Pastor’s Corner
When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.
My Hope is Built on Nothing Less, LSB #576
Have you ever sung a hymn and been struck with what you just sang? I often am. I dwell on a line of a hymn and quickly realize we’ve moved on to the next stanza. This happened a few weeks ago with the above hymn. As Christians, we often speak of God’s love for us. We speak of God as our Heavenly Father who is always watching over us, and rightly so, He always is! But sometimes, we are the ones who don’t see it. For example, there is a line in the hymn that says, “When darkness veils His lovely face.” What this means is that sometimes, even though God our Heavenly Father is always with us, always caring for us, always loving us – sometimes we are not able to see His love and care.
This “darkness” will veil God’s face often with the stresses we face in daily life. Sometimes darkness will obscure God’s loving face for us when we have an illness. An illness or chronic condition has a way of screaming out at us saying, “Look at me, look at me!” and we are not able to see the love of God who is al-ways caring for us. And maybe the greatest darkness that will veil God’s loving face from us is death. Death is ugly. Death is painful. Death is heartbreaking. And in these moments when death is shouting for our attention, it is like a thick, black cloud has veiled God’s loving face from us.
The hymn stanza above captured what we all go through at some point in our lives; sometimes it is hard for us to see God’s loving face. But at the same time, hymns are able to articulate the never-ending hope we have in Christ. After the above hymn recognized that we don’t always see God’s face, the hymn said this, “In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.”
No matter what we go through, Christ is with us. Christ is our anchor. Christ fastens us onto Himself and He especially does this when life itself is turbulent and flipping us upside down on our heads. Even when the tragedies of this life seem like they are putting a veil in front of God’s face so we can no longer see Him clearly, our Lord Jesus Christ has you anchored onto Himself. Jesus will always keep you grounded. Jesus will always be your hope no matter what you face in life. Jesus will always be your promise of a resurrection from the dead even in the face of death itself. I always say it is easy to be Christian when everything is going well. But when there are trials, temptations, and death, those are the moments when being a Christian matters the most. Those are the times Christ’s loving face can tear through any veil of misery we are endur-ing. Through everything we face in life, Christ will always be our anchor. Christ is our hope. Christ is our promise of a resurrection even in the face of death!
– Rev. Dr. Edward O. Grimenstein
