15 Years, The Third Chapter

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“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:3–7)

Fifteen years ago today I was ordained into the Office of the Holy Ministry at Concordia Theological Seminary. My first call was to serve as an admission counselor at CTS, my alma mater. My pastor at the time, Rev. Richard Radtke, ordained me. My dear friend and colleague, Scott Stiegemeyer, was ordained in the same service. Dr. Dean Wenthe, the new president at CTS, preached for the service.

Truth be told, that first call was odd as far as calls go. Who gets called to be an admission counselor? While my friends and fellow students debated it in the Commons over coffee or beer, I looked at the call document. My duties in that first call included preaching and teaching, although not as much as I would have liked. It involved a lot of time on the phone and on the road. We visited churches and schools all over the country, and encouraged men (both young and old), to consider studying to be a pastor. I was blessed to be at CTS during a remarkable time of growth. The new faculty brought on in those years would go on to serve the church in many wonderful ways. Some of those names include Dr. Lawrence Rast (or for a more entertaining link, click here), now the president of CTS, and Dr. Charles Gieschen, now the Academic Dean. There were many others.

But probably more than the faculty and staff friendships were the students. As a young pastor (I was 26) I was only a few years older than many of the men I worked with in those years. Some of them to this day remain dear friends and fellow laborers in the Office. Many of those young men (or young in the ministry) would go on to help with wonderful groups like Higher Things. Others would serve in parishes throughout the country, or would serve as military chaplains. Still others entered academia, either at one of our schools or at our church body’s publishing house. I am blessed to know all of them and count them as friends.

In 1999 Messiah Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin, called me to be their pastor. Kathryn and I arrived, young and full of energy. Or at least full of something! This dear parish served me and my family for twelve years, as I learned what it means to be a parish pastor. They were blessed by all my “newbie” mistakes, as well as the enthusiasm of the young. We started a school together, Christ Lutheran Academy. I was able to serve near one of my other dear friends from seminary, Rev. John M. Berg at Lamb of God Lutheran Church. For many years we were the “Kenosha Synod.” When my fifth anniversary rolled around, my thesis advisor and friend, Rev. Dr. Lawrence Rast, came and preached for it.

It was also in Kenosha that Kathryn and I had four children, and two others who died before being born. I suffered from major clinical depression while serving Messiah, and they stood by me through the darkest time in my life. I am literally alive today because of the love and care that so many in Kenosha lavished upon my family and I. They gave me time to heal, at great expense to the congregation. The tenth anniversary of my ordination actually took place right at the end of my disability time, when my friend and classmate, Rev. David Petersen, preached for it.  HERE is a link to the sermon from that day. And here is probably about the nicest thing written about me, although it still reads like a eulogy.  I’m not dead yet!.

I note here that on my 13th anniversary, I had lunch with my buddy, Stiegemeyer.  I would have liked a good dose of Indian food today.

So it is that at the dawn of fifteen years of service, that God has turned a new chapter. Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Rocklin, California, called me to serve as senior pastor, and I have served here since August 21st, 2011.

What will the new chapter bring? I don’t know. But what I do know is that God’s mercy continues to shine forth, putting people who love us and care for us in so many ways. I am not worthy of this office, but God has placed me in it, and so here I am. God be merciful to me, a sinner.

Lord God, You have appointed me as a Bishop and Pastor in Your Church, but you see how unsuited I am to meet so great and difficult a task. If I had lacked Your help, I would have ruined everything long ago. Therefore, I call upon You: I wish to devote my mouth and my heart to you; I shall teach the people. I myself will learn and ponder diligently upon You Word. Use me as Your instrument – but do not forsake me, for if ever I should be on my own, I would easily wreck it all. -Martin Luther’s Sacristry Prayer

I remain
Yours in Christ,

Pastor Todd A. Peperkorn

Pres. Harrison’s words to Congress this Morning

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These are the words from LCMS President, Pastor Matthew Harrison.  I can only say Amen and Amen!

“Mr. Chairman, it’s a pleasure to be here. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is a body of some 6,200 congregations and 2.3 million members across the U.S. We don’t distribute voters’ lists. We don’t have a Washington office. We are studiously non-partisan, so much so that we’re often criticized for being quietistic.

“I’d rather not be here, frankly. Our task is to proclaim, in the words of the blessed apostle St. John, the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all our sin. And we care for the needy. We haven’t the slightest intent to Christianize the government. Martin Luther famously quipped one time, ‘I’d rather have a smart Turk than a stupid Christian governing me.’

“We confess that there are two realms, the church and the state. They shouldn’t be mixed – the church is governed by the Word of God, the state by natural law and reason, the Constitution. We have 1,000 grade schools and high schools, 1,300 early childhood centers, 10 colleges and universities. We are a machine which produces good citizens for this country, and at tremendous personal cost.

“We have the nation’s only historic black Lutheran college in Concordia, Selma. Many of our people [who are alive today] walked with Dr. King 50 years ago on the march from Selma to Montgomery. We put up the first million dollars and have continued to provide finance for the Nehemiah Project in New York as it has continued over the years, to provide home ownership for thousands of families, many of them headed by single women. Our agency in New Orleans, Camp Restore, rebuilt over 4,000 homes after Katrina, through the blood, sweat and tears of our volunteers. Our Lutheran Malaria Initiative, barely begun, has touched the lives of 1.6 million people in East Africa, especially those affected by disease, women and children. And this is just the tip, the very tip, of the charitable iceberg.

“I’m here to express our deepest distress over the HHS provisions. We are religiously opposed to supporting abortion-causing drugs. That is, in part, why we maintain our own health plan. While we are grandfathered under the very narrow provisions of the HHS policy, we are deeply concerned that our consciences may soon be martyred by a few strokes on the keyboard as this administration moves us all into a single-payer … system. Our direct experience in the Hosanna-Tabor case with one of our congregations gives us no comfort that this administration will be concerned to guard our free-exercise rights.

“We self-insure 50,000 people. We do it well. Our workers make an average of $43,000 a year, 17,000 teachers make much less, on average. Our health plan was preparing to take significant cost-saving measures, to be passed on to our workers, just as this health-care legislation was passed. We elected not to make those changes, incur great cost, lest we fall out of the narrow provisions required under the grandfather clause. While we are opposed in principle, not to all forms of birth control, but only abortion-causing drugs, we stand with our friends in the Catholic Church and all others, Christians and non-Christians, under the free exercise and conscience provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

“Religious people determine what violates their consciences, not the federal government. The conscience is a sacred thing. Our church exists because overzealous governments in northern Europe made decisions which trampled the religious convictions of our forebearers. I have ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War. I have ancestors who were on the Lewis and Clark expedition. I have ancestors who served in the War of 1812, who fought for the North in the Civil War – my 88-year-old father-in-law has recounted to me, in tears many times, the horrors of the Battle of the Bulge. In fact, Bud Day, the most highly decorated veteran alive, is a member of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

“We fought for a free conscience in this country, and we won’t give it up without a fight. To paraphrase Martin Luther, the heart and conscience has room only for God, not for God and the federal government. The bed is too narrow, the blanket is too short. We must obey God rather than men, and we will. Please get the federal government, Mr. Chairman, out of our consciences. Thank you.”

Pure and Cleansed – Presentation 2012

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Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Holy Cross Lutheran Church

Rocklin, California

The Presentation of Our Lord (February 2, 2012)

Luke 2:22–32

2012Presentation

TITLE: “Jesus Presents You Pure and Cleansed to God”

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen. Our text this evening is the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple.

The Law of God given to Moses required that a woman, after giving birth, would be set apart for forty days. She could not go to any holy place or touch any holy thing for forty days after giving birth to a son. This was called the period of her purification, because giving birth, even in the best of circumstances, always involves pain and blood. All the way back at the Garden of Eden, the Lord told Eve that she would suffer in child-birth. Even in the giving of life itself, there was an understanding that death is at the door. And death is a very unholy thing, for it is born from sin.

It’s really hard for us to understand the idea of uncleanness and purification as the Scriptures teach. We just don’t think in those categories today. How could Mary be impure because she gave birth to a Son? It’s offensive to think about this. What could be more natural than giving birth? What could be more normal than that?

