I presented this hymn at the 2nd Annual Church Music Beautification Conference at Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool on April 22nd of 2023.
Ezekiel 34:11-16 is the assigned text for The 3rd Sunday of Easter in the one-year lectionary, The Last Sunday of the Church Year in the three-year series A, and proper 19 in the three year series C. Ezekiel 36:22-28 is the assigned text for the seventh Sunday of Easter in the one-year lectionary. Ezekiel 37:1-14 is the assigned text for the second Sunday of Easter in the one-year lectionary, the fifth Sunday of Lent in the three-year series A, and Pentecost Day in the three-year series B. Job 19:23-27 is the assigned text for Easter Day in the one-year lectionary, Easter Sunrise in the three year series C, and the service of graveside committal. Psalm 23 is the assigned psalm for the third Sunday of Easter in the one-year lectionary, Easter Day in all three years of the three-year series, proper 23 in the three-year series A, and proper 11 in the three-year series B.
Behold, My Sheep, I Will Search You Out
1 Behold, My sheep, I’ll search you out, Rescue on day of clouds; Though through the darkness, scattered out, From global nations, proud; I Myself will make you lie down, Gathering from the crowd
2 You, O My sheep, I’ll shepherd you, On mountain heights to feed; Good grazing land, ravines through too, Satisfied without greed; Strengthened, the weak and injured, bound, Fed fully freed from need.
3 Thus says the Lord, the God of all, My name has been profaned. Yoked with the pagans, since the fall, You have my anger gained. But, in My faithfulness ‘gainst gall, You will be unashamed.
4 Thus says the Lord, the God of all, I will remove the stone, Where your heart is, instead will fall, Flesh in its place alone, My law, this flesh will love it all, I’ll bring you to your home.
5 Though your bones lie in valley, dry, In your own flesh, you’ll stand; Before My throne, in kingdom, high, In congregation, grand; Restored in flesh, Me in your eye, All this by My command.
6 On the last day, your Graves, I’ll break, People resting in faith, By Jesus blood and for His sake, My children, you, I make. Thus You will know, I am the Lord, I’ve spoken these words great.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX and Mission planting pastoral team: Epiphany Lutheran Church Bastrop, TX
In a previous post, We talked about the significance of the sixth and seventh days, the day of preparation and the Sabbath, reinforcing the calculus of Jesus death and resurrection on the third day. The third day is also the eighth day. In Christianity, we make a big deal out of the eighth day as the day of resurrection. It’s the day of the proof of our salvation. Jesus paid for our sins through His death on the cross on Friday, the sixth day. His resurrection on the first day of the week, the eighth day, proves His victory over death and the grave.
1st Century Christians quickly began gathering together on the first day of the week. The shift from the Sabbath, seventh day to the first day, the eighth day, reflected our understanding from faith in a promise yet to be revealed to a promise of salvation delivered in Christ. The Resurrection happens on the “first day of the week.” (Matthew 28:1-6; Mark 16:1-6; Luke 24:1-7; John 20:1-18). We now call the first day of the week Sunday. That’s also the eighth day.
This less than exhaustive look at Old Testament eighth day theology reveals quite of few of these. The fall and protoevangelion (first Gospel), can be understood as eighth day events. We fall way, corrupting creation. And, God promises to restore us by the seed of the Woman. (Genesis 3)
God’s covenant with Abraham was sealed by eighth day activity too. As a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham’s offspring. Circumcision was to be performed on the eighth day. (Genesis 17:9-13) It’s prob’ly no accident that the Lord puts the sign of His promise on the eighth day. It’s as if we’re to be on the lookout for an eighth day event sometime soon.
Even the critters of the Jews are reflecting eighth day significance. The firstborn of all livestock are to be given to the Lord. Care to guess which day? Seven days with its mother, and it’s given to the Lord on the eighth day. (Exodus 22:29-30)
When Aaron and His sons or ordained for service in the tabernacle. The atonement for them and the altar is appointed for seven days. Beginning on the eighth day, they may serve in the tabernacle the offering for the sins of the people. (Exodus 29:35-37)
There are several rites within the Jewish Levitical code, which peculiar eighth day events. Leprosy was determined by two seven-day seclusions. (Leviticus 13:4-6) The cleansing of lepers revolves around the eighth day. (Leviticus 14) The feast of booths begins and ends with a sabbath convocation. The second on is called the eighth day. (Leviticus 23:36, 39)
Ezekiel prophesied in his vision of the new temple and the return of the glory of the Lord. The altar is to be erected and consecrated to the Lord. Seven days are appoint for the atonement of the altar. On the eighth day and following, the Lord will accept sacrifices for the people. (Ezekiel 43:18-27)
In the New Testament, Baptism becomes the fulfillment of the eighth day promise of circumcision. “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:11-14)
The eighth day is the day of Christianity. It’s the day of resurrection. It’s the day of new birth in Jesus. The eighth day is now and not yet. Forgiven in Christ by grace through faith given in Baptism, we await the fulfillment on the last day, the final eight day.
