Rev. Dr. Jonathan Blanke, Senior Pastor
Pastor’s Corner for August 2-8, 2026
The Most Incredible Love Story
(Romans 9:1-8)
In recent weeks the blockbuster movie “The Odyssey” has opened up nationwide. It retells, on the big, IMAX-size screen, one of the oldest love stories of all time. It is the story of Odysseus and Penelope, husband and wife of Ithaca, whose relationship is tested by an interval of some twenty years spent apart. Odysseus spends ten years fighting in the Trojan War and another ten on his voyage back home again. What happens in that 20-year interval makes up much of what takes place in Homer’s epic poem. It may seem strange that an ancient story about two people with odd names would be so popular these days. But after just 12 days, the movie “The Odyssey” has already been seen by over 40 million people worldwide and grossed over $700 million. Loving and being loved speaks a kind of universal language. Maybe that’s because to love and be loved is what every human being truly NEEDS.
In our Epistle reading this weekend we do not find St. Paul invoking the word “love.” Nevertheless, his words typify an incredible brand of love that would never have stirred his heart were it not for Jesus Christ. St. Paul has just spent the previous portion of Romans speaking at great lengths about the depth of God’s love for humanity in Christ Jesus, His Son. Jesus, Paul says, was God’s “atoning sacrifice” (Rom 3:25); in Christ Jesus, God declares sinners “not guilty” (5:1, 6-8); though humanity lives in rebellion against God, there is “now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (8:1). No wonder, then, that when St. Paul turns his attention to those who do not know Jesus as the Son of God—indeed, when he considers many of his own kinsman who pursued and persecuted him as a follower of Jesus—he says, “I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people” (9:3). Love for his own enemies, because of Christ, drove Paul to yearn that he himself might be damned if it meant that his fellow Jews—the very people who persecuted him—might be saved. But Paul, ordinary man that he was, could never love another person to the extent that he would become that kind of substitute. That brand of love would fall to Paul’s Savior—our Savior—to accomplish! The true story of Jesus giving up His life and dying an eternal death in our place is the most incredible love story ever told. Because loving and being loved is so important to what it means to be alive—our God came into our world to enable us to do just that. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse, for us!
How might our lives be different because of this, the world’s most incredible love story? Who are the people in our lives we are called to love? Loving even those who seem to be our enemies is not a sort of love you or I or St. Paul would ever begin to attempt, were it not for Jesus. What difference will the certainty of being loved by God in Christ make in the way you face others in your world? As you answer that question again this week, may the incredible love of God for you be your strength!
Peace and joy in Christ,
Pastor Jonathan
Pastor Jonathan Blanke grew up in Richmond, Virginia. He received his Bachelor's degree from College of William and Mary in Virginia and attended Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, where he earned a Masters of Divinity degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Biblical Studies, Book of John. He served as a Vicar at Messiah Lutheran Church in Richardson, Texas.
The Blanke family lived in Japan while he served as pastor and missionary to Okinawa Lutheran Church and taught Biblical Studies at Japan Lutheran College in Tokyo.
Pastor Jonathan lived in southern Maryland from January 2014 to November 2019 and was thankful to have served as the Sole Pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lexington Park, Maryland.
He and his wife, Juli, have two grown children. In his free time, Jonathan likes to travel, "play around" on the piano, and enjoy the outdoors.
Click HERE to view a brief video from Pastor Jonathan.