WELS 175th Anniversary Series Sunday, October 12, 2025
Romans 5:8-10 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke “Christ For Us”
One hundred seventy-five years, four months, and 17 days ago, five pastors met together to adopt a constitution for the new organization they were founding. This was the First German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Wisconsin. It wouldn’t be called the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod until 1959. By that time, a lot had changed. The Wisconsin Synod was no longer a German synod, though that language was spoken at times. The synod had merged with other synods and expanded beyond Wisconsin to Minnesota, Michigan, and Nebraska. It had started mission work among the Apaches in Arizona, from there branching out to other opportunities in our state. From those few midwestern states, it had also reached out to neighbors. In fact, by 1959, the synod had churches in 19 out of the 50 states. The synod also was working in two overseas mission fields. More missions and more states were added after that. In fact, the synod reached all 50 states by 1983. Today, our Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod includes over 1200 congregations and around 330,000 members. A lot has changed since the first, quiet meetings of over 175 years ago. In an anniversary year like this one, it makes sense that we would think about the history of this organization. It makes sense that we would celebrate God’s grace in allowing us to grow as we have and in allowing us to hold to the truths of Scripture for so long. The dedication of our synod to the truth of God’s Word is also reflected in our holding to the Lutheran Confessions because they are accurate descriptions of what the Bible teaches. But how exactly do you celebrate all that? What stories from history do you focus on? What names and places do you recount? What events and milestones do you share? What challenges of the past, maybe embarrassing parts of our history, do you have to trudge out to make sure you are not misrepresenting our church body? Those are all good questions. A century and three quarters of stories, events, and activities can’t be neatly summarized in a sermon or a bible study or a presentation without leaving many details out. As a synod, and with much work done by committees and leaders, we have decided to use the theme “Christ Through Us” to celebrate this milestone. As a congregation, Grace, like many in our synod, is using three particular Sundays to put a little extra emphasis on this celebration. But what do you say in three sermons if you want to truly celebrate what God has accomplished in and through the Wisconsin Synod for 175 years? Where do you start? I personally believe that our sermon text for today from Romans 5 is an excellent place to start. It’s not going to allow us to put too much focus on any individual from the last two centuries. It’s not going to allow us to put too much emphasis on any particular event or story from that timeframe. It is going to force us to keep the focus where the focus always needs to be: on the person of Jesus Christ and on the events of his life, death, and resurrection. You see, we can say a lot about the things that Christ does through us and through our church body, and we will. We can say a lot about the fact that Christ goes with us as a synod and as a congregation and as individuals, and we will. But none of that really matters until we establish the starting point and the foundation: Christ for us. Christ for us is clearly the emphasis in the verses of Romans 5 that we read earlier. The letter from Paul that we call the book of Romans was sent ahead of him to the Christians at Rome. He hoped to see them. He had not had a chance. Unlike so many of his letters which came after Paul visited a location and knew many of the Christians there, Romans went ahead of him. And this letter lays out clearly and in an orderly way the basic messages of people’s sin and God’s grace. And the few verses before us provide a fine example of that. When we were sinners, with nothing to offer to God, nothing to convince someone that we were worth dying for, Christ died for us. This is the heart of God’s message to people. Adam and Eve, the entire human race at the time, gave in to Satan’s temptation, disobeyed—rebelled against—God, and faced the consequences. They were no longer in harmony with God and with one another. They were separated from him and dependent on him to restore their relationship. And God not only promised, but also delivered on his promise to do exactly that.