Huh?

 In Morning Prayer today, we read the following words:

. . . if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules . . .

~ 1 Kings 9:4

Huh?

How could God say such things of David? Doesn't He remember Bathsheba, the adultery, how David tried to cover it up, and then finally murdered her husband?

Well, no, actually, He doesn't remember! David was forgiven. That means those sins of his were separated from him as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). Now, when the Lord looked at David, He did not see an awful sinner - He saw a forgiven son.

And that is how He looks at you, too! Your sin, your unworthiness, your shame, your guilt, all that would separate you from your heavenly Father has been put on Christ and taken away from you. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). With the forgiveness of sins, that is all gone. 

Pretty awesome, huh?  :-)

Just a Thought . . .

Are we so afraid of death that we are now afraid of life?

Jesus died and rose again not just to give us life later, but life now.

Set free from the fear of death, we can now live.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

~ John 10:10b

I am the Lord

I've been thinking about that phrase this week, appearing as it does multiple times in the Old Testament reading from Leviticus that will be read on Sunday. I am the Lord. How do you hear those words?

I am the Lord = I am sovereign, almighty, so do as I say!

or

I am the Lord = I am the one who brought you out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and am leading you to the promised land.

Big difference there! Law and Gospel. And I think mostly we hear those words the first way, rather than the second. But I think they mean the second.

So that's in the sermon for Sunday. Make sure you come and listen! :-) Or if you cannot, listen later online here or here.

Difficult Forgiveness

I just want people to do what they say they are going to do. Make a promise, keep it. Make a commitment, do it. Why is that so hard? Is that such an unreasonable expectation?

I spent hours on the phone today trying to get people to just do their jobs and honor their commitments. It makes me frustrated and angry and want to take vengeance! Just do what you say you are going to do!

So I got to thinking . . . about forgiveness. And it seems to me that forgiveness in the abstract is easy; but forgiveness for specific things is hard. Like, doing what you say you're going to do and keeping your commitments. Have I failed at this? I'm sure I have. So . . . Matthew 18 . . . the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant . . . he's forgiven a huge debt, but won't forgive his fellow servant who owes him a small debt. See me in that man? Yep. How many commitments, promises, have I not kept? And yet our Lord has forgiven me. Now I grow angry and frustrated and want vengeance on my neighbor who has done the same as I, yet on a smaller scale?

Let me quote St. Paul here: Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:24-25a)

Lord, help me do better.

Wait for the Lord

If you've ever read through the psalms, you've heard the phrase "wait for the Lord." It's in a couple other places in the Old Testament, but mostly in the Psalms. What does it mean? Is it kind of a generic phrase, to wait for the Lord to act, to answer whatever it is you prayed for? Or is it more specific than that, referring to something special . . . like, wait for the Lord who is coming. Wait for the Lord who was promised to you. Wait for the Lord to fulfill His promise of a Saviour. Wait for Jesus. 

It seems to fit. The very first Christian creed was "Jesus is Lord." And did you know the phrase "wait for the Lord" is not in the New Testament? Hmmm. Maybe because, as the angels told the shepherds, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord." Or in other words, the wait is over - Joy to the World, the Lord is come! No more waiting . . .

Luke 24:44 - Then [Jesus] said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

Twas the Week Before Christmas . . .

One week until Christmas. Now, things calm down a bit for me! Is that backwards? I don't know. Yes, I still have Christmas shopping to do, but I don't worry about that too much. Most of the extra stuff I have to do is now done: annual report, annual meeting, open house, newsletter, cards, decorating, bulletins . . .  From Thanksgiving through the first half of Advent it is quite hectic. But now, things slow down and I really enjoy this part of Advent. A few sermons to write, but mostly, for me the stress is now off. Now, time to enjoy. :-)

A couple of other comments . . .

My prayer list is getting rather long! It always varies in size as people are added and removed, but it seems as if these days there is an unusual amount of people with troubles to pray for. I am glad to do so, but my heart breaks for them.

And two verses that jumped out at me this morning in Morning Prayer, both from Isaiah:

The fear of the Lord is Zion treasure. (Isaiah 33:6b)

For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king; he will save us. (Isaiah 33:22)

That first one is just plain cool. But that second one, think about it. We usually connect judge and lawgiving with condemnation, but here Isaiah is connecting them with saving. Hmmm . . .

