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Because we bear your name – Bishop Paul’s letter

Rev Paul Smith
Bishop, Lutheran Church of
Australia and New Zealand

‘Joy, O joy, beyond all gladness!’ These are astounding and inspiring words from the rarely sung chorus of the Christmas hymn in our Lutheran Hymnal and Supplement (LHS) 32, written by 17th-century hymnwriter Christian Keymann.

The good news of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ is deeper and lasting beyond simply happy feelings. The angel told the Bethlehem shepherds, ‘I bring you good news of great joy!’ The telling of the nativity story is great joy. God has become enfleshed and dwelt among us out of great love for all humankind.

This story began with God’s promise at the dawn of time, to send a saviour to ‘strike the head’ of the serpent. At Christmastime, we remind each other that the promise unfolds in the story of the manger and the cross. God will bring about that exchange of our sin for the righteousness of the sinless Son of God so that we would have peace with God. This is the good news of great joy!

The chorus of Keymann’s hymn continues, ‘Christ has done away with sadness. Hence, all sorrow and repining, for the sun of grace is shining’.

This does not mean Christians are free from feelings of sadness, sorrow or struggle. Rather, this ‘good news of great joy’ of the coming of Christ means that, whatever we experience or whatever comes our way, we walk as people of grace in the light of the gospel. Because of the manger and the cross, we know God is with us. Because of Christ Jesus, we know God is for us.

With this sure promise of grace over us, before us and within us, we come to God with complete confidence with all our weariness and heaviness. We join with the psalmist, praying: ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.’

The hymn’s image of the ‘sun of grace shining’ draws on another biblical promise spoken by the prophet Malachi where, in chapter 4, we read of the ‘sun of righteousness’ rising ‘with healing in its wings’. This image is also sung in the well-loved carol, ‘Hark! The herald angels sing’ (LHS 33).

As people of grace, the people of our Lutheran Church have been walking as sisters and brothers in Christ in the light of the ‘sun of grace’. We have travelled through 2024, during which our General Pastors’ Conference and Convention of General Synod met, and we resolved to remove our prohibition that required the ordination of only men as pastors in our church. We also resolved to continue as one church in which both the ordination of men only and the ordination of both women and men are received as faithful understandings of the word of God.

As we work through these things together as sisters and brothers in Christ, the words of Keymann remind us of the sure promises of God in all circumstances. We are people of the gospel who are given hope in what our Lord Christ Jesus has done for us: ‘Joy, O Joy beyond all gladness, Christ has done away with sadness.’

As we prepare for Christmas festivities, we know that around us are people who do not know or have forgotten the joy of salvation. As the shepherds left their flocks to ‘make known’ what had been ‘told them about the child’, may the Lord give us the opportunity to give a good account to family, friends and neighbours of the Christmas hope and joy within us.

Keymann’s hymn ends with a beautiful and hopeful prayer:

‘Jesus, guard and guide Thy members,
Fill Thy brethren with Thy grace,
Hear their prayers in every place,
Quicken now life’s faintest embers;
Grant all Christians, far and near,
Holy peace, a glad new year.

Joy, O joy, beyond all gladness!
Christ has done away with sadness.
Hence, all sorrow and repining,
For the sun of grace is shining.’

Praise the Lord!

In Christ,
Paul

‘Lord Jesus, we belong to you,
you live in us, we live in you;
we live and work for you –
because we bear your name’

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02/12/2024/by lisamcintosh

To God be the glory

by Helen Brinkman

Whether it’s a home-baked cupcake, a home-grown pumpkin, or a handmade bracelet, giving glory to God comes in many forms for retired teacher Anne Kotzur. Life is a whirl of baking, gardening and volunteering for the mother of four and grandmother of eight.

Despite celebrating her 80th birthday this past month, she’s as busy as ever supporting her family, her local Our Saviour Lutheran family in Rochedale, Brisbane, and even families as far flung as Ukraine and Ethiopia.

Her dance card is full with giving – everything from weekly cupcake bake-offs for Our Saviour Sunday school children, to distributing the 40 pumpkins grown in her own backyard.

It’s also in receiving that Anne gives thanks to God. She is thankful for the handmade ‘Swifty’ bracelet made for her birthday by a student at the local school where she volunteers, as much as she’s thankful for the $500 birthday donation she’s sending off to the Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS) to support Ethiopian families. It was just what she wanted for her birthday!

The donation came from the high tea celebration her church friends hosted to honour her coming of age – becoming an octogenarian, that is. She didn’t want presents but suggested that people could instead donate to the latest ALWS campaign supporting Ethiopia.

Supporting ALWS has been a lifelong effort for Anne.

‘Ever since I was a little girl, my grandparents always had a bowl on their Christmas and Easter tables for gifts to support Australian Lutheran World Service’, she recalls.

‘So, I grew up under the banner of ALWS and I always have had a heart for this organisation.’

In May this year, Anne was among the volunteers at the registration desk checking in almost 900 walkers taking part in Brisbane’s Walk My Way Ukraine which supported Ukrainian families displaced by conflict. About $190,000 was raised. ‘It was such a joy for me to see so many young families with little children, strollers and scooters, as well as older people too’, she says.

