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Why Do Some Churches Use Blue For Advent Rather Than Violet?

Encore Post: It’s true that some churches use blue for Advent and some use violet. Which one is right, which is better?

First, neither is right and the other wrong. In Christian freedom, we have options of saying the creed before or after the sermon, collecting the offering before or after the prayer of the church, and using blue or violet in advent.

The use of blue for Advent is often attributed to European Marianist cultish worship or pseudo-worship of St. Mary, the Mother of our Lord. To some degree, that may contain truth. But I suspect the source is a little deeper than that. Some will also point to a Byzantine tradition of blue signifying the empress. But, there may be a deeper meaning still.

[Light blue paraments are used Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Rite Catholic, and Russian Orthodox Churches. Their use dates back into antiquity. This significantly precedes the Modern Oxford movement in England, which is sometimes maligned as a Marianist source, or an exclusively medieval Marianist origin to the use of blue in Advent.] (2023 Update)

There’s a specific reference in Numbers to the color of the skins on the Ark of the Covenant as the congregation of Israel carried it from place to place. “When the camp is to set out, Aaron and his sons shall go in and take down the veil of the screen and cover the ark of the testimony with it. Then they shall put on it a covering of goatskin and spread on top of that a cloth all of blue, and shall put in its poles.” (Numbers 4:5-6)

For our benefit, Christian artists will often depict the Ark of the Covenant moving uncovered. They do this so that we can see the gold, the cherubim, and the mercy seat, and know what it is. But, in reality, the ark was always covered from our eyes while in transit. The coverings were of an unclear material (ram, goat, porpoise, or maybe dugong) that was certainly blue in color. Moreover, no one was to touch the ark. The unmitigated holiness of God is dangerous to us in our sinful state and uncleanness.

When King David sought to move the ark back to Jerusalem, he and his men saw the holiness of God in action. Uzzah died when he touched the ark to steady it after the oxen stumbled. “So David was not willing to take the ark of the Lord into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. And the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household. And it was told King David, ‘The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.’” (2 Samuel 6:10-12)

In his commentary on Luke, Dr. Arthur Just of Concordia Theological Seminary points out the parallel between 2 Samuel and Luke 1. Both show a going up into the hill country. The Israelites greet the ark with shouts of joys as does Elizabeth to Mary. The blessing of the house of Obed-Edom is reflected in Elizabeth’s being filled with the Holy Spirit, implying blessings for her and her home. Both the Ark and Mary remain for three months (Arthur A. Jr Just, Luke, Concordia Commentary (St. Louis: Concordia Pub. House, 1996, 1:72)).

St. Luke reports, “In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.’” (Luke 1:39-45)

In the Western Christian tradition, we call St. Mary “the mother of our Lord.” The Eastern Christian church uses the term: “Theotokos.” Theotokos is a Greek term meaning: “God-bearer.” The Greek term is also a spectacular image for us to have in our minds. It pictures something like the Ark of the Covenant.

The ark was nothing but an acacia wood box, covered in gold and finely decorated. The presence of God upon the ark made it unique. The virgin Mary also had no special attributes compared with other Israelite women. Yet, the presence of the Lord within her caused great joy for Elizabeth and her unborn son, John.

The presence of God in the ark looked to the ecclesia of Israel like a clump of blue animal skins skewered on a pair of poles, and carried about. Artists have depicted Mary in a blue mantle. The blue doesn’t show her specialty. The blue shows us what’s in there: Christ the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. Advent blue shows us what’s coming.

[While violet and blue are certainly both acceptable, I think blue better serves our Christology in Advent. The two penitential seasons, Advent and Lent, are not the same. We treat them differently in our liturgy and hymnody. Lent is more austere. In it we put away our alleluias. This is not the case for Advent. A variation in the colors can reinforce the distinction between the penitence of Advent and the penitence of Lent.] (2022 update)

Blue serves to show us a new thing. While we prepare our hearts in the penitential season of Advent, God is delivering His Son. The Son of Man is born to die for our sins. Unlike the unmitigated holiness of God in the ark, God in human flesh is fully like us in flesh. He has the power to heal, even by the hem of His garment. But His touch does not strike down sinners. This blue points us not to Mary, the God-bearer, but to the God she bore.

