Is it just me or do you have trouble keeping the main things the main things? With all the responsibilities that we have to carry and all the distractions that surround us, we don’t always know what to say “yes” or “no” to. Do we even have a clear sense of what the “main things” are in our faith and life?

As we journey through this Holy Week, our Lord shows us again what the “main things” truly are! A member of St. Matthew recently shared a poem/prayer with me which is so appropriate as we consider the significance of this week and especially as we prepare our hearts for the services this Maundy Thursday and Good Friday:

As from daily toils we gather in the evening’s sweet repose,

List’ning to the Passion story, Lord, Thy saving grace disclose.

Hush the world’s loud din within us, draw, oh draw, our hearts to Thee.

Grant repentance, faith, and help us Thy redeeming love to see!

This week, if we’re paying attention, the Lord will again disclose the good news of His saving grace to us, and we’ll see and hear and even taste our Redeemer’s great love.

On Thursday, April 2nd, we observe “Maundy” or “Holy Thursday.” (I’ll share more about those names for the day in my sermon.) This was Jesus’ last night before His suffering on the cross. He shared one more Passover with His friends. He left us with one act of love that exemplified His life as our Servant-Savior (see John chapter 13). He also instituted one meal for His church to eat and to drink in remembrance of Him. 

Our 6:30pm service this Maundy Thursday will especially focus on the meaning of the Supper Jesus instituted on the night when He was betrayed. The Lord’s Supper deserves our attention and our faithful preparation. After all, this meal has been a “main thing” for Christians since the earliest days of the church.

We gather again at 6:30pm on Good Friday, April 3rd. Good Friday is a day of remembrance and thanksgiving to our Lord for His costly sacrifice upon the cross. Jesus’ death for us is the heart of our faith and our proclamation of the Gospel. As St. Paul said so straightforwardly, “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23-24). The church has no other message than “Christ crucified” because there is no other way of salvation!

Good Friday brings us back to the “main thing” of Christ’s cross. His suffering for us on the cross reveals the true nature of our guilt, showing us what we deserve as sinners before God. Yet at the same time, Good Friday also reveals just how gracious our God is – that He would give His only Son to save a wretch like me!

Christ’s cross is such good news for us, though, not just because He died but also because He is risen! This Easter Sunday, April 5th (and throughout the Easter season) we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. Join us either at 8:00 or 10:30am as we hear the angel’s announcement at Christ’s empty tomb, “He is not here, for He has risen, as He said” (Matt. 28:6).

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead has truly been the “main thing” in our Christian faith ever since the first Easter morning! Jesus’ resurrection demonstrates that His sacrifice was sufficient to take away our sins. His resurrection also opens the way to our new life and our pending resurrection on the day of Christ’s return.

Romans 6:4 connects these “main things” of Christ’s death and resurrection to your Baptism: “We were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Everything Christ accomplished by His sacrificial death on Good Friday and His victorious resurrection on Easter Sunday was for your benefit, and He’s poured out all those benefits for you in Holy Baptism. This means that your sinful nature has died with Christ. Your sins were buried with Him in His tomb. And you have been raised unto this new life of faith already now – just as you will be raised and restored to enjoy everlasting life in His presence.

As Christ’s people, we observe Holy Week that the Lord might help us to keep the main things the main things, remembering that Christ’s death and resurrection are the basis of our faith, the reason for our hope, and the motivation for our Christian love and service. With those main things in mind, may God grant you a blessed Holy Week!

Peace in Christ,

            Pastor Kory Janneke

Pastor Kory's Page for Sunday, February 15, 2026

“Lent” comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning “spring season.” While it doesn’t look much like spring yet, soon enough, flowers will begin to blossom and tree buds will emerge. The Old Testament festival of Passover along with Jesus’ death and resurrection all took place in the springtime. Throughout church history, Christians have also set aside a springtime season of preparation and remembrance for Holy Week and Easter, the season we know as “Lent.”

For some people, Lent may conjure up ideas of dark and depressing hymns or of giving up one too many creature comforts – a season of “dos” and “don’ts.” I want to encourage you, though, to view Lent as a time of opportunity. Just as springtime is a season of new life, Lent is also a time of renewal in our life in Christ.

The words of the prophet Joel characterize this season: “‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.’ Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.” (Joel 2:12-13) Just as the Lord called His Old Testament people to return to Him with repentant hearts, He still desires the same from us.

While the entire Christian life is meant to be lived in repentance before the Lord, the season of Lent is especially intended for repenting of our sins and leaving them at the cross of Christ. Lent is a great time to do just what Joel 2:13 says: returning to the Lord your God. He constantly invites you back to Him! Return to Him in regularly attending Divine Services and receiving the Lord’s Supper. Return to Him in confession and repentance. Return to Him through prayer and the reading and hearing of His Holy Word. And return to Him in thanksgiving, remembering all that Christ Jesus underwent for your salvation and forgiveness.

Ash Wednesday, which falls on Feb. 18 this year, begins the Lenten season. I encourage you to return to the Lord by attending our 6:30 PM Ash Wednesday service, which will begin with a traditional symbol of repentance: the imposition of ashes. For anyone who is unable to attend the evening service, I will also be available to offer the imposition of ashes before and after the 10:00 AM Bible study on Feb. 18 and again from 2:00-4:00 PM. Please contact me if you’d like to arrange a specific or different time. If you would also like to participate in individual Confession and Absolution, I will be available for that as well. Please avail yourself of these opportunities. 

Our Wednesday services this Lent will continue our focus on St. Matthew’s Gospel as we look closer at “Places of the Passion” (the city of Jerusalem, the village of Bethany, the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the courtyard of the high priest, and Pilate’s judgment hall), destinations on Jesus’ journey to the cross for us. Please join us each week at 6:30 PM from Feb. 18 – March 25. Pre-service meals will also be offered, beginning on Weds, Feb. 25.

