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The Roman system of law was not much different from ours, kind of a cross between our Grand Jury, Indictment and trial system and a general court-supreme court model. A local court would take on most of the infractions, would look at the evidence when it comes to serious matters and return a charge for the Roman court where necessary. The gathering at the High Priest’s home was much like a grand jury, the Sanhedrin, meeting in the outer courts of the temple, the lower court that brought the formal charges and Pilate’s court the high tribunal.

Pilate was an able, competent and experienced Prefect — a military governor — who had ruled Palestine mostly successfully for over thirty years. The Jewish people were notoriously unruly, requiring occasionally violent suppression from time to time. There were a few incidents where the leaders of the Jews set traps for him, resulting in reprimands from Rome.

When the Sanhedrin came with Jesus, he knew immediately that it was for envy that they charged him. He first tried to shift it back to them, only to be told that only he could judge Jesus, because Jesus was worthy of death. He next sent him to Herod, who was hoping Jesus would entertain him, but Jesus didn’t play along. So, it was back to Pilate.

After questioning Jesus, and hearing from his wife that she had been warned in a dream, Pilate was convinced that Jesus was innocent. So, Pilate offered to release a revolutionary, Barabbas, to them or Jesus. They shouted for Barabbas.

Pilate was still ready to release Jesus, repeating he found Jesus innocent. When, however, the Sanhedrin threatened to report him to Caesar, he gave in and allowed Jesus to be crucified.

He washed his hands, saying he would have nothing to do with it. That really did not work. Every Sunday, we confess Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

We are tempted to blame him, seeing he killed a man he knew to be innocent to save his skin. We are tempted to blame the Jewish leaders, for it was they who accused Jesus and assumed responsibility for his death.

But in the end, it was not Pilate, not the Jewish leaders, but Jesus, who is responsible for his death. He told Pilate as much when he said Pilate would have no authority if it wasn’t given to him. It is why he became a man in the womb of the Virgin Mary in the first place. It was he who bowed to his Father’s will, knowing full well he would bear the sins of the whole world to the cross.

Why would Jesus be condemned to die, then? It is because of my sins, because of your sins and the sins of all God’s children. He loved us before the creation of the world, was not willing to be parted from us for all eternity. Someone had to die and only God was innocent enough and man mortal enough to do it. So, he came, the Lamb of God, to take away the sins of the world. He set his face towards Jerusalem and went to his death, for you and for me. So, in this Lent, and always, when we are tempted to downplay our sins, God invites us to consider the cost, repent of them and receive from Jesus the forgiveness he earned for us that first Good Friday.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

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

©2025 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@msn.com

Encore Post: Our evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ are all about making a decision for Christ. They will often ask, “Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?” Such a question sounds strange to Lutherans, along with the similar question, “are you born again?” The reason is Lutherans believe these are really the wrong questions. Why? Because Jesus sought us, found us, saved us by his suffering and death, accepted us in baptism and gave new birth in it by water and the Holy Spirit. So, yes, thank you, I am born again, but no, I did not accept Jesus as my personal Savior. He accepted me and made me God’s child and his brother. There is nothing more personal than that.

I once was asked by someone if I could study all the Bible passages with him that talk about accepting Jesus as Savior. My answer was no, because there are no such passages. In fact, if you go through the Bible looking for people who were lost and sought God, you will find very few. Think about it for a moment: God made Adam and Eve. When they sinned, he came and found them. He went to Noah and told him to build the ark. He found Abraham and told him to leave home, promising to give him a son. He came to Jacob when the patriarch ran away and wrestled with him. He called to Samuel in the night. He sent Samuel to find and anoint David. Almost every book of the words of the prophets begins with: “and the word of God came to…” We don’t seek God, he seeks us out.

Why is this? We were dead in our sins. (Ephesians 2:1-3) As the saying goes, “Dead men tell no tales.” As Martin Luther says it, “I cannot by my own reason or strength, believe in my Lord Jesus Christ or come to him.” (Small Catechism 2.3) Because he loved us, he is gracious to us. He was moved in Christ Jesus to become one of us, live a perfect life for us, take our sins upon himself and die on the cross for us. It is by this grace we are saved, through his gift to us of faith.

