From the Pastor's Desk

Pastor's PictureDear Friends of Living Word Lutheran Church:

Happy New Year!  This little greeting sounds so optimistic and hopeful.  Indeed, we want the New Year to be filled with many good things.  Good health, peace, economic recovery for our nation, and maybe a few other things added to our wish list would make it a “good” new year.

The prophet Isaiah wrote about a really good year.  He called it “the year of the Lord’s favor.”  (Isaiah 61:2)  If the Lord were to favor us, or bless us in the most spectacular manner, how would this be described?  Materiel blessings are wonderful and God does bless us with many things that are tangible such as food, clothing, houses, and other possessions, but the greater blessings are spiritual.

Isaiah wrote that good news preached to the poor, binding up the brokenhearted, freedom for captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners all herald the year of the Lord’s favor.  The imagery is profound.  Abject poverty, brokenhearted people, and freedom for those in prison all strike us as the worst of situations.  Without Jesus Christ, that is exactly what we experience.  The terrible descriptive terms of Isaiah are but a picture of our lives.
The year of the Lord’s favor has arrived.  Good news is proclaimed to us who are so poor that we cannot give anything to the Lord.  What can we give to Him?  Only our sin and our broken lives are what we bring to the God of our salvation.  The good news is that we are forgiven and restored. 

Prodigals, fools, reckless despisers of God—are now all welcome because Jesus has come.  The broken hearted are comforted and healed.  Those in the prison house of sin, captured by the Prince of Darkness are set free as our Savior destroys the chains that bind us.  Prisoners who have not seen the light of day for years are almost blinded by the brightness of the light of the world.  Yes, we are set free and the heaviness of our hearts is lifted forever.

Will this be a good year for you and for our congregation?  Every year, we wonder what the next twelve months will bring.  Friends, listen—this is the year of the Lord’s favor.  Souls will be set free.  We know this is God’s will—he “wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  So let us take heart and with renewed faith in the precious promises, pray for the favor of the Lord that many would hear and believe the Good News.

Praying with you for the salvation of souls,

Pastor Tim Skramstad