Encore Post: We go from one activity to another, often without even beating an eye. This certainly can happen within the Divine Service. How much attention do we pay to what’s going on? Do we know why we do what we do in worship service?
Before confessing our sins as a whole congregation, we speak back and forth responsively, “I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord” and the congregation responds, “and You forgave the iniquity of my sin.” After those words, there are some important red words printed in the hymnal. They say, “Silence for reflection on God’s Word and for self-examination.”
There is a time of silence. It is a time to consider myself and yourself in light of God’s Law found in the Ten Commandments. Have I been the best father and husband I could have been for my children these past days? Probably not. I failed in my responsibility to my wife and children, breaking the 4th commandment not being a faithful to my calling as head of my household. Did I grudgingly congratulate someone who won the raffle or the lottery, when in reality wishing it was me? Yup, so I broke the 7th, 9th and 10th commandments. And oh, by the way, I broke the first commandment because I didn’t trust God to give me all that I need.
Lord, have mercy. I am a sinner. I deserve exactly what I am about to confess about myself. I deserve death. We plead for God to have mercy on us.
But God who is faithful and just forgives our sins. Thanks be to God that for Christ’s sake, God forgives our sins. We cannot add anything to make God forgive us. Christ has done it all. Thanks be to Christ!
When we confess our sins and receive His forgiveness in the words of Absolution, we are prepared to sing our Redeemer’s praises. We are prepared to receive from His bountiful goodness the forgiveness of sins purchased and won for us by our Lord Jesus by his death at the cross.
So, take a moment slow down and brush up on the Lord’s Ten Commandments in preparation for Confession and Absolution as we begin the Divine Service where God comes to serve us His gifts of forgiveness, life, salvation given to us on account of Christ, our Lord.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp Christ Lutheran Church Noblesville, Indiana
Encore Post: The data is out there. The trends are known. We know before we go about our duties. We know who is likely to remain in the church. We know who is likely to return to the church. We already know.
Will the married couple remain in the church after their wedding in our building? Will the family bring their baptized child into the Lord’s house regularly? Will the catechumens remain in the church after they’re admitted to the altar? Will the new visitors become a permanent fixture here after transfer or conversion? Will the family newly invigorated by the death of a closely related blessèd saint of the Lord lose their zeal or keep it? Will the children keep coming when the duties, passions, and hormones of adolescence drag them around wildly in their own minds?
Your pastors pray the data is more dire than reality.
In each case, it boils down to habit and patterns.
Newlyweds: what is their family background? A couple from a similar upbringing: LCMS, regularly attended as a child and adolescent, and both parents brought them to church. In the same way that similar ideas about money, number of children, and chiefly if Moms and Dads were married and remain married improve the chances of a successful marriage. Those commonalities also improve the chances that these kids will be and remain in the church.
Your pastor will coach you concerning the difficulties in your future when the odds are not stacked in your favor. Only in extremely rare circumstances will he refuse marriage. He prays that the Lord will deliver you from misfortune and strife, even the foreseeable kind.
Baptized child: what’s the deal with Mom and Dad? If they are or become regular attenders, the kids will likely follow suit. If they are not, their kids will still likely follow suit. Your pastor will often baptize a child, whose future in the church is uncertain. He prays that foreseeable apostasy does not befall your house.
Catechumens: Again, what’s the deal with Mom and Dad? Here, there’s more data readily available. Did y’all attend regularly before confirmation was on the horizon? If not, there’s a mighty high chance the catechumens will peter out quickly following confirmation.
Your pastors will desperately attempt to instill new habits in the kids. He’ll impose strict attendance standards or require seemingly endless piles of sermon reports. He’s seen parents drop children off for required church attendance, while driving off themselves. He’s grieved to know the child may be lost already. He prays he’s wrong, keeps up with his efforts, and prays the Holy Spirit defeats those odds. Rarely would he withhold confirmation.
