Rev. Dr. Jonathan Blanke, Senior Pastor
Pastor’s Corner for March 22-28
“Can These Dry Bones Live?”
(Ezekiel 37:1-14)
We have two resurrection accounts this weekend…one in the New Testament and another in the Old. They not only testify to the reality of physical death—they demonstrate the promise of God’s victory over death with the resurrection of the body and life everlasting we, as Christians, confess and celebrate week after week. Where death destroys…God resurrects!
This year, as I hear again the prophet Ezekiel’s call to preach to a heap of dead, dry bones in an unnamed valley, I can’t help but see the vivid image of bones housed in a memorial stupa in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Paul Brandt and I saw these bones in our visit to the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center at the start of our visit to Cambodia last week. Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge, headed by Pol Pot, carried out the extermination of almost 1 million people. Executions were routinely carried out throughout the country, with roughly 17,000 dead being documented at Choeung Ek alone. It is sobering and dispiriting to visit sites like this. But Choeung Ek represents events carried out in the real world. It is impossible to understand Cambodia today apart from these brutal realities that took place 50 years ago.
As necessary as the context of Choeung Ek might be for understanding Cambodia, more important than what humanity has done there is what God is doing in Cambodia today! Paul and I got a taste of that too, as we visited missionaries J.P. and Aimee Cima and were introduced by them to our Lutheran partners in Phnom Penh, Kampot, Chhuk, Kampong Chhnang, and Kampong Thom. Everywhere we went, people were happy to talk about what God was doing to bring hope and life to them and the people of their villages through the Gospel of Christ! One particularly memorable conversation was with the Cambodian Director of Lutheran Hour Ministries, Rev. Phin Naro. Pastor Naro had lived through the Khmer Rouge Revolution and the era of the Killing Fields. When I asked him how that period of Cambodian history impacted the work he was doing today, he said, “We understand now, more than ever, how important our love for each other truly is.” The message of God’s love for the world and the reality of salvation won through Christ Jesus that makes such love possible is being broadcast today through the work of Lutheran Hour Ministries. Pastor Naro reported that in 2025, the LHM office in Phnom Penh enrolled 1000 people in its correspondence classes! What will the future hold? We can’t wait to find out.
In the meantime, we have a message this weekend that speaks life into those places where our hopes and dreams have died…where the question is asked: “Can these dead bones live?” The answer: an emphatic “Yes”! Jesus has taken away our sins. He has died the death we deserve. Whatever today might be, it is a day we live in the newness of life that sins forgiven and death destroyed delivers.
Hope 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.