We surround ourselves with eight-sided figures. Our baptismal fonts are often eight sided. The quadifoils surrounding gospel moments and characters in stained glass and vestments are even eight sided comprised of four arcs and four angles. The old European coffins were eight sided with six edges, a top, and a bottom. Church columns were often eight-sided. Other architectural features in the church may also assume an octagonal catechesis. They are a constant reminder of the promise of new birth, forgiveness, restoration, and resurrection to immortal life in Christ.
Jesus was raised on the eighth day.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX and Mission planting pastoral team: Epiphany Lutheran Church Bastrop, TX
Modernists and restorationists often struggle with commonly accepted matters in the Christian faith. Often, we spill ink on the bodily presence of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper or the forgiveness and faith delivered in baptismal waters by God. But, for today, let’s look at the three days in the tomb.
Ancient Jewish timekeeping works in two important ways. The first is an inclusive reckoning. There was no concept of 4.3 days in their understanding. Part of a day is a day in this view. Second, their days didn’t begin or end as ours do. Our modern, western timekeeping reckons a day from morning through evening and into the night. Theirs reckoned a day from nightfall, thought the watches of the night, the hours of the day, and ending with nightfall again. “…There was evening and there was morning, the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days.” (Genesis 1:5, 8,13, 19, 23, 31)
Jesus’s prediction of His death reinforces this idea. He speaks of the third day as movement through. Death occurs on the first day, and resurrection on the third day. He speaks of days inclusively. The death needn’t happen before the first day, nor the resurrection after the third day, even just by a few moments. That would be five days by this reckoning. “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Matthew 16:21) The inclusive view is consistent through the predictions elsewhere. (Matthew 17:22-23; 20:17-19; Luke 9:21-22; & John 2:19)
The outlier expressions “after three days” (Mark 9:31 & 10:34) and “three days and nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40) are best understood within the context of preponderance of the texts. Inclusive language prevails. So, the other three examples are likely idiomatic in some way, not literal.
Speaking of the literal, Jesus literally died on Friday. He died about the ninth hour. (Matthew 24:50; Mark 15:34-37; & Luke 23:46) In Jewish timekeeping, there are 12 equal hours of the watches of the night from nightfall to dawn and 12 equal hours of daylight from dawn to the end of the day at nightfall. The sixth hour is noon. The ninth hour would be about three p.m. by our reckoning. That’s just before the calendar switches to Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, the seventh day.
Jesus was taken off the cross and buried “when evening came” “on the day of preparation” (Matthew 27:57-62; Mark 15:42-43; Luke 23:52-54; & John 19:42). This indicates the close of the day before nightfall. The day of preparation is the day preceding the Sabbath. “On the sixth day [Friday], when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. …See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” (Exodus 16:5, 29)
We can say Jesus died on the sixth day, Friday, before nightfall with great certainty thanks to St. John. “since it was the day of preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for the Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. …But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.” (John 19:31, 33)
The seventh day, Saturday, is the day of rest and the end of the week. The Resurrection happens on the “first day of the week.” (Matthew 28:1-6; Mark 16:1-6; Luke 24:1-7; & John 20:1-18). We now call the first day of the week Sunday. The resurrection happened before dawn, in the watches of the night, on the first day of the week.
So, the bible clearly teaches us that Jesus died and was buried on Friday, before the calendar date flipped. He rose from the dead on Sunday, in wee hours before dawn, after the calendar date flipped. We received this both from the preponderance of evidence in expression and in the actual accounting of days and times. He lay in the tomb between about 26-36 hours. But, that span is exactly what He said, “on the third day.” Speaking to Jews in a Jewish manner of days and times. It was indeed nothing other than the third day as they would have understood it.
Christ is Risen!
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX and Mission planting pastoral team: Epiphany Lutheran Church Bastrop, TX
1 Corinthians 15:17-22 Easter Vigil April 8, 2023 Our Hope Lutheran Church
Text: If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”
Intro: Christ is Risen! Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who by his death has destroyed death and by his rising again opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
Tonight the church rejoices today because her Lord is risen. The gospel is never sweeter than in Easter week. But the Christian Church in heaven and earth also rejoices that her prayers are answered. Christ has risen and broken the seal of the grave forever. That gospel is all the sweeter because it is true comfort in a world without hope. When a Christian loved one dies, we grieve, but with the hope of the resurrection.
