News

As we sing psalms and historic hymns today, both in our hymn sing and worship service, it is helpful to reflect on what many in the modern western church might consider our “odd” choice in musical style. Can we not simply “get with the times?”

Music and musical style reflects very much our view of worship and the God whom we serve. What does our music say about our worship? What does it say about God? Who is the music for? While worship music can certainly be a benefit to us and lift our spirits or console us in times of sorrow, it is primarily music for God — it is something which we offer to Him. How we feel about it apart from that line of thinking is not very relevant. And this is but one of the reasons we don’t croon modern worship lyrics.

The hymns and psalms we sing are robust, designed for congregations, connect us to the history of our faith, and have permanence to last the ages. We also emphasize singing the psalms — God’s song book. The psalms were written by those who came before us in the faith like David, Asaph, the sons of Korah, Solomon and more. We worship the unchanging God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we worship robustly, and we worship as a congregation, lifting up our voices as many parts, but one voice. As you sing with your brothers and sisters today, do so as an offering of worship to God, recognizing you sing with the saints through the ages.

The shooting at Uvalde elementary school is a tragedy. We grieve with those who grieve. We mourn with those who mourn. For many of us, it is almost impossible to contemplate what fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters of those who lost their lives are facing. As we try to understand this tragedy, one of the most important things we can do is pray for them and our nation in general. Many who are not of our persuasions nor believe in prayer will tell you that prayer is a futile, even undesired effort. But as those who believe the word of God, we have a very different picture. The Psalms give us language for our grief and uncertainty. Certainly, verses from Psalm 44:13-16 come to mind as the Psalmist dwells on the reproach of a people.

While our nation looks for answers in the aftermath of a shooting, the clamor for the limitation of weapons reaches a fever pitch. But few ask the questions about what formed and shaped the thinking of the one responsible for pulling the trigger. Few want to face the fact that as society becomes more and more unmoored from the moral framework provided by the creator for His creation, the more the uptick in such serious crimes. The real solution is not one they want to hear: repent and return to Christ! He is the only solution to these problems.

Here’s an exercise in contrasts: Elizabeth Amy Eaton, presiding bishop of the ELCA (the liberal Lutherans) Tweeted this past week, “While the leaked court draft does not represent the Supreme Court’s ruling in its final form; nevertheless, it contradicts this church’s teaching. This church teaches that abortion and reproductive health care, including contraception, must be legal and accessible.”

This past Lord’s day, we at St. Mark had the privilege of welcoming the Godinhos into membership, and baptizing their 4 precious little children. One of those little children, Eli, had a few warning signs during pregnancy and the doctor asked them if they were considering terminating the pregnancy. Of course, as you know, they chose instead to trust and obey God instead and the Godinhos, as well as our congregation, are so much richer for it.

While the false church of the liberal Lutherans teaches that the right to murder babies must be legal and accessible, we instead follow the ways of the Lord of life and are blessed beyond measure.

Proverbs 1:15–16 seems applicable, “My son, do not walk in the way with them, keep your foot from their path; for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.” While they make haste to shed blood for their own comforts, we uphold the law of the Lord!

Fifteen years ago, in the spring of 2007, Pastor Rich Lusk presided over a Lord’s Day service, during which six charter families took vows and were received into membership of the newly formed St. Mark Reformed Church. In God’s providence, for various reasons having to do with jobs, moving to new areas, etc. we have one remaining family of those founders: The Goolsbys.

Of course, the Goolsbys are a great blessing to our congregation, and Abe has now been ordained as an Elder at St. Mark. And if you’ve spent any time around Abe, you know what a great blessing this also is to our congregation.

And from the vantage point of 15 years, it’s also now wonderful to see the hand of providence in placing us in the CREC; a denomination now poised to hold the course as many churches and denominations look to compromise. We have the privilege of helping to strengthen this community of churches as we stand fast in the faith together against the advances of worldliness.

It wasn’t long after the initial forming that Pastor Thacker received and accepted the call to ministry at St. Mark the same year. His commitment to liturgy, sacrament, and preaching has been a great blessing these 15 years. Praise be to God for his goodness!

This past week, as you must surely now be aware, an opinion draft leaked from the Supreme Court of these United States. The topic: The overturning of Roe v. Wade. Leaving aside questions about the integrity of the court and the trust of the clerks and aids who serve there (or even the Justices themselves?), we’ll focus instead on the response.