Transfers/Converts/Those motivated by a close death: Where were you before? Are you returning to lifelong patters of attendance to the Lord’s house? Or are these attempts to develop a new pattern? Those who attended before are more likely to attend again. Those who did not, are not.
Adolescents: This group gets the most attention, the most ink spilt over them, and even individualistic ministerial attention. How often have you heard of a church with a minister of newlywed Christianization, baptismal life, catechetical instruction, or newly returned Christian life instruction? Prob’ly never. But, we’ve all seen churches with a youth minster or a youth ministry team.
Sadly, that’s also an example of the poor return on those efforts. Again, data indicates that strong youth programs don’t predict strong Christian adults from within them. Worse, when those programs look distinctively different than the churches from which they spring, they serve as an offramp directly out of the church.
Can’t we beat the odds? Yes, we can. Your pastor prays that you do. He preaches, teaches, and conducts himself towards you assuming the data is wrong in your case.
As a body of believers, we have data to help direct our efforts. Children follow the patterns established by their fathers regarding church. As we discussed before, the data is stark in this regard. If we want baptized babies in church, children in church following along and learning, catechumens attending to the Lord’s house, youth who remain in or return to church, newlyweds who attend regularly and bring their babies to the font, we must have fathers to build those patterns into their children.
Your pastors already know. We pray every day that the data is wrong in your case.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
Encore Post: “He’s a saint!” you might hear someone say. What they probably mean is that the person is very good, generous, kind or helpful. Most often when we use the term, we mean someone respected and honored by the early or medieval church for their example of holy living or strong faith. Such people called a saint in the first few centuries were witnesses to Jesus to the point of death. They were also called martyrs, witnesses.
The Bible does not use the word saint in such a narrow way. The word means, “holy one” and is used to describe God’s people, saved and made holy by his grace. St. Paul goes at great lengths to describe how those God is making holy should live. Many Lutheran pastors follow this custom and call the hearers of their sermons “saints.”
During the Middle Ages, saints who were admired for their faith went from being good examples to being venerated — worshipped really — although Catholics would object to that description. The church redefined a saint to be someone whose good deeds were more numerous than their sins and so they did not go to purgatory, but directly to heaven. (that subject is for another post!) There, it was said, they are aware of what is going on and pray for us. They are able to hear our prayers and do miracles for us — or rather ask God to perform them. The honoring of and praying to the saints became known as the cult of the saints.
Martin Luther and the reformers believed the cult of the saints had gotten out of control. They believed it was good to give thanks to God for saints, to study their lives and to immitate their faith. The Book of Hebrews says as much. (Hebrews 13:7) Yet the saints in heaven do not know what is happening on earth and they do not hear our prayers. Prayer and worship belong to God alone.
So Lutherans do not pray to saints, collect pieces of their bodies or things that belonged to them as magic objects. We do study some of their lives, consider what happened to them, learn from their sins and mistakes and immitate their faith and good works. We do this not because they are better than us, but because they are just like us. If God got them through this life by faith, he can — and will — keep us to everlasting life.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The theme is this: The King slays our enemies and saves us.
There is one basic truth that is has applied in all civilizations: The King fights for us. The Pharoahs of Egypt led the armies out on chariots to take back the Israelites. Joshua led the people around Jericho until the walls came tumbling down. The Judges of old led the armies to victories over the Midianites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and all the other OT -ites in the Scriptures.
The King fights for us. Sennacherib led Assyria to take away the Northern Tribes and Nebuchadnezzar led Babylon to exile the Southern Tribes of Israel. Alexander the Great led his troops on conquests on multiple continents. Romans Caesars led armies clear into Britain to expand the empire.
The King fights for us. This has been true even in our country because of the first President George Washington, who was a military commander first who became President later on. Even today we consider our political leader to be the Commander-in-Chief. If the King (or in our case President) does not control the army, then he does not control very much. The Executive Branch isn’t the Executive Branch, or is a government with no teeth.
