St. John Lutheran Church, Wheaton, Illinois

09/12/2026

09/11/2026

In August 2002, […] Stephen Starke (b.1955) was approached about writing a hymn in remembrance of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that could be used by churches as the nation approached the first anniversary of that tragedy. […] Within about a week, he wrote “There Is a Time for Everything” (LSB #762).

Against a backdrop of political and theological dissent, a nation still in shock, and individuals still mourning the loss of loved ones, Starke set out to write a text that would transcend the earthly issues and focus the singers’ attention on what truly mattered: our Lord, who has not changed who was and is present with His people before, during, and after the attacks—a Lord who is faithful, whose promises are sure, and whose love for His people is unconditional.

Starke chose Ecclesiastes 3 as the basis for the text. The entire first two stanzas of the hymn are from the first eight verses of the chapter. One cannot but notice the parallels with the events of the day: stanza 1 starts as did that morning, filled with promise, with “all that life may bring.” Toward the end of the stanza, Starke paraphrases “a time to break down, and a time to build up” as “a time to build where rubble lay”—an unmistakable reference to the destruction in Lower Manhattan. Stanza 2 recalls the hours and days after the attack, as people searched, hoped, and prayed for all those who were in the destroyed World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania, paraphrasing Ecclesiastes 3:6 as “a time to search and then to end.”

Stanza 3 brings our Lord clearly into focus, assuring His people of His care in the midst of such a tragedy, echoing words form Isaiah 55:8; Genesis 50:20; and Romans 8:28. Stanza 4, doxological in nature, recounts that the Lord knew before time began that He would need to send HIs Son (2 Timothy 1:9) “to redeem those who were under the law” (Galatians 4:4-5) and that He would “bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

“There Is a Time for Everything” Lutheran Service Book 762. Text: © 2002 Stephen P. Starke, admin. Concordia Publishing House. “Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns,” ©2019 Concordia Publishing House.

09/11/2026

Partnering with team members from the Northern Illinois District (and Lutheran Church Charities), members of your St. John Lutheran Early Response Team (LERT) have been working on cleaning up storm damage since the end of July when the first storm hit. They continue to help homeowners down in the south suburbs of Chicago, many of whom have been waiting weeks for the team to clean up their property. Please continue to pray for the homeowners and for our team members.

09/10/2026

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written,
�“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Romans 14:1-12

09/08/2026

Today is The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

In the Gospels, we learn that this young virgin, betrothed to a carpenter named Joseph, was a descendent of King David. Before the betrothed couple came together, the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive and bear a Son and call His name Jesus. In great faith, Mary responded to the angel’s words: “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.”

After the angel left her, Mary made her way into the hill country of Judea and arrived at the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth. As Mary called out a greeting, John the Baptist in Elizabeth’s womb leaped for joy and Elizabeth cried out in amazement: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? … And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:42–45). Shortly thereafter Mary herself prophesied: “For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me” (Luke 1:48, 49). It has thus been a pious custom ever since — and one that Lutherans can certainly embrace — for Christians to speak of Mary as “the Blessed Virgin.”

Mary speaks of people calling her blessed not because she is great or has done great things, but because God her Savior has done great things for her. […] Many years after the events in Luke 1, a woman would cry out to Jesus: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts at which you nursed!” To which He replied: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:27, 28). In saying this, Jesus was not disrespecting his mother, but He was making sure we don’t miss out on what made His mother truly blessed: not merely that she was privileged to give birth to Him, but rather, that her deepest blessedness came when God spoke His promise to her and she believed it — and not only believed it, but kept and “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19; 2:51).

All of this means that Mary is the virgin mother foretold in Isaiah 7:14. She is the Mother of Immanuel, the Mother of God-with-us. This, of course, is not saying that she herself is divine, or eternal, or anything at all like that. We confess instead that this truly human creature, who freely admitted herself in need of a Savior (Luke 1:47), was chosen by God’s grace to become the mother of the Eternal Word. She really is the Mother of God. God the Eternal Word took on flesh in her womb, nursed at her breasts and was swaddled in the warmth of her embrace. […]

Fittingly, Mary’s last recorded words in the Bible are, “Do whatever He tells you” (John 2:5). In this, Mary sets a fine example for us to follow — one that invites us all to trust in her Son’s love and join the psalmist in crying out: “Not to us, O Lord! Not to us but to Your name be glory” (Psalm 115:1).

Edited from “The Lutheran Witness,” December 14, 2017

09/06/2026

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

“Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. For the Son of Man came to save the lost. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

Matthew 18:1-20

09/05/2026

Today the church remembers Zechariah (Zecharias) and Elizabeth (Luke 1:57-80)

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.

And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us;
to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us[h] from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

09/04/2026

Today the Church commemorates the great prophet Moses.

Moses was born in Egypt long after Joseph and his service to the Egyptian people had faded in memory. Under the harsh conditions at the time, all Jewish male children were ordered drowned in the Nile. Moses’ mother, Jochebed, hid her little boy for three months and then finally put him in a basket, made watertight, and placed him upon the Nile. In time, the daughter of Pharaoh heard the baby crying and sent her servant to fetch him. She recognized that he was one of the Hebrew children, but chose to adopt him and raise him as her own.

When he was 40, Moses visited his own people. He saw an Egyptian abusing one of them. He killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. […] Moses fled to the wilderness.

A Midianite priest took him in and gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage. Moses stayed there for 40 years. Then God appeared to him in a burning bush, revealing Himself as “I AM.” He sent a reluctant Moses back to Egypt to bring out the children of Israel from their slavery. […]

Pharaoh was not at all inclined to let Israel go. Yet, through a series of escalating, miraculous disasters, God finally forced Pharaoh’s hand. The final disaster was the death of the firstborn of all the Egyptians, but the saving of all Israelites who sheltered beneath the blood of the Passover lamb. Pharaoh then changed his mind and pursued the Hebrews. He cornered them by the Red Sea, but with a mighty miracle the sea divided and Israel crossed. When Pharaoh and his army attempted to follow, the waters crashed over them. Thus Moses led the Israelites through the sea as on dry ground. He brought them to Sinai where he received the Ten Commandments and the regulations regarding worship. Due to their faithlessness, Israel was condemned to wander 40 years in the wilderness. During this time, Moses constantly interceded for them and pleaded with God to forgive them and to fulfill His promises to them. Moses was not allowed to enter the land of promise. He viewed it from the top of Mount Pisgah and there died.

“Celebrating the Saints,” ©2016 William C. Weedon, published by CPH.