The internet practically exploded. On the right, shouts of joy, praise, jubilation. On the left, despair, anger, franticness, threats. And you’re a Google search away from seeing videos of Elizabeth Warren yelling and screaming, visible shaking with anger as she calls for insurrection to ensure the rights of women, as defined by her, remain secure. The accusation against those on the “right” on is that we’ve been plotting and scheming for years and slowly working against, “the will of the people” to put things in motion leading to this as if the murder of children has until now, never been a questionable “right.” Why yes, senator, we have been “plotting and scheming” to make the murder of babies illegal again.

And, make no mistake, this hasn’t happened yet. The leak was confirmed to be genuine, but it is a draft. The decision has not been handed down yet. Still, praise God, in His mercy, he might allow this to come to pass and we must pray to that end. And we need God’s mercy now more than ever.

For May, our Hymn of the Month is All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night written by Thomas Ken (set to music by Thomas Tallis). Ken lived from 1637 to 1711 and throughout that time he was a pastor, chaplain at Winchester College, chaplain to Princess (later to be queen) Mary, and bishop of Bath and Wells. He was a faithful man who stood his ground to King Charles II, refusing to provide him lodging because the king had a mistress with him. He was also imprisoned for a time for his religious beliefs.

Bishop Ken contributed to English hymnody with the Morning, Evening, and Midnight Hymns which are often still found in English hymnals.

The hymn we’re focusing on this month is an evening hymn. Psalm 4:8 says, “I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety,” and this hymn builds upon that theme. It orients us toward being thankful for that which God has done for us throughout the day. In the second verse, it reminds us to confess our sins from the day. And then in the third verse, we are reminded that our rest is found in the Lord. And the song goes on in that manner and spirit. It is one which should encourage and strengthen you and a tool you can use to aid in your spiritual walk and orienting your soul for sleep.

Praise God for this hymn and the message of peace and rest it brings us!

You may or may not have heard of the Twitter account “LibsOfTikTok” depending upon how “extremely online” you are or aren’t. This account, run by a previously anonymous person, would repost crazy and/or weird things liberals posted, often from the short video service TikTok (hence the name of the account). Of late, “LibsOfTikTok” has been shining a light on the liberal agenda of grooming young children by insisting on sexually explicit content in schools and other inappropriate venues.

This past week, Taylor Lorenz, “journalist” for The Washington Post, known for, among other things, her stance against “doxxing” (the publishing or private and identifying information with malicious intent), having been a victim herself, doxxed the owner of the “LibsOfTikTok” account, posting a whole lot of private and revealing information and slamming her as having a hateful agenda against LGBTQ+ people for, get this, simply reposting and amplifying their content. You see, it turns out, darkness does not like having a light shined upon it. They want to fully control the narrative and just how much of their wickedness they let out, and when and where. And you can tell a nerve was struck by how hard they lash out. Continue to pray for the exposition of wickedness in our culture.

Christ is Risen!

While we celebrate Christ’s death and resurrection every Lord’s Day, on this another glorious Easter Sunday we celebrate in a particular way Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Easter is a modern English word which derives from what English speakers used to call the month of April, which was named after the goddess of spring, Ēostre in old English. It is fitting that now, this term is almost entirely associated with the resurrection of our Lord (except for a few well meaning curmudgeons who do more than any atheist to re-associate Easter with the goddess of spring).

Of course, in submitting himself to death on the cross, and rising again from the dead, Christ conquered all the gods sinful men could devise. It is right and proper that what was once a device of pagans is now a device made to serve our Lord.

Today, lift up your praise for Christ’s glorious victory over your sin, over death, and over false gods. And as you celebrate this day, someone will, no doubt, say to you, “Christ is risen!” And having now considered Christ’s victory over pagan gods and what victory is made yours through Him, your hearty reply in light of that is one of affirmation, “He is risen indeed!”

There’s nothing quite like the joy of a wedding as God knits together two souls to form one unit. In our case, we have too the privilege of seeing the fruit of faithfulness in two of our member families as their children join together to glorify God by their union.

