April 2023 – What Does This Mean?

Behold, My Sheep, I Will Search You Out

A New Hymn!

This hymn text is based upon Ezekiel 34:11-16; Ezekiel 36:22-23, 26-28; Ezekiel 37:1-2, 7-8, 10-13; and Job 19:26-27. It’s certainly also suitable for Psalm 23 or another shepherd text. Check back for a video link in a few weeks.

I presented this hymn at the 2nd Annual Church Music Beautification Conference at Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool on April 22nd of 2023.

Ezekiel 34:11-16 is the assigned text for The 3^rd Sunday of Easter in the one-year lectionary, The Last Sunday of the Church Year in the three-year series A, and proper 19 in the three year series C. Ezekiel 36:22-28 is the assigned text for the seventh Sunday of Easter in the one-year lectionary. Ezekiel 37:1-14 is the assigned text for the second Sunday of Easter in the one-year lectionary, the fifth Sunday of Lent in the three-year series A, and Pentecost Day in the three-year series B. Job 19:23-27 is the assigned text for Easter Day in the one-year lectionary, Easter Sunrise in the three year series C, and the service of graveside committal. Psalm 23 is the assigned psalm for the third Sunday of Easter in the one-year lectionary, Easter Day in all three years of the three-year series, proper 23 in the three-year series A, and proper 11 in the three-year series B.

Behold, My Sheep, I Will Search You Out

1 Behold, My sheep, I’ll search you out,
Rescue on day of clouds;
Though through the darkness, scattered out,
From global nations, proud;
I Myself will make you lie down,
Gathering from the crowd

2 You, O My sheep, I’ll shepherd you,
On mountain heights to feed;
Good grazing land, ravines through too,
Satisfied without greed;
Strengthened, the weak and injured, bound,
Fed fully freed from need.

3 Thus says the Lord, the God of all,
My name has been profaned.
Yoked with the pagans, since the fall,
You have my anger gained.
But, in My faithfulness ‘gainst gall,
You will be unashamed.

4 Thus says the Lord, the God of all,
I will remove the stone,
Where your heart is, instead will fall,
Flesh in its place alone,
My law, this flesh will love it all,
I’ll bring you to your home.

5 Though your bones lie in valley, dry,
In your own flesh, you’ll stand;
Before My throne, in kingdom, high,
In congregation, grand;
Restored in flesh, Me in your eye,
All this by My command.

6 On the last day, your Graves, I’ll break,
People resting in faith,
By Jesus blood and for His sake,
My children, you, I make.
Thus You will know, I am the Lord,
I’ve spoken these words great.

TRUMPET BLAST; 86 86 86
Text, Tune, and Setting: Jason M. Kaspar, b. 1976;
Text: © 2023, Jason M. Kaspar;
Tune and Setting: © 2014, Jason M. Kaspar

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX
and
Mission planting pastoral team:
Epiphany Lutheran Church
Bastrop, TX

The Eighth Day

In a previous post, We talked about the significance of the sixth and seventh days, the day of preparation and the Sabbath, reinforcing the calculus of Jesus death and resurrection on the third day. The third day is also the eighth day. In Christianity, we make a big deal out of the eighth day as the day of resurrection. It’s the day of the proof of our salvation. Jesus paid for our sins through His death on the cross on Friday, the sixth day. His resurrection on the first day of the week, the eighth day, proves His victory over death and the grave.

1st Century Christians quickly began gathering together on the first day of the week. The shift from the Sabbath, seventh day to the first day, the eighth day, reflected our understanding from faith in a promise yet to be revealed to a promise of salvation delivered in Christ. The Resurrection happens on the “first day of the week.” (Matthew 28:1-6; Mark 16:1-6; Luke 24:1-7; John 20:1-18). We now call the first day of the week Sunday. That’s also the eighth day.

This less than exhaustive look at Old Testament eighth day theology reveals quite of few of these. The fall and protoevangelion (first Gospel), can be understood as eighth day events. We fall way, corrupting creation. And, God promises to restore us by the seed of the Woman. (Genesis 3)

God’s covenant with Abraham was sealed by eighth day activity too. As a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham’s offspring. Circumcision was to be performed on the eighth day. (Genesis 17:9-13) It’s prob’ly no accident that the Lord puts the sign of His promise on the eighth day. It’s as if we’re to be on the lookout for an eighth day event sometime soon.

Even the critters of the Jews are reflecting eighth day significance. The firstborn of all livestock are to be given to the Lord. Care to guess which day? Seven days with its mother, and it’s given to the Lord on the eighth day. (Exodus 22:29-30)

When Aaron and His sons or ordained for service in the tabernacle. The atonement for them and the altar is appointed for seven days. Beginning on the eighth day, they may serve in the tabernacle the offering for the sins of the people. (Exodus 29:35-37)

There are several rites within the Jewish Levitical code, which peculiar eighth day events. Leprosy was determined by two seven-day seclusions. (Leviticus 13:4-6) The cleansing of lepers revolves around the eighth day. (Leviticus 14) The feast of booths begins and ends with a sabbath convocation. The second on is called the eighth day. (Leviticus 23:36, 39)

Ezekiel prophesied in his vision of the new temple and the return of the glory of the Lord. The altar is to be erected and consecrated to the Lord. Seven days are appoint for the atonement of the altar. On the eighth day and following, the Lord will accept sacrifices for the people. (Ezekiel 43:18-27)

In the New Testament, Baptism becomes the fulfillment of the eighth day promise of circumcision. “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:11-14)

The eighth day is the day of Christianity. It’s the day of resurrection. It’s the day of new birth in Jesus. The eighth day is now and not yet. Forgiven in Christ by grace through faith given in Baptism, we await the fulfillment on the last day, the final eight day.

