Nothing particularly spiritual about this blog.  And this one is mostly for guys.  There are only a few shopping days left until Christmas.  This is the time when people start to panic.  When people panic, poor gift choices are made.  When poor gift choices are made, bad things happen in relationships.  This bit of advice is for the guys out there who are in a bit of  a panic about what to get their Sweetheart for Christmas.  Do. Not. Panic.  I’m going to give you a bit of advice to keep you from really messing this up.  (Don’t ask me how I learned these lessons.)  Here are some very simple rules to keep you out of trouble and make her Christmas (and, therefore, yours) merry:

Christmas Shopping Don’ts for Men

1.  If you are going to shop for clothes for her, go through her closet and check the sizes on things she wears.  When you are standing in a store your male visual calibration of what looks like it will fit her is way off.  If you do resort to guessing, do not – I repeat – do not guess big.  That will inevitably trigger the terrifying question, “Do you think I’m this big?”  Anything you say at that point only makes it worse.  So write those sizes down, guys!

2.  Do not buy her exercise equipment.  Even if she has admired the latest exercise gizmo on TV, do not give that as a Christmas gift.  There’s no way that gift does not sound like, “You’re a little out of shape, Sweetie.”  Merry Christmas is pretty much done at that point.

3.  Here’s one my wife clued me in on when we were first married.  Thankfully, she told me this before I made the mistake of doing this.  This one is really simple:  If it has a power cord attached to it, don’t buy it as a Christmas gift.  Vacuum cleaners, mixers, etc. are all related to domestic tasks.  And while those things may make those tasks easier, they are in no way romantic.  They do not say, “Merry Christmas, Darling!”  They say, “Get to work.” 

Christmas Shopping Do’s for Men

1.  Jewelry hardly ever fails.   And before you wrap it, tuck a little note in the box with a short simple statement of why this jewelry would never really look its best until it was on her.  Explain that even jewelry deserves a shot at being close to her. 

2.  Usually gift certificates are not good choices (Walmart, Bass Pro Shops, etc.).  Gift certificates to a nice spa that she can use for whatever treatments she’d like say, “You deserve to be pampered by folks who know how to do this girlie stuff really well.”  And the truth is, she does.

3.  Want to pull out all the stops?  Get those sizes (all sizes from inside out) and buy her an entire outfit – including foundations (women sales people will know what that is even if you don’t).  Extra points of you accessorize with some “bling.”  Then take her on a surprise date to a nice restaurant.   That says, “I really thought about this and the more I thought about it the more I just wanted to be with you on a nice date.”

So there it is, guys.  Some Christmas shopping advice from a guy who’s learned a thing or two over a lot of Christmases and by a lot of mistakes.  I hope it helps.  Have a merry Christmas and make Jesus, the best gift ever given, the center of your celebration!

There’s this poingnant little verse that comes at the end of Psalm 2:  “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”  It comes at the end of a Psalm in which God is describing how some conspire against him, who see his saving activity as an intrusion on their independence.  It goes on to point out two big ideas:  one, human efforts to throw off God’s rule of the universe and thwart his plans have failed and will always fail; two, the Savior God has given us will be met either as Savior or as condemning Judge.  I get what that means, do you?  It’s actually a good advent message:  God in his love and mercy has set about to rescue us from the guilt and punishment of our sins.  Those who trust in his finished work in that regard have the blessing of peace with God now and forever.  Those who don’t trust him as Savior will stand before him naked and alone with nothing but their own rebellion hanging on them in tattered rags.  The urgent advent message is clear, isn’t it?  Jesus is coming – prepare to receive him!

And that brings me to a delightful little incident that is a powerful portrayal of that passage from Psalm 2.  It happened this past Saturday morning as church members were busy decorating God’s House for the Advent/Christmas/Epiphany season.  Little Aubrey was drawn to the nativity figures that stand in the chancel right in front of the lectern where I read the Scripture readings each week.  She leaned over and gave Mary a hug because that’s what Mom’s deserve – especially that one.  She reached over and patted Joseph on the hand as if to say, “Steady hand there, foster Daddy of Jesus.  He’s quite a little boy.”  And then she leaned over the manger and gave baby Jesus a little kiss.  And there it was, Psalm 2:12 come to life.  She knew that little baby as her Savior.  She knows the story of what he would grow up to do for her.  She knows to be true what she sang in Sunday School the next morning:  “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.  Red and yellow, black and white – they are precious in his sight.  Jesus loves the little children of the world.”  She kissed him because that’s how he met her at her baptismal font and that’s how her awesome Mom and Dad taught her to approach Jesus.  And that’s why it never occurred to her to fear that little Savior in the stable.  There’s nothing scary about a Savior who loves you so much he’s willing to sacrifice himself for you. 

