The Bungee Cord

Hello,

Some years ago, a group of people in my branch of Christianity, Lutheranism, decided that there needed to be a change in our Lenten (the 40 days before Easter) worship. The decision was to replace Palm Sunday with Palm/Passion Sunday. Palm Sunday, as you may know, commemorates the day that Jesus returned to Jerusalem aboard a donkey. It was a victorious entry, but not one delivered with aggressive power and might that would have brought Jesus into town on a mighty war horse, but one delivered with humble self-giving love. Hence the donkey. The Bible tells us that as Jesus entered Jerusalem on his way to his throne, the cross, the people lined the streets, placed cloaks and palms on the road…rolling out the red carpet…and shouting, “Hosanna (which means, “Lord save us!”). Blessed in the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

For a multitude of years, on this was what Christians focused their worship on the Sunday before Easter. Shouts of laud and praise. However, as I said, some years ago, actually around when I began my career as a Pastor, someone decided that there needed to be a change to Palm Sunday. The change was propelled by the fact that fewer and fewer Christians were attending the services that were to be held on the Thursday and Friday before Easter, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. When people came to worship on Maundy Thursday, they heard Jesus’ last words to his disciples that they should love each other as he had loved them, and that they should regularly gather together and share a meal of his presence in bread and wine. Both of the words came on the night on which Judas, one of the disciples who had heard these words, betrayed, gave Jesus over, to the people who were out to kill Jesus. And when people came to worship on Good Friday, they heard the poignant story of Jesus’ abduction, his trial, his being whipped and spat upon, his crucifixion, and his burial in a tomb whose entrance was closed by a boulder.

Because so few people were attending Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, many Christians did not hear the excruciating pathos of God’s love. They did not “walk through the valley of death” with Jesus but only heard the “telling from the mountaintop” that Jesus Christ was alive on Easter. That group of decision makers decided that in order to grasp the wonder of Easter, it was important, if not necessary, to hear the pain and death of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. So, Palm Sunday was changed. If you attend, and I invite you to do so, a Lutheran church, you will find the worship this Sunday beginning with the faithful accolades of the people of Jerusalem on the lips of the worshippers, but then there will be an abrupt change of tone as the passion story of Jesus, the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday fall upon your ears, and the shouts of , “Crucify him!”, cross your lips.

Although I believe that going to worship on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday provide a deeper spiritual experience of Jesus’ passion, and thereby well worth attending, I agree that hearing the Easter trumpets without the cellos of Jesus’ passion can leave us wondering, “What’s the big deal about Easter?” Without hearing the fickleness of our own faith…a faith that sometimes boldly and confidently shouts, “Hosanna!”, but at other times if not by our words, surely by our actions bellows out, “Crucify him!”, we might not grasp how un-fickle God’s love is for us. A love so steadfast that as the Apostle Paul says, “Even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5)

It is the nature of our society to avoid bad news and to rush to triumphant news. Yet it is also the nature of our lives that bad news has its way of enveloping us in its quicksand. As we make our way into the last week before Easter, we come to see that Jesus is not averse to bad news, as a matter of fact it took hold of him, too. So, I invite you to come and hear the darkness of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, bringing all the bad news of your life with you, and discover that you are not alone in your bad news. Rather, God, in Jesus, has plummeted into the worst the world can give, and Jesus is going to do put that bad news in its place, forever…….next week!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord

Hello,

Last week, a friend of mine and I went to Florida to take in a couple of Pirate preseason games and thaw out from the winter cold. As we were awaiting our flight in Pittsburgh, a man about my age sitting across from me noticed my Illinois baseball hat and inquired if I had gone there. I told him that indeed I went to U of I, and then he, who went to Maryland, started his tales of his college days, which in his words were a lot of “drinking and chasing girls”. His stories were mingled with a lot of flowery language, that is many words began with “f”, and then he went on to tell about how he and his college buddies go someplace every year to “drink and chase girls”, which he was on his way to do.

It was about this time in our conversation that asked me what I had done with my life, and I told him that I had been a Lutheran minister for 43 years. With that, he sat up a little straighter and said, “Well, I guess that you won’t be doing a lot of drinking and chasing girls.”

“No,” we both replied. He then “confessed” that he didn’t go to church very often, and he started telling me of his friends who were devout “born again” Christians. Then he said, with a little smirk in his eyes, “You know, as I am getting older, I am finding those things a bit more important.”

