Marriage and Family – What Does This Mean?

Vocations of the Everyday Grind

Encore Post: Changing the diaper, taking out the garbage, answering the phone call. Some events during our days are grinds. Getting the coffee going, putting breakfast plates together. They don’t sound like much but if you are baptized child of God, you are doing a good work for your closest neighbors for you are united to Christ Jesus by the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.

That is a great comfort! And it ought to be because more often than not, the every day grind is tough enough. But God uses the “small things” in our daily lives and provides through them the occasion and opportunity to do good works. And these good works are not something that we chase after, no God has put us into various vocations. I am a father, so I go to work to provide for my wife and children. That is my calling as a father.

In Luther’s day, daily vocations such as being a mother and father or a worker were thought of as to be inferior to the vocation of priest because the mother or father was a secular vocation whereas the priest had a religious calling. Nothing could be further from the truth! Luther in his Treatise on Good Works, makes sure that the reader sees from Scripture again and again that whatever is done in faith, is pleasing in God’s sight.

It is easy to get discouraged though because some people no longer know what their vocation is. The kids have moved out. Some people are in a nursing home wondering when the Lord will call them home. I get the privilege as a pastor to visit them. They ask the question, “Why am I still here?” I usually respond, “God has given you the vocation to receive these wonderful gifts that Jesus has won for you and your salvation. And by you being hear I get to serve you. And that brings me joy. So thank you for living in out this God-pleasing vocation.”

Our daily lives may seem small and perhaps arduous at times, but when we are connected to Christ by faith, whatever we do is pleasing in the sight of our heavenly Father.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, Indiana

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Your Pastors Already Know

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

Sunday School: Jesus Loves the Little Children

Encore Post: In the ancient world, the majority of 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.

Blog Post Series

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

Sunday School: Mary and the Angel

Encore Post: In the small town of Nazareth, not far from the Sea of Galilee, the Angel Gabriel appeared a second time. He visited a young girl, likely about twelve to fourteen years old. Mary of Nazareth was preparing for her marriage. Her parents and Joseph’s parents had likely arranged their wedding years before.

Like all the Jewish families in the area, her ancestors had settled there when God’s people won their independence from the Greek rulers of Syria about one hundred and fifty years before. They were from David’s town of Bethlehem, not far from Jerusalem and descended from the king. She was related to Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah, to whom Gabriel had appeared just six months earlier.

Just as startled as Zechariah, Mary responded very differently. The elderly priest had doubted God’s word, sent by his messenger. If anything, the message brought to her was even harder to believe. She was a virgin and she knew what everyone knew — it takes a man and a woman to conceive a baby. However, she did not doubt the word of God’s Angel. She didn’t even ask why. She asked how. When told the Holy Spirit would cast his shadow over her, as he did in the beginning over the face of the deep, she consented. “I am God’s slave,” she said, “Let it be.” And it was. The eternal Son, God of God, Light of Light, became a baby in her womb.

She would treasure this visit it her heart. She would need that strength. Difficult days lay ahead. Her Joseph would doubt. Wouldn’t you if your beloved said, “Good news! We will have a baby. No, obviously he’s not yours, he’s God’s son. An angel told me!” He would plan to divorce her until an angel appeared to him. A Jewish man named Joseph knew better than to doubt dreams!

Yet it meant the first century equivalent of a shot-gun wedding, whispered gossip in the shadows, a quick visit to cousin Elizabeth until everything calmed down and long, uncomfortable walks while very pregnant. Yet God’s word was enough for her. She was blessed to bear and raise God’s Son. He would suffer and die while she watched. Yet she knew what his name meant: he would save his people from their sins. She would indeed be blessed — and honored by God’s people as the Mother of God himself.

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One Flesh in Two Persons: Marriage

Encore Post: For six days, God had been creating the world. He spoke and light appeared, earth took form, land appeared out of the great sea. The sun, moon and stars shown in the sky. Plants grew on the ground, fish swam in the sea and animals roamed the earth.

Now Father, Son and Holy Spirit conferred and said let us make man just like us. And so he made us – male and female. He planted a garden, came down and formed Adam (His name means “ground, soil” in Hebrew) from the soil and breathed life into him. But something still was not quite right. Adam was alone.

So God brought all the animals to him. He named them all one by one. While they were good, something just was not right. Dogs and Cats just didn’t do it. So God made woman from his own bones. Now at last man was just like God – two persons in one flesh. Adam called her woman — she-man and named her Eve–life, because she would be the mother of all people. God’s creation was finally complete. He had made marriage and the family. This was very good.

This perfect image of God, holy like him and the closest human beings have to understanding the nature of God, was ruined by sin and its consequences. When people make themselves the center of the universe there is no room for a god or another. Now sin tempts us to look everywhere for pleasure than in the very good gifts God has given to us. As we turn our hearts from our beloved and the Beloved, they grown cold and unfeeling.

This is why God condemns adultery, pornography, same sex relationships and acts, pre-marital sex, sexual assault, rape and all other seeking of desire outside of the love of one man and woman, united in marriage for a lifetime. It divides what God himself has joined together and marrs the image he placed in us. It destroys the image of the marriage of Christ to the Church and obscures the work he has done for us.

But when we were lost, unfaithful to God our husband, Jesus came and sought us to be his holy bride, with his own blood he bought us and for our life he died. When he found us, he washed us, cleansed us in baptism, so that he could present us as his radiant bride. One the last day, he will come for us, and bring us to the wedding and the marriage reception that lasts forever.

Jesus’s First Miracle: Water and Wine

Encore Post: “Our Lord blessed and honored marriage with his presence and first miracle at Cana in Galilee” begins the traditional wedding service in most Lutheran churches. Weddings are very joyful occasions. Everyone dresses their best. There is music, dancing and feasting. The bride and groom are excited because their life together will soon begin. Weddings today are very different today than they were during the earthly life of Jesus.

Weddings were seven days long, most of it eating, drinking, dancing, reciting wedding poetry and eating. On the first day, the bride and her wedding party would walk from her house to her groom’s house. They would say their vows in his house or under a tent that stood for the house. Then the party would begin.

Hospitality was very important at weddings. The groom would have to be sure there was plenty to eat and drink. At the wedding of Cana, Jesus saved the couple a lot of embarrassment. More than that, He showed His mother and His disciples that He was God and cared for people in their everyday lives. The church believes the fact that Jesus attended this wedding and blessed all marriages by making wine for the celebration.

Marriage is important, not only as the foundation of the family, but as a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church. A beloved hymn sums it up well: “from heaven he came and sought her, to be his holy bride. With his own blood he bought her and for her life he died.” Marriage pictures for Christ’s self-sacrificing love for us and our response to his love. For this reason, what God has put together, let no one separate.