In a sense, we can talk about decision theology, then. God decided to save us. He is our personal savior, because he made it so. We will live with him forever because of this. We can rest in the peace this brings, confident that he will remove every sin from us one day, the day he calls us forth from our graves and dries every tear in our eyes.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

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

©2019 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Encore Post: Moving out of the Christmas Season on January sixth, we enter the season of Epiphany. These seasons all adjust around the moveable date of Easter. Epiphany means “revealing.” In this season we celebrate the revealing of Jesus beyond the Christmas activities. The day of Epiphany brings the magi into the picture. This is a kind of Gentile Christmas.

The season then moves through moments where Jesus and His ministry are revealed. It contains several major feasts/festivals. The Epiphany of our Lord, the Baptism of our Lord, the Transfiguration of our Lord, and a handful of minor festivals can all be within the season. Epiphany can be between 13 days, with only one Sunday, and 59 days, with seven Sundays! The common Sundays use green and the festivals use white paraments.

The three “gesima” or pre-Lent Sundays separate Transfiguration from Ash Wednesday. The Sundays are gently moving us from the mountaintop into the penitential season. Their strange names keep us counting towards Easter. Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima simply mean about seventy, sixty, and fifty. Those are the estimations of days until Easter.

There is irregular historical and current practice regarding the paraments and liturgy in the -gesimas. Liturgical practices range from green paraments and unrestricted liturgy to violet paraments and Lenten austerity, and all points in between. At Mt. Calvary, we observe them with green and no restrictions. Other churches may use violet, veiled crucifixes, austere liturgy, and excluded Alleluia. In Christian freedom, all of these things are good practices.

(Using the Vatican II inspired three-year lectionary, The Season of Epiphany keeps the three Sundays of pre-Lent).

“O Lord throughout These Forty (six) Days“

The penitential season of Lent runs from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, covering six Sundays. Ash Wednesday can fall anywhere between February fifth and March ninth. It is always 46 days before Easter. The color of Ash Wednesday paraments are black or violet.

Generally, we say that the Sundays in Lent are not of Lent. That is to say that pious practice of Lenten fasting may exclude the Sundays. Lent is marked by austerity. The color is violet, which suggests sorrow and royalty. We exclude the Gloria in Excelsis (or hymn of praise) and alleluia throughout the season. Like the third Sunday of Advent, the fourth Sunday of Lent sees a softening of our penitence. It is called Laetare, meaning rejoice. The color may shift to rose, reflecting this lighter mood.

Holy Week begins with Palm or Passion Sunday. The color is Scarlet from Sunday through Maundy or Holy Thursday. Often the altar and sanctuary are stripped at the conclusion of the Thursday service. This prepares the space for the great austerity of Good Friday. The altar remains bare and clergy may wear black. Holy Saturday remains black as well. But, the Saturday Easter Vigil begins with a bare altar and continues with white after the Easter proclamation.

The day of Easter is the moving target around which these other seasons adjust. Easter is fixed to the Sunday, after the first full moon, following the vernal equinox. This means Easter can fall anywhere from March 22^nd to April 25^th. This 33 day window was a solution between dissenting Early Christians celebrating on Passover, regardless of the day of the week, and those celebrating Easter on a fixed Sunday. This moveable schedule keeps us close to Passover and always on a Sunday.

The Easter Season is 40 days long, concluding with The Ascension of our Lord on the 40^th day. It’s always a Thursday. We generally treat the eight days after ascension as part of Easter, though they could also be considered the days of Ascension. White is the parament color and all of our liturgical celebration returns.

The 49^th day is the Eve of Pentecost. That moves us into Trinity, the season of the church.

Let us celebrate with contrition and great joy!

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

©2024 Jason Kaspar. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

[Seventh is a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism] Everything that we do as Christians ought to in some way relate to the Ten Commandments. It is through the Ten Commandments that we learn how to worship God and how to love our neighbors.

As you know, laws change each and every day. And that is especially true during times of transitions of power, even in our country. And we ought to be careful in our church too that we do not constantly change the rules, whether they are rules of membership or church meeting time or admission to the Sacrament or some other things that come up.