So from one portly preacher to a pint-sized one:  thanks for the awesome sermon, Aubs.  You nailed it!

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My wife loves Christmas.  She loves to bake for it.  She loves to have people to our home to celebrate it.  She loves to find gifts that will gladden hearts.  And she loves to decorate.  A lot.  We are way past one Christmas tree at our house.  They range from the little two-footer that sits on our entertainment center in the living room to the seven-footer that contains all the Christmas ornaments our children made over their growing up years.  But this year she decided that since we have a high ceiling in the living room she would like a really big tree.  She found one on sale.  She put it on layaway - mostly so Walmart could store it until December 1st. 

Today was the day to bring it home and put it up.  What a beautiful tree!  A striking twelve-footer!  The problem is the ceiling is at eleven feet six inches.  No matter what we tried, there was no way to fit that tree into the room.  It was just too big.  I suppose we could have made it fit if we had cut something off one end or the other, or if we had cut a hole in the ceiling.  But that would be artificially making the room taller or the tree smaller.  So back we went to the store for a slightly smaller one.

As I think about that “too big tree” drama from today, it seems a fitting metaphor for the real miracle of this season.  It is humanly impossible to fit our infinite God into the space of a virgin’s womb.  Medical science could never have made Mary big enough to accommodate Him.  Human reason could only make Him fit into the space available by making Him less than he is.  But God could do it.  He said He was going to.  He sent the angel to Mary with just that announcement:  “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.”  (Luke 1:30-32 NIV).  He promised the impossible - and He did the impossible.  The Apostle Paul said it as clearly as it can be said, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.”  (Colossians 2:9, NIV) 

All that it is to be God – that’s what Jesus was and is.  Even when He chose to lay aside the full use of His infinite power and knowledge He was not diminished in any way.  It’s good that He wasn’t. He had infinite work to do – to atone for every sin of every sinner and to provide perfect righteousness to clothe every sinner.  He did that, too.  Stand at the manger and as you marvel at how small Jesus was, listen as the prophet Isaiah whispers in awed tones, “Behold, the LORD'S hand is not so short that it cannot save.”  (Isaiah 59:1 NIV)  Those tiny arms grew and one day were stretched out on a cross and saved us from the guilt and punishment for our sins.  Jesus was and is just the right size to save.  That is the miracle of the season and it is the marvelous heart of the gospel.  Deck the halls!  Ring the bells!  Light the lights!  This is the season we celebrate God doing the impossible!

On the very weekend after we observed Veterans Day, we were reminded that as long as this sinful world stands there will be conflict.  Terrorism struck far from the Middle East.  Any illusion that such terrorism can be contained was exploded on the streets of Paris.  It is not an overstatement to say that Armistice Day, commemorating the cessation of fighting in World War I, observes only one temporary break in conflict between men and nations.   The change from Armistice Day to Veteran’s Day is testimony that the War to End All Wars wasn’t that at all.  Sin will always make it necessary for nations and men to defend themselves or come to the aid of others.  That will continue to touch lives.  Our long-time neighbors across the road from the farm where I grew up were Joe & Dan McIntyre. They were brothers who never married. When they became so elderly and ill that they needed to enter a nursing home, neighbors were invited to help clean out the house. In a tiny attic one-window room containing only an old wooden chair I found a poignant scene I will never forget. As a young man Dan had fought in France in WWI. Apparently when the war was over he simply came home, laid his army trousers across the seat of the chair, hung his jacket and hat over the back and went back to farming. There that uniform stayed until I saw it there. Faded from the sun and covered with dust, it was a silent testimony to the citizen soldier who served his country, came home, and got on with life. And while he farmed and raised his sheep, other men and women were drawn into combat in the Pacific and across Europe, in Korea and in Viet Nam.  And that WWI uniform hung there on that chair, fading in the sun of decade after decade.  Though I was a young kid and might have considered that quite a find, I never touched it. It seemed like a kind of memorial both to lost youth and the quiet determination to serve & survive. And long after Joe and Dan have gone home to heaven, wars persist – because sin is still with us.  The great Reformer Martin Luther had it right: “When I think of a solider fulfilling his office by punishing the wicked, and creating much misery, it seems an un-Christian work completely contrary to Christian love.  But when I think of how it protects the good and keeps and preserves wife and child, house and farm, property, honor and peace, then I see how precious and godly this work is...”   “What men write about war saying that it is a great plague is all true.  But they should consider also how great the plague is that war prevents.”  (Can Soldiers Too Be Saved? 1526 LW, p. 96)

