What are brothers for?
Maybe your brother gave the term “white Christmas” a whole new meaning as he rubbed your face in the snow. Maybe he liked to crash your sleepover parties and ruin the best games of truth and dare. Maybe, instead of picking up his own GI Joes and smelly gym socks, your brother made you into his own personal cleaning service.
But brothers have their advantages too, don’t they? Maybe the first day of high school your older brother defended you in front of the upperclassman bully. Maybe he let you borrow his car so you could go to a concert with your buddies, helped get you your first job washing dishes at the local burger joint, or offered his shoulder when that date didn’t go at all as planned.
Having a brother in one’s earthly family is a special blessing. But at the seminary we are part of another family too, the family of believers. This family has many brothers as well, brothers in Christ.
Each year we elect brothers from each class to serve as our campus leaders. They are the voice of the students to the faculty and administration on issues of academics, campus improvement, and campus policy. They organize various campus events, such as blood drives, inspirational evening lectures led by professors or pastors, or student functions with entertainment and food. They meet once each month to discuss and carry out student body business, such as determining mission offering destinations, recognizing milestones for faculty or staff service, or communicating with other seminaries in our fellowship.
But our student government here at the seminary is really more than a group of organizers or a gathering of representatives. Our student body is self-governing. We’re brothers. Brothers hurt each other every now and then. Sometimes they criticize in order to tear down instead of encourage in order to build up. Sometimes they are less than considerate in the way they share their living space. Sometimes a brother gets involved in a sin that is harmful to himself. “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens, you have won your brother over” (Matthew 18:15). At the seminary we strive to put these words into practice. Personal sins and squabbles don’t go straight to the rumor mill, the dean, or the faculty. They stay among the brothers involved. And what a victory it is when the law cuts and our Savior’s wounds heal a penitent heart! “When this is done, it is as valid and certain in heaven also, as if Christ, our dear Lord, dealt with us himself” (Martin Luther). This is Christ’s victory, which brings us from death to life, snatches us from the flames, and leads us through the very gates of heaven. This is the victory we share as brothers in a self-governing student body.
But our brotherhood is even more than that. We are there to bear one another’s burdens, to be that ear or that shoulder when someone has too much work and not enough sleep, when the Lord allows a disease or a disaster into our lives, when life on the home front feels like life on a battlefield, when we feel like the public ministry just might not be worth it. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). As brothers we strive to encourage one another, whether in the classroom, the dorms, or wherever two or three of us gather together. The big brothers who have been through it already help show the little brothers the ropes when it comes to preaching in chapel or a congregation, keeping up with homework and part-time job demands, and balancing school and family time. The seniors can share countless times from their vicar year when the Lord used them, in spite of their weaknesses, to bring his kingdom to others – in the hospital room of a dying woman, in the living room of an unchurched couple, and in the classroom full of teens facing countless temptations from their peers and their own flesh. And even the younger brothers encourage one another by their faithful efforts, their outgoing personalities, and their zeal to learn. The ministry is bringing Jesus’ victory to people who were hopelessly defeated. And he will make our ministries victorious. That is a ministry worth preparing for!
As a self-governing student body, we serve, represent, organize, guide, correct, and encourage each other, with Christ as our strength and Christ as our example. After all, what are brothers for?
