Mount Hope Lutheran School has been a labor of love. Jesus alone knows the care and hours that have gone into our school. Jesus alone knows how much time our treasurers have spent in years past moving money around to make payroll. Jesus alone knows every tear that teachers have shed at 2:00 in the morning, preparing to teach every subject to every child in three different grades starting at 8:00 later that morning. Jesus alone knows everything that parents have endured to send their children to Mount Hope Lutheran School: the pinching and saving to pay for tuition, the work of volunteering, the sideways looks from a world that thinks they’re weird. We’ve seen glimpses into these things and could probably each tell a few stories. But Jesus alone knows all the sufferings that have gone into this labor of love.
And why have we done it? Why suffer for this labor of love when we could simply send our children elsewhere? Because we want our children to have Jesus. That’s it, plain and simple. We want our children to have Jesus. We know from the Holy Scriptures that our children are sinners and that they need the righteousness of Jesus every day of their lives. We know that the Word of Jesus is our dearest treasure on earth and that it should permeate all of education. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” as it says throughout Scripture. Our children don’t just need skills, as if their goal in life were to accumulate as much mammon as possible. They need faith and love, they need to be preached to, they need to sing sound doctrine, they need to supplement “faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control,” and so forth, as it says in 2 Peter 1. And our children don’t just need these things for an hour on Sunday. They need the Word of Jesus to be the air they breathe.
And so we have Mount Hope Lutheran School, because we love our children, and we want to care for them not just temporally, but eternally. We want them to have an education that takes into account both body and soul. We want our children to be pious and virtuous, as well as skillful and knowledgeable. And our children make this labor of love worth it.
Mount Hope Lutheran School should not exist, at least by worldly standards. I’m not sure how many times we should have closed. It’s been like a doctor telling a patient he has a year to live, and then the patient just keeps on living, and outlives the doctor. In 2 Corintihans it says, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). That isn’t necessarily our business model, but it has been our way of life. Bob can tell you that better than anyone. He’s stared at the numbers on the page and can tell you it’s only by the grace of God that there still is a Mount Hope Lutheran School. He can tell you that the doctors have given us three years to live, but he’s a better Doctor, and he knows that the Lord is with us.
But the numbers are nothing new. What has changed between our 50th anniversary and our 60th? We’ve gotten two new pastors, one of whom is headmaster of the school. We’ve expanded to high school and had our first high school graduate. Our school is now almost entirely comprised of members of Mount Hope and Trinity. We have a top-notch Lutheran faculty for teaching children in kindergarten through 12th grade.
And there are several people I’d like to thank for helping to get us where we are. First, I’d like to thank Pastor Hill, who laid the foundation for this unapologetically Lutheran school. We’ve seen too much compromise in our Lutheran schools at all levels across the country, from day schools to colleges, and what a blessing it is to be certain of what we believe according to the Word of God, and not to capitulate to false doctrine or worldly ways in an effort to get along. One of the chief reasons we have such a faithful Lutheran school is because it was founded that way. May God continue to give us faithful pastors! I’d like to thank Ed Fink, who played such an instrumental part in the formation of the school, who has given so selflessly of his time, who told me he would plow snow for the school in the middle of July if we got that $100,000 match two years ago. And I know that even if we hadn’t gotten the match, and even if it would have snowed in July, and even if school were for some reason in session in the middle of the summer, he would have plowed the snow anyway, because he loves our school. May God continue to give us such faithful men! I’d like to thank the teachers at our school, both past and present. Three names stick out to me as I look at past teachers, and those are Betty Garwood, Heather Judd, now Heather Smith, and Angie Hill, who have all contributed significantly not just to our school, but to classical Lutheran education across the country. Thanks be to God for such faithful teachers, and may He continue to give us faithful teachers! I’d like to thank Larry Harrington, who for the last seven years served as chairman of the board of education and has just within the last month stepped down. You wouldn’t believe some of the things we talked through concerning the school. Well, actually, you probably would, since you’re Christians and you know human nature and are familiar with bearing crosses. I thank God for Larry’s level head and wise counsel, and again, may God continue to give us such faithful men!
There are many more people to thank. We could spend all afternoon and evening and night, and perhaps the rest of this week mentioning by name every person who has contributed to the labor of love that is Mount Hope Lutheran School. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t keep you here until next Sunday, and instead end on this note. Jesus charges fathers, “Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Mount Hope Lutheran School has been assisting parents in doing just that, and God willing, we will continue doing just that for many years to come.
In Christ,
Pastor Richard