We surround ourselves with eight-sided figures. Our baptismal fonts are often eight sided. The quadifoils surrounding gospel moments and characters in stained glass and vestments are even eight sided comprised of four arcs and four angles. The old European coffins were eight sided with six edges, a top, and a bottom. Church columns were often eight-sided. Other architectural features in the church may also assume an octagonal catechesis. They are a constant reminder of the promise of new birth, forgiveness, restoration, and resurrection to immortal life in Christ.

Jesus was raised on the eighth day.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX
and
Mission planting pastoral team:
Epiphany Lutheran Church
Bastrop, TX

On The Third Day

Modernists and restorationists often struggle with commonly accepted matters in the Christian faith. Often, we spill ink on the bodily presence of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper or the forgiveness and faith delivered in baptismal waters by God. But, for today, let’s look at the three days in the tomb.

Ancient Jewish timekeeping works in two important ways. The first is an inclusive reckoning. There was no concept of 4.3 days in their understanding. Part of a day is a day in this view. Second, their days didn’t begin or end as ours do. Our modern, western timekeeping reckons a day from morning through evening and into the night. Theirs reckoned a day from nightfall, thought the watches of the night, the hours of the day, and ending with nightfall again. “…There was evening and there was morning, the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days.” (Genesis 1:5, 8,13, 19, 23, 31)

Jesus’s prediction of His death reinforces this idea. He speaks of the third day as movement through. Death occurs on the first day, and resurrection on the third day. He speaks of days inclusively. The death needn’t happen before the first day, nor the resurrection after the third day, even just by a few moments. That would be five days by this reckoning. “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Matthew 16:21) The inclusive view is consistent through the predictions elsewhere. (Matthew 17:22-23; 20:17-19; Luke 9:21-22; & John 2:19)

The outlier expressions “after three days” (Mark 9:31 & 10:34) and “three days and nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40) are best understood within the context of preponderance of the texts. Inclusive language prevails. So, the other three examples are likely idiomatic in some way, not literal.

Speaking of the literal, Jesus literally died on Friday. He died about the ninth hour. (Matthew 24:50; Mark 15:34-37; & Luke 23:46) In Jewish timekeeping, there are 12 equal hours of the watches of the night from nightfall to dawn and 12 equal hours of daylight from dawn to the end of the day at nightfall. The sixth hour is noon. The ninth hour would be about three p.m. by our reckoning. That’s just before the calendar switches to Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, the seventh day.

Jesus was taken off the cross and buried “when evening came” “on the day of preparation” (Matthew 27:57-62; Mark 15:42-43; Luke 23:52-54; & John 19:42). This indicates the close of the day before nightfall. The day of preparation is the day preceding the Sabbath. “On the sixth day [Friday], when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. …See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” (Exodus 16:5, 29)

We can say Jesus died on the sixth day, Friday, before nightfall with great certainty thanks to St. John. “since it was the day of preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for the Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. …But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.” (John 19:31, 33)

The seventh day, Saturday, is the day of rest and the end of the week. The Resurrection happens on the “first day of the week.” (Matthew 28:1-6; Mark 16:1-6; Luke 24:1-7; & John 20:1-18). We now call the first day of the week Sunday. The resurrection happened before dawn, in the watches of the night, on the first day of the week.

So, the bible clearly teaches us that Jesus died and was buried on Friday, before the calendar date flipped. He rose from the dead on Sunday, in wee hours before dawn, after the calendar date flipped. We received this both from the preponderance of evidence in expression and in the actual accounting of days and times. He lay in the tomb between about 26-36 hours. But, that span is exactly what He said, “on the third day.” Speaking to Jews in a Jewish manner of days and times. It was indeed nothing other than the third day as they would have understood it.

Christ is Risen!

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX
and
Mission planting pastoral team:
Epiphany Lutheran Church
Bastrop, TX

Grieving with Hope

1 Corinthians 15:17-22
Easter Vigil
April 8, 2023
Our Hope Lutheran Church

Text: If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Intro: Christ is Risen! Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who by his death has destroyed death and by his rising again opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

Tonight the church rejoices today because her Lord is risen. The gospel is never sweeter than in Easter week. But the Christian Church in heaven and earth also rejoices that her prayers are answered. Christ has risen and broken the seal of the grave forever. That gospel is all the sweeter because it is true comfort in a world without hope. When a Christian loved one dies, we grieve, but with the hope of the resurrection.

I. The gospel is more comforting than the common things told us when a loved one dies:

a. “She was a good person”
b. “He’s not suffering anymore”
c. “We’ll always remember her”
d. “Death is just a natural part of life”
e. “His accomplishments will live forever”
f. “You’ll have another life to get it right”

II. Real comfort comes in the Resurrection of Christ.

a. His cross is our cross, making us good in God’s sight.
b. His death destroys our enemies: sin, suffering, grief and death.
c. His empty tomb promises an empty grave for us.
d. We still grieve, but a grief that is comforted by hope.
e. So we gladly preach, Christ is Risen!

May God’s peace, which is greater than we can understand, set watch over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Christ is risen!

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

A New Hymn!

Behold, My Sheep, I Will Search You Out

1 Corinthians 15:17-22 Easter Vigil April 8, 2023 Our Hope Lutheran Church

1 Corinthians 15:17-22
Easter Vigil
April 8, 2023
Our Hope Lutheran Church