[Thirteenth in a series of posts on last things] Encore Post: Even with the effects of the fall, the world can be very sweet, pleasant, and beautiful. When God finished creating the world, he stood back, looked it all over and said, “very good.” (Genesis 1:31) Even after sin entered the world, bringing with it death, sorrow, grief, pain, disease, and disaster, the hand of the creator is present everywhere. Breathtaking sunrises and sunsets, seashore views and gentle, warm breezes, mountain valleys and peaks all speak to us of his majesty. Even cloud patterns before a storm cause us to admire his majesty. There is the pleasure of the presence of loved ones, holding your child or grandchild for the first time.
Life is very precious to us. It absorbs us in planning, working towards goals, saving, dreaming, and enjoying the many gifts God gives to us. We deal with it as best as we can with the tragedies of life, but there are long stretches of time when we think it will never end. We forget that this world—and, more to the point, our world — is passing away. We go to sleep spiritually. The work that God calls us to do, especially to witness to the Good News of salvation in Jesus, doesn’t seem quite so important. When sports tournaments are held on Sunday, we skip worship to watch our kids compete. We put caring for the poor, contributing to the work of the church with our resources and time second; we put off uncomfortable conversations with loved ones who wander from the faith.
Yet it is very much at times like these that our Lord will return for us. He will do so suddenly, without warning, the way that the flood came in the day of Noah, the way the sudden attacks on Pearl Harbor Day and 9/11 came. It may be at the end of time or at the end of our time. It is why Jesus calls on us to stay awake! We remember he came at the fullness of time, lived the perfect life for us, suffered and died for us, rose again for us, and ascended to prepare a place for us. And so we set the watch, day and night, knowing that he is coming for us. In the meantime, we work for the day, and the time will come when we can no longer work. All the while, we pray: Come, Lord Jesus, come!
Encore Post: Beautiful young women in long, flowing white gowns, with big, downy wings, with a glowing, gold halo. A chubby, winged baby. The spirits of deceased Christians, also bearing wings and a halo, carrying a harp, are floating on clouds. Images like these fill our pictures, movies, TV shows, and songs. Yet none of these are real, nor do they share much in common with God’s Holy Angels. They are very different creatures and are not mild, gentle beings. They are God’s Heavenly Army, powerful and, when they appear, command respect.
First of all, angels are not people. They are spirits created by God to serve him (Hebrews 1). Christians do not become angels when they die. Our spirits are unnaturally separated from our bodies at death — bodies which decay. But we do not remain in that state. On the last day, God will raise our bodies from the dead and reunite our spirits with them.
Angels are powerful beings, sometimes tasked with battling Satan and his demons (these are fallen angelic creatures). They guard us, plead for us before the throne of God, and stand in his eternal presence. When they appear to people, they so often inspire fear that almost always their first words to humans are “fear not.” Some of God’s people are even tempted when they appear to fall down in worship. Scripture even poetically refers to them as gods.
Unlike the popular TV series and movies, angels are not like humans with flaws, prone to temptation and sin. Good angels are now eternally sinless, having been tested by Lucifer’s rebellion. They have a perfect knowledge of God. While they always take the form of a male human when they appear to humans, they never marry. They also are not young, having existed since before the fall of Adam and Eve, nor are they ever female. The scriptures do not mention halos (these are put into medieval art to draw eyes to images of holy people and beings, especially in stained glass) and only describe angels with wings when referring to seraphim and cherubim.
Most importantly, they ministered to Jesus during his earthly ministry. Angels are used by God to draw us to Jesus. On our last day and the last day, they will escort us to the throne of God, where we will live with God forever. So we thank God for the ministry of Angels and sing with them his praises, both here on earth and forever.
Encore Post: When the Babylonians conquered Judah, destroyed the temple and the walls of Jerusalem, and carried off most of her people into exile, the people had a crisis of faith. How could they worship God without a temple where they could sacrifice? How could they relate to him at all? God sent prophets to help them work all this out. The result was the birth of a brand new religion — Judaism. A religion is a series of customs, duties, practices and rites that people do to serve their god or gods. It is a culture, really. God used Judaism as a place where true faith in him could be planted, nurtured, and grow, even when there was no temple, sacrificial system, and functioning priesthood to support it.
Judaism — especially the party of the Pharisees — was built on a devotion to the Torah. They read it, taught it, and even vowed to practice traditions that kept them from ever violating the commandments it teaches. To prevent accidental violation of a particular commandment, the Rabbis taught that you should follow a tradition stricter than the Law requires. So, for example, to avoid taking the name of the Lord in vain, they did not pronounce the name of God at all, but said Adonai — my Lord — instead. This practice is called “building a hedge around the Torah.”