What is most surprising to us this evening is that the King does not fight for us. No, King Saul is afraid. The whole army is afraid. When the leader is afraid, then the followers become afraid. When the shepherd is afraid, then the sheep become afraid. When the world around us is afraid, then we too become afraid and worry. When the church becomes afraid, then we lose our hope and our faith and our trust in God the King.
David knew about that very well. His sheep trusted him because he protected them from the lion and the bear. Like Joshua led God’s people walking around Jericho, David led his sheep out in the wilderness walking around in danger all the way. The shepherd fights for the sheep; the shepherd dies for his sheep.
And so David fights for Israel. David is anointed, but he isn’t the king yet. No, but David knows what the real problem is. David understands this basic truth: God fights for him! Physical strength and height have defied the armies of the living God, but the living God will not be defeated. That is what David knows. That is what we know too.
The King fights for us. God Himself fights for us. Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings all show us this promise and comfort. And so no, I am not going to preach the tired sermon “go slay your Goliaths” or “God will give you strength.” That works-righteousness message is not the point of the reading and it is not the point of the Bible. The point is that God fights for you.
And this is most obvious to us in Matthew 4, the temptation of Jesus. The Holy Spirit leads Jesus out into the wilderness. And the devil tempts and taunts Jesus out there in the wilderness. And there Jesus fasts for forty days just like the forty days that Goliath taunted the Israelites in our reading this evening. This Old Testament battle is just like the New Testament battle. And the God is the same God in both. And God wins both battles too!
For the King Jesus fights for us. He slays our enemy the devil and saves us from him forever. How? The same way that we ought to resist temptation: through the Word of God. When the devil assails us, use the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, to combat the evil one. And you will not win on your own power or faith, but Jesus fights for you!
Jesus fought for us when He healed the demon-possessed men. This ought to be comforting for us too. God fights for us, and He alone has the power of both devil and demons. He has won the victory and slayed our enemies. We are saved from the powers of evil and the destruction of souls in hell.
Jesus fights for you. He slayed your enemies and saved you. He forgave your sins, paying for them like a shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. He forgave your sins, like a king cancelling a debt, like a king promising you an inheritance of grace and mercy and love and peace.
This He applied to you like He did to the paralytic man. Our God is not a God who piles up sins and expects us to pay for it. No, our God is the only God who forgives sins and sets His people free. God fights for us! The Lord Jesus slays our enemies and saves us!
Jesus fights for you! He defeated death when He rose from the grave on Easter Sunday. Surely we can see how David realized that he would have to die to defeat Goliath if he did all by himself, but he knew that God fights for Him. God had mercy on David and saved him from death. And we definitely believe that Jesus knew He would have to die to defeat death, that curse of Adam, so that we can live forever. And so the shepherd laid down His life for the sheep and died to show that He alone has the power and the victory over the grave.
So I say to you this basic truth: The King Jesus has slain your enemies and saved you forever. Jesus has won a greater victory than David at Socoh, than David defeating Goliath. Jesus has won a greater victory than the temptation in the wilderness. Jesus has won for us because Jesus has fought for us. Our enemies sin, death, and the devil have no power over us. We the sheep do not need to be afraid.
For the King of Kings has gone out and fought the battles and won. The King of Kings has led the army out like all the kings of old and now we live in His glory. The King of Kings, Jesus Christ, the Lord of heaven and earth, has slain our enemies and saved us forever as His holy people.
In the holy name of Jesus. Amen.
Rev. James Peterson St. John Lutheran Church Curtis, Nebraska
Encore Post: 214 years ago, Wilhelm Löhe was the pastor of a small, rural parish in Neuendettelsau, Bavaria. He was a leader in Germany’s then new Confessionalist movement. Because of this role, he always had a strained relationship with the leaders of his church body and so was kept out of the way — or so they thought.
Löhe was a man of boundless energy, persuasive when advocating a cause and highly skilled at marshaling talent and funds to accomplish a goal. In 1842, he read Friedrich Wyneken‘s appeals for the spiritual need of German Lutherans on the American frontier and his stirring plea for pastors. Löhe published his own appeal. He arranged to meet Wyneken to publish a polished version of the missionary’s appeal, titled Die Noth der deutschen Lutheraner in Nordamerika (The Need of the German Lutherans in North America) These appeals caused donations to flow in and soon second career men to volunteer to meet the need.
But Löhe was just getting started. with his friend Johann Friedrich Wucherer, he provided a basic education to second career men who volunteered to go to America. Soon they founded a mission society, raised funds, wrote manuals, instructions and churchly books. He at first send these men and donations to the Ohio Synod’s seminary in Columbus, Ohio. When cultural and theological differences made that no longer possible, he worked with Wilhelm Sihler, pastor at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Fort Wayne, Indiana to found a “practical seminary” — an institution focused on providing pastors for the church as quickly as possible. In October 1846, this institution opened in his parsonage. This institution is now known as Concordia Theological Seminary — but that is another story!
Wilhelm Löhe, his friends and his small parish were just getting started, though. Seeing the suffering of the poor, the ill, the widowed and orphaned, he revived the office of Deaconess. He also sent men and material to the Wartburg Seminary and its church body, the Iowa Synod (now a part of the ELCA), to Australia, the German colonists of Russia and other places. In an effort to provide a Christian witness to native Americans, he organized and founded Frankenmuth and neighboring communities. His liturgies and worship books became the foundation of the Missouri Synod’s liturgy.
At the age of 63, Wilhelm Löhe died still serving as the pastor of his rural parish on January 2, 1872. He is buried where he served. His institutions still continue to this day, serving God and his church world-wide.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
Wednesday in the Week of the Third Sunday in Advent
December 20, 2023
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The theme is this: The Lord will make a house for His people to dwell in.
It’s pious to want to build a church. After 500 years of the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant carried on foot in the midst of the people, David wanted to make a temple. David wanted to build a church. In truth, David wanted God to have a house to dwell in.
It was not because David wanted to put God in a box. And it was not so that the priests could stop marching the holy things all over the desert in the Middle East. David wanted to build a church so that everybody knew exactly where God was. He wanted a house for God where all of God’s people could gather for worship.
It’s pious to want to build a church. In 1909, Immanuel Lutheran Church was built in Wells Canyon. In 1911, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church was built in Moorefield. In 1913, Ebenezer Lutheran Church was built north of Curtis. In 1927, St. John’s Lutheran Church was built in White. In 1929, Zion Lutheran Church was built in Wellfleet. Five Lutheran churches were built in 20 years. Our ancestors believed like David that God should have a house. And like Nathan says this evening, “The Lord was with them” in that task.
It’s pious to want to build a church. St. John’s was built first in 1948, and then again in 1968 and remains for us right now. Seventy-five years our church has existed in this community. God dwells here. God’s Word is taught here. God’s Sacraments are administered here. Like Nathan says, “The Lord is with us” in this place.
And what God says to Nathan and to David is worth noting. That while God’s people left Egypt, and while they wandered in the wilderness, and while they walked around Jericho, God did not live in a house. God was with them wherever they went.
And He is with us wherever we go too. God is still with us in Wells Canyon and Moorefield and Curtis and White and Wellfleet. He is with us at school and at work and at home. He will never leave us nor forsake us.
But God’s Church is not built by buildings, but in human hearts. God’s Church is not built for Him to dwell here, but God has promised to build a house to live with Him forever. We build our churches for God while we dwell here below, but the builder of heaven is God. And His home will be our home. That is where He dwells and that is where we too shall be.
