Ecclesiology – Page 4 – What Does This Mean?

Pentecost

Encore Post: The Feast of Pentecost is the Greek name (πεντηκοστή) for the Jewish Feast of Weeks (Shavuoth, in Hebrew שָׁבוּעֹות ). The day celebrated the harvest of the barley crop and the planting of the wheat crop in Israel. This thanksgiving day was established by God on the fiftieth day after Passover and was one of three that the Torah commanded Jews celebrate in Jerusalem if at all possible. In the days following Jesus’ ascension into heaven, the city was still crowded with Jews from around the world, who stayed after Passover to celebrate this feast as well in the Holy City.

The Christian Church remembers the day as a kind of birthday of the Church. On this day, God poured out the Holy Spirit on the whole church and not just the prophets he called to proclaim his word.

Both the Hebrew and Greek word for Spirit means “Wind.” The Holy Spirit, or Holy Wind, hovered over the chaos before God created the Heavens and the Earth. During the Exodus, the Holy Spirit appeared visibly as a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. When Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit settled into the Holy of Holies in the form of a cloud. When the Prophet Elijah fled to Mount Sinai, God sent a mighty wind, an earthquake, and a fire to get his attention. On Pentecost, the wind got the attention of the crowd and the wind and tongues of fire witnessed to the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost fulfilled prophecy in Old Testament (Joel 2:28-32), by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:11) and by Jesus (Acts 1:5). By baptizing His people with the Holy Spirit, Jesus gave them the power to witness to God’s love. He provided them with a counselor to lead and guide them. Just like the prophets of the Old Testament, every one of God’s children now can proclaim His praises to everyone.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: Matthias the Twelfth Apostle

Encore Post: After Jesus ascended into Heaven, St. Peter gathered the eleven Apostles and others. The betrayal of Jesus by Judas and his suicide left a vacancy among them. The number twelve was important. After all, there were twelve tribes of Israel. In Biblical numerology, the number stands for the whole people of God. When Jesus established the church, the number twelve came to stand for the church. They chose two men as candidates who had been with them from the very beginning and thus witnessed everything Jesus said and did — including the resurrection and ascension. They prayed and chose Matthias by lot.

We know little about Matthias. He appears only once in the Bible and that is in the first chapter of Acts. We know he was a disciple of Jesus from the time that he was baptized by John until the Ascension. He was probably one of the seventy men Jesus sent out two by two to preach the coming of God’s kingdom. All the disciples respected him enough to pick him as one of two men to take Judas’ place as an Apostle. We do not even know what happened to him later. Church tradition has stories: he went to Northern Turkey and set up the church there, or to Ethiopia or that he died in Jerusalem.

We might think that he and other little known Apostles really were not important. Yet God used them to build his church. No one is too small or unimportant in God’s eyes. He has a plan for everyone’s life and uses whatever they do to serve him and to take care of people. Even children can do important things for God, no matter how little those things seem.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: Jesus Loves the Little Children

Encore Post: In the ancient world, most children died before their 18th birthday. In fact, childhood death was common until the twentieth century. Every couple could expect to bury at least one child during their lifetime. That is why the childhood prayer was taught to generations of young people: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. If I should live another day, I pray the Lord to guide my way.”

Children and young people, therefore, were kept at an emotional distance and paid little attention. Besides, children were disruptive, especially when a rabbi was trying to teach. They do not understand abstract thought and so would look for other ways to entertain themselves and get attention. They were expected to behave, to be just like the adults with them. So, they were pushed aside so that adults could get on with “important” business. Keep them out of sight and out of mind.

Jesus made two points by bringing a child before them. First, all people are important to God, no matter how small. He loves them, cares for them. In fact, Jesus came to die for them, too. They are not the future of the church — they are the church.

Second, children trust adults to take care of them, live humbly, and assume their love. In fact, they are better Christians than adults! To be Christians, after all, means to trust God to take care of us, to deny ourselves, knowing we are cared for and dedicate our lives to the service of others. This comes naturally to them. They are not bothered when they cannot understand something adults or God tell them. They accept the truth, rely on it and build on it because they trust their parents, their teachers and God. They may not know something, but they know someone. So, ironically, if we want to grow in faith, we need to become like them and trust the God who made us, loves us, died for us, cares for us and will bring us home one day to be with him forever.

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Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: Jesus Calls His Disciples

Encore Post: Rabbis in Jesus’ day often had students — disciples — who followed them, observed everything they did, memorized every word they taught and imitated their actions. Most of the time, the students chose their teachers. Jesus turns that around when He chose his own disciples. Disciples often became rabbis themselves. When Jesus told them Peter, James and John they would “catch people,” his disciples would assume they were to train for that very occupation.

It is easy to think that Jesus just walked up the disciples with no notice and ordered them to follow him, and they did. But this is likely not the case with any of them. Simon, Andrew, James, and John already knew Jesus when he called them. Jesus had made Capernaum, the headquarters of their fishing business, his hometown. Before this event, Jesus had taught in their synagogue, healed Peter’s mother-in-law, cast out demons, healed a paralytic, the Roman centurion’s daughter and many others. His brother Andrew and others were disciples of John the Baptist, who identified Jesus as the Lamb of God. Matthew was the toll collector at Capernaum before Jesus called him, but likely heard a lot about him.

Jesus would select twelve disciples to be his closest students. The number twelve reminded Jews of the twelve tribes of Israel. By doing this, he signaled he was re-establishing God’s chosen people. These twelve would eventually be commissioned as his apostles, on whom Jesus would build his church. These would become witnesses to his resurrection and take the gospel to the ends of the Roman world. All but two would die as martyrs — Judas, who betrayed him and John, who lived a long life and whose own disciples would pass the faith on to new generations.

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Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: Jonah and the Unforgivable

Encore Post: Nineveh was the ancient capital of the Assyrian Empire, on the Tigris River in what is now modern Iraq. Our story takes place during the years when its power was growing and several events caused the people to focus on the service of their gods. About a century after the events of the Book of Jonah, The Assyrians invaded Israel, carried off all the people of the Northern Kingdom into exile.

Jonah is not a typical prophet. He came from a small town near Nazareth and hated the people of Nineveh for their legendary cruelty. Rather than take part in God’s plan to rescue the residents of the city from their sinful ways, he would rather go to the ends of the earth — literally. Tarshish was in Spain, which was the western edge of the known world at that time. As pagan sailors work to save his life, he seems unconcerned. When the fish swallows him, he comes to his senses and turns to God. Yet even then, he only preaches to Nineveh because God commands it. He is even angry with God when the people repent and God spares them.

Before we criticize Jonah too much, consider how you’d react if God sent you to preach to people that you have no use for. Imagine being called to preach to members of murderous gangs, to Muslim terrorists or even to those who rape or beat up children or women. It’s hard to have any sympathy for them, isn’t it?

Yet that is what we are called to do. American Lutheran pastor Henry Gerecke had volunteered as a chaplain in World War II. He served as a chaplain in an army unit and visited the Dachau death camp. When the Army asked him to be the chaplain for the Nazis on death row during the Nuremberg war crime trials, he volunteered. How do you minister to monsters? He approached the eleven Nazi leaders that conducted the holocaust through their childhood faith. He did not gloss over their crimes. When they asked to be communed, he refused unless they truly repented and confessed faith in Jesus. It is not a surprise that seven did not. Yet four did. He prayed a childhood prayer with one as the Nazi went to the gallows.

We must never forget that we, too, are sinners and unworthy of God’s mercy. Yet God, in his love, sent Jesus to see and to save the lost — both respectable people and the monsters, too. He calls on us to rejoice, for he has found his lost sheep and brought them all home.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emertitus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

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Happy birthday, Lutheran Church!

