Todd Wilken was the Speaker

at our congregation's 150th Anniversary Banquet. Here are the words he shared with the parish:

Thank you for asking me to speak for St. Paul’s celebration of 150 years of Blessings.

In the weeks leading up to this event, Jeff Schwarz has reminded me several times (five times to be exact) that my speech tonight can last no more than 10 minutes.

Since Jeff seemed so concerned about the length of my speech, I decided to bring along a little insurance. This is one of the studio clocks we use during broadcasts of Issues, Etc.

[start clock]

In radio, the clock is GOD. And the clock is a merciless deity. In radio, TIME is of the essence. In radio, everything —everything— must fit into the clock’s timeframe. And in radio, it is as much a sin to fall short of the clock’s timeframe as it is the run over it. So, I will try to give you every bit of those 10 minutes.

150 years. That’s a lot of ticks on the clock. That’s 1,800 months, or 54,750 days, or 1,314,000 hours, or 78,840,000 minutes, or 4,730,400,000 seconds.

Tonight, the Christians of St. Paul give thanks to God for those 150 years and what He has done in them.

But to give you a sense of the time-scale: If the 2,000 years of Church history since Pentecost were the 10 minutes of this speech, St. Paul’s 150 years would be over…

45 seconds, 45 ticks, that’s it.

Nevertheless, it did get me thinking about time.

Before God created the world, there was no time. At Creation, the clock started ticking. The solar system itself is God’s created clock. Time was good. “There was an evening and a morning day one… day two… day three.” Tick, tick, tick…

When Adam and Eve fell, time fell with them. Time turned against them. Their fall started the countdown to death —their own death and, more importantly, the death of the one who would crush the serpent’s head.

[He] has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. (2 Timothy 1:9-10)

The fall of man began the countdown to Jesus’ death for sinners. It was a death that God had been planning from eternity, from before time began. The death of Jesus “who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light” is the center of focus of all time —and of all eternity.

God used fallen time to redeem us. The timeless Son of God entered created, fallen time. His was not only an Incarnation, his was an Inchronation. The creator of time made Himself subject to time. In time —just in time— He became man to save us:

When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. (Galatians 4:4-5)

It takes time for a man to die. Jesus was crucified at the third hour, 9:00 am by the clock. He died near the ninth hour, 3:00 pm by the clock. Jesus finished His sacrifice for our sin in those six short hours.

Time well spent.

And think about it, just as Jesus has redeemed us and all creation by His Death and Resurrection, so He has redeemed time itself.

St. Paul congregation has lived 150 years. It has been 150 years of redeemed time, blood bought time, every second of it. It has been 150 years of what Scripture calls “the ages to come.”

You see, we think of eternity and eternal life as a timeless existence; but it isn’t. Just as God has redeemed us and all creation in the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, so he has redeemed time itself. In the new heaven and the new earth, there will not only be a new heaven and a new earth, but a new time. Time redeemed, restored and recreated in Jesus to its original good purpose.

God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-7)

There will be seconds, minutes, days, months and years in the ages to come. But they will be redeemed seconds, minutes, days, months and years. And they will never end.

So great are “the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” that it will take an eternity of ages for Him to show them to us.

But you don’t have to wait.

“The ages to come” have already begun —in Christ. That means that because you have been baptized into Christ, “the ages to come” have already begun for you. Listen:

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior. (Titus 3:4-7)

For 150 years, God has already been showing the assembled sinners of St. Paul congregation the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus!

Every Lord’s Day (notice we call it the Lord’s Day… Jesus has redeemed time, each and every day of it), every Lord’s Day the sinners of St. Paul congregation participate in real time history. Every Lord’s Day the sinners of St. Paul congregation participate

• in those nine months Jesus grew in the womb of the Virgin,
• in those thirty-odd years Jesus lived sinlessly among us,
• in those hours of Jesus underwent His anguish and trial,
• in those six hours of His Crucifixion,
• in those three days of His death,
• in the Day of His resurrection, that really was the first day of the ages to come.

Every Lord’s Day, every Lord’s Supper. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the participation of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the participation of the body of Christ?” Yes it is.

This is what God has been doing during those 150 years. It has been redeemed, blood-bought time. And it has been TIME well spent.

[We should also note that President Mueller concluded the banquet with a beautiful meditation and then prayer based on Ephesians 1 and the re-heading of all things in Christ - St. Ireaneaus would have approved.]