St. John's Lutheran Church

Elder's Corner

Greetings in Christ,

I write this to you as I am sitting in the passenger seat of our pickup.  Karla is driving.  We are on our way back from Las Vegas – my mobile office is in full operation.  This was a business trip as once a year, every year we clean out our stock trailer and turn it into a mobile freezer.  We load it full with beef and head then head to Las Vegas to deliver homegrown beef directly to our customers.

I have spent a lot of time getting our trailer cleaned up and ready to go this past week.  A stock trailer was certainly never intended as a mobile freezer but we have to make do with what we have.  As I have spent time working on the trailer I began to think of the similarities between our stock trailer and the cross.  Hear me out….

The stock trailer represents the great transformation - the beginning and the end - for almost all of our cattle.  Shortly after they are born, we load them up in the stock trailer and bring them in to brand - marking them as our own.  The newborn calves then get turned out on pasture with their mothers where they grow to be about 9 months old.  After 9 months the calves get weaned (taken away from their mothers) and placed in a pen where they can grow and develop a large frame.  The last 3 months they are fattened up and eventually taken to the butcher.  After the butcher the homegrown beef ends up in boxes, and right back in our stock trailer so we can deliver it to the customer.  The trailer is literally the first stop…..and the last.

Prior to Christ’s death on the cross the world was lost in hopelessness.  The only way to heaven was to uphold the law. Adam and Eve had committed the original sin so that was a non-starter.  There was no way for us to uphold the law.  Without Christ dying on the cross we were literally at the end – lost in hopelessness.  However, on Good Friday when Christ died he set the stage for the beginning.  On Easter morning he rose again defeating death once and for all.  Revelation 22:13 says, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the Beginning and the End”.

There are plenty of stock trailers all over Fallon.  I encourage you every time you see one to thank God for sending his son to be the beginning and the end for you.  

In Christ, 
Andrew