Let the blue of Advent fill us with hope.

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

Savior of the Nations, Come

Savior of the Nations, come,
Virgin’s Son, make here Your home!
Marvel now, O heav’n and earth,
That the Lord chose such a birth.

Jesus is the Savior of the nations. From the very first line, we realize that Jesus comes for more than Israel, but also for the Gentiles, also for sinners. The virgin birth is the miracle of Christmas. Though we do not understand it in our ways of thinking, we most certainly believe that God became man.

Not by human flesh and blood,
By the Spirit of our God,
Was the Word of God made flesh—
Woman’s offspring, pure and fresh.

Walking through the Apostles’ Creed, we find the following line, that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. This “Word made flesh” language is taken right from John 1, the Gospel reading for Christmas Day.

Here a maid was found with child,
Yet remained a virgin mild.
In her womb this truth was shown:
God was there upon His throne.

Jesus’ birth appeared to the world like a peasant’s birth or a servant’s birth. But this stanza reminds us that Jesus is the King of all creation coming to redeem all creation.

Then stepped forth the Lord of all
From His pure and kingly hall;
God of God, yet fully man,
His heroic course began.

Where is Christ the King? Firstly, in heaven with God the Father, the Son lived and reigned. So for Him to step forth from heaven to earth, we realize He has come to wage war for us against sin, death, and the devil.

God the Father was His source,
Back to God He ran His course.
Into hell His road went down,
Back then to His throne and crown.

Now this verse refers to the descent into hell. If we consider this in terms of location, we might think that the descent is part of Christ’s humiliation, “going down.” But the descent into hell is the first act of the exaltation, that Christ declares the victory over the devil forever and it is finished and can never be changed.

For You are the Father’s Son
Who in flesh the vict’ry won.
By Your mighty pow’r make whole
All our ills of flesh and soul.

This verse shifts toward us. It almost sounds like the prayer of the people, that by His suffering, He sympathizes with our suffering. But by His resurrection, we have the promise of redeemed and glorified bodies without suffering.

From the manger newborn light
Shines in glory through the night.
Darkness there no more resides;
In this light faith now abides.

This verse makes clear that Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, and that darkness has no power anymore. Faith now abides in us.

Glory to the Father sing,
Glory to the Son, our king,
Glory to the Spirit be
Now and through eternity.

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

It’s Not Almost Christmas

Encore Post: I’ve been reading articles and watching spots most of my life, lamenting the earliness of Christmas-ish stuff every year. It doesn’t just seem as if the pre-Christmas shopping season has gobbled up all dates and times preceding it. The shopping season has done exactly that.

In the foggy early reaches of my growing memory, I recall days before there was a Black Friday shopping spree (the week of Black Friday, Cyber Monday/Weekend, Giving Tuesday…). The phenomenon appeared in the 1980s. I’m quite certain there was consternation in the decades before 1980 over the encroaching commercialization of Christmas. Those earlier and earlier mercantile sales dates scheduled on their way toward Black Friday weren’t welcome then either.

We, Christians, habitually grouse about symptoms. It’s as if symptomatic abatement cures the underlying illness. See my articles about fathers and the children’s future attendance here, here, here, and here. Christmas cheer getting sucked up before “the holidays” is a symptom, not the illness.

The illness is this: we are seeing civic festivals and pagan consumerism crossing the boundaries into the life of the church. Instead, let’s reset those boundaries and get our minds around the days of the church. Dear Christians, we are to be in the world, but not of it.

Halloween and Thanksgiving are not church festivals.

Halloween falls on the official church day of All Hallows Eve, October thirty-first. Lutherans more commonly celebrate Reformation Day on the same day, commemorating Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg castle church, sparking the reformation.