‘It brought joy to my heart seeing people come to walk to support families in Ukraine. The reason I wanted to support it was so children could get back to homes and schools, so schools could be repaired and school bomb shelters built. That was my motivation. I love the way ALWS partners with different agencies to help in these situations.’

The Rochedale community remains the hub of Anne’s world. It’s where she was born in 1944, the eldest of three, to mum Pearl and dad Colin Francis, who were local farmers, cultivating paw paws, potatoes, tomatoes and more.

As an adult, she’s still in the same family home in Rochedale that she and husband Elmore moved into 54 years ago. Elmore died four years ago after 52 years of marriage. ‘I give thanks as we had a wonderful life together and I am very grateful for those years’, Anne says.

The only time she moved away was when, as a 21-year-old graduate teacher, Anne answered a church call for teachers at the Hope Vale mission school in northern Queensland.

‘I always had a heart for mission and for Aboriginal people. I loved teaching and loved the children, so when there was a call out for teachers at Hope Vale, I went, she says.

It was at Hope Vale that Anne met farm manager Elmore Kotzur. Two years later they married and moved to nearby Wujal Wujal, where they had their first two sons. They returned to Rochedale in 1970 and were later blessed with two more sons.

Anne went back to teaching when the boys were at school, retiring about 16 years ago. Retirement has allowed Anne to put more time back into her home and community. She still gardens, cooks and visits. She also volunteers every Wednesday for the breakfast club at the local state school, organised through the school’s Scripture Union chaplain.

Anne is inspired by her favourite text: ‘And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God’ (Micah 6:8).

‘I thank God that he helps me each day. And I can still walk, garden, mow, and help at church and be involved with my church family’, she says.

She comes away from her weekly hospital visits to the sick giving thanks, and grateful for the beautiful attitudes of those she visits.

And every day she gives thanks, having experienced breast cancer twice, five heart bypasses, open heart surgery and a stroke. She’s grateful for God’s wonderful healing hand which has made her well and grateful for his goodness daily. ‘To God be the glory – that’s the main thing I would say, just to give thanks to God for his goodness every day’, she reflects. ‘Wake up each day and thank God for his goodness. He is good all the time and his mercies are ever new each day.’

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29/08/2024/by lisamcintosh

Columns, Home Featured Article

God’s word lights the way to life

by Helen Brinkman

Hedley Scholz credits dairy farming for giving him his strong voice. To be more precise he says it’s a credit to the cows and the working dogs which herded them.

‘I think God has blessed me with a strong voice, as I was a dairy farmer for 69 years and I had been shouting to the cows and dogs so much’, says Hedley.

It’s this upbringing that has established a voice perfect for lay reading, a service that Hedley has provided to his local Lutheran congregations for the past 70 years. That achievement was recognised in April by his fellow members at St John’s Lutheran Church, Eudunda, in South Australia’s Mid North.

Despite being set to turn 90 in August, Hedley’s strong voice still allows him to continue to serve as a lay reader. It’s a role that he began at age 20 at the Ascension Lutheran Church, Julia, SA. Over time, he has also helped out at other local Lutheran churches in the parish.

Hedley recalls travelling the nine miles (14.5 kilometres) from his home to Julia church on a cold Sunday morning one August with thick fog developing. Despite there being only three members in attendance for worship that day, Hedley didn’t shorten the service!

Born in 1934, the youngest of four siblings, Hedley was part of the fifth generation of the Scholz family in the region. His great-great-grandfather, Johann Gottfried Scholz, was born in Silesia in 1805 in present-day Germany and migrated to South Australia in 1845.

Johann settled at Light Pass in the Barossa Valley and was known to walk the more than 40 miles (almost 70 kilometres) led by the light of the moon on a Saturday night to Klemzig in Adelaide. There he would attend church services led by Pastor August Kavel – which were known to last for hours – before returning home again on foot.

Hedley has documented the lives of seven generations of the Scholz family in a book called The Diaries of the Scholz’s of Buchanan. His second book, The Hundred of Julia Creek, informs the reader of the struggles his forebears faced, living through droughts, dust storms, fires, floods, depression and isolation.

Hedley’s third book, entitled The Pioneers of the Sutherlands Area, recounts the lives of some of the first German and English emigrants to arrive in South Australia in 1838.

Hedley’s interests have also extended to membership of his local Returned and Services League (RSL) and Gideons International.

A heart problem caused Hedley to miss marching in this year’s Anzac Day march, from the local cenotaph to the Eudunda RSL club.

However, it has not stopped him driving around his area witnessing at local schools and churches for the past 16 years, through his promotion of the work of the Gideons. This gives Hedley an opportunity to provide New Testaments to secondary school students and share stories of people who have been touched by God’s word.

‘I go with God’s help and always pray that the students will accept a New Testament because it is not compulsory that they take one’, he says.

In August 2023, Hedley celebrated 60 years of married life with wife Joy (nee Materne), their two sons David and Michael and their families, including five grandchildren.

When reminiscing on what has guided nearly 90 years of life, Hedley shares that one of his favourite Bible verses is Psalm 119:105 – ‘Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path’ (KJV).

Hedley says: ‘God’s word has been my guide in life. It offers direction, correction and forgiveness. His word helps me see right from wrong.

‘The world leads us the wrong way, God’s word shows us a forgiving God and the way to eternal life.’

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27/06/2024/by lisamcintosh