I suspect that many people, whether they are into drinking and chasing girls or not, would say that the concerns of the Christian faith become more important as they get older. The reason, I believe, is that as one ages, the sense of one’s mortality becomes more and more apparent. I know that it has for me. Having been through cancer, dealing with chronic high blood pressure, and wallowing through depression the arrival of my final day is not a distant thought.

However, for me, I do not find myself more attuned to my faith than when I was when I was younger. You see, for me, I do not find myself believing in Jesus so that I might go to heaven, on the contrary, I find myself certain of life beyond this life because I believe in Jesus. In other words, heaven is not the goal of my faith, Jesus, whose love for me is so great that he promises me a place in heaven, is my faith’s goal.

Truth to be told, I was far more concerned about things eternal when I was younger than I am now. I remember when I was a young adult waking up in the middle of the night, my heart racing over the specter of my death. The incompressibility of eternity brought me chilling fear. The final period that death puts on the story of my life was ominous. So, as I would lay there, electrically awake, I found myself saying to myself, “I have seen how much God has loved me in this life, and so I can trust that whatever the next life brings, it will be just as wonderfully filled with God’s grace to me. And with that thought blanketing me, I could go back to sleep.

As I have slept and awakened over the years with that faithful thought in my mind, I find myself far less anxious about my death. As a have gone to bed under the nightly prayerful protection of God and awoken each day under the shepherding care of the one who has named me as one of his own flock I find myself far less concerned about the day I will die, and far more concerned and thankful for each day that I live. I find myself far more interested in making the most of my days to love and help others. I find myself far more at peace with strolling through life rather than sprinting for victory. I find myself driven to be graceful rather than judgmental. I find myself living in the wonder and the joy of a Biblical verse that has brought me the light that no darkness can overcome, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” (1 John3:1)

It is my hope that each Bungee Cord that I send reaches those who read it with a weekly embrace of God’s love, so that those who read it might find themselves as I do, far more thank-full, joy-full, and peace-full the older we get.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord. 3-9-26

Hello,

It’s been nearly 30 years that I have sat down each week to bring a word of God’s grace through the Bungee Cord. I began this missive because there was a certain population of people who of whom I saw very few in worship: 18-35 years olds. With this observance, I decided that if they weren’t coming to me to hear the good news in Jesus Christ, I would go to them. Thus began the Bungee Cord. I dubbed it the Bungee Cord because I believe the Bible tells us that no matter how far one might stray from God, the reach of God’s grace will match that distance and lovingly gather people back, like a Bungee Cord. I have striven to make this weekly writing a message of grace and mercy, unlike the message that many hear purporting Christianity to be a repressive series of rules and judgments. John 3:16, 17 ,“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

Having said this, I want to tell you about a group that I have joined in my town that meets monthly to discuss our nation’s foreign policies. It is a national organization that was developed decades ago to provide some citizen input to our nation’s involvement in the world. Communities all through the United States take their part in these groups. It is called “Great Decisions”, and a book is printed each year guiding us through selected topics. It has been very interesting.

As I take part in these discussions consisting of 15-20 people who gather at our local library in Ligonier, Pa., I have discovered that my input is often unique. Most of the input has to do with maintaining a competitive edge over other nations and acting to further our nation’s interests. People from multinational companies, college professors, and political junkies make up our group. I am amazed at the depth of their international experience and knowledge.

And then there is me. People in the group know that I am a pastor, and sometimes they respond to my input thinking me to be naïve and pollyainic (sp?). They do so because I find myself coming at our topics in a way that might best be described as seeing the world as a global community, and wondering how we and all nations can learn how to live next door to each other peacefully and respectfully. From my Christian way of thinking, I am reminded of Jesus responding to the question, “Who is my neighbor?”, and his answer was the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25ff), which also was the basis for Mr. Roger’s theme song, “Won’t you be my neighbor.”

I know that in my own neighborhood there are some people who are much easier to live next to than others, and one of them may be me. So, I am not surprised when a particular neighbor doesn’t tell me that they are going to trench over my power lines. Or, I am not surprised when another neighbor comes and graciously plows out my half-mile lane when the snow is deeper than our tractor can handle. Being a neighbor and having neighbors is part of life, and the things we do can make that a better place to live or an uglier place to live.

