Grateful Whatever the Season

by Robert Mohns

This summer has seen the continued outpouring of God’s grace upon His Church, especially upon the congregations and workers, both lay and rostered, of Lutheran Church–Canada.

In the midst of worker shortages, the Lord has provided newly ordained pastors and sent vicars to learn under the care of mentor pastors. Men are still enrolling in first-year seminary training as are candidates training to be deacons.

The Lord has provided newborns for our families and for His Church. He has raised up people to serve His Church as servants in their communities. He has provided opportunities for VBS and other children and youth ministries.

He has provided for women to gather at the LWMLC convention to study His Word, to worship, to nurture one another in godly conversations, and to consider how they could use their mites to support the mission and ministry of the Church.

He has provided new opportunities to support congregations in remote locations and in situations where there is no resident pastor. The Lord has been creating new communities of faith from the inflow of immigrants, and He has provided faithful pastors from other lands to meet the need. He has been at work through seminaries, training workers for service to God’s people in a variety of languages and cultures. 

The Lord has provided missionaries to share the Gospel across our land with groups of people whom the Lord has sent to us, and He continues to open ever more fields for planting His Word. 

He continues to sustain His congregations with the Word and Sacraments. This summer there have been many congregational anniversary celebrations acknowledging God’s grace and mercy to His people. 

This summer we have recognized many years of faithful service given by church workers, both lay and rostered. We rejoice that the Lord has provided health and energy for them to continue to serve the church in various capacities, even unto the day that the Lord calls them to His nearer presence. 

This summer we have had occasion, even in the midst of death, to rejoice that the Lord has sustained His people in faith even unto death and have brought them to His side to await the resurrection.

This summer we have had occasion, even in the midst of death, to rejoice that the Lord has sustained His people in faith even unto death and have brought them to His side to await the resurrection. Even in death the Lord has made it possible for members to support the work of His Church. 

That support comes also from congregations that have disbanded. They have blessed their brothers and sisters by adding to the numbers of the nearest congregation, and they have contributed financially and materially to the shared work of the church.

In many ways, then, God has spent the summer pouring out His grace upon the Church. Those blessings are even clearer when we consider the context of this past summer, which has been a season of armed conflict, violence, and death. Countries are preparing to address food scarcity. In Calgary, we experienced a season of severe potable water scarcity. Geo-physical catastrophes compete daily for headline news: flood, earthquakes, fires, extreme heat, and more rounds of pandemics—all leading to mass migrations.

This summer has also been a season of social upheaval, which increasingly divides us. We have ever greater economic challenges. We have churches shrinking or closing. And we have new challenges and increasing levels of persecution. Yet God continues to pour out His grace and mercy upon us.

Given this context of our season, what kind of people ought we to be? Grateful. The Holy Spirit leads us to praise and give thanks, both in season and out of season. For God has been at work this summer, fulfilling His promise that His Word and Church will endure to the end of time. And by His grace, He has made us partakers in it.

Much of our thanksgiving at the end of summer focuses on temporal things—the bane and blessings of this world. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that these things are shakeable and will disappear at the Lord’s coming. He bids us look instead to the unshakable kingdom that God has prepared for His people, writing: “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28). 

All seasons race toward the fulfillment of the end of time and the revelation of that eternal kingdom. It is a kingdom we have now by grace, through faith, and will receive when the Lord returns to gather all the faithful. May God keep our eyes focused on Christ, the true giver and fulfiller of our thanksgiving.

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Rev. Robert Mohns is Lutheran Church–Canada (LCC)’s West Regional Pastor.

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