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Introduction to the Athanasian Creed

Encore Post:

On Trinity Sunday, most Lutheran churches confess the Athanasian Creed together. The creed was composed in keeping with his theology about the Trinity, though not by St. Athanasius himself. The creed flagrantly uses the term “catholic” in a way that can startle us sensitive snowflakes of the Lutheran tradition.

St. Athanasius? Catholic? Are we Romanists, now?

No, we are not now, nor do we desire to be a part of the Roman Catholic church. “But, Pastor, we just said the ‘catholic faith,’ like three times in the Athanasian Creed last Sunday.” Yes, yes, we did. And I have good news! At Mt. Calvary, we confess it again on several Sundays throughout the church year.

Our Sunday bulletin at Mt. Calvary included this little note concerning our catholicity. “catholic faith* — The term catholic does not refer to the modern Roman Catholic Church, but rather to the universal, invisible, orthodox, faithful church of Christ on earth. We retain the use of the term “catholic” in the Athanasian Creed in opposition to the papal church of Rome. “Catholic” simply means” universal,” and as such, we boldly confess it from our Lutheran understanding.”

There are Christians who eschew the use of creeds in the church. They’ll say things like, “No creed but Christ” and, “no book but the bible.” But those statements are creeds of their own. We derive the English word creed from the Latin credo, which means, “I believe.” So, our friends in the “no creeds” crowd are creedingly creeding a creed against the use of creeds. (The large majority of the global Christian community is from credal faiths like ours.)

The three ecumenical creeds are: The Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. Creeds, as a whole, exist to speak contrary to positions held outside the faith. Each of these creeds exists solely to communicate the faith we all hold in opposition to a novel heresy against the faith. Ecumenical refers to that which pertains to the whole Christian church. The ecumenical creeds are embraced and confessed by all of Christendom.

The Athanasian Creed speaks primarily against the Arian sect of the early Christian church. Arius, for whom the sect is named, struggled with the stuff of which God is. He taught against the idea that God the Father and God the Son are of the same substance.

Now, the Nicene Creed says, “… of the same substance with the Father…” After the first ecumenical council in Nicea (325 AD), the notion that there are differences in substance should have been put to bed with all the subordination it entails. But Arianism remained a problem for the church.

The creed can be treated as two or three parts. Three parts will work adequately for this discussion. The first part deals with the unity of our Triune God. He is uncreated, infinite, and eternal, “not three gods, but one God.” This language rejects Subordinationism, that the Son and the Spirit are less God than the Father, who is God. Rather, God is of one substance, not “three gods or lords.”

In the second section, we confess personhood, each distinct from the other. This rejects Modalism, which holds that God changes masks, appearances, or functions but remains the same in person in each case. Rather, we confess that the individual persons of the Triune God possess unique attributes to the exclusion of the others. The Father: unbegotten, The Son: begotten, and the Holy Spirit: proceeding, are all unique in function for us Christians. There are not three of any, but one of each person within the Trinity in Unity.

The third section deals with Jesus’ incarnation. The two natures of Christ are on full display here. The Son is “equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity.” We reject Eutychianism, that Jesus’ human and divine natures merged into a new, different nature. “He is God, begotten from the substance of the Father before all ages; and He is man, born from the substance of His mother in this age: perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity.” We also reject Nestorianism, that the two natures of Christ are not unified in His person. “He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ: one, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.”

The third section also rejects the Gnostic notion that we will be free from matter and our bodies, specifically in the next life. On the contrary, we confess the resurrection of our bodies! “At His coming, all people will rise again with their bodies.”

Dear Baptized, let us celebrate the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity!
Thanks be to God!

Read section one of the Athanasian Creed next.

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

Green Sundays: Ordinary Time After Pentecost and Trinity Sunday

Encore Post:

With the celebration of the Sunday of the Holy Trinity, the church’s liturgy shifts themes. From Advent to Pentecost, the focus of all lessons across all lectionaries is on the earthly ministry of Jesus. With the feast of the Holy Trinity, we consider what this means for our lives and the life of the Church. The color of all our paraments and vestments is green to reflect growth in our faith in Christ. Together with the Season of Epiphany, the Pentecost/Trinity Season is called Ordinary Time.

These Sundays are not called ordinary because there is something routine about them. It comes from the fact that each week in the season is numbered rather than named. It is the tradition of the church that each Sunday between Advent and Pentecost has a unique Latin name. You may have seen these in bulletins. The weeks of ordinary time, however, are numbered by the weeks after Epiphany, Pentecost or Trinity.

There are so many Sundays after Pentecost or Trinity that most lectionaries change the themes twice or more. Most make these changes at the celebrations of St. Lawrence Day and St. Michael and All Angels (Michaelmas). If your church uses Graduals between the Old Testament and New Testament lessons and/or a thematic alleluia verse, you will notice the shift. The Gradual and the alleluia verse changes.

In some American Lutheran churches, another feature of the liturgy in ordinary time is a shorter preface. The preface is the prayer of praise said by the pastor before the Sanctus. In these churches, the pastor goes directly from “that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto You O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God …” to “therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising you and saying…” In the first half of the church year and on special days, they add a proper preface to it, related to the day itself.

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

Move to Indiana and Search for German Protestants

Encore Post: in late May 1838, Pastor Jesse Hoover died. In the frontier town of Fort Wayne, Indiana, his congregations mourned. Along with them, the whole region missed him, too. Lutheran pastors were rare in the dark forest. Elder Adam Wesel of St. Paul’s congregation wrote to the Mission Committee of the Pennsylvania Ministerium for help. Among other things, he pleaded:

“Have pity, honored fathers and brothers and send us a Pastor… If you canvas the northern part of Indiana you will soon see how important it is that you send us a faithful Shepherd. The harvest is great but unfortunately there are no workers. If it is not possible to send us a Pastor, dear brothers, then send us a circuit rider. We hunger and thirst for the Word of God.”

The letter arrived in Pennsylvania at a perfect time. The committee had planned to send a survey missionary West in September. But their candidate could not go. They were without a man to send.

In August 1838, a letter from Johann Häsbärt arrived at the headquarters of the Pennsylvania Ministerium Mission Society, highly recommending Friedrich Wyneken. The Executive Committee invited Wyneken to visit Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to meet with them. In the company of Häsbärt, Friedrich met with the committee.

So convinced of his fitness for the task and likely moved by his zeal for the work, the Missionary Society set aside its usual practice of waiting until September to send out its workers. They commissioned him to “move to Indiana, to search for scattered German Protestants to preach to them, and, if possible, gather them into congregations.” While the Committee intended Wyneken to make Indiana his base of operations, they also directed him to labor in Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Credentials in hand, Wyneken embarked upon his ministry as a Missionary, traveling in the company of Häsbärt as far as Havre de Grace, Maryland.

In Pittsburgh, Wyneken met for the first time C. F. Schmidt, the editor of Lutherische Kirchenzeitung, who would prove a close friend and the channel through which Wyneken’s first appeals would reach the world. From Pittsburgh, Wyneken traveled by train and canal boat to Zelienople, Pennsylvania, where he purchased a horse and cheerfully rode off to be, as his friend C. F. W. Walther would later describe him, the Lutheran Apostle of the West.

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

Ascension

Encore Post: The Ascension is an important event in the life of Jesus and in the life of the Church. It is the final part of the work which redeemed us: the cross, where our sins were paid for; the resurrection, where the power of the grave was broken; and the ascension, which restored all His honor, glory, authority, and power. From the early church over 1500 years ago until recent years, the church celebrated the Ascension on the fortieth day after Easter, or on the Thursday ten days before Pentecost. In the 21st century, many churches celebrate Ascension on the Sunday before Pentecost.

When He ascended, Jesus left His Church with a promise, a mission, and a blessing. He promised to be with us always until the end of time. He gave us our mission. We would join His mission to seek and save the lost by going to the whole world, being witnesses to His life, death, and resurrection, proclaiming the good news of salvation, baptizing, and teaching all He commanded us. As He ascended, He blessed them as Aaron and the High Priest did and as pastors do to this day, giving us His peace. He promised to be with us always, until the end of time itself.

Now the church waits patiently for him to return. On a day that no one knows, Jesus will return. On that day, he will raise our bodies from the grave, judge all the living and the dead, and bring an end to sin, death, and the power of the devil. God will live among us again, throwing the greatest marriage feast of all time. He will dry every tear from 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

Church Words: Iconoclasm

[Thirty-first in a series of posts on church words]

Encore Post:

Iconoclasm is a $0.25 word we don’t hear in our circles much these days. We are, however, surrounded by its effects in our American Christian culture. Iconoclasm is an English word derived from two Greek words (εἰκών, I-kohn, “image, figure” and κλάω, Klah-ō, “to break”). Iconoclasts throughout history, in various religions, and in the public sphere, have sought to “break images.” In earlier times, these breakings were literal, violent acts. We moderns are far more enlightened. We stick to character assassination rather than physical violence.

For this discussion, we’ll treat iconoclasm, aniconism, and iconophobia as roughly interchangeable terms. The first refers to destroying images. The second implies avoiding images. The third suggests a fear of images. Since the thumbnail image would make them all similarly uncomfortable, we can treat them as a single categorical group.

Iconoclasts are a historical minority in Christianity. Widespread use of Christian imagery, statuary, and crucifixes emerged only after Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire, around the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

Byzantine Emperor Leo III issued edicts between 726 and 730 AD against the veneration of images. Wealthier, Greek-speaking Byzantines in the West resisted these measures. Poorer, Slavic, Arabic, and Farsi-speaking Byzantines in the East embraced these policies. The issue may have been fueled by the strict outlawing of images in the theocracies of the Islamist world with whom the poorer Eastern Byzantines were interacting.

When the fires of iconoclasm dwindled again. The Eastern and Western Christian churches developed very different aesthetics regarding icons, or images, in the church. In the West, realism in painting and sculpture became the norm. Three-dimensional statues and paintings with a perceptible depth of field gained widespread use in churches and homes, primarily featuring images of Jesus’ crucifixion.

In the East, iconography developed into a specific type of flattened painting style. Eastern Christian icons use a field of vision where the near ground is lower in the picture and sometimes larger. The background is higher and sometimes smaller. These also make significant use of words and names in the image to identify the subjects and events, including primarily the crucifixion of Our Lord.

In both cases, preference was given to events in the life of Christ, the prophets and saints of the church.

In the Reformation era, Thomas Müntzer and Andreas Karlstadt (associates of Martin Luther) sought to purge the reforming churches in Germany by removing their statues and stained glass imagery. Luther opposed them. Afterward, Lutherans retained a love of sacred art and statuary at home and in their churches.

The radical reformers of the 16th century, including Calvin and Zwingli, rejected icons and statuary in their churches. These groups and their progeny certainly influenced American revivalist Christianity and, as a result, the common American expression of the faith. Ours could be called a semi-iconoclastic culture.

In the 16th & 17th centuries, one could scarcely find an example of a cross in use without some or most of them displaying a corpus (Jesus’s body). In modern America, we are nearly afraid of seeing Jesus on the cross … in a statuary form … on our walls at home or altars at church. (Paintings at home were fine). I think for German-American Lutherans, this stems from a uniquely American German expression: das ist Katolisch (that is Catholic).

[“I would also add that the specific Old Testament Commandments concerning graven images are right after they have left Egypt and aptly describe the mixture of animal and human characteristics in the idols of Egypt. Whereas God, who says make no such graven images, then immediately tells the Israelites how to make the Ark, the Menorah, the symbols of the Angels on the Ark, how to stitch Angels into the fabric and tapestry of the paraments for the Tabernacle, and then the Temples. Even in the tablets given to Moses, the Lord is clearly not opposed to sacred images, but to pagan, idolatrous ones.” (Rev. Larry R. Görlitz, in conversation, 22 May 2024) (cf. Exodus 25-28, 30-31, 35:30-39:43)]

German-American Lutherans were very sensitive to being confused by Baptists, Methodists, and the Reformed with Roman Catholics. Our chanted liturgy, non-English services, use of vestments, stodgy hymnody, and short preaching may have fed that confusion. But the reaction, das ist Katolisch, revealed a willingness to allow some practices and images to slip away. There was a need to be seen as un-Catholic.

These days, arguments will revolve around statements of Spiritualized Christianity like: “We worship a risen Jesus.” Or, “The empty tomb is our hope.” The rarity of a barren cross and the near complete absence of the open tomb in pre-enlightenment Christian art should warn us against those errors.

We are better to speak with Paul, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23). The risen Jesus is the proof of it. But Christ and Him crucified is our salvation. It is the very price paid for sin. Jesus’s death frees us from the fear of the pain of death in ourselves. We ought to celebrate and revere it.

Also, don’t forget the condition of Jesus as the disciples saw Him in the resurrection. “Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:26-27). The lamb, who was slain and yet He lives, still bears the marks of our salvation in His flesh for us.

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

Church Words: Sanctification

[Thirtieth in a series of posts on church words]

Encore Post:

In our post on Justification, we talked about the very good news that Jesus saves us by grace alone, through faith alone, for Christ’s sake alone. When God declares us “not guilty” from his throne, we really are “not guilty” for our sins and will not be punished for them. This is because Jesus was punished in our place on the cross. We are now holy in God’s sight, as if we had never sinned in the first place.

