I wrote this post on 11 November 2008, but I thought I’d share it again! Happy Veteran’s Day!

Veterans and those serving in our nation’s military have always held a special place of honor in the hearts of my family. It’s time to say thank you.

On my father’s side of the family, the three generations before him served in America’s largest conflicts. My great-great grandfather, John Peter Gumm, served under Gen. W.T. Sherman in the 3rd Wisconsin Infantry as they fought through the Carolinas at the end of the Civil War. (Years ago I had opportunity to walk the battlefields where he had fought and found out his company was right in the thick of the fighting during the Battle of Averasboro, NC. I give thanks for God’s grace that no harm came to him!)

My great-grandfather, Clarence Gumm, served as an Army mechanic during the First World War and his five sons all served in the Second World War – John as a radio operator/gunner on B-24 Liberators & B-17 Flying Fortresses in North Africa, Italy and Europe, even being shot down and rescued by the Italian underground once; Clarence in the infantry in the Pacific; Marvin in the infantry stateside; my grandfather George as a tank and half-track driver in the 753rd Tank Battalion, who also helped liberate the Dachau Concentration Camp, and their brother Hank; who served as a paratrooper in the 11th Airborne and lost his life while his unit tried to take out a Japanese machine gun nest during the push to take back Manila in the Philippines.

On my mother’s side of the family, my great-great grandfather, Carl, served briefly in the Civil War and my grandfather, Willard Degnitz, as part of the XIX Corps, laid communication lines with little cover along the front as the Allies advanced through Europe, even having to hide in streams and haystacks when German patrols came near. I’m told those who had his job were often a primary target of German snipers.

For good reason, veterans and those serving in our nation’s military have always held a special place of honor in the hearts of my family. Even as part of my current ministry, I have the privilege of serving as the Civilian Chaplain to WELS military personnel of the Army’s 10th Mountain Divison at Ft. Drum, NY. Growing up in a family with a history of military service, I consider it an honor to minister to young men and women deploying to serve our nation in faraway lands and to protect the freedoms our gracious God has allowed us to enjoy here in the United States.

Today is that one day a year when we are reminded to do something we ought to do every day of the year – thank a veteran. So take some time to thank a veteran today, whether an aged veteran of the 2nd World War or a recent veteran of the War on Terror, for making possible the freedoms we enjoy, and give thanks to our gracious God for their faithful service on our behalf and on behalf of our nation.

(Color Photo – Taken by Jeremiah Gumm @ Veterans Memorial, West Bend Historical Society Museum, West Bend, WI – 9 July 2005)

(Black and White Photo – My great-grandparents, Clarence Sr. and Helen Gumm with a Blue Star flag with four stars honoring their four oldest sons enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1943. Their fifth son and my paternal grandfather, George, enlisted shortly after. We ought not forget to thank those Blue and Gold Star families who have given their sons and daughters in service to our nation.)

Another great post from Pr. Larry Peters over at Pastoral Meanderings – a good reminder for every one of us who shepherd the Lord’s flocks, and a good reminder for God’s people too when it comes to their relationship with their shepherd(s). This is a lesson that is often only learned in the crucible of experience. Shepherds need to take the Church and its work seriously, but not themselves, let alone make everything personal. Take a read…

I was given good counsel when about to begin my life as a Pastor of the Church. A wise Pastor with many years of service to the Lord told me to take the Church seriously, take the work of the Church seriously, but do not take yourself seriously. I must admit that when first told these words I was not so sure this was sage advice and proven wisdom. Now some thirty years later, I can see the truth and wisdom in it.

When we take ourselves seriously, everything is personal. And that is one thing a Pastor cannot afford to do — to take things personally. It cannot be about me. I cannot afford to take personally everything that happens in conjunction with what I do as Pastor or every that is done to me or around me as Pastor. The tone of voice, the challenge that seems pretty personal, the upset… these are the things I must learn to look beyond or they will become the barriers and roadblocks to my ministry that will alienate me from the people and prevent me from serving them as I am called to do.

Often I have people who come into my study or call on the phone or email me with complaints about this or that in the Church. Implicit in their complaints is always the threat to leave and find another congregation. Often I have people who come to me wounded by this or that in life and work and somehow I end up getting the brunt of their backlash though it seldom has anything to do with me. Often I have been there when people exploded in anger, frustration, or sorrow only to find out that the trigger may have had some small connection to me but the cause was something unrelated to me or the Church. In those moments, a Pastor cannot afford to take it personally. Indeed, the challenge of the calling is to learn to look beyond the momentary outburst and extend to these wounded and hurting Christians, the love, forgiveness, mercy, guidance, counsel and Word of the Lord.

