The Story of 145 Years

Luke 19:9-10 “9 And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.’”

145 years. What an amazing, tremendous blessing.

A few years ago, when I was still serving in Caseville, we celebrated the congregation’s 40th anniversary. Since I was 39 at the time, I joked that the whole thing was a dry run for my own 40th birthday party. I can’t make that joke today! Still, a congregation with a life span to that point of 40 years, that you can get you mind around. I ran into several people who remembered helping to tighten down the nuts and bolts of the wooden rafters there in their church building. The history was all fairly recent. Things had changed, but not that much.

This is different. Not 40 years. 145 years. That’s well beyond a single human life span. All of you are too young to remember back that far, you whippersnapers! This is a whole other level.

I got a good laugh this week when I was looking at the picture of the church building that we put on the front of the bulletin. If you look closely, there are a few differences between the building then and the building now— not just in the building itself, but in the surrounding area, as well. No houses in the background. No park in the background. No M-24 running right in front. It looks like just open fields all around. And, by the way, no parking lot. Do you realize why? Do you realize why there’s no parking lot, why M-24 isn’t running past? There’s a really good clue in the top right-hand corner: the picture is from 1903. Well, the “Model T” had just gone on sale that very year! That’s why there was no parking lot: there were no cars yet! Just a little bit of a difference. And the congregation was already about 30 years old by then!

How do you even begin to tell that story? The world certainly is a lot different than it was back in 1876. Back then, technology was booming. Alexander Graham Bell (the Steve Jobs of his day) displayed his ‘telephone’ for the first time at the Centennial Exposition that year. Everyone was talking about the huge, shiny, brand new farm equipment— McCormick harvester and wire binder— shortened the process of grain harvesting, making large scale farming possible.

But not everything was coming up roses, so to speak. Inflation was a very real concern— Farbers Sasparilla sold for an outrageous 3 cents a bottle (there were actually discussions of boycotts!) and coffee was an outrageous 5 cents a cup. Politically, we weren’t just divided, our nation was practically on fire. Not only was there still bitter division within the country, only a decade or so out from the Civil War but, there accusations were flying right and left that Republican Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio had stolen the presidential election— he entered the White House by only one electoral vote over Democrat Governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York.

They lived, at the time, under the daily threat of violence— not from Islam, but from Native Americans like the Sioux. In fact, selling guns or ammunition to Native Americans was outlawed that year.

Race relations were still tense, to say the least. Frederick Douglas, famous African American author and orator spoke in March, 1876 of the plight of Black Americans: “But one thing I know,” he said, “we must either have all the rights of American citizens, or we must be exterminated, for we can never again be slaves.” (Source: Doerner, John. “Life In America 1876,” revised June 1, 2015. Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield, www.friendslittlebighorn.com.)

Rampant technological advancements— especially in communication— and big steps forward in farming; political division and fears of rampant inflation; fears of violence here on our own shores, tense race relations. We’ve come a long way, haven’t we. Things have really changed. How do you even begin to tell that story? You could talk about all of that and all the changes in the world around us— our fathers and mothers in the faith building this sanctuary and coming here, Sunday after Sunday, on horses and in buggies, all the way to today as we live stream our services (and who knows what we’ll be capable of in the future!)— but that wouldn’t tell the whole story.

It is interesting to look through the photographs of the buildings over the past 145 years— going back to the old wooden structure, to this building in its original form, to the additions, the maintenance, the repairs, the upgrades, and yes the parking lot (who knows, maybe some day that history will even include the words ‘air conditioning’)— but that wouldn’t tell the whole story.

We could review the pastors and teachers who served here or the sons and daughters of the congregation who went on to become pastors and teachers. But that still wouldn’t tell the whole story.

Arguably the best way to tell the story is through three lists of names: those who were baptized in this font, those who were confirmed at this altar, and those who were buried from this sanctuary. Because the story— OUR story, OUR history— is nothing less than the history of God carrying out His plan of salvation in this world, of Jesus continuing to seek and to save the lost.

Now, I couldn’t resist mentioning the pretty big similarities between 1876 and 2021, but there are, in fact, a lot of changes that we can point out. The world was much different 145 years ago. It will be much different 145 years from now. But what has not changed and will never change is Jesus, the Son of Man, coming to seek and to save the lost.