Good Words

You are my servant,
I have chosen you and not cast you off;
fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

                                                           ~ Isaiah 41:9b-10

The Day Before . . .

Our congregation is having a joint Divine Service with Immanuel Lutheran Church in Alexandria this coming Sunday, so I do not believe I will be preaching. Nevertheless, I had some thoughts about this Sunday's pericope, the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). What do you think?

What do you think the three servants were doing the day before the master called them and gave them those talents? Going about their business, doing their work, all the regular things of life, right?

But the master interrupted all that with His gift. A divine interruption of their lives. Were the servants glad to be so interrupted? I don't know about you, but I usually don't like interruptions!

Well, the first two servants did what the master had gifted them to do. Didn't they have to stop what they were doing before, their regular life and work, to do something new and different? But, apparently, they saw the gift as an opportunity, and when the master returned, were glad to tell him the new things that they had done.

It was the third servant who did not want to be interrupted - and he let the master know it! He did not see what he had been given as a gift, but as a burden and an obligation. So he didn't do what his master had gifted him to do, but continued doing the old.

What is God gifting you with? How is He interrupting your life with something new and different, in order to bless you? Maybe it doesn't seem like a gift but more like an obligation. Are you resisting? Are you missing out on blessing because you aren't receiving what He's giving as a gift and with joy?

I think there's some good preaching stuff here. Maybe I'll get to use this in three years when the reading comes back again . . .

Old Testament "Christians"

A thought spurred from my reading the other day . . .

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:1-4).

“All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.” 

What does Paul mean by those statements? That all the Israelites ate and drank the same food and drink in the wilderness? Isn’t that kind of an obvious thing to say? 

But perhaps what Paul is saying is this: 

“All ate the same spiritual food [as us], and all drank the same spiritual drink [as us].”

This would fit the context of the next verse, then, which speaks of Christ. And Paul is making an important theological statement: that Old Testament Israel received Christ in His promises just as the Christians of Corinth. 

Maybe that’s obvious to you, but how important to know this: that Christ is present in His promises; that we receive Christ in His promises, wherever, whenever you live. Old Israel or New Israel, where the Word and promises of Christ are proclaimed and given, there He is given and there is the Church. 

So yes, the believers in the Old Testament were “Christians.”

Christmas Eve Fail

Hazard #117 when you do not own your own church building and have to remember to bring everything you need with you:

Forgetting the candles for the candlelight service.

And yes, remembered when there was no longer enough time to return home and get them. :-(  But the service went well anyway, because the Light of the World was present and proclaimed in His Word.

And a good number of visitors this year! Not local, unfortunately, but from out of town. But nice to have them with us. And today, the festival Divine Service. It will be a good day.  :-)

O King of the Nations

The Great "O" Antiphons of Advent are historic liturgical passages used the final seven days of the Advent season, dating back to probably around the 10th century. There were a number of these written, but finally seven coalesced in use and became the tradition.

I mention all this because today's seemed particularly apt in the midst of the political campaign season and the eve of the primaries that will begin early next year. It read:

O King of the nations, the ruler they long for, the cornerstone uniting all people, Come and save us all, whom You formed out of clay.

Yes, He is the ruler we long for, and the one who can unite all people.

It also reminds me of Psalm 146:

Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God (vs. 3, 5).

That hope is fulfilled for us and the ruler we long for come in the birth of Jesus. Yes, a cause for great rejoicing . . . as well as faith and hope, no matter who is elected.  :-)

You Can't Know the Father Without Knowing the Son

For those who still think all religions worship the same God . . .

No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

~ 1 John 2:23

Moses and Ephesians

Well, I'm back from a great vacation. I'll post about that soon with some pictures, but for now, just something I noticed from Morning Prayer today . . .

Moses' life can be broken down into three 40 years segments:
From birth to 40 years old in Egypt.
Then 40 years a shepherd in Midian.
Then 40 years wandering with Israel in the wilderness to the border of the Promised Land.

Now, this isn't perfect - it doesn't account for however long it took for Pharaoh to agree to let Israel go and the time it took them to get to the border of the Promised Land the first time, but still, it seems pretty interesting to me!