During the exile, wherever ten men were available to worship (called a minyan), Jews would gather to pray on the Sabbath. These congregations became known by the Greek word “Synagogue” (“coming together”). When they built houses of prayer, these buildings became known as synagogues. By New Testament times, the worship service had settled into a pattern of saying the Shema (“Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one”), prayer, readings from the Torah and the prophets, a sermon, and a benediction.
When Cyrus the Great ended the exile, not all Jews returned home. Some stayed in Babylon and Persia; others moved to Greece, Rome, and other parts of the world. The synagogue accompanied them, along with different aspects of Judaism. In these events, God prepared the world for the ministry of Jesus, the apostles, and especially the Apostle Paul.
Note: This series of blog posts is available as a Kindle book and will eventually be published as a print booklet on Amazon.com: Preparation for the Gospel. Please note that the author makes a small profit on the sale of this book.
Encore Post: Television, the internet, cell phones, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other technologies are a blessing and a curse. News — and rumors — spread around the world at the speed of light. Even though we live in the safest, most prosperous and healthiest time in the world’s history, the flow of news and fake news makes us think we live in the most dangerous times of all. In the United States, young adults of the millennial generation are increasingly worried about their finances, health and safety. Although we can instantly connect with almost everyone we have ever known, they report they are lonelier than ever before.
Christians are not exceptions to this pattern. Yet God gives us ways to cope with the worries of this world. Although we have troubles in this world, we do not need to be afraid. Jesus gives us his peace. (John 14:27) St. Paul tells us how the peace of God sets a watch over our hearts and minds. This peace is ours because Jesus made peace between us and God when he died for our sins on the cross. He broke down the barrier between us once and for all. Now, nothing can separate us from the love of God. We will live with God forever.
How do we cope with all the uncertainties of life that cause us to worry? Jesus advises us to focus on the kingdom of God and his righteousness. God will take care of the rest. He provides food and clothing, house and home and everything we need. Yes, the evil of this world will complicate our lives. But Jesus will be with us until the end of time itself.
St. Paul tells us how we can do this. He told us to pray about everything, thanking God for all his blessings and bringing our requests to him. Being thankful helps us to reset our perspective. Life is not about being a victim, but about receiving the many gifts God gives us. We know he hears our every prayer, that he loves us and will work everything to serve for our good. Knowing these things brings the peace of God to us. Like soldiers on watch over their camp at night, this peace protects our hearts from despair and focuses our mind on the tasks God has called us to do in this life by his grace.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Pastor Emeritus Fort Wayne, Indiana
Encore Post: In most churches, worship is about what Christians do to glorify God. It is about praying, giving contributions to support the work of the Church, singing your song, and dedicating yourself to follow Jesus. Lutherans understand worship as all about what God gives to us — Absolution, God’s Word read, sung by us and preached to us, and the Sacraments, especially the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus gives us his body to eat with bread and his blood to drink with wine. In these gifts, his means of grace, mysteriously, God places and strengthens faith in our hearts, gives us the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. We sing his praises, pray to him at his invitation, and offer the sacrifice of our lives to thank him for these gifts.
So, worship really is not about us — it is about God’s gifts. God invites us to gather together the same way that our mothers and fathers gathered for dinner. When we call us to eat a well-prepared, delicious feast, we don’t say “Do I have to eat it?” or “But we just had a big dinner last week!” We get up and hurry to receive this wonderful gift of our host’s love and enjoy the time together with those we love.
So, the question we should ask ourselves and each other is not: “Do we have to go to church?” but really is “Do we get to go to church?” The Lord and Creator of the Universe is coming to church. He is the same Jesus who loved us so much that he became one of us, suffered, died and rose again so that he could give us his gifts, forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. So, let’s go and unwrap them!
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?
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
It is often the case that what Jesus preaches and teaches one day, He reinforces again not too many days later. In the parable from last week, Jesus spoke about the seed which is sown and how it grows. He took us back to the image of creation. We were reminded that He himself identified as the Seed of the Woman who would come and make things new, reconciling us back to God. He came into the world, becoming flesh, to save fallen humanity from eternal death and hell. He was making things new by sowing into our hearts and the hearts of all mankind His Word via the preaching of those He has sent to sow the Word abroad.