The attacks in Paris have shown us that in this sinful world there are great plagues that can only be prevented by those willing to be soldiers.  It may be past Veteran’s Day now, but thank a vet anyway.  Thank God for those who served and those who serve.  The world would be a much more terrible place without them.  And pray for those who will have to make the decision to send soldiers into harm’s way.  They need all the guidance and wisdom they can get.

“For he is God’s servant to do you good.  But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.  He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath, to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.”  (The apostle Paul speaking of the purpose of civil government, Romans 13:4) 

"Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.”  (Luke 21:34)

A woodchuck took up residence under my deck.  Cute little fella, as far as woodchucks go, but I don’t want him living under my deck. The odds are he’ll burrow next to the basement wall.  That den he might craft for himself under there would be nothing but a channel for ground water.  Ground water running toward the house is not good.  He’s got to go.

I borrowed a live trap from a friend.  It’s basically a cage with spring-loaded doors on both ends and a trigger pad on the bottom of the cage.  Woodchuck steps on the trigger and WHAM! - he’s caught.  After that, the plan went, I would just load the cage in the trunk, take him way out in the country and release him.  He would be happy and I would be happy.  I set the trap up right astride the little path he’s worn across my backyard to the deck.  Unfortunately, that same path is used by a skunk at night.  Guess who showed up in my live trap over the weekend.  From my position, this created a real predicament.  There just is no good way to get an angry skunk out of a live trap without something bad happening to him or to me.  Eventually I had to call an animal removal service.  The technician did an excellent job of removing the skunk with no damage to the skunk and no need for aggressive laundry treatments for either one of us.  The next morning Mr. Skunk was transported to a nice new home in some far away woods.

But from the skunk’s point of view, that experience must have been pretty scary.  He was on his nocturnal rounds with only one thought in mind:  find food.  With winter coming on, laying on extra fat is important.  Eat a lot.  Get it now.  When winter sets in it will be too late.  And then right in the midst of his anxious search for food he stepped on the trap trigger, and both ends of the live trap slammed shut.  In an instant he was caught with no way to escape.

This little incident played out on the very same weekend that we were observing the second to the last Sunday of the church year, also known as Last Judgment Sunday.  This was a thought provoking coincidence, to say the least. 

Suddenly, like getting caught in a trap - Jesus said that’s how the Last Day would be for those who were either partying too much or worrying too much.  Both of those have the same effect, don’t they?  Substance abuse has the effect of taking one’s mind off really important things, such as being spiritually prepared for eternity.  The anxieties of life do that, too.  One can get so caught up in the immediate demands of life that thoughts about eternity get pushed to the back burner.  There are, it often seems, more urgent things to worry about. Being in that situation will have eternally disastrous consequences when the Last Day comes.

And make no mistake, it is coming.  It will come unexpectedly.  Jesus said so.  And for those whose hearts were drawn far away from God by the pleasures and worries of this life, that day is going to slam shut like a trap.  In an instant, people will be caught with no way to escape.  And on that Day, no kindly rescuer will show up to extricate those so caught and take them to a better place.

As the church year draws to a close, let’s keep in mind that one day, in an instant, this world will draw to a close, too.  Jesus would prepare us for that moment and keep us prepared by keeping our hearts fastened on him.  There’s no secret to how he does that.  It’s actually quite simple:  stay in the Word.  Be a regular guest at his Holy Supper.  Make being in God’s house each week a priority.  Wake up every day and go to bed every night remembering that his blood and righteous have prepared us for eternity.

