The Pastor as Prophet

By the Rev. David H. Petersen

Think about St. John the Baptist and the Old Testament Prophets. What pictures come to your mind? Maybe you think of pointing fingers, stern sermons of coming wrath, and a fearless exposition of the truth. Now think of your pastor in the pulpit. Do the two pictures look very much alike? Probably not. Your pastor doesn't wear a camel's hair coat or sackcloth. Likewise, his sermons probably are a bit more gentle than Isaiah's railing against the complacent Israelites.

Nonetheless, Elijah, Hosea, Habbakuk, and your pastor share the same job, the same call. They both have been called by God to preach the Law and the Gospel to God's children. In fact, in day-to-day duties, pastors in our congregations are really more like the Old Testament Prophets than they are like the Apostles. The Apostles were sent with the Good News mainly to people who had never heard it before. Not so the Prophets. For the most part, they ministered to people who were supposed to be believers. But the Israelites sometimes fell into false notions that they were good enough just by being citizens of Israel or by the cultural heritage they had received, apart from faith. They weren't. So God sent the prophets, again and again, to call the people by repentance back to faith.

Now, our pastors, too, are used by God from time to time to preach the Gospel to someone who has never heard it before-like the Apostles. But most of the time that isn't the case. They spend most of their time talking to their own members. Those people have already been baptized. They know about Jesus. Our pastors also talk to community members and are involved in outreach and evangelization efforts. But here in America, most of those people, even if they are completely without a church, at least know that Mary was Jesus' mother, that He died on the cross on Good Friday, and rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. In fact, most of those people, including those without a church, consider themselves Christians. Our nation is in a situation very similar to that of Israel before the coming of our Lord in the flesh. We have a semblance of Christianity, but semblance is usually as deep as it goes.

So what does God do? He sends us prophet-pastors! They call us back to faith by repentance. At times we have pretended as though our faith were a given, as though our heritage was good enough to impress God. At those times, pastors preach the Law to us to expose our sins. Sometimes they have to point their fingers, maybe even get a little excited, and speak of the danger that we are in because of our indifference or comfortableness. Having been shown our sin, we repent. And then our pastors can preach to us the Good News of the Messiah who came fulfilling the promises of long ago just to forgive that sin. He lets us off the hook. We are free in Christ. The new man springs forth in joy! Faith lives in us by daily contrition and repentance.

Still today, like our Israelite brothers and sisters before us, we need God's Law and Gospel. We need the Word of God opened up and made clear for us. We need constantly to be called back to the truth of His love. Take a look at the man in the pulpit again. Maybe camel's hair wouldn't be so out of place on him. After all, he is preaching to Abraham's children.

The Rev. David H. Petersen is Pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana.