What is fellowship? – Two fellows in one ship!   (An old Danish/American missionary)

I called on a dear old couple, Hans and Ruth. In his prime he, now retired, ran his own grocer´s store.  He is 88 and she is close to 85.  Very dear people who love the Lord and His love just shined from their peaceful countenances.  “Come in and have a cup of coffee with us”, he smiled.

“I saw an article by you in the newspaper today”, he started, “but I didn´t care to read it as you have recently ran down our church – please bear in mind that the church is our mother!”  (He was hinting at a small piece I´d written about the hypocrisy of our alcoholic bishops and their life of luxury at the expense of their Lutheran State Church).  “The church is our mother”, he reiterated.

“So you mean our State Church?” -  “Yes, that´s what I mean.” -  They are such a dear, godly couple, so I preferred to find a common point of reference as members of the body of Christ.   “Why don´t you ask me, if I have a good word for you?” I suggested.  Dear old Ruth looked at me with a beautiful, radiant face.  “Do you have a good word?” she smiled.  “Yes, here´s what I´ve just been dwelling on a few minutes ago on a bench in the beautiful sunshine.”

I quoted from Matth. 28:  “He is not here, for He has risen!”  I said to Ruth, “Do you know what?  He is risen, and you are risen with Him!  Has anybody ever told you that?” -  “No”, she admitted.  “But you are!  You belong to Jesus Christ, don´t you?”  They both nodded eagerly.  The Bible says, that we have been “raised up with Him, and seated with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.”   

I went on, “Here we are sitting in your kitchen, but in the reckoning of God we are already there!  And I´ve been praying that I may really see that as I look at circumstances around us.”

I think we all rejoiced.  We didn´t quarrel about their “mother church” and their Lutheran tradition, but we drank in the triumphant greeting from the empty grave and what that glorious greeting implies in practise.”  They welcomed me back.

-jn-

Febr. 12, 2010.