Encore Post: Most people think of October 31st, 1517 as the date of the Lutheran Church. However, Martin Luther and most Lutheran historians disagree. On the day that Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses, he was very much a Catholic. In fact, Luther on this day was upset that people did not have to suffer enough for their sins, and were being let off the hook way too easily. You could say he was more Catholic than the Pope. Considering the nature of Pope Leo X, he was.

On the first Reformation day, the Reformation was just beginning. We only first begin to recognize Luther’s complete theology in his writings in 1520. And it really wasn’t until 1529 that the reformers and their princes thought of the Lutheran tradition as a separate faith.

Emperor Charles V had many problems in 1529. The Turkish Empire of Suleiman the Great had invaded Austria and laid siege to Vienna. France and the Pope were constantly challenging his authority in southern Europe. He badly wanted to unify his German territories under Roman Catholic control. So he called all the territories together at Augsburg for a meeting of the Holy Roman Empire.

Elector John of Saxony, Luther’s Prince, commissioned Luther and his friends to create a unified statement of the disputes between the Pope and the Lutheran territories. The result was a document called the Augsburg confession. All the Lutheran princes who attended the diet of Augsburg sign the document as their own faith.

On June 25th 1530, the Augsburg confession was presented to Charles V by the Lutheran princes. To this day, June 25th is known as the birthday of the Lutheran Church.

As Time passed, the Augsburg Confession gained acceptance by Lutheran territories and theologians. It became the standard for what we believe and confess and remained so. Today, every Lutheran Pastor pledges to teach according to the Augsburg Confession and the other documents in the Book of Concord of 1580.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Half Time in the Church Year

Encore Post: As a liturgical church, the Lutheran Church organizes its worship life around a calendar of themes, readings from Scripture, worship services, practices, symbols and prayers known as the church year. It shares much of this organization with other liturgical churches and even some non-liturgical faith traditions.

The most general division in the Church Year is the semester. Tradition divides the church calendar into two parts. The first begins with the first Sunday of Advent and ends with the Day of Pentecost. It is known by several names. Most often it is called either the Festival Season or the Semester of our Lord. During this half-year, the church focuses on the life and earthly ministry of Jesus.

After the Day of Pentecost, the second half of the year, known as the Semester of the Church begins. It is also called Ordinary Time, the Season of Pentecost or the Season of Trinity. The focus is on how Christians should live life in this fallen world. Some of the pieces of the liturgy change at about week ten in the season of Pentecost and then again after the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. The list of readings, known as the lectionary, changes from a list geared to the place of the reading in the season (nth Sunday in Lent, etc.) to its position on the secular calendars. These sets of readings are called Proper 1, Proper 2, Proper 3, etc. this is to keep the readings on the same Sunday, more or less, each year.

What this means is that a bit of variety is always a part of our worship, even in its most traditional forms. As we receive God’s gifts, we hear most of the Scripture read to us. At the same time, we study and pray in unity with the church in every time and place.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

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The Harvest is Plentiful

Encore Post: Our Lord Jesus Christ liked to use agricultural imagery when teaching about the Kingdom of God. On one such occasion he talked about the sower recklessly sowing his seed. Sowing seed anticipates having a harvest.

In the Midwest United States, corn is finally being planted after a long and grueling winter. The farmers are working hard to prepare the ground for the seed hoping for a bountiful harvest. They fertilize and treat the ground to make the seed bed as fertile as possible.

Likewise the seminaries of Ft. Wayne and St. Louis have been cultivating not the ground but men to serve as pastors. They have worked hard to send these men into the the Lord’s fields to plant the seed of our Lord’s Gospel. Soon they will be planted in their first calls working in the Lord’s fields of their respective congregations. What a joyful time!

Jesus tells His disciples in Matthew 9:37-38, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefor pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest.” Our Lord anticipates a great harvest not of grain but of souls. But how can there be a harvest if no one hears the Gospel?

It is nothing short of astonishing, at least in my mind, that just as soon as Jesus tells his disciples to pray for more workers he answers his own plea. For in Matthew 10 Jesus answers the prayer. He sends his disciples out, giving them authority but also to preach the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This vocation is serious business. Looking at the end of the Gospel Jesus again gives authority to his disciples, also giving the mandate to baptize and teach the nations all that He taught them.

