events!  On Good Friday our Lord caused a path of total darkness that stretched around our entire globe.  24,901 miles around the equator.

This totality of darkness settled down over the earth for three long hours so no one could miss it, no matter where they were on earth at the time!   But our loving Father wanted you and me to see this totality, too!  That’s why – through the changeless record of his inspired Word—he has opened the eyes of our faith to peer back in time and see, “From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.” This Totality of Darkness was the darkness of his judgment.  The Father had to look away from his Son, and the Son had to be completely abandoned for the Lord had “laid on him the iniquity of us all.”  (Isaiah 53:6)   Your sins.  Mine.  The sins of some 8,102,246,482 people who lived on this earth in the moment when I checked the world population clock on the internet.  (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/) 

Add in the sins of all who will be born till the Judgment Day, and all the billions more who died going back to Eden.    

God’s path of totality on Good Friday stretched around our world as a global visual aide for what was happening on the center cross of Calvary.  There hung the one who “offered one sacrifice for sins for all time.”   (Hebrews 10:12)

This judgment totality was the only way to rip away the death shroud that “covers all peoples, the burial cloth stretched over all nations.” (Isaiah 25:7)  And rip it away is exactly what our Lord did!  At 3 PM, when the darkness ended!  When the Son cried out, “It is finished!”  (John 19:30)  When the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom! When the earth shook!  When the rocks split!  When tombs were opened  “and many bodies of saints who had fallen asleep were raised to life!”  (Matthew 27:52)

Three days later, the Lord replaced the totality of Good Friday’s darkness with a totality that bathed the entire earth in the sun of his grace!  For lost sinners everywhere, throughout time!  For you!  For me! For all of us the Sun (Son) of righteousness has risen, and there is healing in his wings!. (Malachi 4:2)  This Sun (Son) is Jesus!  “In him (is) life, and the life (is)s the light of mankind. The light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  (John 1:4-5) 

And the darkness never will.  Our Sun’s (Son’s) guarantee rings forever true.  “I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

Privileged to serve,
Rev. Glenn Schwanke

Wait, what? That’s not right. We just celebrated Easter on Sunday, March 31st. A glorious, uplifting morning of worship and praise, of restored hope and strengthened faith thanks to the risen Lord Jesus.
 
Can I just randomly and stubbornly go against all of Christendom (except for the Orthodox Church, which celebrates Easter on May 5th – but wait, isn’t that Cinco de Mayo? How confusing?!) and pick my own date for Easter?
 
In fact, March 23rd is a rare date for Easter. It last occurred in 2008, and won’t occur again until the year 2160. That’s a gap of 152 years! These are well-established dates, in place since the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. At that gathering it was decided that Easter would be a moveable feast, observed on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox (approximately March 21st). So, how can I declare 2024 to be a March 23rd Easter date?
 
Allow me to explain. This is not a belated April Fool’s, nor an attempt to be contrary. Saturday, March 23rd, was the day before Palm Sunday on the Christian calendar in this year of our Lord, 2024. But March 23rd saw a glorious Easter celebration at Trinity, in fact, there were two Easter celebrations that morning, one on either side of our campus.
 
On the church side of things, a funeral was held for a dear sister in Christ. She was the longest-living member of our church (106 years old!) and she now lives eternally with Jesus. There were Scripture readings, prayers, hymns, a sermon along with tears of grief and joy! Jesus lives, and so does our sister in Christ!
 
On the school side of our campus, we held an Easter for Kids event. Around 30 children (ages 3-10) were served by a considerable number of volunteers who guided the children though lessons and activities that focused on Jesus and his resurrection.
 
In short, we were preparing these children for what will one day happen to them as represented on the church side of the campus that morning. We were preparing them for death…and for life in Jesus. We didn’t parade them past the open casket, we didn’t even announce a funeral was taking place. But we taught them about sin and grace, about God’s boundless mercy, and about the perfect life, innocent suffering and death, and glorious resurrection of Jesus their Savior. It was our privilege to teach them to NOT be afraid of death.
 
March 23rd at Trinity felt, well, Easter-y. The next day, Palm Sunday (March 24th), two young boys were baptized. That felt like Easter, too. They were connected by their baptism into Jesus’s death, as were you and I. Paul reminds us: “We were therefore buried with him by this baptism into his death, so that just as he was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too would also walk in a new life.” (Romans 6:4)
 
Truly, Easter is every day. Resurrection joy enables us to say with David, the mouthpiece of the Savior in Psalm 16: “I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices.” (vv. 8-9)
 
He lives!
Pastor Stephen Luchterhand