But I remind you that God’s Law never changes and the laws that He established apply to all people in all times and places. There is definitely an attitude today that the Ten Commandments are old and outdated or that I know what to do and how to be a good person without the Ten Commandments. But that is not how God sees it and neither do we. For each one of us wants to follow Jesus.

So to get started, let’s take a look at the 1^st Commandment: You shall have no other gods. That’s simple enough. God is your God. But He shall not be shared. We cannot believe in God and believe in Buddha. And that might not be so difficult for us here in our community.

But it is this commandment that is the foundation of all the others. It is meet, right, and salutary that we obey our parents, but do we put our trust in them more than we put our trust in God? Do we put our trust in our teachers or our employers more than we put our trust in our God?

What about the political leaders? Is our President our Savior? Of course not. It does not matter who he is. Remember the words of the Psalm. Put not your trust in princes. Rather, let us remember God is the Lord of Lords and the Kings of Kings.

God is God, and we are not. And we fear, love, and trust in Him above all things. Remember the temptation of Eve in the Garden, when the devil says, “You shall be like God.” Eve believed that lie and everybody fell into sin that day. We are not God.

Let us follow Him each one of our days.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. James Peterson
St. John Lutheran Church
Curtis, Nebraska

©2025 James Peterson. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@msn.com.

Encore Post: [Twenty-Fifth post in a series on the Divine Service] Upon the completion of the beautiful Nunc Dimittis, the pastor or the assistant chants, “O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good,” and the congregation respond with the rest of verse one of Psalm 107, “and His mercy (ESV translates: steadfast love; the Hebrew is חֶסֶד transliterated CHESED) endureth forever.” However, the hymnal committee could have easily put Psalm 136, 2 Chronicles 20:21, or even Jeremiah 33:11 as the biblical reference. These later two bible references, 2 Chronicles and Jeremiah 33, both imply worship taking place with the singing of this verse.

And in the same manner of the worship of the people of God in the Old Testament and those whom Jeremiah prophesies, we sing our thanks to our Lord who has manifested his mercy and steadfast love toward us in this Sacrament which we just received. It is as if each time we receive the Sacrament, we are participating in the fulfillment of the Lord’s word to Jeremiah: “For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at first.” If you keep reading Jeremiah, you learn the fortunes are restored by the Righteous Branch, whose name is: The Lord is our righteousness.

The fortunes which we see restored is God’s mercy upon sinners. He forgives us, for Christ’s sake. He has made abundantly clear to us by the giving of His Son at the cross for the sin of the world in order that the world might be saved through Him. So we give thanks to our gracious Lord, and then address Him with the prayer that follows.

The typical prayer said is Luther’s collect, which he penned for his German Mass. This prayer is beautiful in its simplicity as it gets to the point of the Sacrament we just received from Christ. However, it might serve the congregation well if the pastor expand the prayer for catechetical purposes, or if he takes time in bible or confirmation class to explain the petitions embedded in this simple prayer.

The salutary gift for which we give thanks is the very body and blood of Jesus Christ. Then we literally ask the Lord that having received into our bodies the body and blood of Christ, we be made to trust in the Triune God. In other words, we are praying that we be made holy, sanctified by the eating and the drinking of Christ’s body and blood. We do not just ask that we fulfill the first table of the Law in this prayer but we also pray that by the same body and blood, we also love our neighbor in ways that are pleasing to our Lord.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, Indiana 

©2020 Jacob Hercamp. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Encore Post: [Twenty-Third post in a series on the Divine Service] As the congregation sings the beautiful Agnus Dei, the pastor likely takes his place at the rail or near the altar to welcome up members of the congregation to take part in the foretaste of the feast to come. But before that, it is customary for the pastor and his assistants (if he has any), to receive the body and blood of our Lord before distributing to the congregation. There is some debate whether the pastor can “commune” himself or if an elder of the congregation should “commune” him. Generally, this is best left up to each individual congregation. In the days of Covid-19, you might actually see the pastor wait until the very end of the distribution to commune, since he might be wearing a mask, etc.

