December 31, 2024

Today's Reading: Luke 12:35-40

Daily Lectionary: Isaiah 60:1-22; Luke 1:39-56

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

In 1914, Ernest Shackleton and 27 crewmembers left from Plymouth, England, on a ship named The Endurance. On January 18, 1915, after five months at sea, the ship became stuck in pack ice and was unable to move. Week after week, the crew lived in their stuck ship until the pressure from the moving ice finally began to crush the ship’s hull. The crew salvaged what they could and set up shelters on the ice as their boat slowly disappeared into the frozen sea.

Nearly four months after the ice had stopped the expedition, Shackleton decided their only chance for survival was to use the salvaged lifeboats to find help. After seven terrible days on the open sea, the men arrived on an uninhabited spit of rock called Elephant Island. Shackleton knew there was no chance of rescue from this remote island, so he selected five of his strongest men and announced that they would sail one of the lifeboats to South Georgia Island, where he knew they could get help. South Georgia Island was over 800 miles away.

Two weeks after leaving his men behind, Shackleton reached South Georgia Island and began planning a rescue for the crew members left on Elephant Island. Finally, on August 30, 1916, – 19 months after their ship had become stuck and four months after their leader had left for help – Shackleton arrived at Elephant Island. When he reached his men, he was overjoyed that they were all alive, and he was amazed to find them all packed up and waiting. When Shackleton asked how they knew to be ready for his arrival, one of the crew members replied, “Sir, when you left, you said you would come back for us, so we never gave up hope. Each day, we packed up our sleeping bags and reminded each other, ‘Watch friends! The boss may be coming back today.’ We were always ready for your return.”

One of the reasons the “Shackleton” story is so amazing is that the readiness we see in the men on Elephant Island is so different from what we see in ourselves. We are impatient. We are pessimistic. We doubt. And yet, as we struggle with our sin, God knows. He knows who we are. He knows about our lack of patience and our pessimism and our doubt. He knows that we are not prepared, and that is why He sent His Son. Jesus came to make us ready, and He did it by taking on human flesh, and with it, He also took our selfishness, our doubt, and our impatience. He took these sins to the Cross and did all of this so that we would be forgiven and ready for His return.

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Lord Jesus, thank you for making us ready for Your return through Your death and resurrection for us.

-Rev. Thomas Eggold, pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, IN.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

What makes a church "good?" Come join the fictional family as they test out eight different churches in their brand-new town and answer this question along the way. Will the Real Church Please Stand Up? by Matthew Richard, now available from Concordia Publishing House.