To tell our story, you actually need to go back much further than 145 years ago. You’d need to go back to before creation, when the Father and the Son agreed on their plan to save humanity. They saw that Adam and Eve would plunge themselves and every generation of their descendants into sin and death, once and for all. But the Father and the Son would not permit the story of this world to end in tragedy. They chose, instead, to make it the Great Redemption Story. They decided that the Son would “7 [empty] himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he [would humble] himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8). Like every child of Adam and Eve, your story was doomed to end in death and hell until He came to die that death in your place, to suffer the pains of hell that you deserved, to change the ending of your story. To take upon Himself all that you have earned and to give you all that He earned with His perfect life, death, and resurrection— in a sense to make your story of disobedience and death His story and to make His story perfect obedience to the Father’s will your story.

You know, it’s worth acknowledging that every congregational anniversary is, in a sense, an admission of failure. ('Failure’ is too strong, but hopefully you’ll get what I’m driving at.) What I’m trying to say is that the celebration sort of cuts both ways. On the one hand, we rejoice in God’s goodness, His faithfulness through all those years. On the other hand, it’s also an admission that Christ hasn’t come back yet, that we’re not in the new creation yet, as He promised. Why is He still waiting? As Pastor Haller put it so well, He waited so that you could be brought to this font. So that you could be baptized and be gathered into His Kingdom. He waited so that He could save you.

His plan of salvation does not just include the Old Testament and the New Testament, it includes what He has done for you, as well. It not only includes the Red Sea and the Jordan River, it also includes this baptismal font where His plan of salvation continues to be carried out as you are adopted as His child and gathered into His kingdom. It not only includes the Passover and the Last Supper, it includes this altar where His plan of salvation continues to be carried out as you are fed with manna from heaven in order to sustain you through the wilderness of this world until you enter the Promised Land. The Old Testament is the story of the promise of Jesus’ coming. The New Testament is the story of His arrival. Your History is the ongoing story of Jesus coming to you, week after week, day after day, in His Word, in the water, and in, with, and under bread and wine.

It is a special thing to gather in this building that, for some of you, your grandparents or perhaps great-grandparents helped to build. But we rejoice today in an even greater gift: that, with them, you, like living stones, have been built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:5). You are not just their descendants, Ephesians 2:19-22 “19 ...you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone....”

In the Old Testament reading we heard part of the prayer that Solomon prayed as he dedicated the great temple that he had built for God there in Jerusalem. It is famous for the glory of its architecture and its beauty. But what is so powerful about Solomon’s words that day is the fact that he expresses so well what the true glory of that temple was: that God had caused His Name to dwell there. That was the true and greater glory of Solomon’s temple. That temple pointed ahead to something greater— the Temple that Christ, Himself, has built and continues to build by placing His Name upon you. “22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). That is the story you have to tell today.

It is a special thing that, for some of you, your parents and grandparents (perhaps even great-grandparents!)were communed at this altar. But we rejoice today in an even greater gift: You weren’t just communed at the same altar and communion rail as your grandparents and great-grandparents. Still to this day, you get to join your voices with the voices of your fathers and mothers in the faith in the song of the angels and archangels and all the host of heaven as they laud and magnify His glorious Name and you receive, with them, a foretaste of the feast to come, the wedding feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom that has no end.

And there’s another rare privilege we have as we celebrate anniversaries within the church. Other entities, other organizations, they can only wonder and speculate at what they might look like— what they hope to look like in 10, 20, or 50 years. No one can even guess at what they’ll look like 100 or 1,000 years in the future or more. You and I don’t have to guess. You know. You know because John saw it and he wrote down his vision in the passage that you heard a moment ago in our Epistle reading. Revelation 21:2-5 “2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,”— that’s you, that’s St. Paul Lutheran Church, in fact it’s the One, Holy, Christian, and Apostolic Church of which we are only one part— “coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”” It’s easy to get tied up in what we used to be compared to what we are or are not now. But that is the future of St. Paul Lutheran Church, not just for 145 years, but for eternity. That, too, is part of the story you get to tell.

“Today,” as every day, “salvation has come to this house”— and to yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours.... That’s the story. Our little, 145-year piece, of God’s plan of salvation— His plan to bring you Jesus, not just into your home, but into your heart and your mind and your ears and your hands and your feet and your mouth, as well. Tell it to your children and to your children’s children, to all who are far off. And the promise is for them, as well. Because it is now, just as it has always been, all about Jesus Christ.