I. The gospel is more comforting than the common things told us when a loved one dies:
a. “She was a good person” b. “He’s not suffering anymore” c. “We’ll always remember her” d. “Death is just a natural part of life” e. “His accomplishments will live forever” f. “You’ll have another life to get it right”
II. Real comfort comes in the Resurrection of Christ.
a. His cross is our cross, making us good in God’s sight. b. His death destroys our enemies: sin, suffering, grief and death. c. His empty tomb promises an empty grave for us. d. We still grieve, but a grief that is comforted by hope. e. So we gladly preach, Christ is Risen!
May God’s peace, which is greater than we can understand, set watch over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Christ is risen!
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
Sermon on Matthew 9:27–34 Monday in the Week of the Fourth Sunday in Lent Kramer Chapel March 20, 2023
Text: “And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.” Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.” And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, “See that no one knows about it.” But they went away and spread his fame through all that district. As they were going away, behold, a demon-oppressed man who was mute was brought to him. And when the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke. And the crowds marveled, saying, “Never was anything like this seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “He casts out demons by the prince of demons.””
Intro: The early days of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee were exciting. He announced that the Kingdom of the Heavens had come. He preached, taught, healed all manner of diseases. He was very different. He taught with authority, he forgave sins and cast out demons — even in the synagogue! The lame walked, lepers are cleansed and the deaf heard, and the dead are raised up. And now the blind would see and the mute speak! The people who had walked in the darkness, Galilee of the gentiles, had seen a great light! All these signs did their work — the blind men knew the Son of David when they saw him — and they as yet couldn’t see! Even we can’t miss the side point:
I. God hates sickness and death. — and he intends to do something about it!
a. He made a world without illness. b. God suffers with us when we suffer. c. The day will come when we will be completely whole.
II. Sickness is a result of sin and a sign that we will die.
a. Yet all people – including Christians – remain under the sentence of death b. We try to avoid and recover from suffering, but only works for awhile. c. We are attracted to promises of health and healing d. Yet these are often frauds.
III. Jesus is the source of life and healing.
a. He was born into the midst of this suffering. b. He died to bring an end to death, grief and pain. c. He now brings healing in its time and place. d. He brings resurrection at the end of our time or the end of time itself.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
The event, which recently wrapped-up at Asbury University, is called an outbreak by folks in those revivalist circles. “A student praying in the chapel broke out into”, “a prayer meeting the dormitory spilled out onto the streets and became”, or “a student’s testimony broke into a revival lasting [a number of] days.” That’s how the Asbury College website describes their own history of great revivals in 1905, 1908, 1921, 1950, 1958, 1970, and 2023. No mention is made of the lesser revivals that didn’t breakout adequately.
Who are these Asbury University folks?
They identify themselves as a nondenominational Christian college turned university. Nondenominational is a disingenuous category. There’s always a denominational precedent leaving its mark on the organization into the future. Typically that nondenominational root is Baptist. Not so for Asbury, they are product of the Wesleyan-Holiness Movement. The movement comes from a 19th Century mingling of Methodism, Quakerism, Anabaptism, and Restorationism.
The Holiness Churches reject infant baptism, infant faith, and the view that God creates faith in us (monergism). Instead, these churches teach a synergistic view that we generate faith within ourselves as an act of our will. This runs contrary to the clear teaching of Scriptures like “For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing; It is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) And, “Yet you are he who took me from the womb; You made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.” (Psalm 22:9-10)
The Holiness crowd also places a strong emphasis on the “Second Work of Grace.” Namely, after coming to faith, a Christian is completely free from sin’s grip. In the future, Christian perfection is an achievable goal. This goal must be the aim of a Christian, and must be attained. Falling back into sin is a gross error within Holiness communities. When a regenerate Christian “backslides” into sin, they must repent, revive themselves, recommit, and often be rebaptized. This is where the revival aspect took root.
Charles Grandison Finney
Finney’s new measures centered upon revival meetings. His theology rejected the songs and liturgy of the church in favor of new musical styles and a different structure. This structure reversed the direction of corporate worship. Christian worship prior to Finney revolved around God’s gifts for His people and our receiving them.
The revivalist style and its substance revolve entirely upon the emotional excitement of the people gathered. Ramping that into a heightened fury is their evidence of the Holy Spirit at work. Apart from these events, the revivalists find no comfort or certainty in their faith, conversion, working of God in their lives, or even their salvation. The moment and surety of the their salvation, as they understand it, has a date and time concurrent with a revival event experience.