For the house of God is not built of cedar. The house of God is built on God’s promises. That is why the Lord says this evening,
I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. He made a shepherd into a king. He makes farmers into Lutherans. He makes workers into Christians. Or as Jesus says it, I will make you fishers of men. The Lord calls us out of our communities and into His house. The Lord calls us away from our work and into His rest. The Lord calls us like David from the pastures to the still waters of baptism. He becomes our Shepherd, and we become His sheep.
And He promises us this: I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. Again the Lord makes this promise. I have been with you and I am with you and I will be with you. He was with us in all the other tabernacles built around this county, but even now He remains with us in our current building. This Lord who was with the people of Israel, who was with David and Nathan, has been with the people of St. John’s here in Curtis. And He is with us as we celebrate these seventy-five years of ministry. And He will continue to be with for the next seventy-five years too.
And God promises us this: I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. That name is not St. John’s or Curtis. That great name is Jesus. For the Son of David is David’s Lord. Jesus is the name we praise and bless and believe and receive. It was important for David to realize that His kingdom and His name would eventually fall and become history. Even the houses of God have come and gone. But the church in all times and places has been founded on the name of Jesus and that is what lasts forever, that is what makes the difference, and that is the kingdom that shall have no end.
What else? Rather than us building a house for God, next we hear that God will build a house for us, heaven itself. I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. Houses built by us will last for awhile, but eventually they are torn down and something new is built over the top of it. But God’s house will never be torn down. God’s house will be for His people the Church, that we will dwell with Him. That wasn’t what David was expecting, but that is what God was promising. That heaven is better than tabernacle and temple and church. Heaven will not rot or rust. God the builder has prepared a place for us where we will be disturbed no more.
For God says, Violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. I will give you rest from all your enemies. In heaven there is peace. With God there is peace. There is violence in our world and it only seems to be increasing. There is war and bloodshed and sin and rebellion. But that will all come to an end by God’s will, and God Himself will protect us forever in heaven, where no violence will ever occur. The lion will dwell with the lamb and child shall be safe by the adder’s den. And you will even be able to get along with so-and-so. For the house that God makes, there are plenty of rooms and there will be so much worship. The house that God makes cannot be attacked or destroyed. God dwells in peace and we too will dwell in His peace.
It’s pious to want to build a church. And God will continue to build us up. Built on the promises of God, St. John’s is in good hands, God’s hands. What are the promises? He brings us out of the world and into His house. He is with us wherever we go. He has given us the great name Jesus who saved us. He is preparing heaven as our house to dwell with Him. And there will be peace among us forever and ever.
I remind you of God’s words this evening, Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
In the holy name of Jesus. Amen.
Rev. James Peterson St. John Lutheran Church Curtis, Nebraska
Encore Post: Our names are important to us. They are kind of a shorthand for everything we are and have worked to build. They tell us which family we belong to and how close we are to the people who use it. At important times in our lives, our names change — when we get married, if we are appointed to an office, earn a degree or get married. Parents often take a lot of time deciding on the name to give each of their children.
In the Hebrew culture of the Bible, names meant even more, if that it possible. They were thought to predict the kind of person that the child will be. Often people would change their name when life changed greatly. Sometimes a name was given along with the reason it was chosen. Some of the most important people in God’s plan were named by God Himself.
On January 1st, the Lutheran Church traditionally celebrates the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus. God Himself gave Jesus his name. The name is a form of the name Joshua, which means God saves. (Matthew 1:27) The angel told Joseph “for he will save his people from their sins.” In one sense, we dedicate each new year in Jesus’ name. In another sense, God dedicates us in the name of Jesus.
In the circumcision of Jesus, God’s son began his suffering for our salvation. He lived a perfect life for our sake, suffered and died on the cross for our sake, rose again from the dead and ascended into Heaven for our sake. In Our baptism, God’s name, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is given to us. We are now his children and we will live with him forever. On the last day, Jesus will return for us. He truly is Jesus, because he saves us from our sin.
