“I really like the church.  I like traditional worship and the pastor had a firm handshake.”   What a strange combination of comments from the visitor card.  Well, maybe not the first two items.  After all, it is a pretty church.  Our building committee did a great job of remodeling it.  If that visitor was referring to the people, then again I’m not surprised by that comment.  Ascension is a very welcoming and friendly group of people, and they are genuinely happy when we have new faces in worship.  The traditional worship comment is not entirely unexpected because, well, that is what we aim for.  That’s not to say we don’t have variety in our orders of service and in our music, but that variety takes place in the context of worship that is strong on substance:  confession and absolution, songs and hymns with content, a strong emphasis on the proclamation of the Word, etc.

It’s that “firm handshake” thing that just seemed to stand out.  It got me thinking, what did that young man take away from that handshake that seemed worth mentioning?  Maybe the answer to that lies in what I learned about shaking hands growing up in a tight-knit farming community right here in Michigan.  Stay with me here...

As a farmer’s son I was often along with Dad when he was out making arrangements for things with neighboring farmers.  For example, when it was getting close to harvest time we would go see Mr. Spaeth who owned a combine.  An agreement would be reached between the two men about when he would bring in the harvest and for how much.  Tattered pocket calendars would appear from overall pockets and the dates would be written in.  Then came the handshake.  Two honest men looking each in the eye and shaking on the agreement.  No formal contract needed.  They shook hands in a way that said they both meant what they said, they each bound themselves to the other by their word and their integrity to keep the agreement they’d made.  I saw that at the John Deere dealer, the feed mill, at Farm Bureau meetings and at the hardware store.  There was integrity, commitment, and geniality in that handshake. 

It must have left a lasting impression.  When I was pastoring a large urban church years ago, I had a seasoned citizen (also of farm stock) tell me that he appreciated my handshake as we greeted one another after worship because, as he put it, “You shake hands like you mean it.”  I hope that’s what our young visitor sensed in it the other day.   If so, he got it right.  I was glad to meet him and glad that he was there to hear the gospel of his Savior and mine.

Meaning what you say and letting your word be your bond is a very Biblical concept.  In his Sermon on the Mount, as Jesus was explaining to his disciples what it means to be his disciple, he said this:  “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”   (Matthew 5:37)  That’s the kind of disciple Jesus has called us to be in the world:  honest and clear.  Keep your word.  Act with integrity and honor.  Do that in the small every day stuff, in business dealings, on the golf course, at school, and everywhere.  Do it in the really big and important stuff.  Do it because it’s right and because it honors Jesus.  But do it mindful that that integrity will really matter when we look the world in the eye and tell them honestly and clearly that sin damns us all.  And it will matter when tell them that Jesus redeemed us all with his suffering and death. So engage with the people in your world.  Look them in the eye.  Shake hands like you mean it.  It really is more than just a handshake.

“She has become a dwelling for demons and a haunt for every impure spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.”  (Revelation 18:2b)

It happens every now and again – some tourist visiting a wilderness park or game preserve gets injured or killed.  Why does that happen?  Maybe because people imagine that a wilderness preserve is kind of like a zoo – as if the animals understand that they are to be viewed and to leave the viewers alone.  Sometimes it’s because people in our modern world have just lost touch with the truth that there are still critters out there which can seriously injure or kill if you get to close – and they will if they get the chance.  Sometimes it’s because people just don’t know how dangerous wild animals can be.

Martin Luther knew that the visible church was a troubled place with regard to what was being taught.  The teaching that the sinner must produce his own righteousness in order to be at peace with God left him with no rest.  Always he asked, “Have I done the right things?  Have I done enough?”  His conscience was in agreement with the church of his day:  no he had not.  It was the light of the gospel that finally showed him that the righteousness he needed to stand before God was provided entirely by God through the perfect life and innocent death of Jesus.  Luther came to understand how true these words from Revelation 18 were in his day.  The visible church was haunted by spiritual untruths.

It still is.  False teaching creates fear.  It pecks away at the truth.  It carries all kinds of spiritual harm.  How does it get into the church?  Sometimes it springs from the fertile imagination of the human mind - pure human invention.  Some of it creeps in from the world’s popular view of religion, a kind of “pious consensus of human opinion about religious matters.  But some false teaching is the work of evil spirits.  Paul echoed the words of today’s text when he told Timothy, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.”  (1 Timothy 4:1-2)  Somehow, sometimes, in some way Satan finds a way to inject false teaching into the visible church through people who have lost the ability to distinguish truth and error. 

What are we to do?  We are to cling to the Word of God – all of it.  We are to grow in the Word of God by hearing it and studying it.  Here at Ascension, we stand on the Word.  We are not stiff-necked about it, but we are principled.  We strive never to be cocky about standing on the truth of God’s Word, but we are committed to that Word.    We do this because we know that only through God’s Word will we have the certainty of our faith of which Luther spoke:  “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times. This knowledge of and confidence in God’s grace makes men glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and with all creatures.” (LW, Vol. 35, pp. 370-31)  Come and stand with us!