All Saints’ Day is November First. Christians will often observe All Hallows Eve/Reformation and All Saints’ Day by shifting the former back and/or the latter forward to the nearest Sunday. Both days fall within the season of Trinity (Pentecost in the three-year lectionary) just ahead of the end of the church year.

Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November and can fall between November twenty-second and twenty-eighth. That makes for seven variable relationships between Thanksgiving and Christmas being twenty-seven and thirty-three days apart. 2023 was an infrequent occasion, with Thanksgiving falling before the last Sunday of the church year. Thanksgiving is still always before the beginning of the new church year.

The pagan world would have us believe all of those holidays are part of the Christmas season. They are not. Those days and commemorations are not even in the same church year as the seasons of Advent or Christmas.

The church year ends with the last Sunday of the church year and the week following it. The day can also be called Ultima Sunday, after the last syllable of a Koine Greek word, or Christ the King Sunday, commemorating Jesus’s second Advent at the end of days. The last Sunday of the church year is always the fifth Sunday before Christmas Day.

After the first two civic holidays, the church year begins on the first Sunday of Advent, always the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Advent can consist of between twenty-two and twenty-eight days. It begins between November twenty-seventh and December third, always containing four Sundays. Advent contains three or four Wednesdays. The three Wednesdays are slightly more common, occurring in four of the seven variations, excluding Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is a day of Advent. It is not typically celebrated as a Wednesday of Advent, when falling on Wednesday. When the fourth Sunday of Advent is December 24^th, like in 2023, we observe Memento Nostri/Rorate Coeli (Advent 4) in the morning and Christmas Eve in the evening.

This means that those cute, pre-made, every-year advent calendars are seldom actually right. It’s a lot of fun to open the doors for the little prizes. But, Advent rarely has exactly 24 days. 2019, 2024, & 2030 are years in which Advent does have exactly 24 days.

So, a better Advent calendar would have 28 days, with six indicated as days that may not be in Advent (2023 & 2028), or may be in Advent (2022 & 2033). The same calendar could include the twelve days of Christmas, making an even 40 days, encouraging us to celebrate Christmas in its time. Perhaps something like this:

Like the Advent Calendars, Christians used to decorate progressively. By adding a bit each week heading into Christmas it adds to the excitement of preparation. This is opposite of the Christmas fatigue caused by all decorations going up the day after Halloween or Thanksgiving, before Advent even started.

The twelve days of the Christmas feast begin on December 25. They can contain two Sundays, but more commonly just one. The days of Christmas are December 25th through January 5th. On December 26th, we also celebrate the feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr. We celebrate the feast of St. John, the only apostle to die a natural death, on December 27th. December 28th marks the feast of the Holy Innocents, killed by Herod upon the magi’s visit to Bethlehem. The celebration of the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus on January first is also a named feast within the twelve days. Christmas ends on Twelfth Night/the Vigil of Epiphany, preceding the Epiphany of Our Lord, which is celebrated on January 6th.

It is suitable for Christians to decorate and sing seasonal hymns beginning on Christmas Eve. In decades past, we would have it no other way. Now, it may be impossible to forego all of the civic festivities around us. We should at least save the bulk of our revelry for the actual celebration of the incarnation of our Lord. We should not allow the pagan world to suck all of our Christmas cheer before we’ve even begun the Christmas feast.

The exceptionally short Advent of 2023 gave us a great example of our modern distortion of the Christmas season. In trying to cram all of the programs, “family Christmases,” professional parties, and church social activities into the Advent weeks preceding Christmas, how many of us considered for even a moment displacing the festivities into the eleven days of Christmas following Christmas day? Probably very few did. I’m also guilty of missing this consideration.

This year and in years to come, spend some time in thought and prayer concerning the harrowing of the End of Days, the preparation of our hearts in Advent, and the joyous gift of Christmas (the whole season of Christmas). There’s more to it than the Christmas shopping season. Beyond just thought and prayer, avail yourself of the Lord’s house, receiving His gifts for you.

