[Twenty-Third in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]
Life can sometimes be confusing. Perhaps you have two good opportunities to choose from. Maybe a series of setbacks or changes in your life hit you in quick succession. Or life just seems to drag on. Maybe you lose someone close to you. Or you discover the harder you try to obey God’s law, the more you fail to do so. You wonder who you are.
That is a good time to remind yourself of who you are and whose you are. The basic fact of your life, my life, and every life is that God made you. Martin Luther put it this way: “I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my limbs, my reason, and all my senses” (Small Catechism 2.1) He made you who you are — a man or a woman, tall or short, blue eyes, brown hair and more — written in every cell of your body. Even twins are unique in their own ways. There is no one like you.
But the Father not only made you — he made you new again. In Baptism, he adopted you as his Son. You belong to him now and forever. So, you can answer the confusion of the world, the accusing devil, and the lure of our sinful self. “Go away! I am made by God and baptized to be His own.” Such a statement can bring peace, no matter the mess around you.
[Twenty-Second in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]
When we say that God is almighty, it seems simple enough. We can even explain it to a three-year-old: God can do anything he wants to do. Yet the more we think about it, that God is omnipotent, παντοκράτορ — all-powerful, the more we have trouble taking it all in. We get a sense of this when a child asks the snarky question, “Can God make a rock that he can’t lift?” or when an opponent of the faith asks the classic question, “What did God do before he made the world?” The questions normally get the answer they deserve: an equally silly response like: “he made hell, so he has a place to send people who ask such questions!”
Such questions point out that there is a limit to how much we can understand about our maker. They show what happens when we try to pit one quality (attribute) of God against another. So … For God, who is eternal, time does not exist. There is no before or after creation for him. He makes all the rules, so he doesn’t have to follow them. That’s what makes a miracle possible.
When it comes to what God cannot do, we are inclined to answer “Nothing.” After all, Jesus said, What is impossible with man is possible with God” (Lk 18:27). Yet the Book of Hebrews tells us, “it is impossible for God to lie” (Heb 6:18), and St. Paul states that God “cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13), in short, God cannot act contrary to his nature. So, God does not want to do any of these things.
Why it is important that God is almighty is that he can—and does—keep his promises. To save those who rebelled against him, ruined and still ruins his perfect world. He did so by being born of a virgin, dying to pay for their sins, and rising again from the dead. On the day he chooses, he will call his children to rise from the dust to live with him forever. It means that he saves us and will bring an end to sin, death, and the devil. So we confess: “I believe in God, the Father almighty” and marvel at all he can do, wants to do, and will do for us.
Encore Post: During his visit to Wittenberg in December 1521, Junker Jörg had the opportunity to speak with and overhear conversations among ordinary Germans. What he learned disturbed him greatly. He sensed anger against the Church and her abuses, and general unease among common people. He likely read several of the extreme pamphlets, some threatening violence and rebellion.
For months, he had been haunted by the possibility that events could get out of hand. The Electoral Saxon Court was also worried. Not entirely successfully, the Elector forbade the changes being made by Luther’s followers and university students for the time being. Yet many of the changes being made by impatient reformers were ideas he himself had advanced. The end of private masses, the distribution of both elements in the Lord’s Supper, and the end of monastic celibacy were among these reforms. He vowed to write and discourage the former while encouraging the latter.
In the summer of 1521, from the safety of the Wartburg, Luther wrote a treatise De abroganda missa privata Martini Lutheri sententia (The Misuse Of The Mass [AE 36:129ff]) to help those engaged in beginning to reform the Mass. He explained his chief objections and the reasons why he opposed them so that reformers would have good arguments to employ. He argued for the distribution of the Lord’s Supper in both kinds and the end of private masses, said to accumulate merit for souls in purgatory. He concluded that these practices rested on several false doctrines, that the priesthood is a separate and superior class of Christians, and that their work is primarily about sacrifice. Instead, all Christians are priests; the work of the priesthood is preaching, not sacrifice; and the Mass itself is not a sacrifice at all, but a promise given by Christ to be received in faith. He sent the work to George Spalatin, Elector Frederick’s secretary, who decided not to publish it. In the meantime, Luther worked from notes to prepare a German version, Uom Missbrauch der Messen. When Luther found out the book hadn’t been published, he demanded the publication of Misuse of the Mass under threat to write something more inflammatory. Both versions were first published in January 1522.
He also sent Spalatin a book to urge his followers not to resort to insurrection. The work, Treue Vermahnung zu allen Christen (A Sincere Admonition by Martin Luther to All Christians to Guard Against Insurrection and Rebellion) appeared in early 1522. In the book, Luther argued that insurrection was forbidden by God. He had given authority to punish and compel reform to the government, and it must remain with them. It is the role of the common man to point out where reform is needed, pray for it, and urge their rulers to enact it and not to participate in abuses. They ought to trust God to act on their behalf.