Of course giving birth and bearing children is a good and salutary thing. Children are always a gift from God and blessing of the Lord. But because of the sin of Eve and Adam, with this blessing from God comes a cross. Let’s face it. Children are messy. They start out messy, and it only gets messier as they get older. The messes just change. And the messiest child of all is what we commonly call an adult. Our lives are full of messes, ones that we cause or ones that seem to fall into our laps. Life this side of the grave is messy business thanks to this common sin which infects us all.

The Scriptures understand this very well, and so every mother at forty days was to bring a lamb to the Temple for a burnt offering and two turtledoves or pigeons for a sin offering. In this way she was cleansed by the death of these animals, and made pure once again. The only way that a mother could be made clean was by death and sacrificed. That was the only way it happened.

The same was true for the son. From the time of Mount Sinai, every firstborn male child of the sons of Israel was holy to the Lord, and dedicated to service in the Temple of God. But since the tribe of Levi were the tribe of the priests, all of the other firstborn sons were redeemed, or bought back from Temple service forty days after their birth. The price for the redemption of a firstborn son was five shekels of silver.

So this forty days was a time of purification for Mary and preparation for Jesus to be presented at the Temple of the Lord. Jesus, the true Temple of God, came to visit the earthly Temple. So it is that this young girl, Mary by name, was purified for forty days after the birth of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. At the end of this time, she and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple, along with two turtledoves to make sacrifice, as the Law of Moses required. They were a Jewish couple doing what new families do, to purify the mother and present the Son in the Temple and redeem Him from sacrifice. But this time it was different. This time Mary does not simply bring two turtledoves for her own sacrifice. This time she brings the sacrifice, the one sacrifice of all time, which would cleanse and purify all of us from sin and death forever.

Now this is a bit of a culture shock for you and I. We just don’t think this way. But it is true. Jesus is presented at the Temple of God in Jerusalem and so fulfills the Law of God. They bring the two pigeons to fulfill the Law for Mary His mother, but they do not bring the five shekels of silver for Him. Like the prophet Samuel many, many years before, Jesus will serve the Temple of God. Only this time, Jesus will be the Temple of God, for He is the very Son of God in the flesh.

This is what that old man, Simeon, saw in the little infant Jesus. Simeon picked Him up in his arms, blessed God and said:

“Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, According to Your word; For my eyes have seen Your salvation Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel.”

Simeon could now depart in peace, because the very Temple of God was now in the flesh of Jesus Christ. And He got to hold Jesus in his very arms. What a blessing indeed! The salvation and redemption of God’s people did not finally lie in turtledoves and temples and shekels and lambs. All of these things were but a shadow that pointed to the One. God’s salvation, the light for the Gentiles like you and I, and the true glory of Israel, came in that little baby that would one day die for the sins of the whole world. Only He could make Simeon whole. And when Simeon held Him in his arms, then he could go home and depart this world in peace.

But that’s not even the most miraculous part of this wonderful story. When do we sing these words, “Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace….”? We sing them right after receiving the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in Holy Communion. That is no coincidence. What Simeon held in his arms, you take in your mouth. Simeon longed to be in the presence of God, and you take that Real Presence of our forgiving Lord into your very mouth and soul. Take and eat, take and drink, the very body and blood of Christ, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

Incredible, isn’t it? More than incredible. Simeon longed his whole life to have what you receive every week right here, in the Lord’s Supper. Here He cleanses you body and soul. Here He forgives your sins. Here He makes right everything that is wrong and messed up on your life. I said earlier that children are messy, even the adult variety. It is that very messiness which Christ our Lord takes on for you. The Epistle to the Hebrews puts it this way: “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

He was made to be like you, so that He could remake you to be like Him. What a wonderful gift and treasure our Lord gives you in His body and blood! He comes into that messiness, that mire and muck of your life, and cleanses you from all sins. We may truly pray with the hymn:

Jesus, by your presentation, When they blessed you, weak and poor,
Make us see your great salvation, Seal us with your promise sure;
And present us in your glory To your Father, cleansed and pure. (LSB 519:3)

Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.

Changed (Transfiguration 2012)

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning is the Gospel just read, the Transfiguration of our Lord from St. Matthew chapter seventeen.