When I was a little boy I used to enjoy helping my dad sharpen the teeth on the sickle arm of our hay mower.  It was a long arm with what seemed like dozens of triangular blades attached to it.  From time to time it needed sharpening.  Over time and from hard use the blades would become dark and dull.  If left in that condition they would eventually become useless and might as well be thrown away.  So that would not happen Dad would take the sickle arm off the mowing machine, take it into our tool shed, turn on his grinding wheel on the workbench and begin.  My job was to support the end opposite of where Dad was sharpening.  I liked the shower of sparks that flew off the grinding wheel.  It was like a little fireworks show right there in the tool shed.  As my end of the sickle arm got closer to the wheel the sparks would sometimes land on me.  I remember being amazed that they weren’t hot to the touch at all.  They were airborne for an instant and then gone.

Another thing I liked was the sound it made.   The rhythm of the blades being run across the wheel had a cadence to it.  I sometimes wonder if it was things like that that got me interested in playing drums or if it was an innate enjoyment of beat and rhythm that made the sharpening process so much fun to hear.

Sharpening that sickle arm was a matter of art and skill.  The angle had to be just right.  If the angle between blade and grinding wheel was too flat the blade wouldn’t sharpen, if it was too steep it would blunt the edge.  Pressure was key, too.  After long years of doing this task, Dad knew just how hard to push the blade into the grinder and just how long to hold it there.  Again, hold it too long or push it too hard and the blade would be blunted beyond usefulness.  But get the pressure just right -and hold it there just long enough and that blade would have an edge like a razor – ready for the work ahead.

Have you ever considered that this is what it’s like for God when he allows hardship and trials to touch our lives?  He holds us in his loving, steady and experienced hands.  He knows just how long each trial can stay and just how much pressure we can take.  He knows our limit, and is careful never to exceed it.  But he also knows that with proper pressure and timing, the grinding wheel of trial and trouble can actually serve the purpose of sharpening our faith.  It can give us the kind of “edge” that makes us ready for the next challenges that will come our way as we live in a broken world that can so often be hostile to our faith. 

Of course, on our part, it seems hard and scary, doesn’t it?  The edge of our lives where the pressure or trial comes gets heated up.  There’s a shower of sparks. We are instinctively aware that those little sparks are actually pieces of us being ground away.  “When will this end?”  we wonder.  “Will there be any of me left?” we ask.

But then the trial passes, life cools off, and we discover that we were never in danger at all.  God has sharpened our understanding of his grace and wisdom.  He’s put a finer edge on our faith.  We’ve become a more useful tool in his hands.  And the place where the old edge was ground away is shiny and new.   God always gets it right.  Rest in his hands.  He is the master craftsman of your faith. 

“After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. 2 With a mighty voice he shouted: ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’”  (Revelation 18:1-2a)

When John recorded that vision in the first century A.D. Babylon had already fallen.  Everyone knew that.  It had happened six centuries earlier.  That mighty kingdom had fallen which once held sway over the fertile crescent, swept over Judah and carried God’s people off into a seventy-year captivity.  She had fallen to the Medes and Persians, to the Greeks and then to the Romans.  Why announce it as if it were news?  It was ancient history. 

And that was precisely Jesus’ point.  Did you notice the certainty of the verb Jesus chose to use in those verses?  Babylon is fallen.  There is no maybe, there is no doubt in God’s rule.  When God acts on behalf of his people, things happen his way.

What a comforting message for us to hear, especially in these times of moral decay at home and geopolitical turmoil abroad.  None of that is easy for the church to cope with, is it?  God’s people in every age have faced formidable forces arrayed against the church.  Sometimes merely vexing and other times vicious, those forces have opposed God’s kingdom, thrown hindrances in the way of the gospel, and discouraged believers.  First century believers living under Roman rule were experiencing some of that, and there was more to come.  But it would not last.  It can’t.  Just as Babylon had fallen, so will all those who oppose God and his gospel.  Kings can take their stand against the Lord and nations can rage against the gospel, but when all is said and done it will be in vain.  That is God’s promise.  If the gates of hell itself will not prevail against his church, what can mere human forces do against it?  Trust that the same God who loved you so much that he sent his Son into the world to be your Champion and Victor over sin, death and the devil still rules the world.  The God of grace is still the Lord of history.  Luther had it exactly right when he said, “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)

Dear Lord, rule over the nations for the benefit of your church.  Amen.