I do not always heed these words about not taking yourself personally, and when I do not, I always regret my failure to heed this good and wise counsel. When I fail to listen to this wisdom, I end up looking the fool I was trying to avoid and apologizing and begging forgiveness to clear up what my failed response did to exacerbate the situation.

Do not take yourself too seriously — do not be too concerned about respect or authority or honor that should be due you. Instead focus your concern upon the Church and her work — and your part in that work — and these other things will probably come. Take the Church seriously – her image and stature in the community, her life flowing from and back to the Word and Sacraments, her mission of witness and proclamation to the world, her community of life as the baptized people of God who share a common life in Christ, her welcome to the stranger that walks through the door, her service to the poor and needy who are always with us, her doctrine and confession of faith that we receive from the fathers and profess with our own voice and then pass on to those to come — these are the things a Pastor must take seriously. But not so much himself.

I understand this and even though I do not always heed the good counsel I was given, I accept this wisdom and truth as key to who I am as a Pastor of the Church and what I do in service to the Lord and His people. But, my family, well that is a more complicated situation.

It is very hard for a Pastor’s family to not take seriously words and actions that are intended to threaten, wound, or demean their husband and father. It is natural for a family to circle the wagons around a family member who is hurt by the words or actions of others. It is a mark of love that we do this for those whom we care about. The old adage about how it is okay for a family member to criticize, mock, make fun of, or challenge another family member but not for others to do so — it is true. The same is true when the Pastor’s family becomes the victim of the slings and arrows of others. What I struggle not to take seriously when it involves me, I must take seriously when it involves my family. That does not mean that we cede all objectivity away and blindly defend those who have been wounded by truth. It does mean that what we work out in private as a family is different that how we stand together before others.

I do not fear personal slights or critical words or complaints or even attacks — I do not welcome them or like them but I do not fear them. As a Pastor I will have to account for all my actions and for all my failures to act before the Lord. This accountability is of greater consequence to me that the understanding or appreciation of others around me. I have to separate me from the mix of things and make sure that I do not take myself too seriously or take things too personally. It is a wise man who can do this most of the time and it is something I struggle with every day as a Pastor.

It is also a difficult situation for my family — who love me, support me, and who sacrifice a great deal for me so that I can serve as a Pastor. For this reason, I honor them in my heart and in public for their great love, patience, and encouragement to me. I am humbled by what they often endure from me and from others because I am a Pastor. Sometimes with great resolution and sometimes with tears they find themselves caught between circling the wagons around me to defend me against any and all — and the knowledge that in doing this they may inadvertently make things more difficult so they bear the wound in silence and try to walk beyond it.

So today I sing a Te Deum Laudamus for my wife and children, parents and in-laws, who know me and all my weaknesses and still love me… who defend me and stand up for me always… who tell me what I need to hear when no one else will say it… and who endure the sometimes rocky road that belongs to a Pastor’s family. I take them seriously. I take the Church seriously. I take the work of the Church and my calling as part of it seriously. But I do not make things personal to me or take myself too seriously or all their many sacrifices would be in vain…

This past week has seen the highest increase in daily visitors to The Shepherd’s Study in its nearly two-year history. For that, thank you to all of you who’ve spent some of your valuable time here! I think a big thanks goes to the folks over at Issues, Etc. and their pick of The Shepherd’s Study as blog of the week last week. I thought it would only be fair to post one of their latest promo videos below

If you have a moment and you are a new reader or have been lurking for a while, but haven’t made yourself known, please feel free to add a comment and let us know who you are and where you’re from. Whether you’ve been following The Shepherd’s Study for a while or have just started, thanks for reading!

Sermon for the 1st Sunday of End Time: The Festival of the Reformation – 1 November 2009

It was one of the busiest days of the year in little Wittenberg. Travelers from all over Europe streamed into the city. Children chased each other through the crowds. Vendors hawked their wares and pilgrims snapped them up. Wittenberg was abuzz with people gathered to celebrate All Saints Day over at All Saints Church, known as the Castle Church because it looked like a tall castle. It wasn’t the appearance of the church that drew the crowds, though. It was the relics—vials of milk from the virgin Mary, straw from Christ’s manger, wood from the cross, and other relics that were supposed to take off years of punishment in purgatory with every pious viewing. All Saints Day drew thousands every fall to the city of Wittenberg.

