A Glimpse of Heavenly Glory . . .

AND ITS REFLECTION AT MLC

By President Rich Gurgel
NWC ’81, WLS ’86

In Revelation, our Savior paints powerful pictures of the current reality and the eternal results of his saving love for us. Such is the beautiful picture of Revelation 7:9-10.

The Double Reunification of Heaven
“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:

‘Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.’”

What an awesome glimpse of the eternal wedding feast the Lamb has prepared for his dear bride, the church! We see the perfect, never to be re-broken, reunification with their God of sinners washed in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14).

But there is a second beautiful reality in this picture. Our Bridegroom has not only reunited us with himself but also with one another. That’s important, since the fall into sin didn’t just divide us from our God. It drove a wedge between each of us and every other sinner at the same time. As the Lutheran theologian and hymn writer Martin Franzmann eloquently put it:

We fled our God, and losing him,
We lost our brother too.
Each singly sought and claimed his own;
Each man his brother slew. (CW 396:2)

And so Revelation 7 comforts us by showing us not only our restoration to our God, but our restoration to each other as well. Gathered before our Savior is “a great multitude . . . from every nation, tribe, people and language.” In heaven, all human distinctions so noticeable, and so often divisive for life on this earth, will cease to matter.

The Challenge of Living That Reality Now
Our Bridegroom invites his dearly loved bride to have an eternal wedding rehearsal where we practice now this eternal reality.

But that is so hard to do! Despite knowing his grace, we still struggle to live out the implications that we follow a Savior who has no favorites (Romans 2:11). The boiling over of racial tensions in our country has been a powerful reminder of what a divisive force our differences can be.

And this struggle is nothing new for us! It’s been a struggle since the birth of the Christian church. God felt it necessary three times to repeat to Peter, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean” as he prepared him to enter without scruples into the home of the Gentile Cornelius (Acts 10). It was in no small part racial pride and prejudice that led to the Jews’ vehement rejection of Paul’s Gentile ministry. Even during Jesus’ ministry, his disciples were taken aback when they found him in conversation with a Samaritan woman (John 4).

In every age of Christian history, Christ’s bride has shown she has much to learn when it comes to imitating the breadth of her Bridegroom’s love. The sinful nature of every one of us has a keen ability to turn any difference between ourselves and others into a source of pride or a source of envy—or a twisted mix of both. Paul minces no words when he describes our natural way of thinking to Titus: “We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another” (Titus 3:3).

As we confess the reality of our natural, deep-seated hostility toward other sinners, the only solution is again and again to remember how God broke through our even deeper-seated hostility toward him. And that is precisely how Paul continues in Titus: “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” (Titus 3:4). Again and again we go back to the reality that it is the appearance of God’s kindness and love in the person and ministry of Jesus that restores us to our God. It has nothing to do with us showing ourselves somehow better or different by nature from anyone. It is not about “righteous things we have done.” It is all about “his mercy.”

How powerfully that impacts how we view others around us! Day by day, salvation by mercy teaches us to die to any boastful pride that would set ourselves above anyone. We are all beggars in need of equal mercy! Day by day, God’s mercy in Jesus frees us from having to prove ourselves worthy of favor from God. God has in Jesus freely exalted us to the highest position imaginable. We are loved children and eternal heirs of God. As we die and rise daily to these realities of mercy, God not only strengthens our bond to him, but he simultaneously destroys any reason for pride or envy toward those around us. While an unbelieving world sees others as competitors in a power struggle for limited earthly resources, we learn to see others as equally needy beggars like us who are equally free recipients of God’s mercy in his Son! Christ’s dying and rising mercy teaches us more and more each day to see no one “from a worldly point of view” (2 Corinthians 5:16). Such is the barrier-smashing power of God’s mercy!

A New Opportunity to Reflect This Reality More Clearly
It’s a very important time for the MLC family to ponder yet again these merciful realities! And it’s not chiefly because of the racial tensions in our own country. It is chiefly for the sake of the work of the gospel.

This summer, we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new professor to coordinate our efforts to recruit and retain students of color. Pastor Aaron Robinson, who is one of the currently all too few pastors of color in our synod, has accepted MLC’s call to be our first cultural diversity coordinator. Pastor Robinson’s call, and his arrival on our campus, are the unfolding of a plan formed several years ago. The plan sought to outline what could be done to make MLC a more inviting and welcoming place for students of color. Pastor Robinson will be partnering with Megan Kassuelke, our cultural engagement director, and Professor Tingting Schwartz, our international services coordinator.

However, there is a caution to speak at the same time. As Pastor Aaron Robinson and his family become a treasured part of our MLC family, it is certainly not time for the rest of our campus family to sit back and wait for Pastor Robinson single-handedly to improve our campus’s cultural climate. His arrival will be an important time for the whole MLC family to ponder where each of us may still give all too much evidence of the natural “malice and envy” toward others that plague our sinful hearts. His arrival will be a time for our whole campus family to remember joyfully what Revelation held before us: the gospel obliterates every barrier of “nation, tribe, people, and language.” His arrival will be an important time for MLC to claim anew what it means for all of us to see one another as our God sees us in Jesus.

Please join us in praying that, a generation from now, the arrival of a new faculty member of color will not be a surprising anomaly but a delightful regularity. Pray that our student body more and more reflects the astounding breadth of our Bridegroom’s love for people of “every nation, tribe, people, and language.” Such will be the glorious reality of heaven. For the sake of the gospel, God grant MLC the blessing of becoming an ever more evident glimpse of that already now!