HOUSTON—Starting with the name “Abraham, Mark W.” and ending with “Zorn, Glen R.,” there are 490 names listed on pages 25-26 of the 2010 Convention Workbook—the names of the ordained and commissioned ministers
who departed this life since the last Synod convention in 2007.
The 64th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is meeting July 10-17 at the George R. Brown Convention Center under the theme “ONE People—Forgiven.” Among the approximately 3,000 participants are some 1,200 clergy and lay voting delegates.
“Lord, we don’t know where we are going, so how can we know the way?” the apostle Thomas asked (John 14:5), summarizing the concerns of the disciples, who had left everything to follow Jesus. But Christ would not leave His disciples bewildered; He proclaimed that He was the Way, the Truth and the Life.
During the memorial service today, basing his text on John 14:6 “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” Dr. Glen Thomas, executive director of the LCMS Board for Pastoral Education, noted that “Conceived and born lost and not knowing the way, as are all people, we thank God that through the water and Word of Holy Baptism, He brought them to know the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. . . . As a result of God’s gracious working in their lives, they knew where they were going, and they knew the way.”
If the average span of service for these 490, Thomas noted, were just 30 years each — that is nearly 15,000 collective years of service. “Think of how many people were shown the way to eternal life as a result of God working through these servants during these 15,000 collective years of service,” he said.
“As for the 490 servants we remember with thanks this day, so it is also for us: We know who we are, we know where we are going, and, by the grace of God, we know the way,” Thomas concluded.
Posted July 14, 2010
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