Worship – Page 10 – What Does This Mean?

What is Prayer?

In my short time as a Pastor, I have heard many people, including myself say, “My prayer life is pitiful.” I have also heard people say they do not know how to pray. Let me first say that prayer is a wonderful gift that our God has given us, for that is how we communicate with our Dear Father in Heaven. He has given us His Word in Holy Scripture, and He has given us His Name to call upon at all times and seasons.

The 2nd commandment tells us about the name of our Lord and God. We shall not misuse it. However, to use it rightly, God tells us to call upon Him and He will answer us. He commands us to pray. But He also attaches the promise that He will hear our prayers and answer them.

Prayer is extremely important, even for Jesus. Luke’s Gospel tells us more than any other Gospel about Jesus praying. On one occasion, the disciples go to him and implore Jesus to teach them to pray. Jesus does not scold them, but rather Jesus teaches them the prayer that we know as the Lord’s Prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer are Jesus’ own words now put on our lips to pray. What special words! And we get to say them to our Lord who promises to hear and answer! Even when we do not know what to say or what to pray for, we have the Lord’s Prayers and the prayers of the saints of the Old Testament in the Psalms at our fingertips in Holy Scripture. We even have Jesus praying the Psalms to the Lord while at the Cross. St. Paul also attests to the Holy Spirit interceding on our behalf when we don’t know for what to pray.

The next section of the catechism deals with the Lord’s Prayer and the petitions that Jesus teaches us to pray. May we all pray the prayer He has taught us to pray fervently to our Father in Heaven who loves to hear our petitions and requests and delights to answer our prayers.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Palm Sunday in Advent?

This text for Advent 1 for the 3 year lectionary is something we hear on Palm Sunday. It seems to be well sowed into the fabric of Holy Week, so why does it show up at the very beginning of the church year? That is a question that I have been rolling around in my head for the past week. And I think I found the connection, from the Prophet Zechariah whom Matthew quotes. “Behold, your king is coming to you.” This quote is the reason that this is read on the first Sunday in Advent. “Your King is coming to you.” We always think that Advent is preparing us for Christmas, well, because it does, but the season prepares us for something so much more. It prepares us for the other ways that Christ our King, comes to us.

We see in Palm Sunday a Jesus entering Jerusalem to a parade, but only a couple days later the city is no longer cheering but crying out “Crucify!”At the cross we see the title given again to Jesus. The first being when the magi visit. It seems that no one fully understood the title king at his birth nor at his crucifixion, for His Kingdom is not from this world. The throne he sits on is actually a cross, to which he willingly goes to die for the sins of the world.

Christ’s Kingdom has already come to you, believers of his word. He proclaims we are in his Kingdom right now via the Word and Sacraments. He mercifully comes to you in His Divine Service to forgive us our sins on account of his suffering and death. And He promises us everlasting life because he rose from the dead. Having risen and now ascended to the right hand of the Father, we trust his promise that He will come back to take us to Himself.

Christ will come again, no longer riding humbly on a donkey, but in all his divine majesty and glory. He is coming back to judge the living and the dead. And we who believe look forward to that this final coming of Christ the King. Why do I say we look forward? We are awaiting Christ’s final coming in which he will set all the world right, and remove us from sin and from the sufferings of this world. Behold, your king is coming to you in mercy, oh faithful ones, now and always.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Luke’s Musical

Encore Post: St. Luke wrote his Gospel and the Book of Acts in polished, carefully constructed Greek. The Introductions to both books are in well-balanced, formal language, like the best of ancient classical history. But when he begins the story of Jesus, he writes in the Greek of the Septuagint — the translation of the Old Testament read in the synagogues where Jesus and his disciples grew up. It would be like reading a novel that starts in New York, writing with a Brooklyn accent, and, when the scene changes to Dallas, it speaks with a Texas twang and vocabulary.

As Luke weaves the story, he recalls several canticles — New Testament psalms really — sung by various persons in it. The result is much like a modern musical. The Church picked up on this. We sing them in worship and have done so for more than 1600 years.

Called by the first few words of these songs in Latin, they are:

Mary’s song, the Magnificat. We sing it during Vespers.

Zechariah’s song, the Benedictus, sung in morning services.

The Christmas Angel’s song, the Gloria, sung in the Divine Service — When the Lord’s Supper is served.

And Simeon’s Song, the Nunc Dimmitis, also sung during Divine Service.

These songs of joy, celebrating the births of the Messiah and the prophet who announced him are now our songs, too, not just at Christmas, but the whole year.

Preach the Word

Encore Post: The pastoral ministry is all about feeding Christ’s sheep. Jesus and his Church have given pastors the privilege of distributing the means of grace publicly. Pastors preach God’s Word and the administer his sacraments as God’s representatives and in the name of the church. (See Augsburg Confession 5) We can believe that, when a pastor does these things according to God’s Word, it is God himself speaking to us, baptizing us and giving us the body and blood of Jesus himself with the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. Of all these acts, the one a pastor does most often is preaching.

The New Testament uses several words for preaching, almost all tied to what a herald does. The main word used is κηρύσσω (Kerusso) — to announce, make known, proclaim. (2 Timothy 4:2) Preaching is all about delivering a message from God. That message is mainly the good news of salvation won for us by Jesus on the cross. But it also extends to the whole counsel of God.

Pastors preach not only on Sunday morning during a worship service, but also anytime someone needs to hear from God’s word. It may be urging them to repentance, or may be assuring them that God forgives them for the sake of Jesus Christ. During a worship service, a sermon is much more formal than that. Most often a sermon takes the message in a passage read earlier, it explains those truths to God’s people, and urges them to believe these words. It is not about teaching, presenting all kinds of facts to be remembered. It is not entertainment, helping people to escape from their day-to-day lives just for a little while.

Preaching is all about changing the lives of those who hear the message. It does not do so because of the pastors skill, his inspiring insights, or how hilarious is jokes are. The point of a sermon is to bring the message that God put it in the scriptures to people. It’s all about changing lives, and strengthening the faith of those who hear. You may remember the words of a talented speaker for a long time. But a sermon is God’s gift to you. It contains the Gospel, which gives you his grace. It is the very words of eternal life.

Bread From Heaven Five Ways

Encore Post: From the time that people began to plant crops until this very day, bread has been a basic food for people. God fed His people in the wilderness with manna to teach them to trust their Heavenly Father for daily bread. Later Satan would tempt Jesus to make stones into bread rather than trust Him. Jesus quoted what Moses said to Israel about Manna: “people do not live only on bread but on every word that God speaks.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)

Later, God would do other miracles with bread. The Prophet Elijah would feed the widow and her son with bread — their flour and oil did not run out for years. Elisha would feed one hundred men with a few loaves. Jesus would feed crowds in the desert with a few loaves and fishes. The crowds knew what it meant — Jesus was the Messiah and like Moses and Elijah.

Jesus also used bread in another way. During His Last Supper, Jesus took bread, broke it, blessed it and gave His body for them to eat. To this day, when we gather for communion, Jesus feeds us with His body — the true Bread from Heaven. When we receive this bread, we are given strength for our journey through this life to life everlasting.