LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1971, Page 99

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

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100 CLOSING ADDRESS

lion operations in less than a half-hour —a task which
would have taken the astronauts the equivalent of 4
years at 24 hours a day to perform. This is our kind
of world. The attitude of so many is bluntly stated:
“Who needs God anymore in this self-sufficient age?”
Can we really hope to make any impact on it with the
Simple message of the Gospel? Does our King and
Commander actually send us out into a hostile world
armed with no other weapon than this?

This He does, to be sure. But mind you, this is no
rusty weapon. This is no blunted instrument. God
knows it is the only power great enough and enduring
enough to win the day. And it is for us to recall that
the world of Paul’s day was much like our own—a
world where Rome ruled by the fierce and bloody logic
of the sword, a world of subtle sophistries and contend-
ing philosophies. And Paul’s message for it? Only this,
and all this, and always this: Christ and Him crucified!
Risen again! And reigning! This he declared to be the
power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation,
the salvation of all who believe it. Armed only with
this Paul and his co-workers went at their world —
with its mailed fist and ugly face — and whipped it to
a standstill.

And we shall not do it again! I bear you record this
day that the word of reconciliation has lost none of its
power or effectiveness. The problem is rather with us.
The problem is not that the Christ of endless love fails
us or that His Word fails. Too often the problem js
that we fail Him by failing to unite our efforts and bring
our total resources to bear upon the one assigned task.
A doctor and his team of technicians were administering
shock treatment to a patient in the hospital for the
retarded. The treatment had been given, and since
breathing is sometimes impaired by the drugs adminis-
tered before the treatment, it became necessary to
supply oxygen. Everything was ready. The tank was
full; the mask was in position, the valve was open.
But after a few moments it became evident that nothing
was happening. The doctor asked in alarm, “What’s the
matter here, the patient isn’t getting any oxygen!”
With that, one of the nurses said shyly, “Doctor, you’re
standing on the hose.” And so we often stand on the
hose. We stand on the hose through our indifference,
Our preoccupation with material things, our littleness of
faith. Or we refuse to understand that the operation
we’re engaged in requires teamwork and unity — that
we can’t manage alone and in isolation what can be
successfully achieved when we close ranks.

Theld a warranty in my hand some time ago. There
was a paragraph in small type commending the article
that had been purchased. But at the bottom in large
black letters was the Sentence: “Not good if detached.”

These words have come back to me many times.
They have something to say to us who are SENT TO
RECONCILE. This is a truth about you and me and
all the church together: we are “Not good if detached.”

There are other words that fly around us in late
years, words like “alienation,” “polarization,” “frag-

mentation,” “separation,” and “withdrawal.” One hears
them and knows the grim reality whereof they speak,
When they are true of the church, of those “sent to
reconcile,” one may see them result in the very frus-
tration of God’s purpose. And we realize, once and for
all, because the evidence is clear beyond dispute: we
are “Not good if detached.”

QUIS SEPARABIT? — “Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ?” St. Paul asks. And then he proceeds
to rule out a long list of possibilities: “Shall tribulation,
or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
peril, or sword?” Any of these things, or all of them
together? And he answers with a resounding — NO!
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through Him who loved us.” He had already reminded
the Christians in Rome of their matchless resources:
how the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, Himself
interceding for us “with sighs too deep for words.”
And then there is the unassailable, the absolute guar-
antee: the God who agreed to Calvary, who spared not
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all — will He
not also give us all things with Him?

Only one question remains to haunt us — QUIS
NOS SEPARABIT? Not what but who. We need not
worry about hostile forces or lack of resources or un-
promising circumstances. God will sustain us in the
midst of all these things and overrule the seeming evil
and make even that serve the purpose of those He sends
to reconcile.

I repeat, the question is not what but who? WHO
shall separate us? QUIS SEPARABIT? We can only
meet it and answer it with the recognition that “if God
so loved us, we ought also to love one another,” and
that we are “Not good if detached.”

So we come to the close of this convention, And
we remind ourselves that in the final analysis the church
is not meetings such as this. The church is God’s people,
attached by faith forever to the Christ who loved us
into death. The church is God’s people, the fellowship
of loving hearts, attached most closely to one another,
united in love and common endeavor. Only such as
these are sent forth to reconcile. And only by such as
these does the real work of the church get done. We
cannot battle in the boat and fish for men at the same
time.

There’s only one church convention recorded in the
New Testament Scripture, and the minutes of that
convention take up less than half a chapter in the Book
of Acts. The other 27% chapters recount the united
endeavors of the men and women of God whom He
sent into the world in the ministry of reconciliation.
God help us, individually and all together, to write faith-
fully and diligently our own 20th-century edition of the
Acts of modern apostles — of those SENT TO REC-
ONCILE!

We know we shall not fail because He will not fail.
We cannot be beaten because He cannot be beaten.

May Jesus Christ be praised! Amen.

W. Harry KRIEGER