Christian hope in a hopeless world

By Matthew C. Harrison

My dear friends in Jesus,

As I write this, I’ve just returned home from a week of meetings with our partner church in India, the India Evangelical Lutheran Church (IELC). I had not realized it, but it has been over 50 years since the last sitting Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) president visited. That was the Rev. Dr. J.A.O. Preus II in the early 1970s. In the last decade, the Synod’s relationship with the IELC has been difficult, due in largest measure to internal lawsuits and divisions in the Indian church, but this was an incredibly hope-filled and eventful visit. I hope to share more about it in the near future, but for now, I would like to use this visit as a backdrop for some broader thoughts about our Christian hope in a world that seems increasingly hopeless, especially during this difficult election season.

First, we must acknowledge that what challenges our hope here in the U.S. pales in comparison to what our dear friends in India suffer — challenges that we can only imagine. We, as a Synod, have known of these challenges firsthand for over a century. In 1894, the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States — now known as the LCMS — called the Rev. Theodore Naether to be its first official missionary. Naether arrived in India the next year and spent the rest of his life working tirelessly to spread the Gospel there. So, the first international mission of the LCMS is very special to us, but it is even more so to our sisters and brothers in India.

During my recent visit there, news came that in Ambur, Tamil Nadu, India, former LCMS missionary Alice Brauer had died. Born in India when her father, the Rev. Richard Brauer, was teaching at Concordia Theological Seminary, Nagercoil (CTSN), she moved to the U.S. with her family during childhood but returned to India as a medical missionary in the mid-1960s. She humbly sought out the poor, sick and needy and provided them with medicine, took them to receive treatment and shared the Good News of Jesus with them. She was an oracle of wisdom and knowledge about all things LCMS/IELC.

Alice knew the LCMS and IELC were meeting and had wanted to travel the long distance to CTSN, where the meetings were held, but her health prevented her from doing so. Yet I give thanks to God that she was able to die knowing that the relationship to which she had given so much of her life was back on track.

Who is my neighbor?

Over the course of my trip, bad news from around the world kept surfacing. During my flight to India, as I watched my plane skirt around Tehran on the in-flight map, I couldn’t help but wonder if the lunacy of the anti-Semitism driving the war in the Middle East might spill over into domestic air travel. After my arrival, I began receiving texts from the Rev. Dr. Bill Harmon and the Rev. James Rockey, our beloved presidents of the LCMS Southeastern and Florida-Georgia districts, respectively. They shared news about the damage from Hurricane Helene, which turned out to be much worse than initially anticipated. On another call, my dear wife informed me of the rush to purchase basic goods because of the looming dockworkers strike on the East Coast (that strike has now been postponed). And now we have received the sad news — which we had anticipated but hoped wouldn’t happen — that the Lutheran Church of Australia has endorsed women’s ordination. Out of the ashes we will support a new and faithful Australian Lutheran church.

Frankly, it was a relief at times to be in India, where things like transgenderism, biological males participating in women’s sports and concomitant lunacies are barely on the radar screen.

One night during my stay, I woke at 3 a.m. to find clips from the vice-presidential debate coming up on my cell phone — specifically, the discussion of abortion. I was disgusted when one of the candidates, who belongs to a biblically unfaithful (non-LCMS) Lutheran congregation, expressed the summarily un-Lutheran and unbiblical ethical principle: “Mind your own business.” As you, my friends, well know, we can’t mind our own business when it comes to caring for our neighbor:

And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” (Gen. 4:8–10)

Sadly, we don’t have to look very far here at home to see our brothers’ and sisters’ blood crying out from the ground in the form of rampant sin against God’s gift of life and His desired order for His creation.

Fear and foreboding

Speaking of home, I don’t have to remind you that we find ourselves, very soon, facing another election. I heard recently that a pastor made a mildly positive comment about former president Donald Trump in a sermon. A long-time parishioner in that church has not been back in the pew since. This is just one example of the tension throughout our country. Politics are hot all the time, but right now they are white hot. Some lament how woefully absent politics and political recommendations are in the LCMS, and they want us to provide them. Others will read what I write here and think I’m way over the top just to mention it.

But some things need to be said. On issues of religious freedom (non-interference with the church’s schools and institutions), abortion, medical ethics and transgenderism, there are clear biblical positions. In the U.S. today, it is also clear that the political right is closer to the church on these issues than the political left. Other issues — things like immigration, agricultural policy, labor policy, military policy (aside from the promotion of sexual aberration), taxation and the proper size of government — are arguable. Still, all of these issues have strongly related ethical questions, and we do well as citizens to consider those. Workers should be paid fairly, for example. People, including business owners, should not be taxed unfairly. The government should wield its powers justly, and citizens should abide by the law. And we, who as citizens in a republic are both rulers and subjects, should exercise our right and duty to vote.

Lest anyone begin to lose his mind reading this, let me point you to what Jesus says:

And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:25–28)

Every Christian leader who has ever lived has beheld the turmoil around him and been convinced the end of the world is at hand: St. Paul. Augustine. Luther. C.F.W. Walther. I think it is too. But, my dear friends, Jesus has got this: “When you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near” (Luke 21:31). “All things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). Jesus says to us, when all this crazy stuff is going down, don’t be discouraged. Don’t give up hope. Don’t lose faith in Christ. In fact, the chaos is an indication that this life is short, its concerns transitory. Christ’s redemption, His “buying back” of the world from sin, death and the devil, is coming to a completion. This world continues until the last of the elect is brought to faith in Christ, and not one iota longer. What happens in this world is important. But it is not of ultimate importance; Christ is. Forgiveness is. Eternal life is.

If you’re like me, you may feel like you’re going to lose your temper over the foolishness that comes each election year. At times you’ll feel like you’re losing your mind over it all. But whatever you do, don’t lose Christ. Better yet, know that He will not lose you:

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. (John 10:28–30)

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Posted Oct. 25, 2024