The truth is that God has determined to make our neighborly relationship with him the best it can be by tearing down any fence, calling off all the guard dogs, and showing unimaginable care for us, his neighbors, by sending Jesus. That includes you and me.

Riding the wave of God’s grace to you and me, I wonder what the global community might be like if we looked at the world as neighbors, people by no desire of their own find themselves with these neighbors. Rather than trying to “keep up with the Jones’” or “stake out our territory”, I wonder what would happen in our local neighborhoods and in our global neighborhood if we saw in our neighbors people who cry tears when a child dies, people who feel lost and alone in a world that they no longer know, people for whom daily bread is a daily need, people who enjoy laughing around a fire….

In these times, I find myself deeply concerned for my neighbors.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger 

 The Bungee Cord

Hello,

I went to visit a friend who lives about three hours away to watch the Illinois vs. Michigan basketball game. It was a short overnight visit. Our friendship goes back fifty years when we both attended the University of Illinois. We regularly message each other as we watch football and basketball games in our own homes and zoom with each other at halftime. But since I am retired (at least sort of retired) and the game was on a Friday night, I thought it would be great fun to go over to his place and watch the game together.

It may seem to be a long way to travel for a two-hour game, but the travel was well worth it. Modern technology enables a person to stay connected with others, but for me, it simply does not match being with someone. There is something deeper to the conversation when I am in the same room with that person, something more exhilarating in our cheers and boo’s as we sit in front of the TV, something more valued when we drown our sorrows side by side. I find that the mutual presence glues our friendship tighter. Being there, with someone, makes all the technological ways of keeping in touch a far second best.

When I consider how short of a period of time in the expanse or eternity and how far from the throne of heaven Jesus came when Jesus walked this earth, it may appear to some that his visit was an excessive effort. Surely, God could have kept in touch with his people is “technological” ways, and to be sure, he did. He encountered Moses in a burning bush. He sent an angel to Mary. He filled dreams with messages. But all of those things were decidedly second best to God, than when God incarnated himself in a human being and spent face to face time with us. God was there, in person, when Mary and Martha cried at their brother’s tomb, and Jesus cried, too. God was there, in person, when the storms at sea were swallowing up the boat they were in. God was there, in person, when people spat upon him, mocked him, and even crucified him. God was there, in person, when the disciples hid in a locked room fearing for their lives, and even came there again when Thomas was with them.

Knowing what it means to me to be with someone, face to face, I can only believe that God’s short in person visit to be among us was a treasure to him….well worth the trip. I know that it was a treasure to me. Because of that visit, God’s tears and mine are far more than just salty water running down our cheeks. Our dances of joy are far more than knowing the right steps. The problems we carry do not weigh as heavily on our shoulders. Our relationship is not just Elmer’s glued together, but Super glued together.

I am very thankful for the “technological” ways that God and I stay in touch….prayer, baptism, holy communion, worship, and the like…but I am looking forward to the day when we meet again, face to face, in the mansion that holds a room for me, so that I may be “where Jesus is, forever”. And even though that trip will take me through the valley of the shadow of death, I am confident of this: it will be well worth my time and travel.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord

Hello,

As you know, the Winter Olympics concluded yesterday. Among the amazing athletes, there was one that caught my attention as truly remarkable: a cross-county skier from Haiti. I was scrolling through some of the Olympic highlights, and I came across Stevenson Savart finishing his race. He finished far from the lead, but even that he finished, coming from Haiti, was astounding. I don’t think that a flake of snow has ever fallen in Haiti, and so I thought to myself as I saw him sliding across the finish line, “How could a cross-country skier come out of Haiti?” But he did.

Almost the same thing was said of Jesus by one of his disciples to be, Nathanael, when he was told about Jesus, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nazareth was a small town off the beaten trail, kept small due to a limited supply of water there. When Nathanael was told by his brother that he had met the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, Nathanael was astounded. Nazareth was a sleepy little town. No powerful people lived there. The temple wasn’t there. If he hadn’t met Jesus face to face, it certainly would have been incredible to think that the Messiah would have come from Nazareth.

I have heard Nathanael’s question posed even in our day as people are told that the Messiah, the one to save the world…the cosmos from the self-destroying power of sin, would come out of Nazareth. How could such a monumental happening come out of one from a small sand swept town, centuries ago. The plausibility of such a thing seems to many unbelievable, if not laughable.

