It’s nice to be back at dear old First Evan. It’s nice to be back where I got married. Some of you were there at that service, as my wife and I exchanged vows in both Swedish and English. It’s nice to be back at the church I called home during my college and seminary years. I’ve got fond memories of the very up-building sermons from Pastor Reinhardt. I grew in my faith and my spiritual maturity here. I remember a couple of weeks after we moved here talking about the sermon on our way home in the car after church. I told my dad that the sermons weren’t so simple to follow as the ones at our previous church. He told me that he appreciated the depth of pastor Reinhardt’s preaching, and that I should listen real close and see how much I could learn about the Bible from him. From that day forward I came to truly treasure his preaching. I’d come for the English service and stay for the German.

I remember fondly the year that pastor Nathan came. He did a lot to encourage me and get me excited about the ministry. He’d let me come over to the parsonage to visit and talk. Those are some of my favorite memories. I could go on and on—but invariably, the best memories of all, all center around the wonderful message I heard here, the message of the Gospel. It still raises hair on my arms when I think of the beautiful way the Easter Gospel was presented, as the service began with those beautiful solos of Job’s words, in the music of Handel’s Messiah: "I know that my redeemer liveth, and that at the latter day he shall stand upon the earth. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God!" Is there any greater message on earth? Is there anything that even comes close? Not on your life!

It’s that message that inspired the first Christians in the early church to set the world on fire, "Beginning at Jerusalem". It’s that message that brought our forefathers together to start the First German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Racine and to help start the Wisconsin Synod. And it’s that same exciting message that inspires us to reach out with the Gospel today, beginning right here in our own little Jerusalem.

It all began with a message—a message that was so exciting it just couldn’t be kept hidden. Jesus had opened the door to eternal life. Like most of us, those first disciples had gotten so blinded by the forest, they couldn’t see the trees. They were so engaged, as were their countrymen, in the thought of a better life on earth, that they stopped looking forward to eternity. Even in their religion, they had wrapped up all their hopes in the grand idea of a Messiah who would rescue their land from Rome, to the point that when Jesus died, they were baffled and saddened—almost to the point of despair. You could hear it in the voices of those two disciples who made their way to Emmaus. "We had hoped he was the one who was going to rescue Israel." But… They hesitated to put their thoughts into words, but you know what they were thinking. "We had hoped he was the one who was going to rescue Israel…" ‘but it seems that he has failed, and now we have no hope at all.’

But then, our text tells us, Jesus "opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶ He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things." It was as if someone had grabbed them from behind, taken a fistful of hair and tugged backwards, until their eyes were aimed heavenward. "Stop looking at the ground. Stop staring at your sandals. God has given you peripheral vision for a reason. He wants you to see heaven above, even as you walk on the road of life here below." God came down here and lived with us men and women on earth, so that we could go up and live with him forever in heaven. He died, not just for the sake of dying. He died for our sins. They’re gone. They’re paid for. They’re removed from us forever as far as the east is from the west. And from now on, death—the death we try not to think about, the death we’re all going to have to endure, whether we want to or not—from now on death is turned from a frightful foray into the unknown into a golden gateway into the perfect paradise above. If that isn’t a message worth sharing—then please tell me what is. Can you think of anyone who doesn’t need to know about paradise above? Can you think of anyone who doesn’t need or want directions on how to get there?

They began with a message—and they began at Jerusalem. As Jesus "opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures" they began to understand what they really had. They, and all their fellow believers just couldn’t keep this to themselves. It was just too big. Sure they might have been a little worried. Who wouldn’t be? Their leader had been tried in a kangaroo court and executed less that 24 hours after it all began. But even with threats of death hanging over their heads, they still just couldn’t clam up. The message was too wonderful. They told their relatives. They told their friends. They told their neighbors. They told anyone and everyone who asked them why they were so excited. They told them about Jesus. They told them he had died for them when he died on the cross. They told them they had actually seen him alive after he’d been crucified and buried. They told them that he was the Messiah that every Jew had been hoping and waiting for since the day of their great patriarch, Abraham.

And the church grew. How could it not grow? It was from Jerusalem that the church spread first into all the territories where Jews lived, and then among the Gentiles in every nation on earth. As long as they were able, before persecution and famine, and finally siege by the Romans brought the mother church into hardship and finally flight from Jerusalem, they were the home base congregation that did the encouraging and the supporting of missions.