In some congregations, there is a communion rail where congregation members kneel to receive the body and blood of their Lord. In others, members come forward and stand in a semi-circle “table”. In others, you might see a more continuous flow of people and less of a “table” experience.

However, the church “does” distribution, the pastor is given the direction (rubric) to speak very specific words concerning the body and blood. Likely, some pastors conflate the two and maybe say a bit more. LSB recommends two options: “Take, eat, this the true body of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, given into death for your sins.” “Take, drink, this is the true blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, shed for the forgiveness of your sins.”

There also has been debate from time to time about how one should receive the Body of the Lord. Should one hold out their hand and take the host to their own mouth? Should the recipient allow the pastor to place the Body of Christ into their mouth? Both are fine ways to receive the Body of Christ. Some early church fathers actually wrote rather long theological treatises on how one is preferred over the other. Some said that it was better for the pastor or priest to place the Host on the tongue, as this was the best picture of pure reception. For the other side, some argued your hands became the throne on which the Lord Jesus sat and so they offered directions on how to make your hands ready to receive such a gift.

The same can be said concerning receiving the Blood of Christ. In today’s age, many people use the individual cup rather than taking a drink from the common cup. However, the reasons for using individual cups seem less theologically based. Some churches actually have a chalice in which there is a spout to allow for a person to receive into an individual cup the blood from the “common” cup.

However, one receives the Body and Blood of the Lord, may it be done in all reverence, acknowledging the fact that the Lamb of God, Who Comes to Save, is what we receive in the bread and wine given to us by the Pastor at the Distribution.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, Indiana

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

©2020 Jacob Hercamp. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Encore Post: [Eighteenth post in a series on the Divine Service] The Lutheran Service Book has the heading of “The Words of our Lord” but I imagine many of you also have heard them called either “The Words of Institution” or “The Words of Consecration,” or just the “Verba”. In all cases they the titles refer to the same thing: The words our Lord said on the night when He was betrayed, concerning the bread and then the cup. With this we have reached the climax of the Service of the Sacrament.

The pastor has removed the veil from over the chalice and moved the hosts to the paten (liturgical name for the plate which holds the bread), if they were not there already and either will speak the Words or will chant them. Unfortunately, fewer congregations hear the Words chanted. During the time of the Reformation, chanting the Verba was the way many people distinguished the Lutheran Church from the Catholic Church. In my congregation, the altar is set up and attached to the wall, so the words of our Lord are chanted over the elements facing away from the congregation. In some churches, you will see a free standing table/altar, where the pastor can go to the other side and say the words toward the people.

Every Sunday, we rehearse the night of Jesus “being handed over.” That word for being handed over or betrayed is παραδιδωμι which also means tradition/hand down. Jesus says to do these things in remembrance of Him, so the Church has always done it and continues to “hand it down to the next generation of the faithful” just as Paul says when he gives his account of the night in 1 Corinthians 11. By participating in the Sacrament, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

But who do we hear when those words are spoken? You hear Christ’s living voice. Just like the Gospel reading being the “high point” of the Service of the Word, so also the Words of Christ concerning His Supper are the high point of the Service of the Sacrament. So you actually hear the living voice of Jesus in these words, for they are not the Pastor’s words but Christ’s words.

Next time, we will dive into the words themselves but we can know for certain that they are Christ’s words for us, bidding us to come to eat and drink the very things through which He redeemed us and now through gives us life everlasting.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, Indiana 

©2020 Jacob Hercamp. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Encore Post: [Sixteenth post in a series on the Divine Service] On the heels of the Sanctus, the pastor leads the congregation in the prayer our Lord taught us to pray. The Lord’s prayer, being the prayer of the baptized, takes its place in the Service of the Sacrament. And below, I suggest many if not each petition of the prayer gets answered by the Sacrament of the Altar the congregation is preparing to receive.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be on earth as it is in heaven. We will discuss the introduction and the first three petitions together. We are calling out to our Heavenly Father as Christ has instructed us to do. He is our Father who desires to give us good things, and He has given us the very best thing: His very own Son that we might be reconciled to him by the blood which is poured out for us. God’s Kingdom is coming, we just sang about it in the Sanctus: “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord! And He comes to save, which is His will, that all call upon the name of the Son and be saved. Also eschatologically speaking, we are eating a foretaste of the meal that is in His Kingdom that will have no end.

