4-5-2026

 Good Morning All,

     Matthew 28:6; “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.”

CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!

I once knew an Irish man who was bulletproof. His name was Rick O’Shea.

What are you if you drive a Subaru in reverse? Ur a Bus

How do you carve wood? A whittle at a time!

    I am sure you are shaking your head by now but at least with a little chuckle. We are engaging in a centuries old practice called “Risus Paschalis.” It translates to “Easter Laughter.” The practice was for the priest to start the Easter service by telling jokes; jokes that would encourage a strong loud belly laugh. The idea stems from a belief that Easter, in its reversal of death and the devil as God outwits them. “Surely Satan laughed with glee when Jesus died there on that tree. But three days more there was a change in the score as Jesus burst out of death’s door.”

    Satan was completed outwitted and defeated at his own game. It provides us with something of a divine irony, a holy reversal that makes the powers of evil look foolish. So, we laugh, we laugh at Satan and his foolish folly of thinking he could kill God not having a clue that this was God’s plan all along to redeem his people. Justice had to be served and the debt of sin had to be paid but the devil never thought the sacrifice would be Jesus and when Jesus emerged from the tomb all the devil planned on, wanted and worked for went completely awry. One of the made for television movies about the life of Jesus ended with Jesus sitting up in the tomb, looking at his hands, and then bursting out in laughter. What a wonderful picture!

    That same victory is ours! We too, can laugh at death and the devil. They no longer have the upper hand. We have been granted by our loving Father eternal life in His Name. We possess it right now. It is a “now but not yet” gift. Like the child who is holding his Christmas present in his hands but he has to wait his turn to open it. He is shaking with excitement because he knows it will be so great, but just not yet.  His joy knows no end.

    So, this Easter, don’t just observe, don’t just participate, but rather celebrate. Celebrate the wondrous gift given to us by the death and RESURRECTION of Jesus. Our sins are atoned for and the tomb is but a path to eternal life. And we, like that child with a present, or when we hear a funny joke can laugh at the devil and be giddy with excitement when we remember Christ did al this for us. CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!

Gracious Father, you have shown us a love that knows no end! Keep us ever in joyful knowledge of your salvation, given to us through your son Jesus. May we always look to you and know your peace. May we in joy and love celebrate this wonderful day all our lives. Keep us safe in your loving arms. Be with those who struggle that they too may know your mercy. In the precious name of Jesus, our risen Savior we pray. Amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

4-4-2026

Good Morning!

     Matthew 13: 45-46“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

    We have all seen or read the story about the person who went to a garage sale and bought a painting for $5 then he takes it home and finds out is a rare painting worth millions of dollars.  Every time I read one of those stories, I think I want to go to garage sales.  Or maybe you remember the story of the guy who inherited his grandfather’s old, broken-down lake cabin only to find a bunch of gold coins in the attic.  Or maybe yours is the story of the guy who finds a rare book at a flea market and buys it before anyone else finds it.

    All these stories involve finding something of great value but there is more than a little luck involved.  In our verses for today, everyone knew the value but the merchant sold everything to possess it.  So instead of finding a hidden treasure, this one is known to everyone and he has to outbid everyone else to buy it.  So, we misread the verses.  We often times misread these verses.

    Too many of us read this and think that “I am the merchant.”  I give everything up for this one treasure.  It can cause us to question the value of the gift.  If I have nothing to give up, then this decision is easy but what if I have a lot that I value and now have to sell it all to obtain the pearl?  Or what if I don’t have enough to buy the pearl even if I sell all that I have?  Now where am I?  No, you are not the merchant; you are he pearl.

    “The kingdom of God is like a merchant;” God is the merchant; he is the one seeking fine pearls.  He found one of great value, you, and sold all that he had (His only Son) to buy you back.  You are the treasure; you are the one whom God seeks after.  You are the fine pearl.

    We would never have enough money to buy any form of salvation, even if we were to sell our own body and life.  We don’t have enough.  Only God can afford that price and it was a terrific price- the life of Jesus.  Yet God willingly sold all that he had in order to buy you back because he loves you; you have great value.  The world may try to devalue you or to undervalue you but God never does, you are a fine pearl in his eyes.  You have great value.