Through the centuries, through almost two millennia, that story has repeated itself again and again. Whenever and wherever people have heard the beautiful message of the Gospel of Christ—the message that he has died for our sins and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers—congregations have begun, and the Christians there have not been able to hold their tongues, until, generations later, that congregation too became a mother church, sending and supporting others in the work of missions. Each congregation has begun in its own Jerusalem, and then moved on from there—in their own city, then in their own province and outward from there in ever widening circles. First Evan has always been concerned about reaching it’s own neighborhood and state. That’s why our first pastors took part in forming the Wisconsin Synod a hundred and fifty years ago. They knew Racine had to be reached, but from the outset they also had their eyes set on the mission fields ripening all around them throughout this state as thousands of German settlers made there way here. They knew that together with other WELS churches, they would be able to establish a school to train pastors, without which it would be impossible to reach the many Germans in this territory and gather them into churches. Years later, we would be able as a synod to begin world mission work, beginning with the Apache Nation in Arizona and later in Africa and Asia. But from the very beginning, home mission work was a blessed burden on our hearts as a synod and congregation—beginning in our own little Jerusalem and spreading out into our own Judea.

Today, by the grace of God we’re privileged to serve in exotic places all around the globe. But by the same token, the work at home is never done. Jesus told his very first disciples: I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes (Mat 10:23). And that’s just as true of Wisconsin and the Midwest and the rest of America today, as it still is of Israel. The work at home is never done.

After the breakup of the old Synodical Conference in the 60s, suddenly there were whole states and regions where it was no longer possible to find an orthodox congregation that stuck completely to the pure Word of God. Through the seventies and eighties our synod made it a priority to establish congregations throughout the country. My first assignment to Port Huron, Michigan, brought me to a little congregation that had been started in 1974, meeting in a little, converted double-wide with quite a mildew problem. But people needed and wanted to hear the pure Gospel there too. Today they have a beautiful church and ever increasing membership, thanks in large measure to home mission dollars and a loan from the Church Extension Fund. Today they’re self-supporting and more and more resembling a "mother congregation" themselves, as they send mission dollars back to the synod to help start congregations elsewhere.

10 years ago, my parents, whom some of you remember, were transferred to the Saturn plant down in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Because of home mission work, they were able to attend a church only an hour north in Nashville. But as more and more Lutherans from the Midwest came to work at Saturn, it became obvious that mission work should be started in the Spring Hill area too. My dad hit the streets together with the pastor, going door to door and inviting people to be part of a new church dedicated to preaching all of God’s Word and sharing the sacraments of salvation. And you know what? 10 years later Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church is one of the largest and the fastest growing congregation in the South Atlantic District. And last year they gave $47,000 to the synod to reach out elsewhere, and helped start a daughter congregation in Smyrna, Tennessee.

Today I serve St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Benton Harbor, Michigan. St. Matthew’s was established as a home mission of the Wisconsin synod in 1898. We, in turn have helped establish four daughter congregations, three of which are now bigger than we are. Besides having one of the last weekly German services in the Wisconsin Synod, our church today is in what could be described as an inner city neighborhood. Through our school and whatever other means are at our disposal, we are seeking to reach out to our new neighbors with the Gospel. The work will never be done until Christ returns. First Evan. finds itself in a somewhat similar situation today. A lot of folks want to abandon our cities and turn them over to the sectarians without a fight. But the cities are filled with people who need the pure Gospel in Word and Sacrament just as much as you and I do. I remember fondly the stationary Pastor Nathan had printed shortly after he moved here. It said "First Evan. Lutheran Church—Alive and Fine, Downtown." That’s a great attitude that I hope you all share. No matter how many obstacles Satan may place in our way—cultural differences, language differences, whatever—we want to continue to try to reach out the best we can, "Beginning at Jerusalem" where God has placed us. And like the first Jerusalem congregation of old, we want to reach out in ever widening circles from where we are. Wisconsin has lots of unchurched people. The Midwest has even more. And for the first time in 100 years, less than half the people of America even call themselves Christian today.

There’s plenty to do. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes (Mat 10:23). Jesus has enrolled each of us in his service. Otherwise the task would be insurmountable. It is my fervent prayer that we might have the same zeal as our forefathers, the same burning desire to spread the truth of salvation, the exciting news of Jesus death and resurrection, until all the elect are gathered into God’s Kingdom. Then Christ can come and give us the new heaven and the new earth. God grant it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.