Give us this day our daily bread. Luther spends more time talking about our physical needs here with the 4th petition, but in connection to the Sacrament and Jesus calling himself the bread of life in John 6, we can see the connection between this petition and the Sacrament we are about to receive. It is what truly gives us life and encouragement for the days ahead.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. We will be going to the rail and kneeling to receive, with the body and blood of Christ, the forgiveness of sins which He won for us by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Having received forgiveness from God in the Sacrament, we are strengthened to forgive one another. Christ did not just die for my sins, but also for the sins that my neighbor committed against me. Having been forgiven and shown mercy by Christ, we, too, should show mercy to one another. We are strengthened to do that by the Sacrament of the Altar.

Lead us not into temptation. By the very eating and drinking of Christ’s body and blood, we are taking into ourselves the very person who is our advocate and fighter against every temptation of Satan, the world, and our own flesh.

Deliver us from evil. Christ promises in John 6: “Truly, Truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live.” Jesus does not lie, and it is the will of His Father to raise up to eternal life those who believe in the one whom was pierced and out of whom blood and water poured out.

This is a bit longer of a post, but I do pray that this has given you a different way to say the prayer our Lord Jesus has taught us to pray when you say it right before receiving the Sacrament of the Altar. See in the Sacrament the answer to the prayer.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, Indiana

©2020 Jacob Hercamp. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

I have been reflecting quite a bit on the book of Isaiah as I am teaching through it in my Bible study. We just came through Isaiah 25 and the feast that the Lord prepares for all people. But interestingly, Moab is singled out as a nation not welcome to the feast (Isa 25:1-12). At the same time, I was reading to prepare for the Feast of the Epiphany. I was reading Matthew 2, and I did more work around the Magi and the “Star.” Just do a bible search for wise men or Magi and you will find yourself in the book of Daniel. Daniel, remember, was the chief of the wise men in Nebuchadnezzar’s court. The wise men probably were men from Babylon. So that helps us get a better picture of where these men came from. But how did they notice the star? Daniel was much more than a leader of Magi in Babylon. He was a prophet of the God of Israel. Daniel most likely had access in some way to the scrolls of the Pentateuch. He preached the Word of God to the Babylonians who would listen. And listen they did.

But the star–where does the star appear in the Pentateuch? The gentile prophet Balaam prophesies of the star coming out of Jacob along with a scepter (Numbers 24:17). This star does not just come out of Jacob. This is where the Isaiah 25:10 passage comes in. The star is promised to crush Moab!

The word crush is the same word that is used to describe the act of the seed of the woman upon the serpent. The seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. So now this star will crush Moab. In the “oracles concerning the nations” in Isaiah, Moab is seen in a negative light. And in Isaiah 25, Moab is seen as the universal enemy of all the people of God. Though the word is not “crush” and not a verbal match, the idea is the same. However, it is not the seed or the star who will trample down Moab. It is the people of God who will trample down their enemies. Moab is said to be like the dung trampled into the ground.

Taking this into the New Testament, we can see Jesus crushing the head of the serpent at the cross and giving us the benefits of that victory. You and I have eternal life because of Christ’s coming into the world to be our atoning sacrifice for sin, defeating death and Satan for us by His death and resurrection from the dead. In the Gospel of Luke and Mark, we get the continuation and the language of that victory being something we too participate in, too. We get to trample down serpents (Luke 10:17-20 also see Mark 16:14-20 and Paul in Acts 28:3-6). Theologically speaking, this crushing and throwing down of Satan takes place when the word of God is preached in its truth and purity and the sacraments are rightly administered (AC V, AC VII). It is not us who do the crushing that is left to Christ, our Bright Morningstar. That is His principle work, but we, in Christ, get to trample under our feet the old evil foe.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, Indiana

©2025 Jacob Hercamp. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@msn.com