A Lutheran Hour Lenten devotional booklet is also available for you in the church entryway. Its theme is “Behold the King.” It offers devotional messages and reflection questions for you from Ash Wednesday through Easter.

Another devotional opportunity which you might consider would be to select one of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John) and read through it over the Lenten season. Trace Jesus’ march to Calvary from heaven, to Bethlehem, to His eventual ministry, and His final days before His death for you on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Fasting is another practice associated with the season of Lent. While this isn’t something that you must do in a certain amount or certain way, it’s another opportunity to offset this time of Lent, to practice the fruit of self-control, and to forego certain foods or distractions. Jesus Himself fasted at the beginning of His ministry (as we’ll see on Sun, Feb. 22nd), and He also assumed that His disciples would practice fasting, since He said, “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others” (Matthew 6:16). In this passage, Jesus makes the point that fasting is a good step to take in our devotion to the Lord but that it’s not meant to be something that we do for show. If you choose to fast this Lent (whether from certain foods or drinks, technologies, or habits), view it as an opportunity to set aside some unnecessary things in order to give more time and attention to your Lord and His great sacrifice for you.

Lent is an opportunity. In these days leading up to Ash Wednesday, I encourage you to prayerfully reflect on how this year’s Lenten season can be an opportunity for you to return to your Lord, grow in His Word, and experience repentance and renewal in your Christian faith.

Peace in Christ,

            Pastor Kory Janneke

Pastor Kory’s Page for Sunday, February 1, 2026

“Meditation” is a practice that is often associated with Eastern religions, such as Hinduism or Buddhism. In Eastern spirituality, meditation is usually understood to be a quiet, introspective practice. Meditation in this sense seeks for truth, enlightenment, emptiness, awareness, and so on by attuning to one’s own thoughts and surroundings. 

Being attentive (rather than constantly distracted) is certainly a worthwhile goal, but what is most deserving of our attention? Our own thoughts and observations, the collective wisdom of man, or the Lord’s revealed will in Scripture? As Christians, we know that our answer is the latter. God wants us to meditate upon His Holy Word, but what does it mean to do this?

The Bible speaks about meditation in several places. The Lord said to Joshua, “The Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it” (Joshua 1:8a). The Psalms begin by saying, “Blessed is the man … [whose] delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:1-2). And at the other end of the Psalter we read, “One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare you mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate. They shall speak of the might of Your awesome deeds, and I will declare Your greatness.” (Psalm 145:4-6)

What makes the biblical practice of meditation different from Eastern meditation is that it refers to more than just internal reflection upon the Bible. We should reflect upon and remember Scripture in our hearts, but the Hebrew concept of meditation focuses on oral repetition, speaking God’s Word audibly, even if just to oneself. 

Why is speaking God’s Word out loud so important? For one thing, speaking engages more of our brain and our senses. It aids in memorization. Modern neuroscience shows that the words you hear most often – even from your own lips – will “rewire” your brain. But long before brain scans could show such a thing, the Lord already revealed in His Word that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

In other words, hearing God’s Word from outside ourselves is critical to forming and maintaining our Christian faith. In a preface to his writings, Martin Luther wrote, “You should meditate, that is, not only in your heart, but also externally by actually repeating and comparing oral speech and literal words of the book, reading and rereading them with diligent attention and reflection, so that you may see what the Holy Spirit means by them. And take care that you do not grow weary or think that you have done enough when you have read, heard and spoken them once or twice, and that you then have complete understanding.”

Luther then goes on to reference Psalm 119 and how the author “constantly boasts that he will talk, meditate, speak, sing, hear, read, by day and night and always, about nothing except God’s Word and commandments. For God will not give you His Spirit without the external Word; so take your cue from that. His command to write, preach, read, hear, sing, speak, etc., outwardly was not given in vain.” (Luther’s Works, American Edition, Vol. 34, pp. 285-286).

Do you ever feel like your mind gets stuck thinking the same negative thoughts over and over again? Over time, those thoughts literally shape our brains and keep that cycle going, whether those repeated thoughts are fearful, depressive, resentful, etc. But the Lord has given us an antidote! Just as He said to Joshua and the Israelites more than 3,000 years ago, His Word ought to not depart from out mouths! If we want to think faithfully (and we should want that!), then we need to listen and speak faithfully, beginning with God’s own powerful Word. 

Here are a few recommendations: first, prioritize hearing God’s spoken Word through the Sunday liturgy and sermon and also by joining in Bible studies where His Word is spoken and discussed among believers. In doing personal Bible study or devotions at home, rather than just quietly reading the Bible, speak it aloud to yourself and your loved ones. Alternatively, you can also use an audio Bible along with your personal Bible reading. (There are many free audio Bibles available now online or as applications. Bible Hub is one that I have personally used.)

Memorization is also not just an exercise for children preparing for Christmas programs or youth participating in catechism classes. The Lord intends for His people of all ages to commit His Word to heart, but in order to “save” it on the inside we need to hear it and speak it on the outside. Here are five Bible verses as a starting place for memorization:

A Word for our fear: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).

A Word for our anger: “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20).

A Word for our loneliness: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

A Word for our faith: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

A Word for our future: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

These are just a few examples. Speaking and memorizing whole Psalms or hymn verses is also a great way to get God’s Word into our hearts and minds and to practice meditation – in the biblical sense. May the Psalmist’s words about God’s Word be true of you and me: “Your testimonies are my meditation” (Psalm 119:99b).

In Christ,

                        Pastor Kory Janneke