But maybe I'm just weird . . .  :-)

And then also we read this from Ephesians (4:17-20a) this morning:

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—

Sounds a lot like modern day unbelievers. And then we read from Gregory the Great who said:

. . . refuse to put wicked fables before the clearest truth, and what you may happen to read or hear contrary to the rule of the catholic and apostolic creed, judge it altogether deadly and diabolical.  . . .  Indeed, they put on a cloak of piety and chastity, but under this deceit they conceal the filthiness of their acts . . .

What are the wicked fables we so hear today? Untruths, half-truths, that many consider truth? And how often it has to do with two things: money and sensuality. Monsters those two can be. Had another recently leave the Confession of the truth for this. It always saddens me. Not just the leaving, but the blindness, thinking the truth isn't changing. Really?

Marriage

So, the Supremes have ruled. The word "marriage" no longer means what it used to. People of the same sex can now "marry." I am not surprised at this ruling. Disappointed, but not surprised. And it will not stop with this ruling. There will be further expansions and re-definitions of the word "marriage" in the future. Count on it.

So here's my question: now that the state has taken the word "marriage" and made it something it never was before, what is our response? We can cry and pout, but that never does any good. We can insist our our own definition of marriage, as opposed to the state definition, but I think that too will not do any good. Perhaps we need to separate the church's definition of marriage from the state's - to make a consistent verbal distinction between civil secular marriage and biblical marriage, so that it is always front and center that something is amiss.

Will faithful pastors be able to stay in the marriage business? Probably not. It will be different in different states. In New York (where I was previously), anyone "ordained" could perform a wedding and sign a marriage license. And they didn't really check - they just took your word for it. In Virginia, you have to prove that you are ordained, submit your credentials, a letter from your ecclesiastical supervisor, and then take an oath at the court that you will not do anything against the state's law. Currently, the state has not said that clergy have to marry anyone, but I can see the day coming. And once it does, I will be out.

What I would like also to see is a yearly march like the March for Life. There was one this year, a March for Marriage (or something similarly worded), but I didn't know about it until after the fact. I will look for it next year, and I hope they publicize it more and more and make it as big an event. I do not think we should capitulate to this redefinition, but make it an issue.

Another sad day for the truth.

Some Good Luther

More from Luther in his "Great Galatians:"

"But the Law is good, righteous, and holy." Very well! But when we are involved in a discussion of justification, there is no room for speaking about the Law.  . . .  This Bridegroom, Christ, must be alone with His bride in His private chamber, and all the family and household must be shunted away. But later on, when the Bridegroom opens the door and comes out, then let the servants return to take care of them and serve them food and drink. Then let works and love begin.

~ Luther's Works, Vol. 26, p 137-38.

Rome v. Luther Today

A day or so ago I listen to Cardinal Timothy Dolan's sermon from this past Sunday. He used the reading from Exodus 20 as his text - the Ten Commandments. If you want to listen to it, click here. But let me just briefly tell you what he said: Law. All law. Nothing but law. It was "happy law" to be sure! He made it sound really good and that yup, you can do it!

Compare that to this following reading from Luther, based upon what Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief."

Luther: Ponder on this text and diligently arm yourself so that you will be prudent at all times - not only if your conscience is clear (apart from the struggle with your conscience), but also and particularly, when you have to contend with death and you are confronted with the greatest perils and dangers. This is when your conscience will be reminding you of the sins you have committed and it will be in a state of horror. Satan will appear before you as a mighty power and his intention will be to overwhelm you with the great burden of your sins flooding into your mind like a huge deluge. Satan will try to scare you away from Christ and will also try to chase you away from Him so that you will end up in despair. I say: "Remember that Christ did not offer Himself up for invented or exaggerated sins but for real sins - not for small insignificant sins but for great and coarse sins, and not just for a couple of sins here and there, but for all the sins of the world, not for sins that have been overcome and eliminated, but for scarlet and powerful sins that have still not been dispensed with."

Quite a difference!

Did Noah Eat Bacon?