Blessèd Advent preparation!

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

Once He Came in Blessing

Once He came in blessing,
All our sins redressing;
Came in likeness lowly,
Son of God most holy;
Bore the cross to save us;
Hope and freedom gave us.

This verse speaks of Christmas, the First Coming of our Lord, born of the virgin Mary. He came in blessing, but how did He bless us? He blessed us by dying on the cross for us and forgiving all of our sins. Perhaps we do not often think of “bless” and “death” in the same sentence. But this is grace, that God died for us instead of us, and this is a blessing we could never accomplish on our own. This is why Jesus came to us on earth in the first place. He came in likeness lowly, like us, but was God most holy. There is no other god that would come so humbly and die so terribly. What a blessing this truly is for all of us!

Now He gently leads us;
With Himself He feeds us
Precious food from heaven,
Pledge of peace here given,
Manna that will nourish
Souls that they may flourish.

Here we see the Good Shepherd language, that He gently leads us. This is what Christ does for the Church now, for each of us now. He leads us and He feeds us, not only with the things we need for body and soul, but even with something greater than the manna from heaven in the wilderness. Jesus Christ offers to us His very own Body and Blood at this altar, not as a re-sacrifice, but as the cross and Passion of our Lord personally applied to us and granted to us. While the first verse retold Christmas and Good Friday, this verse applies what Christ did to us, that Christ is still doing among us this work of forgiveness. The cross is only past, but present, received and believed in our life as the Church.

Soon will come that hour
When with mighty power
Christ will come in splendor
And will judgment render,
With the faithful sharing
Joy beyond comparing.

The first verse was set in the past. The second verse was set in the present. This third verse is set in the future. Here we sing of the Last Day, of the Second Coming of our Lord. Jesus regularly referred to “that hour” as the hour when He would die for the sins of the world. But we know that there is another “hour” that awaits us. And now the Lord comes not to forgive sins nor to defeat the devil, but He comes in splendor for judgment. As Christians, we do not need to fear this judgment, for we believe in the first verse of this hymn and we receive the Lord’s Supper that the second verse mentions. The judgment that we shall receive is simply this: “Not guilty!” And that is most certainly “joy beyond comparing.”

Come, then, O Lord Jesus,
From our sins release us.
Keep our hearts believing,
That we, grace receiving,
Ever may confess You
Till in heaven we bless You.

This final verse is not a doxology like we have seen in the past. But the writer of this hymn has reversed the thought he began with. In the first verse, he sang of Christ’s First Coming, and that this was a blessing. But in this verse, he encourages us to confess the Lord until we bless the Lord. Once again, this “blessing” word shows up, and this is eternal worship of the Lamb on the throne. This we even do witness on Sunday mornings. After receiving the Sacrament, toward the end of the Divine Service, we sing, “Bless we the Lord.” Perhaps we say it without faith. But in reality, this then is what Christianity seeks in the end of days, to “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless His holy name!” It doesn’t get any better than that!

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

The Advent of our King

The advent of our King
Our prayers must now employ,
And we must hymns of welcome sing
In strains of holy joy.

“Advent” means “to come toward.” When we use the word Advent, we speak about Jesus’ first coming toward earth and His Second Coming on the Last Day. In this verse and during this season, we recall when Jesus first came to earth as a baby in Bethlehem.

The everlasting Son
Incarnate deigns to be,
Himself a servant’s form puts on
To set His servants free.

Jesus is the Son of God. This verse reminds us that Jesus is “everlasting,” both before the creation of the world and after He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. The Son became flesh as a servant, the opposite of King, to set His servants, all of us, free from sin, death, and the devil.

O Zion’s daughter, rise
To meet your lowly King,
Nor let your faithless heart despise
The peace He comes to bring.

“Zion’s daughter” is an Old Testament phrase for the Church. And here there are two meanings for the word “rise.” The obvious meaning is to stand up while we sing for “the King is coming.” But here also, the hymn means for us to consider the resurrection, that the Church shall rise from the graves on the Last Day and see the King, our Lord Most High.

The Advent of our King
As judge, on clouds of light,
He soon will come again
And His true members all unite
With Him in heaven to reign.

Suddenly, the hymn shifts from the First Coming to the Second Coming of our Lord. Now the Lord Jesus, the Judge of the living and the dead, comes on the clouds as the Scriptures testify. This verse puts the hymn in our own context, for we await the Last Day with patience and joy in the midst of suffering.

Before the dawning day
Let sin’s dark deeds be gone,
The sinful self be put away,
The new self now put on.

What can we do while we wait for the Last Day? We put the new self on. While we worship, we ask for God’s forgiveness of our sins, and He forgives them. This He has promised to us. Then we hear the Word of God, which works faith in us. Finally, we receive the Sacrament, the foretaste of the feast to come.

All glory to the Son,
Who comes to set us free,
With Father, Spirit, ever one
Through all eternity.

The triangle reminds us that this is a doxology. “Dox” means “glory.” These final verses of some hymns give glory to God. In this particular hymn, the doxology serves as a profound conclusion that our lives in heaven on the Last Day will be endless refrains of giving glory to God forever and ever.

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

Kindle and Print Copies of Post Series

Dear Friends,

Over the past month, I’ve received feedback that readers would love to have all the posts in a particular series all in one file for future reference. At the urging of my sons, I’ve experimented with producing Kindle and print booklet form through Amazon’s publishing service.

I’ve created a Kindle Book of my Preparation for the Gospel series, which will run on the blog this month. Ironically, it is too short to offer as a booklet, so I will have to say more in it to flesh it out. (Imagine telling a pastor to talk more!) I will price these inexpensively, mostly covering cost, but truth in advertizing, I’ll make a little money with each one bought.

To follow how I’m doing on this, my Amazon Author page is:

Amazon.com: Robert E. Smith: books, biography, latest update

If you like this idea, please leave a comment.

In the peace of God in man made manifest,

Pastor Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Publisher of blog What Does This Mean?

St. Andrew’s Day: The Brother of St. Peter

Encore Post: Each Gospel identifies Andrew as the brother of St. Peter. I am the older brother, and I know my younger brother did not appreciate everyone knowing him through me. Many of his teachers in high school knew him as “Jake’s Brother.” Needless to say, he didn’t take it that well. He wanted to be known on his own terms. Sometimes I imagine Andrew felt the same way.

If you read the synoptic Gospels you don’t hear Andrew’s name called all too often. He is simply Peter’s brother. But then you get to John’s Gospel. And John, being the one who also beat Peter to the tomb on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, may have this story to remind us all that Peter even needed to be brought to Jesus. Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, and it is Andrew who talked about Jesus to Peter. It was Andrew whom our Lord first spoke, “Come and see” where the lord was staying for the night. Perhaps we should start from the beginning. A pattern has already been established. God the Father desires all people to know Him by His Word.

And this Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and He is your only light. Andrew heard the preaching of his teacher, John. And by John’s teaching, Andrew was made prepared for the Word to come in the flesh. And when John proclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” That had to make Andrew curious enough to follow after Jesus. “What are you seeking?” “Rabbi (which means teacher) where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So, they came and saw where He was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

What a visit that had to be! Andrew and Philip were there together with Jesus. And the pattern underway. God the Father sent forth the Word, and the Word was proclaimed by the prophets, and ultimately the final prophet in the wilderness, John the Baptist. John proclaimed the message into the ears of Andrew, who saw Jesus and followed Him. And it gets better. Andrew, having heard the Word of Jesus from Jesus Himself, finds his brother the next day. “We have found the Messiah!” And He brought Peter to Jesus, so that Peter might hear Jesus too and believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God, the One who has Words of eternal life.

The Lord wishes all to know Him by the proclamation of His Word. That is how the Lord has ordained it, even today, with the Office of the Holy Ministry. Faith is obtained via the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments. Andrew is remembered on the 30th of November, the first saint’s day in the new church year. He was not the most sought after apostle. He is better known as the brother of St. Peter. He was not of the inner 3 (Peter, James, and John). But even St. Peter needed someone to first proclaim the Gospel to him that the promised Messiah of God had arrived in the flesh.

Andrew is like you. Indeed , an apostle, but one who is often forgotten in our circles. There are very few St. Andrew Lutheran Churches. You are not famous, but you are called by the Lord, known by name in the waters of Holy Baptism. You have been made Christ’s own there, redeemed from sin and death, prepared for the day of your death or for the coming of Christ in all of His glory, by the hearing and heeding of Christ’s Word and reception of His Sacraments. Like Andrew, you can point others to Jesus, the long awaited Messiah, just like Andrew did for Peter.

While Andrew may not be known for anything, other than being Peter’s brother and probably was tired of such a distinction, I am sure Peter is still thankful that Andrew was more than happy to pass along the good news that Christ had finally arrived, just as the Lord promised He would.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, Indiana

Church Words #9b: Orthodox

Encore Post: Orthodox is a term that is a bit like catholic in the minds of casual Christians. We hear these terms as they are applied to identifiable sects. That identification can cause us to assume that the word itself must mean the sect.

Catholic simply means universal or whole. So, in the Sunday morning prayers, when we pray for “the whole Christian Church on earth,” we could just as well say the “Catholic Church” on earth. Our friends in the Roman Catholic sect are the most significant association with that term, applying to a specific denomination within Christianity. There are also other non-Roman Catholic denominations that identify themselves as Catholic. Rome neither holds nor exercises exclusive rights to that term, though the pope may want us to think that.

Orthodox rings similarly in our ears. For those who’ve heard of the Eastern Orthodox Church, we assume those terms synonymously mean the Eastern Christian sect. That’s not exactly so.

The Eastern and Western Christians split in 1054 AD. The patriarchs of Rome and of Constantinople had a falling-out, which resulted in the split. The patriarchs of the Eastern churches sided with the patriarch of Constantinople. The Roman patriarch found himself alone, heading a large portion of Christianity. The churches we call Orthodox are from the Eastern side and those patriarchs. That time deserves its own treatment in another article or articles.

Ὀρθόδοξος (Orthodox) simply means straight teaching, opinion, or belief. For those of an etymological inclination, ὀρθῶς (orthōs) means straight, unbent, or unwavering. And, δόξα (doksa) means teaching, opinion, or belief. It is the foil of heterodoxy, which is mingled or combined teaching.

There’s more here than simply lexical understandings. Orthodoxy in Christianity is normed by the scriptures and our teaching drawn from it. The Bible is the norm which norms our teaching. Our teaching is the norm, which is normed by the Word of God, the Bible.

There are also orthodox teachers of non-christian religions. Orthodox adherents of Judaism, who may or may not be Orthodox Jews, will want to destroy the Dome of the Rock, rebuild the Jewish Temple, and resume the O.T. sacrificial system. Orthodox Muslims are politely called “extremists.” It is orthodoxy in Islam to desire and seek the death of the infidel, all non-Muslims. Orthodoxy in the Latter-Day Saints requires plural marriage and the rejection of all unbelievers (Christians outside the LDS). Former mormons receive the worst fate among orthodox LDS. They are the only ones who can go to “outer darkness.”

There is also an orthodoxy in all sects of Christianity. Orthodox Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptists, and Methodists seek to maintain adherence to the teachings as we have received them. In a seeming incongruity, orthodox teachers of heterodox churches teach contrary to Christian orthodoxy and the Word of God from which it springs.

For we Lutherans, that means that we hold to our doctrines and remain in the Word of God, always ready to be corrected by the scriptures in our understanding and teachings. The five solas of the reformation (grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone, Christ alone, to the glory of God alone) constantly direct us back to the Word of God and conform our straight teaching to it.

By our Orthodoxy, we preach Christ and Him crucified.

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

Thanks for Nothing

Encore Post: Giving thanks does not come naturally to sinful human beings. It is a learned trait. In the etiquette of traditional American culture, children are constantly reminded to say “please” and “thank you.” Part of the training which goes into professional life, since it is not a feature of working-class culture, is always to respond to a gift with a hand-written “thank you” note. It is a part of every successful fund-raising campaign. It functions to let the giver know you received the gift, that it was appreciated, and to give an opportunity to let the giver know what use their donation is going to support. Even self-centered individuals soon learn that if you take this step, you are likely to receive another gift from the patron.

The Holy Scriptures are filled with thanksgiving to God for his mercies. They are part and parcel of the praise we give to him for his love towards us. God’s Word encourages us to thank him, exhorts us to thank him and gives endless examples of how to do it. By the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, it was a part of the liturgy of God’s people. The constant refrain throughout is familiar to every Christian: “give thanks to the Lord, for he is good and his mercy endures forever.” Nearly every prayer began with “Blessed are you, O Lord, our God…”

Yet sinful human beings very quickly forget that all they have has been given to them. Very quickly, a blessing becomes something they are owed rather than something given them, which will eventually be taken away. We enter this world without everything and will leave this life with nothing. All depends upon others and ultimately on God. Thanksgiving reminds us of this positively and helps us to appreciate everything as a gift, not a right. It encourages us to hold our possessions, loose it our hands, to enjoy them while they last and be ready to give them when another needs them.

It would not be unjust for God to withdraw all our gifts since we are ungrateful, self-serving creatures, curved in on ourselves to the exclusion of God and others. Yet he loves us and is not willing that we perish. So he sends sends sunlight and rain, seasons and all needed for our crops and other foods to grow, even without thanks or prayer. And most of all, in the person of his Son, he became one of us, took our ungratefulness and all other sins upon himself, died to pay their full price and earned for us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. These he gives to us fully, along with the faith to receive them and give him thanks. So it is that we urge each other to give thanks to the Lord, for he is good and his mercy lasts forever.

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

Thank Who?

Encore Post: Over the last week, American television personalities have been engaging in a kind of ritual. All of the hosts tell their audiences the things which they are thankful for. The typical items are on their lists: family, friends, health, home and other goods. One thing is nearly always missing: whom should they thank for these blessings.

The natural thing for people as sinful creatures to do is to assume that the blessings they have are theirs because they are good people. If you do good things, then God will reward you with good things. In the musical Sound of Music, the character Maria von Trapp sings:

Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

In the eastern religions of Hinduism and Buddhism, the principle of Karma is based on this idea: the good you do will return to you as blessing and the evil you do as curse. The Pharisees were of the same opinion. If you had blessing, you must be especially righteous and if you suffered from disease, you must have sinned. In a parable Jesus told, the Pharisee’s prayer of thanksgiving is more of an act of self-congratulation. (Luke 18:9-14) Sinners are inclined to think they are entitled to their blessings and so, if anyone is to be thanked, it is ourselves.

Yet reality is that very few things we have are our own doing. The people in our family, community, church family and nation labored and sacrificed much so that we can have the opportunities to work, play and enjoy our place in the world. Behind them are still countless others and ultimately to God himself who made us and all things. All these come to us because of God’s love for us and his mercy. Because, after all, our sinful nature is in rebellion against God. We’ve forfeited our right to live, much less live forever in his presence or receive anything from his mercy. We deserve to die and be cast into hell.

Yet God loved us before he made the world, in his grace decided not to destroy us, but to save us, and, in the end, fully restore us. He did this at the cost of the suffering and death of his son Jesus. In his death, he destroyed death and, in his resurrection, opened the kingdoms of heaven to all believers. Our natural response to the grace is trust in his promises and, in thank him for the countless blessings in this life and in heaven, kept safe for us. So, we always give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endures forever.

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

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