Is that a problem?
Yes, it is. Christianity revolves around a God, who promises Himself to us through means, in which He promised to deliver His gifts. In Baptism, God forgives sins and delivers faith. In the hearing of the Word, we receive faith. In the Lord’s Supper, we receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The absence of our doing in the faith is a feature not a bug. The absence of our emotional proof of God’s work is a feature not a bug.
Revivalism rejects God’s work for us, replacing it with our work. The event earns God’s attention and His favor. The event is all about us and our doing. Our work and our feeling of the event are proof of God. This is the opposite of what the scriptures teach us.
God the Father sent His son Jesus to die for our sin. He delivers this to us extra nos, (outside of our selves). Looking inside, just reveals the sin that remains. Gathering to hear and receive from outside of ourselves in the Lord’s house is His work for us. He’s never been apart from His work for us. He’s always been in exactly the same place for you. There’s certainty here.even
Here is how Martin Luther Describes it:
The third article of the Apostles’ Creed – Sanctification.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
What does this mean?
I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. On the last day He will raise up me and all the dead and will give eternal life to me and to all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true. (Luther’s Small Catechism 2:3, emphasis mine)
The Bottom line
The Holy Spirit isn’t in my emotions, which rise and fall, grow and fade. He is at work in His Word and sacraments. He’s in the same places He promised to be. The Holy Spirit was ceaselessly at work in His church for 1800 years before Finney discovered the “real” way and evidence of the Spirit.
Beware of innovators, God doesn’t change.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX and Mission planting pastoral team Epiphany Lutheran Church Bastrop, TX
Encore Post: God’s ways are not our ways. That could be said to be a theme of these Sundays. Having been able to jump into a couple of tractors during planting season, I thought it absolutely amazing how much information the farmer had concerning his fields. The guy had harvest data from the last 5 years downloaded to his screen. The planter was able to adjust the amount of seed that was dropping into the ground based upon the data. If in previous years a particular area had a poor yield, the planter was not going to drop as many seeds. But in area where there was a bumper crop, well certainly the seeds were dropping. You don’t waste seed on poor soil. You get what you get but you bet the farm on the good soil. That’s why every farm tests his soil, and nurtures it with the various chemicals and lye. He wants to make the land more fertile than before. It would be a horrible idea to expect to have a bumper crop from the seeds that fell on the hardened earth of the tractor path for instance. You expect the crop from the fertile well cultivated land.
And God is not so stingy with his seed, which is His Word. You and I have fallen victim to believing that some people are beyond the word of God. That we have judged someone to be hard ground, that we don’t throw the seed which we all have been called to sow while we live in this world. Pastors of course are important sowers of the Word, the pastor is the one who is publicly called to proclaim the word of God in church He has been called. But too often people think it is only the pastor’s job to speak the Word of God, that congregation members don’t have that responsibly also placed upon them. That it’s not part of their calling as the Lord’s Christians. Thus, we by our own thinking, have hardened our own hearts to the word of God. We play the hard ground. Because we despise the command to speak this word to our children. We fail to take His call seriously. Repent.
Yet, the Lord is not so stingy with His seed. He does not go only one time and cast His seed. But more often than not, His Word is thrown out again, sown by one his messengers, by one of his Christians. The Word being heard and held on to for dear life. And by God’s grace alone, faith sprouts in the heart of this hearer and good fruit ripens along the way. Solely by God’s grace. And it could have been someone whom you and I both thought was too far gone, was not deserving of hearing the Word of God, perhaps because of their original rejection of His Word.
We would try to calculate. We want to have the data, we want the program to follow. We want great results. So we put our seed out to those who we think are ‘ready.’ Yet, we don’t know who is ready and who is not. Only God knows, for He is the one who prepares hearts.
But, we go into an evangelism program, trying to attract new people maybe by being relevant. We try to reinvent ourselves because that is what everyone is saying to do in order to grow. We, too worried by the things of this world, are called to repent. Yes, repent of your worrisome attitudes. God will grow His church the way He always has, by the pure preaching of His saving Word and the right and proper administration of His sacraments. His Word will do what He promised.
For the Lord will bear the harvest, even in places that you and I might not think they would come from. And in those people that we expect faith, unfortunately, it usally is wanting. And those who we would be apprehensive to share our faith with? We are humbled and watch God create faith in a person we would call the path. Why? I do not know. This is the doctrine of grace alone. It is a mystery. Our ways are not God’s way. Yet, we should rejoice in the gift of God’s Word because He does take it away. It His great grace and mercy that He has not taken away His Word, as much as we deserve to be in a famine of His Word for constant sins against it, particularly the sin of unbelief and rebellion. Yet, He continues to send His messengers, to proclaim His Word. And by such proclamation, faith is created. For with His Word also goes His Spirit. By His Word, the Holy Spirit works and creates faith. This is how you are called to faith. The Holy Spirit calls you by the very Gospel. Conversion and creation of faith is a work of God alone, don’t think otherwise.