I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook, but I do check it regularly.  Partly it’s a way to keep in touch with family and friends whom I have “friended.”  But it’s also a way to kind of put a finger on the pulse and a hand on the forehead of the culture to see what’s going on.  Sometimes what I read there is fall down funny.  Sometimes it’s heartwarming.  Sometimes it drives me to distraction.  But it’s usually illustrative of what’s on people’s minds in the culture.

This political season (when is it not?) makes it all the more interesting.  I ran across a meme the other day that purported to be quoting the CEO of Costco:  “At Costco we pay a starting hourly wage of $11.50 ... Instead of minimizing wages, we know it’s a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximizes employee productivity by commitment and loyalty.”  Below the meme the group that posted it wrote, “This is how businesses use to be run before conservatives turned greed into a way of life.” 

It is beyond question that there are people on the conservative part of the spectrum who are greedy.  They are primarily motivated by how the bottom line affects self, without much regard to the needs of others.  And it is also beyond question that there are people on the liberal/progressive part of the spectrum who are envious and jealous.  They see that some people have more than others, have decided that they shouldn’t, and are determined to take some away from them to give to those who have less without much regard for how that would affect those who labored for it.  To paint one philosophical position as greedy and paint the other as envious seems to be order of the day.  The election season just heating up will put that on full display, if some of the ads we’ve seen and speeches we’ve heard so far are any indication.

That isn’t political.  It isn’t economics.  It’s theology.  Very sloppy theology.  Here’s what I mean.   The sins of greed and envy were not hatched in the smoke-filled backroom of one political party or the other.  They were hatched in Eden long before there was even a notion of political parties or political points of view.  When our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned, they lost the image of God.  For the first time self became big and important and other was diminished and expendable.  How else do you explain their effort to save face before God by blaming their sin on someone else?  For the first time, human beings decided that what I want is more important than acknowledging God’s right to put some things off limits.  How else do you explain their action of eating the one thing God said was not theirs to have?  Ever since that day, all human beings have had a nature like Adam’s and Eve’s.  Jesus himself said it, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”  (Matthew 15:19)  The apostle Paul was clear about where things like greed and envy come from, too:  “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious:  sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”  Conservatives, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists, and even other “-ist” or “-ive” you can name has one of those sinful natures.  We all do.  To say that one of those “-ives” or “-ists” has cornered the market on sin is both morally myopic and theologically untenable.  Let’s face it, the Word is right when it says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...”

So what’s the solution to the problem of sin?  It is not in electing the right people to public office.  The solution is Jesus – only Jesus.  He is the one who on our behalf, in our place, and for our benefit never once sinned.  With his whole life he wove a flawless and spotless robe of righteousness that God now wraps around you and me.  That doesn’t change the fact that we are sinners before God’s law, but it most certainly has changed our status before God himself.  Then Jesus went to the cross bearing in his own body the guilt and punishment of every envious and greedy thought, word and deed of every person who will ever have walked this planet.  And for Jesus’ sake alone, God has forgiven and forgotten.  I know that to be true because that’s what God has said:  “God made [Jesus Christ] to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Sin isn’t something that’s just attached to political parties; it’s much more personal than that.  Sinful is what we are by nature and sin is what we all do.  The only place where sinfulness is covered by righteousness and where sins are atoned for is in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  That’s not politics, because politics is about opinions.  That’s law and gospel, and that’s the unchanging Word of our unchanging God.

True confession time.  This little crossing guard thing that I’ve volunteered to do at my grandson’s school is not the first time I’ve been involved in this sort of thing.  The last time was when I was in 6th grade.  I was given the opportunity to be part of what was called Safety Patrol.  It was a pretty cool thing.  You got out of class 15 minutes early every day to get ready.  You got to wear this white canvass strap thing that crossed your chest and went around your waist.  On it was the AAA insignia and the words SAFETY PATROL in big letters.  The town kids who were in it were given the responsibility of handling crosswalks around school and hallways in school.  We country kids were typically tasked with monitoring behavior on the buses we rode to and from school.  That was my first experience with authority.  It didn’t go very well.  That’s not because the kids who rode my school bus were particularly bad kids.  They weren’t.  It’s rather that I let the authority go to my head.  I actually got to the point that I kind of liked when a kid broke a bus rule so that I could report them to the principal.  I racked up a pretty impressive “arrest record.  I was so good at it that I could catch a kid changing seats while the bus was in motion even when they didn’t think I was looking.  If they wanted to change seats they were supposed to ask me.  I would decide.  I had power and I liked it.  But rather than gain the respect of the kids on that bus, they came to regard me as kind of a jerk.  Which was pretty much the way I was behaving.  I completely lost sight of the real reason I was there:  to help keep kids safe by following basic rules of riding the bus.   I was supposed to be doing my job because I wanted those kids – my neighbors – to be safe going to school and getting home again.  Let’s just say that on the last day of school that year they gave me quite a performance review by completely soaking me with squirt guns they had smuggled onto the bus.  Report them all?  Nope.  By the time I got home I’d learned my lesson.  Nothing like being soaked all the way through to your undershorts to teach you a little humility.

