The Campus Ministry Leadership Team (CMLT) at CUW focused on the assurance we have in God’s inseparable love when it came to selecting the theme and theme verse for the 2024-2025 academic year.
By Rev. Jonathon Bakker
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39 (ESV)
These are some of the most comforting words we hear in all of the Bible, and they speak to all of us at Concordia—students, faculty, staff, and our families.
There is always a temptation for us to question or doubt God’s love for us and for others. When floods or fires afflict people and their communities; when conflicts spill over into violence and war; or when sickness and death take those close to us, the evil one will work to lead us away from God … to find hope not in the Lord but in ourselves or other created things. St. Paul points us back to the Lord and his love—his inseparable love that is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is that love of God that led him to have mercy on his fallen children in the Garden of Eden, promising a Savior. It is that love of God that led the Savior into our flesh to bear our sins and save us, dying for us on the cross and rising from the dead. It is that love of God that led to the promised Holy Spirit—the Comforter—to be poured out on the disciples of Jesus at Pentecost, and to work in the world through the water, word, bread, and wine to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify the whole Christian church on earth.
Indeed, Paul’s reassuring words cut through any grief, sadness, or despair which may be burdening us to hold up Jesus Christ our Lord and his love. Paul gives us a list of ten created things, finishing with “anything else in all creation,” and reveals that none of them can nullify God’s love for us. This is the joyous gift of God’s grace, that by faith we are forgiven all our sins, and we have the hope of the resurrection of the body and everlasting life!
God bless all of us at Concordia as we grow and mature this next year in faith, comforted by the inseparable love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus!
Rev. Jonathon Bakker is the campus pastor for Concordia University Wisconsin.
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