So I was thinking the other day . . . when reading the story of Noah in Genesis, after the flood when Noah and all the animals get off the ark, God says to Noah: "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything" (Genesis 9:3). So while a distinction was made between clean and unclean animals when Noah got into the ark, no such distinction is made here when giving Noah meat to eat as food. It is only then much later - when God establishes Israel as a nation and gives them the Tabernacle as they live amidst people with false gods and false worship - is the prohibition against eating some kinds of meats established. Now, we know that when Jesus came all of these civil and ceremonial laws were fulfilled and no longer in force - but doesn't this give extra foundation for this? That (apparently? possibly?) all the people of God between Noah and when the people of Israel came up out of Egypt ate anything and everything? Including bacon? Hmmm . . .

What are the Lutheran Confessions?

"Confessions are Scripture digested, assimilated, and beating in the life pulses of the Church.  . . .  Confessions are the under-framework of the Church -- the spars and the ribs of the ship, resting upon and extending from the centre of strength, the Word, to give protection to any point in the circumference, the Church, where there may be weakness and consequent possibility of wreck. Confessions are the rails; and, let us understand well, not the roadbed or the solid rock, on which the ecclesiastical trains run. The bed is Scripture and the rock is Christ, and they determine the direction; but the rails are of human workmanship, condensing the roadbed to an effective point, and giving guidance, protection and impetus to the moving trains above."

Theodore Schmauk, 

The Confessional Principle and The Confessions of the Lutheran Church, 

p. 9, 12.

Prescient

Hence, while the tyranny of Rome is the supreme authority of the Church over conscience, the tyranny of liberal Protestantism is the supreme authority of every man's conscience over the Scripture and the Church. Both positions are extreme and sceptical [sic]. That of Rome distrusts the Truth in its power over the individual conscience, while that of liberal Protestantism suspects the Truth of Scripture and the Church, and does not believe that there is one objective and stable centre of truth revealed from above in which the consciences of all perfect men can believe and unite. As against the scepticism [sic] of the isolated, thinking Protestant, Rome is almost sure to win in the end, for having tried every position of solitary speculation, the mind, exhausted and unwilling to abide all alone, will yield to the fundamental craving for authority, and fall back helplessly into the strong arms that seem to offer it certainty in a guaranteed and absolute sense. The end of Protestantism without the Word of God as the one common and absolute authority is either skepticism or Romanism. 

~ Theodore Schmauk, 1911 [emphasis mine]

A Calvinistic View of Prayer?

Have you ever heard someone say: "Why pray? God doesn't change, so we can't change His mind, so why pray for things? God already knows what He's going to do."

Bummer. Wonder why people don't pray more?

But it seems to me this is kind of a "calvinistic" way of looking at prayer in that it is quite like the doctrine of double predestination: God elected some to salvation and some to damnation. There's nothing you can do about it.

The problem with both of these things is that they begin with God in eternity. They start with the hidden God that we do not know and can only speculate about. And that's always going to lead us down the wrong path and into wrong and destructive teaching, as shown above.

The Lutheran way of things is to start with God as He has revealed Himself to us. We do not start by trying to figure out God in eternity, but with God in His Word, God as He has given Himself to us, God in Christ Jesus. And with that starting point, we find quite a different picture of God! For example, Moses prays for the people of Israel. A LOT. They're constantly grumbling and complaining against Moses and against God. But Moses prays for them and we read: "And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people" (Exodus 32:14).

How do we understand this? If we start with the calvinistic precondition, we will say: Well, God knew He wouldn't do it - He just wanted Moses to pray. Really? How about instead: Moses' prayer made a difference! But, how can an unchangeable God change His mind? I don't know. He hasn't told us that. But how He has revealed Himself to us is as a God who listens to and answers our prayers, and that our prayers make a difference. So I will pray!

Jesus prays, too. If it is pointless to pray, why does Jesus do so? Or how about the story in Mark 9 when Jesus comes down from His transfiguration and there is a demon the disciples could not drive out. What does Jesus say? When the disciples ask Him afterward: "Why could we not cast it out?" He said to them, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer" (Mark 9:28-29). Or how about the passage in James (5:16-18) which reads:

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

So let's stop the "crypto-calvinistic" view of prayer that has crept in among us, and stick to the Lutheran view. This is how God has revealed Himself to us. I will not try to figure out how it can be so, but will trust and believe . . . and pray.