And these men being called to work in the harvest fields now have the same mandate, to baptize and to teach in their respective congregations. They are to preach Law and Gospel, that by their preaching faith may be created. They are to sow Jesus’ Gospel, to plant that seed. All Pastors are called to be workers in the field. Yet it is the Lord who gives the growth. It He who produces a harvest.

As the Franzmann hymn says in the final stanza, “The Harvest Lord Who gave the sower seed to sow will watch and tend His planted Word.” May we always trust in the Lord and promise that His word never returns void.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, Indiana

Church Word #6: Lutheran

Encore Post: “Why do you call yourself Lutheran? I prefer to call myself a Christian,” you will hear from time to time. In fact, Martin Luther agreed with them. Five Hundred years ago, he wrote:

I ask that my name be left silent and people not call themselves Lutheran, but rather Christians. Who is Luther? The doctrine is not mine. I have been crucified for no one. St. Paul in 1 Cor. 3:4-5 would not suffer that the Christians should call themselves of Paul or of Peter, but Christian. How should I, a poor stinking bag of worms, become so that the children of Christ are named with my unholy name? It should not be dear friends. Let us extinguish all factious names and be called Christians whose doctrine we have.
Admonition Against Insurrection (1522)

In fact, the earliest Lutherans did not use the name for themselves — they preferred to be called “Evangelicals.” It was the reformer’s chief opponent, Johannes Eck, who coined the term “Lutheran” over five hundred years ago this month at the Leipzig Disputation. As you might expect, it was not a complement! Eck meant to imply that Lutherans were not catholic, but a heresy like the ancient Gnostics or Arians. In fact, Martin Luther and his allies spent the next few decades arguing the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith for Christ’s sake alone is the ancient teaching of the church from the very beginning.

So, how did Lutherans end up waving the white flag and embrace the name? Well, probably because just about every other name for them was adopted by others. The Reformed tradition also liked the words “Evangelical” and “Protestant.” So soon the two became easily confused. When the Kaiser of Prussia forced the two traditions to merge and called the resulting church “Evangelical,” Lutherans became insistent on using both: Evangelical Lutheran. There is also a sense of defiance when a group under fire adopts the term meant to deride them. It is how Americans and Yankees ended up called by those names.

These days, Lutherans use the term with pride for the doctrine it stands for. Lutherans believe, teach and confess those teachings spelled out in the Book of Concord, Especially that of the saving Gospel of salvation by grace through faith. It also is truth in advertising. It is just a wee bit deceptive, after all, to call yourself just the “X Community Church” or a bit arrogant to call yourself “The Christian Church.” So we stand with Luther, a sinner just like he was, beggars receiving salvation as a free gift of God’s love.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

To Blog Post Series | C. F. W. Walther, “Concerning the Name Lutheran”

One Loaf, One Body

Encore Post: For many Christians, Holy Communion is a very personal thing. Even those who think of it as a symbol and not a sacrament cherish it. It has a way of strengthening the faith they have in Jesus. So it comes as surprise to many that the Lord’s Supper has a way of doing the same thing between Christians. St. Paul says “because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body.” (1 Corinthians 10:17) When we eat The bread and drink the cup, we proclaim together his death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11:26) so, when we commune together, we are confessing that we share the same faith as well as receive the benefits of the sacrament.

This is why Confessional Lutherans practice Closed Communion. All those that share the sacrament with us are proclaiming that what we teach is what they believe. Since non-Lutherans may not believe this, we do not want them to be saying something they do not believe. It is also why we do not commune at churches whose teachings we do not believe. In addition, if a communicant does not believe they receive Christ’s body and blood with the bread and wine of the sacrament, they may not examine themselves before receiving it. In love, we ask them not to put themselves in danger of sinning against Christ when they receive it.

Because we do not want this divide to remain, we take every opportunity to study God’s word with them on subjects on which we disagree.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

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