Psalm 127:3 tells us that, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward.” And here at this cross-section of life for the Goolsbys and the Kernodles, we can see both the fulfillment in the joy of the parents in their Godly offspring, and the renewed promise to Brett and Sophie as God wills and blesses their marriage.

The vows they took yesterday should also remind those of us who are married of the vows we made to our spouses. One of the duties of faithful Christians is to model the Christian life for others. This is a call to us to make sure we are doing that with our marriages. And Brett and Sophie bless us with their joy and love which we can observe, so too we should make sure we renew our love and faithfulness to our husbands and wives and so bring honor and glory to Christ. After all, our marriage are to be a image of Christ and his bride, our mother the Church.

And now, it is both our joy and privilege to pray for and encourage Brett and Sophie in the life God has called them to!

What are the qualifications one needs to serve as a Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States? The constitution does not specify any educational standard, or really, much else. The method of selection, as I’m sure you probably know by this point, is that the sitting president will nominate someone he (or in the future, she?) thinks is qualified when there is vacancy. It is then up to the members of the senate to determine their standards of qualification, and vote accordingly. A simple majority in that vote will confirm the president’s nomination.

Why are we talking about this here? Recently, President Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson who has been serving as a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. John Kennedy, a Republican senator from Louisiana, asked her a simple question, “When does life begin, in your opinion?” Her reply? “Senator, I don’t know.” Kennedy pressed and asked when the law would recognize and protect life, to which she again replied, “I don’t know.” Regardless of which side of the pro-choice/pro-life divide you’re on (all reading this I hope are pro-life), this (among other questions she couldn’t adequately answer) seems like necessary knowledge to qualify her to sit in judgement of such matters. Obviously, prayers over this process, and for her rejection, are needed.

News this past week of Justice Clarence Thomas’ hospitalization can be a bit worrisome for those of us who value, well, justice. While the court should not be a place that has much occasion for various political shenanigans to surface, nevertheless the fact is that the liberal and conservative leaning of judges has a lot of bearing on how one sees justice and how the laws of the land will be interpreted. For various reasons far too long to go into in such a short format newsletter, politically conservative judges tend to better match Christian ideals. At the moment, the Supreme court has six judges considered to be on the conservative side of the spectrum (and three of which are more obviously so than the other three), and three quite liberal judges. Thomas, being a pretty obviously conservative judge, is one we hope to hold on to during a liberal presidency. While worry is never appropriate because God is always on His throne, praying for Thomas’ healing is quite appropriate, and it is so for multiple reasons. For our purposes here, we pray for God to sustain the life of Justice Thomas so that we can continue to see God work through him and the other conservative judges for causes and values we believe to be consistent with a biblical view of the law and the world. So do be praying for God to sustain him through this time of illness.

News this past week of Justice Clarence Thomas’ hospitalization can be a bit worrisome for those of us who value, well, justice. While the court should not be a place that has much occasion for various political shenanigans to surface, nevertheless the fact is that the liberal and conservative leaning of judges has a lot of bearing on how one sees justice and how the laws of the land will be interpreted. For various reasons far too long to go into in such a short format newsletter, politically conservative judges tend to better match Christian ideals. At the moment, the Supreme court has six judges considered to be on the conservative side of the spectrum (and three of which are more obviously so than the other three), and three quite liberal judges. Thomas, being a pretty obviously conservative judge, is one we hope to hold on to during a liberal presidency. While worry is never appropriate because God is always on His throne, praying for Thomas’ healing is quite appropriate, and it is so for multiple reasons. For our purposes here, we pray for God to sustain the life of Justice Thomas so that we can continue to see God work through him and the other conservative judges for causes and values we believe to be consistent with a biblical view of the law and the world. So do be praying for God to sustain him through this time of illness.

In Matthew 22 Jesus says, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.” Last week, Pastor Thacker preached to us from Mathew 25 and the takeaway is clear: be about the business of the kingdom of our Lord. This is, indeed, the primary way we show that we love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, and mind. If we are not about the business that we have been called to, we fail in loving God with our whole being.

As you consider the world around you, the worries of war, the cares of rising costs and increasing inflation, the many things you have on your plate to accomplish, make sure to filter it through this lens: am I about the business God has called me to? Will this further the goal of loving the Lord with my whole being. David reminds us in Psalm 37: “Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

So as you go about your week this week, delight in the Lord. Love Him with your whole being.