Rev. Dr. Jonathan Blanke, Senior Pastor
Pastor’s Corner for December 7-13, 2025
Relationships of Welcome, in Christ
(Romans 15:4-13)
When was the last time someone made you feel truly welcome? Our worship greeters do an amazing job of that with many of the folks who walk through our church doors week after week! Important as these brief interactions are, St. Paul has something to say this week about an attitude of welcome that goes beyond the immediate greeting of a guest at our doors. Paul talks about receiving one another, accepting one another, loving one another because that is how we have been received, accepted, and loved by Jesus Christ Himself (Rom 15:7). Once again, the immortal Lutheran question comes to mind: “What does this mean?”
In the context of Advent, it means getting comfortable with talk about repentance, dying to self, and sacrificial love. Christ who is coming again has demonstrated what real love is all about. It would be relatively easy to live out relationships of welcome if all that entailed was putting on a happy face and either tolerating or putting up with another person. Jesus’ love for us is the tough love of denying Himself. It is the tough love of not getting “His way” but gaining life for us through His death on a cross. 1517.org contributor C. J. Armstrong writes that “Love for the other means acknowledging the actual humanity of the other. It means they matter ... that you are obligated to them with ties that bind, not to please them as in make them happy … but to bear the weaknesses of their inabilities and disabilities, to make it right with them in Christ. Making things right in Christ is not a matter of live and let live, because it is Christ, and He shows you the best way to live is to die. After all, He died that you might live.”
The whole of the intent of God is that sinners are welcome here at the cross. That means you. That means me. And that means the person we are called to receive, accept, and love in Christ Jesus…no matter how difficult, humanly speaking, that welcome might be.
What new hope for our community in Christ would this Advent season bring if it meant Jesus gave us the strength to live in a relationship of welcome with just one other person?
May we abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit again this year!
Peace and joy,
Pastor Jonathan
Pastor Jonathan Blanke grew up in Richmond, Virginia. He received his Bachelor's degree from College of William and Mary in Virginia and attended Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, where he earned a Masters of Divinity degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Biblical Studies, Book of John. He served as a Vicar at Messiah Lutheran Church in Richardson, Texas.
The Blanke family lived in Japan while he served as pastor and missionary to Okinawa Lutheran Church and taught Biblical Studies at Japan Lutheran College in Tokyo.
Pastor Jonathan lived in southern Maryland from January 2014 to November 2019 and was thankful to have served as the Sole Pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lexington Park, Maryland.
He and his wife, Juli, have two grown children. In his free time, Jonathan likes to travel, "play around" on the piano, and enjoy the outdoors.
Click HERE to view a brief video from Pastor Jonathan.