There is one problem — we still sin. In one setting of the Divine Service in the Lutheran Service Book, we recite a passage from the First Letter of St. John to each other during confession, which makes this clear. We’re fooling ourselves if we think we don’t sin. (1 John 1:8-9) St. Paul discusses the war within himself between his new Adam and his old Adam in Romans 7. God solves this problem by sending his Holy Spirit to make us holy. This process is called sanctification.

The word is borrowed directly from Latin, meaning “to make holy.” Lutheran theologians use it in two ways. In general, sanctification includes everything the Holy Spirit does to make us holy: from when he uses baptism and the preaching of the gospel to create faith in our hearts to the day we die or Christ returns, and thereafter he purges sin from our lives forever. Because Catholics believe a person isn’t fully saved until sin is completely gone from their lives, they include time in purgatory after death. Lutheran theologians prefer to use it in a more specific way than to refer to everything the Holy Spirit does after God justifies us.

When we talk about sanctification in general, we talk about it as a process. Using God’s word and the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit changes our hearts. Now we want to please God, not to bribe him to save us, but to serve God because we love him. We now do truly good works, and these, in turn, help us in the battle between our sinful self and our saintly self. Even then, these works are not strictly ours — God prepares them for us to do in the same way a teacher prepares homework for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10) This struggle lasts all our lives, but is complete the day we die. On that day, Jesus will greet us and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” and welcome us into his eternal kingdom.

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

©2019-2025 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

Church Words: Justification

[Twenty-Ninth in a series of posts on church words]

Encore Post:

When you talk to people about what they believe, you hear a bunch of ideas that sometimes do not seem to fit together. More often than not, they tell you more about what they do and not why they do it. A Roman Catholic might tell you they go to Mass every Sunday and do not eat meat on Fridays. A Seventh-day Adventist might tell you they go to church on Saturday, or a Muslim might tell you they pray five times a day facing Mecca. If they do get to what they believe is true, the teaching might seem random. What you need to know is their most important teaching — the one on which all the rest are built.

For Lutherans, the teaching on justification is the doctrine on which the faith stands or falls. The question is, how does God make a sinner a saint? We believe that justification is a legal proceeding — a forensic action. From his throne, God declares sinners not guilty, even though he knows full well that we are guilty. He does this because there is no longer a penalty to pay for our sin. Jesus took the sins of the whole world and paid the full price for them on the cross. In our place, God declared him guilty and sentenced him to death. When he said, “It is finished,” the debt we owed was stamped “paid in full.”

Yet justification does more than grant us forgiveness. When God said, “Let there be light,” it was created by the power of his word. When he says, “not guilty,” we are recreated. A new Adam or Eve is born in us. So it is not simply a legal fiction. We really are righteous because God says so. And that changes everything.

When we use a computer to write something, we can choose to right, left, or fully justify the document. What we mean is that all the letters will line up at the left, right, or both margins. In theological terms, God aligns our actions with his will and the law through a process called sanctification. It is not completed in us before we die. God completes us when we enter his presence at the end of our mortal life. But that is another post. It is on this point that we differ with Roman Catholics, Methodists, and Holiness denominations, among others.

Yet God’s word clearly teaches the truth of Lutheran teaching about Justification. The gospel is really true — we are justified only because God is gracious to us, that we b elieve and trust that it is true, all because Jesus was born, lived a perfect life, suffered, died, and rose again for our sake. It is what makes the gospel such sweet, good news.

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

Church Words: Adoption

[Twenty-Eighth in a series of posts on church words]

Encore Post:

A child is born in ancient Rome. The baby is carefully cleaned and tenderly wrapped. She is brought to the father of the family (pater familias) and set at his feet. The household watches to see what the father will do. If he picks up the child and says, “This is my son,” the baby will be an heir in the family, even if the mother is a slave. If he turns and walks away, the child will be set outside in the street, exposed to the fates and not a part of the family. By this and similar legal proceedings, a free Roman could adopt anyone he wished and grant all the rights and privileges due to his children to that person. In Greek, the word is υἱοθεσία (υἱοθεσία — huiothesia — the placing as a son, the adoption as a son)

Because he loves us, God arranged for us to be adopted as his sons (Ephesians 1:4-5). At just the right time, the Father sent his Son to be born of the Virgin Mary, to redeem us by his sinless life, suffering, death on the cross, and resurrection, so that we might be adopted as his sons in our baptism. He then sent his Holy Spirit into our hearts, so that now we can call him “Abba” — “Father.” (Galatians 4:4-7) The Holy Spirit testified to all of this. Now, since we are God’s heirs — heirs with Christ, we share in his sufferings in order to share in his glory. (Romans 8:15-17) We await the final adoption decree, the resurrection of our bodies at the end of time. (Romans 8:23)

Because we are adopted as sons of God, we are now a part of his family. Jesus is our older brother. All Christians are now related. We are each other’s brothers and sisters in Christ. God has given us to each other. When one of us suffers, we all suffer. When one of us is blessed, we are all blessed. We care for each other, protect each other, and worship together. When our older brother returns, we will live and reign with Christ. That is why Jesus prays for us, that we may be one, as he and the Father are one. It is also why we all go by one name — Christian.

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

Church Words: Good Works

[Twenty-Seventh in a series of posts on church words]

Encore Post:

When the Bible speaks about good works, it really is not talking about the everyday things we think about when we mention good things people do. You know these kinds of good works: someone stops to pull a child out of a burning car. A famous person sneaks out, gives her entourage a slip, and goes to the homeless shelter to care for people in need without cameras. Or just the simple good things people do to make life better for others.

As noble as a good deed is, the good things people do are always deep down colored with mixed motives. Maybe we did them so that people would sing our praises. Maybe we expected to get something from them, a reward, a trophy, or a good deed in return. The Hindu idea called Karma is supposed to work that way. If you do good, good will be done to you.

Sometimes the things we choose to do are our own ideas. All-night vigils, long fasts, pilgrimages, and similar feats are very impressive, but God never actually asks us to do these things. They all have the effect of making us feel better about ourselves. Jesus had a simple but biting evaluation of their worth. “You have received your reward.”

The bottom line is that no good work done saves us or even especially pleases God, unless we do them because we have faith in God and want to thank him for his love and mercy towards us. Strictly speaking, non-Christians cannot do good works. Everything they do is motivated by a desire to get something out of it. Even Christians who love and trust God aren’t perfect when it comes to doing good with pure motives.

Truly good works, then, are the product of faith in Jesus Christ. Every thankful thought, grateful prayer of thanksgiving, and things done because we love God are good works. Even though a sinful thought or motive might tarnish them, because Christ earned our forgiveness on the cross, God does not count these sins against us but sees only those things we do because we love him.

So, good works are not worthless. Nor are they trivial things that really don’t matter because God has already saved us. What is important is to put things in good order. Faith in Christ comes first. Then, because we already love God, we want to do good things to thank him for his grace and love. With the strength he gives, we do what he created us to do — good works, which he prepared in advance for us to do.

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

I am Jesus’ Little Lamb

I am Jesus’ little lamb,
Ever glad at heart I am;
For my Shepherd gently guides me,
Knows my need and well provides me,
Loves me ev’ry day the same,
Even calls me by my name. — “I am Jesus’ little lamb” LSB 740

After a very long labor, my late wife Kris delivered our twin sons. While she enjoyed a very much earned sleep, I took each boy, one after the other, into my arms and sang, “I am Jesus Little Lamb.” When their sister was born three years later, I took my daughter into my arms and sang it again. Our family would sing this song together many times over the next few decades.

Day by day, at home, away,
Jesus is my staff and stay.
When I hunger, Jesus feeds me,
Into pleasant pastures leads me;
When I thirst, He bids me go
Where the quiet waters flow. — “I am Jesus’ little lamb” LSB 740

When our children grew up and began to have our grandchildren, I dusted off this hymn again. The first time I held each of my grandchildren, I sang this song to them. Should more come along, I plan to continue this little tradition. Who knows? Perhaps God will give me a decade or two more and I will be able to hold great-grandchildren and sing them this song.

While we were preparing for Kris’ funeral, my daughter found a playlist on our Alexa instance. On that playlist was “I am Jesus’ Little Lamb.” The pastor missed it during the funeral, so it wasn’t sung on that day. The next day was Good Shepherd Sunday at church and we did sing it then. I could almost her then — and now — Kris singing the last stanza to us,

Who so happy as I am,
Even now the Shepherd’s lamb?
And when my short life is ended,
By His angel host attended,
He shall fold me to His breast,
There within His arms to rest. — “I am Jesus’ little lamb” LSB 740

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