The Bungee Cord 9-25-23

Hello,

I didn’t get a Bungee Cord out last week because I was a bit busy. I had seven fraternity brothers staying at my place for most of the week. Some of them make a yearly habit of getting together, and this year the get together was at my place. We filled the week with experiencing the Laurel Highlands and Pittsburgh, making sure that they took in some things that you can only experience here: Joio’s Pizza, Primati’s Sandwiches, the incline, Joe’s bar, Fort Ligonier, and Flight 93. And, of course, we watched the Illini football game together…we lost to some rinky-dink team whose uniforms were blue and white.

Four of the guys I knew well, and three of them I had never met before. We were all part of Beta Sigma Psi, a national Lutheran fraternity. I spent my first two years of college (75-77) in that fraternity, transferring to Valpo for my last two years to prepare me for seminary. I had a great time at Illinois, and the friendships that I made at that fraternity were the foundation for those tremendous memories.

The eight of us who met at my house are quite a variety of guys: preachers, engineers, submariner, business folk. I have kept in contact with a couple of them, but some of them I haven’t seen in 40 years, and others I had never met before. Yet, when we got together, there was a bond between us that resurrected a friendship that was part of being in that fraternity. As I am sure that you have experienced the same thing. Time and distance are no match to the power of a common bond.

Of course, some common bonds are stronger than others, but bonds that are deeply held are some of the most powerful. As I consider the deepness of bonds, I can’t think of any bond more powerful than to be people for whom someone gave their life. That is the bond between us that God has brought about in Jesus. Jesus stood up to all who would try and claim us as theirs in a wrestling match to the death, and when death swallowed him up, it swallowed up every other thing that would try and put their name on us. Jesus went to the mat for us and gave his life for us. In all the differences that exist between us and others, there is one thing that we see in the face of each person we see; someone for whom Jesus gave his life. Like a troop of soldiers who were saved by someone diving on a grenade who look at each other at a reunion and say, “I am alive because of what he did,” so also do we say the very same thing when we gather under the cross.

It is an amazing bond that God has cemented among us. But, just consider what a bond God has with us! No wonder God has said to you and to me, “I will never let you go.” No wonder God would not let death have the final word with Jesus, but Jesus arose from the dead to place his name on us so that we would be his for every moment of time, and every moment when there is no time. Remember, when it comes to love, God held nothing back when Jesus came to us, and he will hold nothing back when God draws us to him…..now or ever.

This week I experienced a microscopic example of the power of a deep seeded bond, microscopic compared to the power that God has brought about, the bond between eight guys who went through college with Beta Sigma Psi on our shirts and on our house. And as I experienced the power of my fraternity to overcome all time and distance, I am all the more convinced of this; no matter how far we might be from God, or how long we’ve been there, there is a bond between us and a bond between God and us that “ neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. “(Romans 8:38)

Oskeewowow Illinois!

Have a great week!

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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