Over the noise of the crowds, the clear voice of a hammer striking a large nail rang out. Martin Luther—a local university professor, Augustinian monk, and pastor over at St. Mary’s down the street—was nailing a large roll of parchment to the door of the Castle Church, which served as the community bulletin board.

Little did he realize, but that parchment would start a fire that still burns today. He had written 95 theses arguing against the practice of selling indulgences, pieces of paper sold to willing buyers with the promise of forgiveness for a price. Those pieces of paper had quickly become licenses to sin. Out of pastoral concern for God’s people, Martin Luther offered a debate on indulgences and other abuses in the church. Pastor Luther wanted the clear voice of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—to be heard. He wanted his flock to enjoy real freedom from sin and guilt in Christ.

With the ring of a hammer 492 years ago, the clear voice of the Gospel soon was heard once again. Since the earliest days, that clear voice of the Gospel has sounded in spite of attempts by Satan and our world to confuse or silence it. The Romans tried to persecute its proclamation into silence. The Papists nearly silenced it with false teaching that turned Christ into an angry judge and made man responsible for his salvation. Countless voices try to drown it out today with the denial of Holy Scripture as the Word of God, the denial of absolute truth, and the denial of the need for Christ, yet THE CLEAR VOICE OF THE GOSPEL STILL RINGS OUT!

Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.” – Revelation 14:6-7

It was a dark time for the Apostle John. Seventy or so years had passed since the Lord had called him to leave his fishing nets beside the Sea of Galilee and follow him. The years had flown by, yet with God’s help, John had proclaimed the good news of Christ Jesus. Now he was an old man, the last living apostle, and sentenced to end his days in exile on the tiny Greek island of Patmos for his Christian faith. Darkness loomed.

Throughout those many years, though, John had seen how the light of the Gospel broke through the darkness of sin and guilt and unbelief. He had seen how pagan unbelievers who had once reveled in awful lifestyles now stood firm in the Christian faith even in the face of death. He had seen the light of the Gospel break through the darkness of unbelief in lands all across the known world. The Holy Spirit had used John’s writings to strengthen God’s people with the clear voice of the Gospel. Now the Lord had one more letter for him to write to prepare the Church for the challenges ahead, and to encourage God’s people with the final victory already won by Christ.

God’s people needed to know that the Gospel rings out with a clear voice. Without a clear voice, the Gospel wasn’t the Gospel—the good news of all sins freely forgiven and salvation won through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Plenty of other voices threatened to overwhelm that clear voice of the Gospel. Some threatened to rob Christ of the glory he deserved by giving man a role in his salvation, that Christ’s saving work was incomplete without man’s cooperation. Some threatened to overthrow Christ’s authority with their own. Some argued that Jesus was just a man and not God, while others twisted Holy Scripture for their own personal gain. Some tempted God’s people to desert Christ in their hour of suffering or persecution or hardship, arguing that the Gospel was powerless.

Into all this darkness, the Savior shined the pure, clear light of the Gospel, shattering the darkness and putting the clear Gospel out of reach of all its clamoring enemies. In so doing, he assured his Church he will never abandon her. John wrote, “Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people.”

The Word of God would not be overcome by Satan or his hellish forces. The “eternal Gospel” would endure forever ringing out with a clear voice. Those of us sitting here can attest to that fact since that Gospel brought us here, but still today so many misleading voices clamor to drown out the Gospel’s clear voice. They deny absolute truth. They transform Christ into just another moral teacher. They trade Christ and his cross in Christianity for the latest pop fad, and promote the worship of self as my sin, my lifestyle, my choice, my life, my body, my will take priority over God’s holy will. These voices diminish the importance of what Christ did on the cross so it doesn’t offend, and remove the teachings of sin and hell for a message that sounds pleasing to the ear, but is poisonous to the heart. These voices clamor for unity amidst diversity, even if that unity includes watering down the pure teaching of God’s Word or condoning sin as a matter of choice or an alternative lifestyle. Woe to those who follow those voices!

Sadly we so often do. A congregation allows a little error to stand or looks the other way when it comes to unrepentant sin, and the clear voice of the Gospel is lost. Gospel-taught Christians like you and me become ashamed of that Gospel when faced with an awkward situation or a little heat for our Christian faith. At times, you and I put more confidence in our own abilities, our own wisdom, or our own intelligence rather than the eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed from heaven. When we’re so bombarded with those misleading voices, we easily let them confuse the clear voice of the Gospel.

