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PASTOR APPRECIATION: Their Work Is Rescue
It’s Pastor Appreciation Month, and my-oh-my, do I appreciate pastors (and not only because I am one)! Their work is rescue, because they share God’s Word which forgives and saves. To say it another way, pastors are so important because God’s Word is so important.
My boyhood pastor was Pastor Garland (“Gary”) Wittmayer. He confirmed me, he let me read the lessons in worship and even (gasp!) lead the liturgy. And, eventually, he ordained me.
But what stands out most of all is that God used him in the divine plan to rescue me.
One Thursday in confirmation class, Pastor Wittmayer left me and all the class hanging as he sent us home from the library at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Dickinson, ND. Pastor had absolutely crushed us with the Law during class that night. He had convinced us on the basis of the Word of God that we were sinners and we deserved hell. Thus convinced, we made our way silently into that dark North Dakota night.
I spent several days thereafter worried about my eternal destiny. Finally, I came up with the hair-brained idea that I would become a pastor, and by way of salvation-by-vocation, I’d somehow get into heaven. (Do not sinners concoct the craziest escape plans?!)
Well, the next Thursday rolled around, and there we were again in the library at Redeemer Lutheran Church, a little nervous to be there because we young sinners were all mortified of eternal damnation. What would our pastor say to us this night?
It didn’t take him long to do it again. Pastor emphasized again the poor, miserable sinners that we 7th and 8th graders truly were. And then, he laid it on us – the beautiful Good News of the Great Exchange. Jesus for us. In exchange for our sin, we get His forgiveness and His righteousness. It looks something like this in my 1943 Small Catechism:
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