Our church, Trinity Lutheran Church, in Plentywood is now sponsoring through memorials, The Lutheran Hour. I went on the website for a look around. What I found was interesting. Did you know that The Lutheran Hour is also heard on XM Radio on Sunday mornings? It happens around 11AM on channel 170. Also, I saw that Scobey has a program from The Lutheran Hour on their station on Thursdays. This is kind of a knock off from The Lutheran Hour but is affiliated to The Lutheran Hour like the program "Woman to Woman". It’s called "Life Revised". But, as I looked around I went into the archives of "The Lutheran Hour". I found some very interesting programs that occurred as recently as the month of March. There were very interesting stories on there. There was one that stood out because of our Sunday morning Bible Study. It was entitled "Who Sinned". He stated that there was a mother who is trying to get their children to go to church as a family. The family had overslept but mother was telling the children they had forty minutes to get ready. They scurried about to get ready in time to get to church so as not to look like they overslept. They didn’t want to look like they had sinned. They wanted to be counted as righteous through their cleanliness and piety.

Dr. Klaus stated that as any pastor who has served a congregation for a length of time will look past the "fancy duds" and the cleanliness and see the pain and anguish that any member might be enduring. He states that he remembers quite a few of his parishioners who endure pain and suffering. He tells the story of a family who had a child who was diagnosed with cancer. Out of 24 children who were in the hospital with their son when he was admitted, all 24 had succumbed to their afflictions. The family was earnestly praying for their child. He also tells of a little elderly lady who is hospitalized each year for the same affliction. Each year she undergoes surgery. Each year on the Sunday following after surgery she is there in church. Another story is of a couple who cannot have children but they put aside the pain in their hearts to teach the children of other people in Sunday School. Yet there is another couple who after 35 years of blissful marriage is going to be going through a trying time. You see the wife has just found out that she has Alzheimer’s disease. Each of these families are going through a trying time. One may ask, "Why still go to church if God is treating you so unfairly". One may even go so far as to mimic the disciples when they asked what sin the blind man or his parents had committed in Jesus’ parable. What terrible evil had these people done who were sitting in church? Was it their sins or their parents sins who had brought them to this punishment? If God is so giving and so merciful why are they being treated so harshly?

Dr. Klaus compares these stories to Biblical events. He compares the sufferings to that of Job, Joseph, the blind man in the parable and ultimately to Christ. Job lost everything he had ever owned. But that wasn’t enough, his health then declined and he was in terrible suffering. Job asked why am I being punished. Eventually God did give Job back everything he had lost and then-some. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers because of sibling rivalry. He was punished for something that he didn’t do. His master’s wife entrapped him on false charges. He was thrown into prison, he had every right to ask why am I being punished. Did I do something wrong? Joseph was again relieved in his suffering and was appointed ruler over Egypt. The blind man in the parable sat blind for all his life. What sin did he commit as an infant? Was it something that his parents did? Jesus says "If you think of this man’s blindness as the direct result of a sin this man or his parents have done, you are thinking wrongly. His blindness has nothing to do with a terrible transgression." Finally think of Christ. He was perfect. He was NOT and I stress NOT a sinner! The Bible states that the wages of sin is death. So because Jesus was not a sinner why did He die? Why would he have to pay the terrible price of death? Each time the person suffering is set up better in the end than what he was in the beginning. Job had more wealth and children after his affliction than before. Joseph was ruler of all of Egypt, he lived in luxury! The blind man had his sight! Something he hadn’t had ever in his life. Jesus went up to heaven to be with his father again.

Now one might ask, why did these things happen then? In the case of the sinners, those things may have taken place to give them greater appreciation of the things they do have. I know in the case of my father and his heart surgeries, it gave me greater appreciation for having him to come to when I am in need of advice. It gave me a greater appreciation for being able to go camping, go fishing, work on cars, tractors, boats and generally be around my father more. But what about Jesus? Why did he have to go through the suffering he did? The answer to this is simple, he did it so that we would be able to live in luxury. We will be able to join him in heaven. He did it out of pure love for us. This is something that we should share with our community. The Lutheran Hour will be a tool which we can use to spread that word about the community. Our thanks to those who have been involved with getting this program on the air in Plentywood and those who have and are planning on supporting this program through donations to keep this program running on KATQ. May God grant our community His peace through the message brought by "The Lutheran Hour".