Jesus’ words have power. They God’s Word, for He is God. His Words are life giving. If the winds and the sea obey His Words, do you not think we should fear Him? If He can make the natural world listen to Him, do you not think He can also bring about disaster by one little word too? We are right to fear Him. Jesus does have power over wind and sea, but He has power over all things. And He as a man born of the blessed Virgin has been given power, dominion, and authority over all things, and will execute that power on the last day. And He do all this as a man.
The disciples and we too should really not receive the mercies that we do. We gripe about a lot of different things. We are bound to say something like this: “Life isn’t fair God. You took the love of my life from me via cancer. You gave me bad eyes. Can’t you see this congregation of yours is perishing? What are you doing? What did we do? Do you care, God, that your servants are languishing under this suffering?” Have many of those things reverberate in your mind? Have we done what Job did and say that we are pure and without transgression, that we are clean and there is no iniquity in me? Are we too good for all these bad things to happen to us? Are we just innocent victims of all this? Or are we getting something that we deserve. The truth is if we got what we truly deserved it would be a drowning in the boat, eternal death and hell for us all. For nothing in us is good, our hearts continually commit evil. There is none of us who are good, no not one. We are full of sin of one kind or another, deserving the full wrath of God.
When the disciples cry out, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Christ our Lord shows His compassion and mercy upon the poor disciples. So also, He shows us mercy when don’t deserve it. The Lord Jesus loves us, as He loved Job and His disciples. He brought them to repentance and faith by the preaching of His Word. You get a bit of that preaching from Him in Job, and you hear the disciples question who Jesus is because they were still filled with fear of what they had just witnessed. Both Job and the disciples saw Jesus doing what Jesus does. He has command over all creation. He is great, they are small and lowly. They fear, but He has mercy on those who fear Him. He speaks, creating in them repentance and faith. The disciples were learning to trust what Jesus said because when He speaks the thing which He speaks happens.
Jesus, who is the Word of God incarnate, has power over wind and sea. It is only fitting then that the Word which He speaks also has the power to create faith in His people. Think about the man who was paralyzed. Not only did Jesus forgive the man’s sins but also told him to rise and walk in order to show that the Son of Man had authority to forgive sins. All of it happened instantly. The seed is sown and faith grows in the heart. A new creation begins. This is a faith which clings to Christ’s Word, rightly fearing Him, but also loving Him because His Word is not just a word that rains down gloom and doom but rather the promise of the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life in Him because He poured out His blood at the cross for the world, for you.
Christ promises to build His church on earth, and by Him speaking it, so shall it be. And so, if we take this a step further, Jesus showers upon all the world his forgiveness by the preaching of his atoning sacrifice at the cross, His resurrection from the dead for our justification, as well as his Ascension to the right hand of the Father, from thence He now rules over His Church on Earth until He returns the same way He came into Heaven. You hear His Word, so you receive Him, and you grow in your faith in Him.
If Jesus is indeed God, what is for Him to tell His Disciples that Baptism is the means by which a person enters into the Kingdom of God, and is cleansed from all sin? Jesus’ Word does what it says. The same for Holy Communion. What is it for Jesus to take up bread and say to His disciples, “Take and it, this is My body?” And taking a cup and saying, “Take and drink all of you, this cup is the New Testament in my Blood for the forgiveness of your sins?” If he has power over wind and sea, certainly He has power over bread and wine and they will be exactly what He says they are.
So why do we doubt what He says, when wind and sea obey Him? Why do we doubt that Christ has come to give us forgiveness of sins and everlasting life with Him, purchased and won by his sacrifice at the cross? Have we fallen into the lie of Satan that God does not really love us but rather would love to see us perish in anguish? If that be so, why did He not just let the boat perish? Why did God not just allow Satan to take Job at the beginning? Why did God take Israel out of Egypt? The Israelites believed that God was going to just kill them in the desert. But the Lord God is not sadistic. But He teaching us His way. Suffering comes before exaltation, even for the only begotten Son Jesus Christ. He is not exalted before His suffering and death on the cross. So, we trust in what our Lord is doing, because by these things we are being brought to a right and proper knowledge, fear, love and trust in our Lord that we may be saved from eternal torment.
The 2nd commandment, which we recited this morning, deals with the name of the Lord. In all times and situations, we are called to call upon Him. In times of suffering call upon Him. In times of temptation, call upon Him. In times of thanksgiving, call upon Him. You have that right, for you are his child and He your Father by the waters of Holy Baptism. He has placed His name upon you at Holy Baptism. He has marked you His own child by the sign of the cross, so talk to your Heavenly Father. In other words, pray to Him. It does not need to be anything polished. Most of the time it will be like the disciples in our reading calling out our gripes and our fears. But this is what our Lord desires because He loves granting you mercy and love. That is His nature. “Call upon me in your day of trouble, I will deliver you and you will honor me.” Our Lord desires to hear our prayers.