    The fine pearls were lost but God sought them out and then paid dearly for them; God is the merchant and you and I are the pearls.  We are treasured by God.  We are highly prized by God.  We are loved by God with a love that knows no measure and knows no bounds.  It is a love that can and does sustain us.  We always need to remember that a pearl is always valuable; it is precious and wonderful and so are you.  God’s mercy is active and alive in your life so trust in his grace and peace to guide you and his hope will guard you.  Trust in God for he seeks you and finds you and he redeems you because he loves you.

Father, you seek me out every day, even when I try to hide.  Through your mercy, I am healed.  Protect me with your mighty hand.  We beg that you continue to seek the lost pearls that all may come to know your grace.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret  

4-3-2026

Good Morning!

          Luke 9:2; “and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.”

     I love to watch old movies about the Medieval Era.  I like the stories about knights and jousting and rescuing ladies in distress.  My favorites are the tales of King Arthur and his court.  The tales of Sir Lancelot, or Sir Galahad or Lady Guinevere; I can watch over and over.  It doesn’t matter if it is the fanciful Errol Flynn ones or the darker newer ones.  I like knights and swords and suits of armor.  They are fascinating to me.

     In our verse, we read where Jesus sent out his disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God.  While most of us tend to think of the kingdom of God as a place; it is actually an action.  The kingdom of God is the active presence of Jesus in the earth and in our lives.  The kingdom of God is God at work, restoring the creation back to its pristine condition.  It is the steady movement forward to recreating that which is corrupt into what is pure and holy.  It is God saving you and me and fixing what is broken.

    This is good news for us and for all of creation.  It is news that will lift the veil of despair and lift the hearts of the downtrodden.  It is the Word of God changing lives of men and women who hear it and cling to that good news with its promise of hope.  This is a message which needs to be proclaimed throughout the land.  This good news should be taken to all the downcast and the suffering.  God has chosen you and me to fill this role; we are God’s knights.

    God gives to us the armor we need to fight this battle.  He gives us the Spirit to lead us, to encourage us and to sustain us.  God invigorates us with his Word and Sacrament to refresh our soul and to lift up our spirits. Even when the battle is fierce and the warfare long; God is our everlasting and ever-present hope and shield.  He equips us to go out and to spread the good news even when the devil tries to block us.  The devil will never win against the kingdom of God; it will always fail.

    Even when we are struck and knocked down, God is there to pick us up and to make us whole with his tender love and mercy.  We may be struck but we will never be mortally wounded by the devil.  He cannot get us.  God has promised to provide for us so no matter how bleak it may seem to us God is for us.  God is always there for us no matter how it looks; he is using us to proclaim his kingdom and it is the force which cannot be stopped.

    So, rise, Sir Knight, for you are part of God’s great kingdom, cleansed by the blood of the Lamb and crowned as an heir of his kingdom.  Go with speed and strength for it is God’s work which we do.  God is with you every step of the journey.

Father of all grace, we give you thanks for the promise of salvation and the gracious gift of faith.  Enable us to hold fast to your Word.  Be with those who are lost and hurting.  Be with those who suffer the pain of guilt and fear.  Use us as your hands to proclaim your words of hope and salvation.  Use us to proclaim your kingdom.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret  

4-2-2026

Good Morning!

      John 11:39; “Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.”

      This is part of the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  It is the final act that Jesus performs that causes the Jewish Council to decide, once and for all, that Jesus must die.  It is significant that Lazarus was dead for four days.  It was a Jewish belief that the spirit hung around the body for three days, after the third day you were completely and officially dead.  The fact that this occurred in a warm climate without embalming techniques explains the odor.  It doesn’t take long for the decaying process to set in and for the stench to become very noticeable.

    The odor that would have come from the tomb would have been pretty powerful.  It would have also reminded Mary and Martha that their brother was really dead and gone.  The people around the tomb would have recoiled and some may have even gagged at the smell.  The smell of death is very overpowering.  It can cause you to be sick at the smell’ sort of like our sin before God.

     The stench of the world to Jesus would have been overpowering in many ways; yet he stayed and ministered to the people.  He did this out of his great love.  His love was so great that it overcame the stench of our sin and make no mistake about it sin stinks.  It stinks even to us.  We see the cruelty of man to his fellow man. We see how cheaply we view life; we see how much we seek our own selfishness over the needs of others.  Our greed and arrogance raise a stink to God. 