We need to know that the eternal Gospel rings out with a clear voice! It rang out clearly when God in his grace forgave our first parents who disobeyed him. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) It rang out clearly when the cry of a baby conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin rang out in a Bethlehem stable. It rang out clearly when that baby grew into a man and began three long years of difficult ministry with one sole purpose—to proclaim the good news of sins forgiven, of guilt wiped away, of death destroyed. It rang out clearly when a hammer pounded nails through the hands of the Son of God pinning him to a cross. It rang out clearly when that same Son of God cried out with his dying breath, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) It rang out clearly when three days later an angel told some frightened women, “He is not here. He is risen!” (Matthew 28:6) It rang out clearly when the risen Christ entered the heavens victorious and sent his Holy Spirit so his followers could clearly proclaim his Gospel. It rang out clearly from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. It rang out clearly when the Lord raised up Martin Luther and others to restore the truth of the Gospel to his church. It rang out clearly when that message traveled across oceans to the Americas. That clear voice of the Gospel still rings out today!

In all those places at all those times, the clear voice of the Gospel overcame every misleading voice with the truth of God’s holy Word. The clear voice of the Gospel has always outlasted every attempt of sinful man, Satan, and the sinful world to overcome it. The clear voice of the Gospel brings forgiveness from Christ for your guilt, confidence and strength for your weak and struggling heart, truth and clarity for the confusion of our present age.

The Gospel still needs to ring out though. The angel proclaims the purpose for proclaiming that Gospel, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.” He doesn’t command us to be terrified of God, but to give him glory in childlike awe and respect. Yes, God’s holiness terrifies our sinful natures, but his gracious love makes us his beloved children who respond with praise as the Psalmist wrote, “With you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.” (Psalm 130:4)

There is no time but the present for this to take place “because the hour of his judgment has come.” With every passing day and hour, the Last Day looms closer when there will be no more opportunity to proclaim the Gospel.

So who will go? Who will proclaim that good news? God in his grace has provided pastors and teachers to proclaim this Good News, but the truth is, we pastors and teachers have never been able to go to every nation, tribe, language, and people. That messenger with the eternal Gospel, then, is also you. God gives you the simple message of Christ crucified for you to forgive your sins and save sinners like you. The Lord doesn’t call you to blow people away with some complicated kind of shock and awe, but to simply confess what you know and believe, to sound the clear voice of the Gospel in an age of confusion and error and lies. The Gospel needs to ring out if people you know and love are to join you with all believers in Christ around the throne of the Lamb of God. Find strength and ability to do that, then, by spending time in the Word and at the Lord’s Table. Wake up each morning remembering your Baptism with repentance and living each day as a forgiven child of God equipped with the clear voice of the Gospel.

We live in times that grow darker with each passing day. The Last Day is coming soon, when Christ will come to judge the living and the dead. Hostility grows against those who hold to Holy Scripture as God’s Word and who live out their Christian faith, but Christ will never abandon you, even in your darkest hour, even when it seems the misleading noise of the present age will overwhelm the clear voice of the Gospel once and for all. Instead let that clear voice of the Gospel be heard. Let it ring out with the message of freedom from guilt and despair and death in Christ. Let it ring out with the good news of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone found in Scripture alone. May the eternal Gospel ring out clearly through you and all believers in Christ until He returns at last! Amen.

[Graphic #1 Source: National Geographic Photography]
[Graphic #2 Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Word came out from Logos Bible Software that they release Logos 4 today. For those of you who make use of Logos with the Libronix Digital Library System, this is quite a new release, since Logos basically did a “from-the-ground-up” restructuring of their previous release of Logos 3.x.

For those not familiar with Logos Bible Software, the name gives a pretty good idea of what it is – great Bible study software, but for pastors wanting to do deeper exegetical studies, Logos is second to none in my opinion. At the same time, one can also build quite the digital library with a host of resources from various publishing companies, including Concordia Publishing House and Northwestern Publishing House.

I personally have not seen the software, but Pr. Aaron Frey – WELS pastor, founder of the Logos for Lutherans newsgroup, and teacher of the Exegesis with Logos course at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary – has been posting various reviews of different aspects of the new release on his blog. Here are links to his latest reviews.

• Logos 4 Initial Impressions
• Text Studies, Guides and Searching
• Library and Resource Management, Conclusion