Our Lord especially loves to hear you tell Him what He has promised He will do. A prayer might be something like this, “Lord God, you have promised all things work for the good of those who love you. Grant me courage to trust your promise as I carry the heavy burden of cancer in my body. I do not know why you laid this upon me, but help me O Lord to put my trust in you to carry me through the trials and tribulations, as you have promised to do, for the sake of my Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.” Or it might be even less, “God, you promised. Now help me in my sufferings!” Our Lord binds up those who are suffering and are hurting, and renews their strength. Now it may not be exactly what we expect. Healing may not come in this life time, but it will be done because He has spoken, and He will do it.
So come to Him, as children come to their dear Father, and receive from Him everything He has for you in Christ Jesus, who lived, died, and rose that you might know the fullness of God’s love for you. In Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Encore Post: A very Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! It is that special day of the year where everyone (hopefully) gets together with loved ones and gives thanks while enjoy all the food that their eyes desire and (hopefully) there stomachs can handle. And probably around the table before the meal begins you might go around saying what you are thankful for this year. And most of the time each person has something to add to the list. Most people desire to give thanks. The question that should be asked of us all, to Whom should this thanks be directed?
But we as Christians should come to a day such as this with a different mindset. In his fine explanation of the Second Commandment, Luther first tells us what the improper ways of using God’s name. And in the second half, Luther tells us the proper way to use the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are to pray, praise, and give thanks to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So giving thanks is something that should not just happen one day a year, but rather it should be a part of our daily prayer life. Jesus is the foundation. Christ is our life, the very source of all our blessings for this life we live now. As Christians then, we can give thanks in a very distinctive way.
Jesus came into our sin burdened world, took on human flesh, became like us in every way, yet without sin. By Jesus’ redeeming work of suffering and dying on the cross, we receive forgiveness. His resurrection is the guarantee of our everlasting life. And you are united to Jesus’ death and resurrection by being baptized into His name. Jesus is the very foundation of our life and our giving thanks!
Thanksgiving has a higher and greater meaning for us as Christians. That word that is translated as thanksgiving in 1 Timothy 2:1-4 means “grateful acknowledgement for the past mercies of God.” This leads to our humble and honest requests we bring before our Father in prayer. We have so much for which to thank our Lord. Not only does He care for our spiritual needs of forgiveness of sins through Jesus’ death and resurrection, but He cares for our earthly and bodily needs too. He tells us that much in His Holy Word, especially in the 4th petition of His prayer: “give us this day our daily bread.”
Let us continue then to call upon the Lord offering up prayers, supplications, and thanksgiving for all that He has done for us for this life and the life that is to come.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO
In my short time as a Pastor, I have heard many people, including myself say, “My prayer life is pitiful.” I have also heard people say they do not know how to pray. Let me first say that prayer is a wonderful gift that our God has given us, for that is how we communicate with our Dear Father in Heaven. He has given us His Word in Holy Scripture, and He has given us His Name to call upon at all times and seasons.
The 2nd commandment tells us about the name of our Lord and God. We shall not misuse it. However, to use it rightly, God tells us to call upon Him and He will answer us. He commands us to pray. But He also attaches the promise that He will hear our prayers and answer them.
Prayer is extremely important, even for Jesus. Luke’s Gospel tells us more than any other Gospel about Jesus praying. On one occasion, the disciples go to him and implore Jesus to teach them to pray. Jesus does not scold them, but rather Jesus teaches them the prayer that we know as the Lord’s Prayer.
The Lord’s Prayer are Jesus’ own words now put on our lips to pray. What special words! And we get to say them to our Lord who promises to hear and answer! Even when we do not know what to say or what to pray for, we have the Lord’s Prayers and the prayers of the saints of the Old Testament in the Psalms at our fingertips in Holy Scripture. We even have Jesus praying the Psalms to the Lord while at the Cross. St. Paul also attests to the Holy Spirit interceding on our behalf when we don’t know for what to pray.
The next section of the catechism deals with the Lord’s Prayer and the petitions that Jesus teaches us to pray. May we all pray the prayer He has taught us to pray fervently to our Father in Heaven who loves to hear our petitions and requests and delights to answer our prayers.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