    Our sin what separates us from God.  It is the stench that keeps us away.   Our sin also separates us from our neighbors as well.   This is what we must repent for and get rid of in order to have a more pleasant life.  When we fail to repent, we continue to live in the stench of the tomb.  We stay in the arms of death.  Yet Jesus enters our life, our tomb, and calls us out of the arms of death and away from the stench of sin.  He calls us away from the pain of sin and brings us to life and light. 

    We can leave the pain, the sadness, the stench of sin behind.  It does not have to control you.  God gives us the power to walk away from sin; God enables us to leave sin behind.  The stench and the odor can be left in the grave while we walk out in new life.  God’s grace never fails.  It can lift you out of the sadness that sin is.  It can lift you to life.

Gracious God, your mercy rolls over us like a river.  Each breath we take is a new experience in your grace.  Guide us by your Spirit that we may remain out of the stench of the grave and live the life that you have called us to.  Direct us with your love.  Be with those who feel they are pulled back to the grave.  Cleanse them of the stench of sin and bring them before your glorious throne of mercy that they may rest in the arms of your love.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret 

4-1-2026

Good Morning!

              Romans 12:10; “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”

        “Women and children first!”  That used to be the standard way that any crisis would be handled.  If a ship was sinking, it was “women and children” into the lifeboats first.  If you were evacuating a building that was on fire you would evacuate “women and children” first.  It was a bit of chivalry, men protecting the weaker ones.  It was a bit of chauvinism; get the weaker and more emotional ones away so the men can figure out what to do.  Whatever it was and however you view it, the idea of self-sacrifice was expected.

    If a man was found to be safe while “women and children” were still in danger, he would be viewed as a coward and something “less than a man.”  It would be a legacy hard to live down.  Of course, after the women and children were safe it was “every man for himself,” so much for chivalry.  Self-survival kicked in fairly quickly.

    Yet one of Scriptures most enduring teachings is the one where we are to put others ahead of ourselves.  We are to deny ourselves; we are to take a servant’s form; we are to put others first.  We are to play second fiddle in life.  This teaching causes many to chafe.  We don’t like the idea of putting ourselves in second place; yet we are supposed to.  Part of this comes from the very nature of sinful man and places us back where we are supposed to be; one of God’s children.

    It is our sinful nature to want to be first.  It is our sinful nature to want to satisfy our own desires and lusts ahead of others.  It also goes against God’s design.  God’s design is to have us live as his children; take care of creation and to take care of each other.  If we are to take care of each, we have to place the needs of others ahead of our wants and even some of our needs.  This is the highest form of faithfulness that we can exhibit.  It is even higher than always going to church.  Seeing to the needs of others demonstrates our faith far better than every hymn sung.  Helping to reconcile each person we meet back to God and to their fellow man is one of the primary tasks that Jesus gives to his Church.  Love one another or they will know of the love that we have for each other. 

    It takes some conscious effort to put others first but this is our calling.  God calls us to love others as we love ourselves.  We can’t do that if we think we need four items to the other person’s one item.  We need to see their needs as our needs.  We need to remember that all of us are facing our own battles with the devil; some may be less obvious than others.  We need to remember that God uses us as his hands and feet and voice here on earth.  Trust God and enjoy playing second fiddle; God gives us great joy when we do.

Father, enable me to love those around me and to show them your great love through me.  Guide me by your Spirit that I may be patient and humble, kind, and thoughtful.  Be with those who feel trampled on and left out.  Guide me to them that through me your grace may abound.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret 

3-31-2026

Good Morning!

            Psalm 146:8; “the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.  The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous.”

    His name is Mitch Williams; they called him “The Wild Thing.”  He was a pitcher in major league baseball.  He was well known for throwing the baseball very hard but very wild.  When he put Mitch into pitch, his manager would cover his face with a towel so he wouldn’t have to watch.  Sometimes the manager would even leave the ball field so he wouldn’t even have to listen to the game as Mitch pitched.  For whatever reason, the manager felt better being blind to his pitcher’s pitching.

    Sometimes in life, it is difficult when we can’t see.  We go through life with a towel over our eyes.  The problem is that the towel only covers the good in our life and we only know and experience the bad.  The devil and the world only want us to know the pain and the sorrow.  They want us to only realize the “agony of defeat.”   They want us to carry the weight of our entire life on our shoulders.  We are burdened and bowed down by past failures, pains, and sadness.  We suffer greatly under the towel that the devil has over us because of sin.