I should have known better than to behave like that.  I was born into a Christian home and raised around Jesus.  We went to church every Sunday and staying home was not going to be an option unless some part of you was broken, you were throwing up sick, or Jesus came back in glory.  And every Sunday that I sat in church and in Sunday School I heard about Jesus, God’s Son, who came into the world to seek and to save sinners.  I knew that he did not come into the world to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many – for me, too.  Throw his weight around?  Take delight in catching people sinning so he could lower the boom?  I never saw Jesus act that way in any story I ever had in Sunday School or in any sermon I heard preached.  I never saw my Dad act that way, either – not at home and not when he was president of Farm Bureau and not when he was president of the local school board.  He was all about service, too.  I should have known better than to let that authority go to my head.

So why did I?  I did it because human beings are hard-wired ever since the fall into sin in Eden to want power and to exercise it for self.  That’s sin.  God knows we’ve all been there.  So what’s the solution?  Now as then, it is Jesus.  His service at the cross has washed away all the guilt of all my disservice and self-service.  Yours, too.  God in his generous grace has forgiven me and you.  How do we respond to that?  Paul said it as well as you can say it:  “12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”  (Colossians 3:12-14)

So now I’m back “in uniform” again.  This time I get it.  It’s not about me.  It’s about the kids.  Thanks, Jesus, for giving me another run at this.  With your help, I’ll get it right this time.

My grandson’s elementary school had an open position for crossing guard and they were having a hard time filling it.  Since I’m there every morning to drop him off and pick him up after school (his mom works), I figured it just made sense for me to offer.  I had no idea what that process was going to be.  The list of  documents I had to complete was long.  They included:  Personal Data Sheet, Criminal Record Check Form, Conviction Disclosure Form, Unprofessional Conduct Form, Authorization to Release Information, and Fingerprint Processing Tracking Form.  As I worked my way through all of that paperwork I thought to myself, “All of this just to be a crossing guard?”

But as I filled out those forms it dawned on me that behind them are sad stories.  It’s because our society knows that bad people could do bad things to children if they were around them, that my grandson’s school is leaving no stone unturned in making sure I am who I say I am and that I have not done anything that would make me a bad choice to be around children.

I know why his school wants to know all of that.  The parents in our community love their children.  They want them to be safe from cars on the street as well as from predators who would harm them.  They want them to come home safely from school at the end of the day, happy and healthy.  Those parents want their children to learn in a safe environment.  Those parents want what’s best for their kids physically, emotionally, socially, academically, and athletically.  Good for them!  I want that for them too and especially for my dear grandson.

This past Sunday in Mark 9:42 Jesus said, “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.”  In the very next chapter Mark records these words of Jesus, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”  (10:14)  It’s clear that Jesus loves children, too.  He, too, wants them kept safe, fed, loved, raised, and treasured.  But he wants even more than that for them.  He wants them to know him.  He wants to have a relationship with children.  His words from Mark 9 and Mark 10 mean that he is really, earnestly, uncompromisingly serious about our bringing our children to him for blessing and about not doing anything that would prevent them from coming or that would cause them to turn away. 

So maybe it’s good that we parents run our own background check on ourselves in this regard.  Have I brought my children to Jesus so that he can bless them through Holy Baptism?  Am I faithfully bringing my little ones to God’s house so that he can bless them there through his Word?  Am I sharing the Word with my children in family devotions?  Do I reflect God’s will and God’s forgiveness and love in my parenting?  If you realize you’ve fallen short, if you see that you could have done better, don’t despair.  God forgives sins.  If you want to honor him by doing better, be confident that he stands ready to help strengthen you and guide you through his Word.  If we at Ascension Lutheran Church can be assistance to you in this, please let us know.  We want for your child what Jesus wants for your child.