Yet, much like the Haitian cross-country skier whose crossing of the finish line answered the question, “How could a cross-country skier come out of Haiti?”, when this Nazarene, Jesus, crossed the finish line, so also was the Nathanael’s question, and those who have echoed his question through the centuries, answered. “He did!”

When Jesus hung on the finish line of the cross, and yelled out, “It is finished.”, Jesus, with the power of God almighty, gathered unto himself anything and everything in creation that might try and pull God’s handiwork from God, and he brought it all to death with him. Dead as a cross nail, both Jesus and sin. And when Jesus took his first step out of death’s tomb, it was only he that arose, everything else stayed in the grave, never to live again, powerless to God’s mercy.

I looked up Stevenson Savart, and I found out that although he was born in Haiti, he grew up in France having been adopted. That is how an Olympic cross county skier came from Haiti. Jesus Christ, who grew up in Nazareth, had a heavenly home from before the beginning of time (John 1), and that is how something eternally good came out of Nazareth.

Haiti. Nazareth. The finish line is the answer to seemingly incredulous questions. He did!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord. 2-9-26

Hello,

This week's Bungee Cord is the sermon I preached on Sunday. It seemed Bungee-worthy. If you want to see it live and in person, you can go to Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Stahlstown, Pa's facebook page....and you can see it there. Have a great week.

God's grace and Peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Matthew 5:13-20

Feb. 2026

And Jesus says to you and me who have gathered around him this morning, “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.” This morning, Jesus is talking to you.

You…You…

• Not the influential and powerful people out there

• Not the rich and agenda driving people out there

• Not the rulers of nations and governmental officials out there

• Not the brilliant and technological wizards out there

• Not the famous and celebrated people out there

• Not the loud and blaring people out there

• Not the Super Bowl players and the Super T.V. Commercial makers out there

No….you….you who have gathered yourselves around Jesus this morning

You ARE

• Not you could be

• Not should be

• Not with a little time you will be

• Not if you want to be

• Not if you work hard enough to be

• Not if no one else wants to be

No….you ARE

Jesus says to you and me this morning who have gathered around him, “YOU ARE the salt of the earth….YOU ARE the light of the world.

I don’t know about you, but I am tired of wallowing around day to day in the foot-deep mud that I encounter every day. From the moment that I step out of bed to the moment that I close my eyes at night in sleep, I feel like each step I take is through one of those swampy fields where when I step down my feet get swallowed up in the mud and when I try and lift my feet up it is almost as if they have been suctioned cupped to the wall, pulling my boots right off of me. For months now, the news that I hear and the events that have engulfed me, have been like heavy downpours, drenching the already saturated pathway of my life to the point that every step saps me of my strength and will to move forward.

And this morning, as you and I have trudged here through this seemingly unending thunderstorm pouring down cruelty, inhumanity, brutality, chaos, bitterness, callousness, and arrogance like cats and dogs creating a mud-path of loneliness, fearfulness, anger, despair, and hopelessness swallowing people up….Jesus says to you and to me, “YOU Are the salt of the earth…YOU ARE the light of the world.

Salt in Jesus day wasn’t so much used for seasoning as it was used for preserving. I don’t know how it is done, but up until refrigeration, people used salt to keep meat from rotting. So when Jesus says that you and are the salt of the earth, Jesus is telling you and me that we are preservers of life. As Jesus said in John 10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” In Baptism, Jesus has saturated your life with grace upon grace,

• and so when you go to your neighbor – maybe even a neighbor who you have not gotten along with very well, but who is suffocating in grief and say, “I’m here for you. If there is anything you need, give me a call, and I hope you don’t mind if I call you every once in a while to see how you’re doing….you are being salt.

• Or once, I found myself in 2009 when the ELCA sexuality study came out, when someone asked me, “What do you think about this gay thing?”, and I responded, “Well, I think they are people, too.” …. that was being salt.

And remember in Jesus’ day, when lights didn’t pollute the night sky, night was very dark.

• Some years ago, I was in the bush country of Africa where electricity had not reached that town. After an evening of dancing with the town around a fire, it was time to return to the hut in which I was staying, but it was so dark, I couldn’t see my hand at my side, let alone the path on which to walk. But as I stood there, frozen in the dark, I felt a hand take hold of mine…a hand that belonged to someone who had walked that pitch dark path all of his life, and he, like a light, let me home.

