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:
Encore Post: Great forest fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and floods are all over our news. Acts of unspeakable evil and cruelty occur on almost a weekly basis. A nation routinely kills babies in the womb, celebrates immorality and lectures the church when it doesn’t join them. All the signs of the end of days fill our T.V.s, cell phones and computer screens. It makes you just want to scream, “Tear open the heavens and get down here, Lord, and do something about it! What are you waiting for? (See Isaiah 64)
To most of the world’s religions, the high god who made the world is a distant god, who made the world and tired of it, going away to leave it to lesser gods and our own devices. We are left alone to deal with the mess that is our world and our part in making it worse. Even more modern thinkers, like the Deists, thought of God as a great watchmaker, who made the world capable of running itself, wound it up and walked away. Pop songs muse: “God is watching us… from a distance” and “The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died.” We just have to cope, they advise.
Advent breaks into that mood and reminds us that is not true at all. The God who made the world and called it “very good” intends to do something about it. He promised to come himself, in the person of his Son, born of a woman, to become one of us. It reminds us that he kept that promise and to prepare to celebrate that coming, receive him as he comes to us each day and how he will finally come to set things right.
The season of Advent developed over the centuries to do just that. Like Lent prepared the church to celebrate Easter, Advent would come to celebrate Christmas. For some, it was also a season of repentance, as a deliberate counter to the wild and immoral way pagans celebrate their December holidays. So in many places, Advent’s color is purple or black, the Gloria is not sung and people fast. For others, it is a season of hope, with the color being blue and carols sung to anticipate Christmas.
Either way, the church cries out: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come!” Come as you did, born to die that we might live. Come with your grace and live among us. Come and bring us all home to be with you. Come, Lord Jesus, Come!
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
Encore Post: Orthodox is a term that is a bit like catholicin 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
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
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
Encore Post: Time is a funny thing. We use clocks that measure the vibrations of atoms, coordinated with telescopes to record its passage with great precision and consistency from place to place, transmit them to us via computers, satellites, radio, television and other digital signals and synchronize our clocks with them. We barely notice that time is a human thing — except on leap year or when we change our clocks twice a year or move from time zone to time zone.
Time is the way we record the change we notice more and more with each year of life. Time passes quickly. When you are a child, an hour drags on forever. As an adult, it passes before your realize it. What is important, our culture has noticed, is not time itself, but what you do with it. It has become our new currency. We sooner will write a check than hang out.
The Greek of the New Testament has two different words for time. καιρός (Chairos) translates roughly “the right time.” χρόνος (Chronos) is about the passage of time, minute after minute, hour after hour, year after year. Seasons like Advent, days like Christmas and New Years Day are χρόνος, times that we plan for, come and go, forming a part of the rhythm of life. That Christmas when you opened your first present is καιρός
The fullness of time when God sent his son, born of a virgin, is God’s καιρός (Galatians 4:4-5). His acts and plans unfolded slowly, one building on another, leading to just that right time. The next big καιρός is the Second Advent, when time itself will come to an end in God’s eternal life with his people.
The persons, events and institutions leading to that first right time, the incarnation, life, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of Immanuel — God-with-us — were called by the Early Church the praeparatio Evangelii (The Preparation of the Gospel).
Encore Post: In the Anglican Church’s Book of Common Prayer, the collects for the last Sunday of the Church Year and three of the four sundays of Advent begin with the words “Stir up …” In England, where the mix for Christmas Pudding needed to cure for weeks, hearing the words of the collect reminded households to stir up the Christmas pudding! So they nicknamed the Sunday “Stir up Sunday.”
Lutheran Churches do not use the first collect, perhaps because it is kind of works-righteous. But we do use the three Advent Collects. They are:
First Sunday of Advent: Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance;
Second Sunday of Advent: Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Your only-begotten Son, that by His coming we may be enabled to serve You with pure minds;
Fourth Sunday of Advent: Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come and help us by Your might, that the sins which weigh us down may be quickly lifted by Your grace and mercy;
The three prayers summarize the themes of Advent. We call on God to come, knowing he has come in the person of his Son, comes to us each day by the Holy Spirit and will come to us on the last day. But our prayers make his coming our own in a special way. the Spirit and the Bride say to us Come! They invite us also to say Come! to God’s children lost and found. They call on us to say, Come Lord Jesus. And so we do in Advent.
Encore Post: Isaac Watts hated the music sung in his dissenting Calvinist churches. These congregations believed that only the words of Psalms, or close paraphrases, were appropriate for worship. Watts believed that hymns should bring out the Christian sense of the Psalms and connect with the lives of everyday Christians. So over three hundred years ago (1719), he composed a book of hymns inspired by the Psalms entitled: ” The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament. On Psalm 98, he wrote two hymns. Under the title “The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom” he wrote “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”
Now the most published Christmas hymn in North America, “Joy to the World” is really not a Christmas hymn. It celebrates both the First and Second Advent of Christ.
Joy to the World; The Lord is come;
Let Earth receive her King:
Let every Heart prepare him Room,
And Heaven and Nature sing.
The first stanza rejoices that Christ has already come and invites us to do what Bethlehem did not do on the first Christmas: make room for him in our hearts.
Joy to the Earth, The Savior reigns;
Let Men their Songs employ;
While Fields & Floods, Rocks, Hills & Plains
Repeat the sounding Joy.
No more let Sins and Sorrows grow,
Nor Thorns infest the Ground:
He comes to make his Blessings flow
Far as the Curse is found.
He rules the World with Truth and Grace,
And makes the Nations prove
The Glories of his Righteousness,
And Wonders of his Love.
The rest of the hymn looks forward to the Second Advent. Then the Savior will reign on the earth. The curse of Adam will be reversed. He will rule with truth and grace and all the nations will know it. We will all rejoice.
So, no, you are not rushing Christmas by singing “Joy to the World.” It is great to sing on the last Sunday of the church year and throughout Advent. After all: The Lord has come. He was born of the virgin, lived a perfect life for us, died for our sins and rose for our salvation. The Lord is come, wherever people baptized in his name, saved by his grace, rejoice as he reigns among them. The Lord will come as far the curse is found. Joy to the world indeed! Come Lord Jesus, Come!
Encore Post: The oldest and most universal name for the Church is “Christian.” In fact, followers of Jesus were first called “Christian” by Gentiles in the city of Antioch — as recorded by St. Luke in the Book of Acts! (Acts 11:26) It was not a complement. The followers of crazy new religions were called by their founder’s name — with the -ian ending! In fact, most of them probably thought the disciples of Jesus were followers of a man named “Chrestus” — a popular name for a slave. Christians seemed to have called themselves “slaves of Jesus Christ” (that’s what the phrase translated “servants of Jesus Christ” really means!), brothers, holy ones (saints) or disciples. Eventually, the nickname stuck when it was used by Romans to charge Christians with believing in Jesus Christ. Since it was good enough for the martyrs, it was good enough for everyone!
Today we use it in a variety of ways. We use it for a follower of Christ, the religion they belong to, a behavior in keeping with the word of God, political parties and many other ways. As fine a word as it is, sometimes it can be quite useless. For example, Mormons, who believe that God was a man and that we, too, can earn god or goddess-hood, Jehovah’s Witnesses, who do not believe Jesus is God or died on the cross, and many others call themselves Christian. In fact, Social Scientists count them along with us. People who have never darkened the door of a church will count themselves as Christians, because they believe they are “good people.”
Yet we confess that we believe in the “one, holy, Christian and Apostolic Church.” For all the false claims and misleading uses of the word, we are proud to “belong to Christ.” After all, he loved us, set aside his glory, suffered and died for us, paying the price of our sins, rose again to break the seal of the grave for us and, in baptism, made us his own. So we fight for the term and gladly wear his name — the name the martyrs confessed and died to proclaim. Lord, may we follow in their train!
Rev. Robert E. Smith Pastor Emeritus Fort Wayne, Indiana