In the conclusion to this work, Luther asks that his followers not call themselves Lutheran. “What is Luther? After all, the teaching is not mine. Neither was I crucified for anyone.… How then should I—poor stinking maggot-fodder that I am—come to have men call the children of Christ by my wretched name?” (Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, 1521–1532, trans. James L. Schaaf (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 32.)
[Twenty-First in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]
Calling God our father is second nature to Christians. After all, Jesus invites us to do so. We teach the Lord’s Prayer to our youngest children as their first prayer. So it may come as a surprise that it is unique among the world’s religions. Most religions hold their gods at a distance. The high god of native religions makes the world and goes away, leaving it to lesser spirits and humans. For Muslims, Allah is a strict, distant god. You must toe the line to please him. In Judaism, while God is seen as having a warm relationship with them, even to pronounce his name is considered disrespectful. For Hindus, Buddhists, and other Eastern religions, god is not a person at all. The universe is their god, and they see humans as gods in a real sense.
For Christians, however, God is very much a Father who loves us and is a part of our daily lives. The Father adopted us as his sons and heirs with Christ. He invites us to call him abba — daddy — and approach us the way a little child approaches her father.
When we confess God as Father, we claim he loves us, cares for us, wants to be with us now and forever. It is incarnational — a statement that God cares for us so much that in the person of his Son, he became a flesh-and-blood man, lived with us as one of us, suffered and died for us, and rose again for us. By doing so, he restored the relationship between himself and us. He is indeed our father and a model of what fatherhood is.
Encore Post: If your church follows the Church Year closely, you might notice that Feb 2nd is a Feast Day within the Church. It may sound like a replay of the first Sunday after Christmas if your congregation uses the one-year lectionary. The events of Jesus being in the temple as a baby occurred exactly forty days after his birth. It had to be that way to fulfill the Law prescribed by Moses for mothers (Leviticus 12). Jesus is there in the Temple with his mother and presumed father because Mary had to offer a sacrifice so that she could be purified after giving birth. February 2nd is the Festival of the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Jesus (Luke 2:22-38). Simeon’s song comes to be because of Mary and Joseph’s faithfulness in keeping the Law.
But Jesus fulfills a different Old Testament law, a law that had been forgotten, but a law on the books, nevertheless (Exodus 13:1-2, 11-16). Jesus, though not a son of the tribe of Levi (Jesus is of the tribe of Judah, a son of David), is presented to the Lord like He was to serve Him as a priest. Jesus is the great high priest who comes in the order of Melchizedek (Psalm 110). He is not of the line of the High Priest Aaron, but He is the faithful High Priest promised to come in 1 Samuel 2:35. The Lord God raises up His very own Son, whom He sent into the World, in the flesh to be the High Priest who is also the sacrifice for the sin of the world.
This is why Simeon can sing to God about departing in peace. This child, before his very eyes, will secure peace for Him and the entire world by the shedding of His own blood at the cross. What joy we have in our great high priest who has worked atonement for our sins, covering our sins with His own blood! This is just like the words of Exodus 24. There, Moses stands before the people with the blood of the covenant, which the Lord God made with Israel. Moses sprinkles the blood on the people, and then there is the interesting story of the elders of Israel, along with Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, ascending Mount Sinai, seeing God, and eating and drinking with Him. Moses tells us, “He (God) did not lay His hand on them.” Sinful men cannot stand before the Lord and live (Psalm 5:4, but see all of Psalm 5). However, when the blood of the covenant covers them, they can. It is just like the blood of the Passover Lamb in Egypt (Exodus 12). It is with Simeon, you, and me. The blood of Jesus, the blood of the new covenant (also translated as New Testament), covers us. We have peace granted to us. We have forgiveness, thus salvation, as we participate in Christ’s New Covenant in His Blood (Small Catechism, The Sacrament of the Altar, “What is the benefit of this eating and drinking?”). Rejoice and be glad. Be at peace in the presence of God, your Savior, who has been revealed to you!
[Twentieth in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]
When we baptize a new Christian, we ask him to promise several things and to confess several things. Following the Church’s ancient tradition, we ask the candidate whether they believe what the creed proclaims. But we do this with three questions: “Do you believe in God the Father…?” “Do you believe in Jesus Christ…?” and “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit…? We do this because each person of the Holy Trinity has His own role in our life and salvation.
This is a bit of a mystery, since all three persons are involved in these acts of love for us, yet Scripture speaks of each having a distinct role. Rather than try to puzzle out how this is so, we rejoice that each person loves us in his own way.
Martin Luther, in his Small Catechism, calls each person’s work an article and speaks about them separately. He talks about the good news that God the Father created and provides for us, that God the Son redeems us through his own blood, and that the Holy Spirit makes us holy. This good news gives us joy, especially since we just considered his law in the Ten Commandments. We have been confronted by the fact of our sinfulness. Now we can have peace in the gospel of the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
[Nineteenth in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]
We say creeds together every time we worship together. We study them in confirmation and memorize two of them. They contain the basic teachings of Scripture that all Christians believe. Even Protestant churches that reject formal creeds cheerfully confess what they confess. But what are they, anyway?