• When you reach out with your hand to someone in the pit of deepest darkness…someone who has been put down their whole life because of their failures, someone who has never been able to fit in and is lost in loneliness, someone who has sinned … maybe 70 x 7 times and you …and has made a mess of their life and you keep your hear open to them …not in an enabling way, but in a loving way, getting them the help that they need…you are being the light of the world.

Jesus says to you today, “You Are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world,” because it is you that – not the powerful, not the famous, not the high and mighty….it is you that will come face to face with the people who walk and who live in the world around you. It will be your hand that they will feel. It will be your voice that they will hear. It will be your arms that will hold them up. Hands and voice and arms that in Baptism have been saturated with Christ’s love and mercy.

You…yes you…are…yes are…the salt of the earth and the light of the world. “So let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven!”

This little light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine……..

Amen

 The Bungee Cord. 2-2-26

Hello,

It’s cold here…at least for here it is cold. Temperatures hovering in the single digits. My memories of life in South Dakota and Minnesota would be thankful for these temperatures in the middle of the winter!

Thursday, I had to have my brakes worked on, and so I drove to our mechanic in Latrobe, about 30 minutes away, expecting to wait there for a couple of hours. After a bit, it was discovered that the parts they ordered didn’t fit my car, and beyond that my brake fluid hose had developed a leak. So, I would have to leave my car there, which was fine with me. They kindly gave me a lift back to my house, and they drove back to their shop, leaving me outside my house in the cold. I walked up to the door, and it was locked. Apparently, my wife had left to run errands. Ooops….my house key was on my car key chain. I went to look for the hidden key, and it wasn’t there, and I remembered that it had been used a week or so ago and by its absence, it must not have been put back.

Fortunately, we live in the day of cellphones, so I called my wife, and she said she would be right home, which meant a half-hour or so. Our closest neighbors live a half mile away, so I decided that I would wait in the cab of our pickup, which was air temperature, 5 degrees. Even though I had a couple of layers on, the cold seeped its way to my skin, and I was cold! I tried to relax and tell myself that it wasn’t that cold. It didn’t work. I was very cold, and I started measuring the minutes…no, the seconds …. until my wife’s return. I’ll say this: I was elated when she arrived, and when she opened the door, I rushed to the woodburning stove, wallowing in the warmth!

The world can be a very cold place, not just when the snow falls and the winter wind blows, but also when harsh words spilling out of cold hearts swirl around us….when callous decisions are made and you are fearful, left out in the cold… when people you count on let you down, betray you, or just disappear and the blanket of care is torn off of you… when violence and arrogance, like a blizzard, sweep through cities and nations… when some people seem to get all the breaks and you seem to get none ….when drugs and hatred seep through the cracks in our lives and chill us to the bone.

I don’t know about you, but this winter seems to have been a colder winter than usual…not weather wise…but otherwise. Just sitting in my house, watching the news, I shiver.

One way that one might speak of the Christian faith is that we have a God who feels the cold of this world and is at work to warm it up. That is the whole point of Jesus life, death, and resurrection. Jesus came to warm up this world with warmth of God’s love. In this one man, Jesus, the Son of God, God flinted a spark of divine grace and mercy, igniting a fire by which all people might find warmth. And even though we, with our cold hearts, tried to extinguish that fire by snuffing it out on the cross, God showed the world that his power to warm was far greater than any power to chill. On Easter, that fire of warmth was rekindled when Jesus rose from the dead, and it is a fire that continues to burn.

When the world is the coldest, as it has been lately, I find myself eagerly making my way to church on Sunday morning….not to escape the cold….but rather to be warmed…warmed so that the chill of fear and despair might be soothed by hope….hope that like a blanket embraces me when grace is shown to me when I walk in the door, when peace takes hold of me when I sing and when I pray, when love covers my ears like ear muffs when scripture is read and taught, and when joy, like an icebreaker, reaches my heart when I receive the Lord’s Supper.

And when I am sufficiently warmed, I am inspired to bring that same warmth to those who shiver from the arctic cold of the word, wrapping them in the grace with which I have been embraced, and inviting them to come closer to the fire where deep warmth is found.

Martin Luther once said that evangelism (telling others about Jesus) is nothing more than one beggar telling another beggar where there is food. It occurs to me that one might also say, “Evangelism is nothing more than telling one person who was freezing telling another person who is freezing where there is warmth.”

Have a great week. Be warm.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger