He also leads the team of acolytes at his church, training the other young men and setting an example for what reverence and piety look like in the Divine Service.
He’s in church. He’s in Bible class. He is what it means to be Lutheran.
And because he is Lutheran, and because church matters to him, because he actually believes that Jesus is there for him in real time, flesh and blood on Sunday morning, he sets school and sports and friends aside to be there.
He knows everything else pales in comparison to what his Savior has to give him.
And because he is Lutheran, and because he longs to be where God has promised to be, he made a hard choice that turned out to be not so hard at all.
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He told his coach during Holy Week that he wouldn’t be able to attend all the scheduled baseball practices, that he would have to leave early to make it to all the services.
And his coach, who really ought to have patted Sam on the back and told him what a wise choice he had made, instead warned him, “Sam, we all have to make decisions in life. We have to decide what our priorities are.”
That is to say, “Sam, church doesn’t matter. Baseball does.”
And yet how did our young LCMS hero respond?
“I know our decisions matter . . . and that is why I’m going to church.”
This is just the beginning of an excellent article by Adrianne Heins. Read the rest of it HERE.