The word creed comes from the Latin word credo, which means “I believe.” They are statements of what we know about God, especially the gospel. In one sense, they are salvation history — a statement of how God saved us and where we fit in his plan. They are short and sweet — something we can take with us forever.
While the Apostles did not write the creeds, the words and phrases reflect how the Bible proclaims the Gospel. When new Christians were taught the faith in the early Church, their teachers had them memorize short sentences and phrases that summed up what they believed. When they were baptized, they would recite them. Some of these are in the Bible. Here are a few:
Over the past three hundred years, these statements have grown in size. Christians began to use the same words. In the 4th century, they developed into the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. They became ways for all Christians to know Jesus’ story and their place in it. When we recite the Creed, it reminds us of who we are and whose we are.
[Eighteenth in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]
In our tour of the Ten Commandments, we learned God wants more than just a casual keeping of his law. He wants our hearts and souls to match our behavior. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Of course, we know we cannot keep the law perfectly in this life, and God knows it, too. Jesus died to pay the price for our disobedience and to earn us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. So, why should we try at all to be good?
The reason is that sin has its consequences in this world and the next. When Adam and Eve sinned, sin multiplied and became a part of the lives of every one of their children. It brought with it death, sickness, disaster, grief, and pain. It destroyed the close relationship between people and between people and God. Since we were made to share our lives with God and each other, it harmed the very purpose for which we exist. It sin that God sent his Son to save us from, not to be a fire insurance policy against hell.
God describes his relationship with his people as a marriage. Sin amounts to being unfaithful with other gods, dividing our love for him by giving ourselves to others. So it is that God warns us in the First Commandment that he is a jealous God and there are consequences when we are unfaithful to him. (Exodus 20:5-6) God, in the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, breaks the power of sin and death in our lives. With prayer and the help of other Christians, we can fight back against these sins and sometimes even be free of them.
After all, God’s warning comes with a promise. It is not only sins that travel from generation to generation but also blessings. With the help of the Holy Spirit, when we establish habits of doing good — attending worship faithfully, praying with our children, reading God’s word to them, and caring for others, these, too, will be a part of their inheritance.
[Seventh in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]
To a serious believer, the Ten Commandments seem simple enough. Believe in God and don’t frequent idols — check. Don’t swear — check. Go to church every week, sometimes more — check. Love mom and dad — check. Never kill anyone, never take anything that doesn’t belong to you, never step out on your spouse, and don’t lie — check on all counts. And then comes coveting … How do you deal with thoughts and feelings?
As we have considered the other commandments, we’ve learned they are not as simple as they seem. Still, they seem doable. The Ninth and Tenth Commandments point out the real problem. Our old Adam and old Eve want everything for themselves. Everyone at work gets a raise, and yours is quite generous. But you know your teammate got more. So you’re jealous.
King David had everything, including many beautiful wives. Yet one look at someone else’s wife — and he took a bath. Committed adultery, lied about it, and arranged the murder of her husband. Later, he put his finger on the problem. He was sinful from birth — sinful since he was conceived. (Psalm 51:1-5) Jesus summed it up when he said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” (Matthew 15:19-20)
Let’s face it. We cannot do this alone. Instead, we can turn to the one tempted in every way that we are, except he didn’t sin. (Hebrews 4:15) His suffering and death break the power of sin in our lives. When we remember our baptisms, we remember that the Old Adam and Eve were drowned there. We can confess our sins to him, be forgiven, and face our fight with the flesh. We also have those in this fight with us — our brothers and sisters in Christ. Together we can resist whatever comes to our minds and hearts.
[Sixteenth in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]
It all began with a lie. “You shall not die, but you will be like God…” (Genesis 3:4-5) Since then, falsehood has been the go-to sin — the way we try to wiggle out of tough spots. Sometimes it works — for a while. The trouble with lies is that they multiply like rabbits, and it is hard to keep them all straight. A variation of this strategy is to build yourself up by tearing others down. It is why it is the staple of garden-variety gossip — and political campaigns. It is also when someone competes with us that we assume the worst of others and spread it. The problem is, of course, that such lies destroy reputations and lives. It is why God forbids lying about others. But you know all that. It is the common theme of preachers when they take up this commandment.
Martin Luther sees something more in this commandment. It is God’s call to speak up for others, especially those who cannot speak for themselves. So, when the opportunity comes, we should speak well of others. We should praise people publicly when they do well, help others see their good side, and defend them when we hear them criticized. This is especially true if they are weak, defenseless, unable to defend themselves, or in danger. This can be challenging when the person is a friend or loved one, but difficult if they are opposed to us or even an enemy. We may discover that they are not as bad as we think.
Every day we fail to do this. Yet there is forgiveness for us. Jesus suffered the insults and lies of others, even his friends. These lies resulted in his crucifixion. He knew this would happen, yet he willingly suffered so that we might be saved. Because he died and rose again, God now sees only the best in us — that we do good because we love him and that we are holy for Jesus’ sake. He now gives us the ability to see the good in others, to pray for them, and defend them.