    Sin will blind us so that all we know is the pain of failed relationships or financial setbacks or the death of a family member or friend.  Sin will bow us down with the weight of guilt, anger, and sadness.  It will attempt to isolate us from those who can help us heal; it attempts to isolate us from God.

    Yet God is stronger than sin.  God has redeemed us from sin.  He has bought us back and removed the towel so that we can see.  We can see the certainty of the hope that he gives us.  He gives to us the ability to trust in his promise of eternal life with him in total perfection.  He removes the guilt and the pain of sin; he removes the weight that bows us down so that we can stand up.  We can stand straight before him because he has given to us the righteousness of Jesus.  Because of Christ, we are righteous before God.

   The events of this life can and often are painful.  Sadness and pain are the two main components in a sinful and broken creation.  Yet events and circumstances do not define who you are.  You are God’s beloved child, cleansed by the blood of Jesus and given the promise of always being that in your Baptism.  This is who you are.  You are not a loser or a failure.  You are a child of God.  You may have health problems or problems in your marriage.  You may have done some things in the past that cause you pain today but they do not define who you are:

God defines who you are and you are his child.  This is the truth that the devil tries to hide from you with his towel but God removes the towel and throws it far away so you can see the brightness of his mercy and feel the warmth of his grace.

Father, you open our eyes to your great mercy.  You lift off the weight of sin in our lives.  Keep us safe from the devil’s towels.  Help us to keep our eyes fixed upon you and your mercy.  Guard us by your grace.  Be with those who are still feeling burdened by sin.  Open their eyes to your grace and truth.  Give them the peace that the world cannot and will not give.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret 

3-30-2026

Good Morning!

  Luke 16:13; “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

    When we perform the rites of Baptism and Confirmation, we begin with the same basic set of questions.  “Do you renounce the devil, all his works and all his ways?”  Of course, the answer is, “Yes, I renounce them.”  It is pretty basic stuff.  If you are willing to follow Jesus you must renounce the devil.  The devil and Jesus are complete opposites.  So of course, we renounce the devil and all his ways, or do we?

    Do we really renounce the devil and all his ways, or do we keep a few of the “good ones”?  Maybe we like to gossip, you know just so we know what is going on in the community.  Maybe we are greedy and want to have “my fair share.”  Maybe we hold onto those lustful looks and thoughts.  Maybe our anger rules us more than we rule it.  Maybe we are a little quick to let the tongue run on and on.   They all seem so harmless.  Just little things that we keep around because we enjoy them and we take pleasure in them and, after all, no one really gets hurt; they are “innocent” sins.

    Yet they are sins and sins, no matter how small we make them out to be, separate us from God.  Sin has us serving the devil.  The selfish and self-centered nature of sin always causes harm and pain.  It causes us to lose respect for others, to lose respect for our self and to lose respect for God.  Sin is always saying, “I am more important than God.”  All sins do this.  It does not matter whether we think of them as small or insignificant; sin causes a chasm to form between God and us. 

    This is why Scriptures so clearly tells us that you can’t have both.  You can’t profess or live a life dedicated to Christ if you are going to hold onto old sinful ways.  We have to throw them away.  It may even take a drastic change in our life.  Maybe we need to avoid those places where we like to gossip or perhaps, we need to make a conscious effort to avoid anger or a sharp comment.  All these contribute to our brokenness as humans.  The healing is not complete until we rid our lives of the baggage of sin.  It destroys us, little by little, and leads us down the path of sorrow.  It leads us away from Jesus and into a place of darkness and pain.

    So, if we truly do renounce the devil, we need to fully trust in God for all that we need.  We need to stay away from those things and places that lead us to sin.  Yet above all, we need to recognize that these “little things” are sins.  We need to repent and ask God to help us move away from them.  God is gracious and will help us to do so but we will only succeed when we truly renounce the devil and his ways and only have Jesus as our master.

Father of all mercy, in you we have our only hope.  In you is our only way forward.  Help us to renounce the devil completely.  Help us to live as children in your kingdom.  Help us to serve you with our whole heart and body.   Give us the strength to throw out the devil and his lies and to trust only in you.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret