Rev. Dr. Jonathan Blanke, Senior Pastor
Pastor’s Corner for December 29, 2024-January 4, 2025
Newly Outfitted
(Colossians 3:12-17)
Perhaps you’ve experienced a moment in life when some article of clothing you were given made you feel a little special. Sports were never a big part of my life as a child growing up. But even so, I remember as a kid playing baseball with a local neighborhood league as an ad hoc, informal group of kids getting together just to have fun. It was a low-budget enterprise, so we all had the same T-shirts to wear. No big deal but it drew us all in. It was all a sort of prelude for what would happen later in high school. I’ll never forget the moment I moved from running cross country to winter track and the first time I put on the jersey everyone on our high school track team got to wear. You couldn’t go out to a store to buy it. You were given that jersey to wear — together with everyone else who had permission to start and run in our school’s newly built fieldhouse. I remember wanting to live up to what that jersey represented. Of course, I didn’t always run as well as I would have liked. There were even times I felt I didn’t really deserve the trust that had been put in me to wear that uniform. But putting on those clothes reminded me I was part of a team that was truly bigger than just me. There was great joy in knowing that I had been chosen to play. Everything was just — well — more fun, because at the end of the day, I knew that I BELONGED.
Did you get something new for your wardrobe this past Christmas? I ask the question because St. Paul often talks about aspiring to live out the new life we have in Christ Jesus by using the image of getting dressed with new clothes or “putting on” Christ (Rom 13:14, Eph 4:24). These are clothes we don’t buy, rent, or make. Like that jersey I got when I ran on my high school track team, they are clothes we can only receive. They tell you that you belong, even when you don’t feel you deserve to belong. “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience,” St. Paul encourages in this weekend’s Epistle reading. But notice: “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.” In other words: Yes, you/we are all given to put on… and leave on… an attitude of compassion for others. But those clothes are a gift from God’s hand. We forgive because God first forgave us. To do your best or be your best, you need simply RECEIVE the best from the God whose love for you can never be in question! That is something you and I have already received in abundance. It started on the day of our Baptism. And with the proclamation of sins forgiven, we’ve been clothed in God’s righteousness ever since!
All of which is to say… You and I are newly outfitted with the forgiveness and love God has already given us. So let’s all put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience in 2025… and in the years to come, too! Our newborn Savior Jesus makes sure we are well-prepared whatever the new year brings.
A very blessed Christmastide to all of you! God’s abundant mercy and peace to all of you in the New Year, too.
Pastor Jonathan
Please note, the church office will be closed on Wednesday, January 1. Happy New Year from the church staff!
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.