God loves to hide things, so that He may reveal them at the proper time. King Solomon once wrote, “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” (Proverbs 25:2 ESV) What this means for us is that God hides things because it is for our benefit, not because he’s trying to keep secrets. He hides Himself because He knows that if He were to reveal Himself to us in His full glory apart from Jesus, we could not bear it because of our sin.

That is why Peter, James and John fall to the ground when He is revealed. They realize that they are not worthy to be in God’s presence. Like Moses standing before the burning bush, they know that if everything is revealed, they would be consumed. They know, like the centurion from last week, that they are not worthy to be in the presence of God Almighty. They are afraid. And they are right to be afraid. Adam and Eve, after all, fled from the presence of God when they knew their sin (Genesis 3:8).

Oddly enough, we have forgotten our unworthiness in the presence of God. As a culture, perhaps more than any other description, I would say that we are a people without shame. We dress up our children like harlots. We steal and slander one another at every turn. We take God’s gift of life and turn it into a convenience to be aborted if other dreams seem more important. We have no shame as a people. And yet we somehow also have a profound lost of self-esteem and self-worth.

Now when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, his face shone from being in the presence of God. The people were afraid to come near to him. The reason Moses went up Mt. Sinai here in Exodus is because of this little episode we call the Golden Calf. In a short period of time, the people of Israel had gone from rejocing in God delivering them from the hand of Pharaoh, to worshipping a calf made of melted jewelry. Moses actually crashed the tablets of stone on the ground, broke them, and many people died. So it should be no surprise when Moses comes back down a second time, that they are afraid. His glowing presenced reflected the glory of God, and it terrified them. They went from having no shame, to having so much shame and guilt that they could not bear it.

This is you, dearly beloved. We play games with our sins. We act as though we can pick and choose how these things work. We bite and manipulate one another, all in the name of fairness or justice or even just being right. But as the author to Hebrews puts it, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31)

So the fear of Peter, James and John is entirely understandable. They can handle the healing Jesus. They can handle Jesus the teacher. They can even handle Moses and Elijah (at least in their minds). In fact, that little picture or image is so good that they want to CLICK, hold on to that picture. But when the voice of God Himself speaks from the cloud, well, that is too much. They cannot bear to hear the voice of God apart from Jesus.

It is then that this beautiful picture emerges. The pictures is these three, as well as you and I, kneeling before the Transfigured Lord, and Jesus then reaches down and touches them and says, “Rise, and have no fear.” (Matthew 17:7) With these words, everything really does change. Jesus touches them, reaches out to them, speaks words of comfort to them, and they lift up their eyes and see Jesus only.

This, beloved, is how we enter into the presence of the almighty God. We enter through the blood of Jesus. We enter into His presence with the touch of our Lord. It is this touch, this hidden Word, that changes everything.

Does this comfort you? It can and it will. For you enter into the presence of God Almighty here, in this place, at His house. “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Host!” God’s house is lovely because God’s house is here for you. It is your shelter from the stormy blast. God’s house is where you are fed and nourished. God’s house is where your sins are forgiven, God’s house is where you get a tiny little taste of this resurrection.

Some day, dearly beloved, some day we will change for good. Yes, you will change. It won’t be the cheap cosmetic changes of today. It won’t be changing an old habit or any of the other superficial things that we all try to solve or improve on the way.

And one day, O Christian, one day the morning star will rise in your heart, and the dawn will come. One day you will go home to be with Him forever. And on that day, the vision, the picture we have in the Transfiguration will be complete. For you, too, will shine like the stars. You, too, will converse with Moses and Elijah and all the company of heaven. You, too, will be with Jesus face to face forever.

On that day, beloved, you will face a final transfiguration, the great change, a last resurrection, a transformation unlike any other, a metamorphisis to eternal life that will never end. May it ever be so for Jesus sake. Amen.

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” (Jude 1:24–25)

2012Transfiguration

Shepherding Through the Contradictions

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So I’m working on a bible study for the Circuit Winkel Bible Study Series.  My topic is “Shepherding Through the Contradictions.”  As I am thinking through this project, I would love some input.

  • What are the contradictions that a pastor faces every day?
  • What are the contradictions his people face every day?  How are they the same or different?
  • What does it mean to “Shepherd Through” them?

Those are just a few of my initial questions.  What are yours?