Ladies and gentlemen, I feel like it’s been AGES since I last blogged. There is so much I hope to remember and write! Be sure to stay tuned, this week especially! I’ll start catching up here with a little somber something from Australia, where I was visiting my sister and her precious family.
I won’t focus on this topic heavily but it’s an interesting thing to have Lutheran confession-abiding and -teaching family who are not in fellowship with each other. I am so thankful to be so very proud of my brother-in-law, Dr. Adam Hensley, who is a seminary professor in Adelaide. My husband Ned and I were happy to get a tour from him, have tea, and attend a chapel service at ALC (Australian Lutheran College), the Australian seminary.
Imagine my surprise, especially right after their big convention, to find just about all the Australian bishops gathered into that chapel service! Since the school year “down under” runs from January through December, they were present to interview graduating seminarians as part of the call placement process.
Anyway, the bishop who sat immediately next to me in chapel, confessed the creed with me and made some small talk, died that week while still in town for synodical meetings.
It’s just sobering and heartbreaking to me. Not only death, which is significant enough (!!), but the death of a husband away from his wife, a pastor away from his congregation. For synodical meetings!
Many have prayed regarding theological changes advocated by some in the Lutheran Church of Australia. I continue to pray. But what a lesson to remind us about our own frailty:
You and I are mere mortals. We work for good and that is only right and appropriate. But even as we fight against the devil and his lies, which assuredly we are called to do, we can remember the humanity of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, no matter what side a person may gravitate toward in these darker days. Each of us could be a heart-attack waiting to happen. 🙁
Would it go too far to say that mankind consists of 1) the incarnate Jesus, and 2) those for whom He died?
Let us pray for one another. Lord, have mercy.
In other, possibly related, news, I was struck with an analogy that might help us as Christians to wrap our minds around those other Christians who increasingly look away from Scripture toward something else, whether a charismatic leader, a crazy culture, etc. Remind me to post it if you don’t see it in the next week! 🙂
So much catching up to do! Still, it feels very good to be home, even if I miss my sister and her family already! And, to those who have previously known us together, the Veith-girls remain quite a force. lol
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