Consider the grace of God further. God sent His messengers to sinful Israel knowing full well many of them would die for the word they proclaimed. Yet He did not stop sending his prophets. And even after these men were killed, He did not stop, but in fact sent His own Son, the very Word of God made flesh into the world. He also died, but as He promised, He rose from the dead. His Word is different than the cries of Abel the first to die for his faith. Abel cried out for justice and revenge. Christ’s Word rings out, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” Forgiveness is the word. You are saved, by grace. And this grace is received. It is given to you.
Receive this grace into your hearts. Trust His Word. Cling to it for your life. And produce the fruits that come from a faith in Christ. That begins here. Faithfully hear His word preached in your ear. Receive His Supper faithfully. That via both the preached Word and the tangible Word of Christ that is the Sacraments, the Word would go into your heart, and the Spirit accompanying it may root out all the stones that are in your still cold and rocky heart of yours, and strengthen you in this faith. And thus produce even more fruit. For you need Christ’s love and grace put within you if you truly desire to love your brother, sister, mother. If you have not love, how can you say you are of God, because God is love?
The more you hear the Word of God, the more you immerse yourself in it, the more time you take to actually read it and put His Word on your lips, the more likely it will actually change the way you look at life, the way you act, and ultimately the way you look at Christ Himself. His grace knows no bounds. He does stop throwing the seed, nor does His Spirit stop working either. So being His children, neither should, nor should we judge who deserves this Word or not. It is not up for us to decide. If Jesus spoke to and made his biggest human enemy Saul of Tarsus into his most avid confessors, then anyone in this world can be brought to faith and should not be counted out. As long as it is today, it is the day of salvation.
I have said this before, the Lord is a farmer at heart. He desires the greatest harvest. So, the Lord Jesus still sends His Sowers into His field. Even though the harvest is great, there is more sowing to be done. And its not just the called and ordained pastor’s job to do that. You have the responsibility and obligation to teach the Word of God to your children. And you have opportunities to toss the seed toward your neighbors. It may not feel like much at all when you have the opportunity. You may feel like you have blown it, but the Lord’s Word never returns to Him void. It will ultimately do what He purposed it do. And the times you think you are throwing seed straight to the birds, maybe you are, but only truly God knows. Because He is not stingy with His Word, neither should we be stingy with it. For all need to hear the Word of Christ be to saved. For faith comes by hearing.
As the seasons change, and the harvest seems imminent let us not lose our focus. Let not us not lose hope, waiting for Him to reap His harvest. But rather trust all the more in the one who has done everything He has promised He would do: come, die, and rise. Surely, He who has done all this for our salvation will do what He has promised. So, keep receiving His grace this day, hear His Word, gladly learn it. That by His wondrous grace, you will be kept ready for the day He bears the harvest home.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Encore Post: In American culture, love is everywhere. It is a constant theme of movies, TV programs, stories, songs, poetry and even commercials! At Valentine’s Day especially, images of couples planning romantic moments are everywhere. At some point in the dating life of many lovers, men and women obsess over whether they should tell their dates that they love them.
But the English word love is more than that. We love our pets, our favorite food, good weather, our sports teams, our friends, freedom and truth — just about everything. The Greek language of the New Testament uses several words to cover it all. φιλέω (phileo) is the love and affection between friends. ἔρος (Eros) is sexual love that is obsessed with another and is not satisfied until it gets what it wants. ἀγαπάω is a love that sacrifices for the good of the one it loves. (See 1 Corinthians 13) ἀγαπάω is the word the New Testament uses for God’s love and the love God wants us to show to him and our neighbors.
God loved us before he made the world. (Ephesians 1:4-5) He loved us so much that he sacrificed his only Son to save us. (John 3:16-17) Because he first loved us, we love him and want to please him. He commands us to love him and our neighbors. Jesus tells us that the whole of God’s law is to love God and our neighbors as ourselves. (Matthew 22:37-40) In a very real sense, our love is itself God’s gift to us. While our love in this world is not perfect, God’s love for us is perfect. It lasts forever and conquers even death.
Encore Post: Benjamin Franklin, like many of the leading thinkers of his time, liked to compare God to a clockmaker. God was a master craftsman. He skillfully formed the many precision parts of creation. Like the clockmaker, he assembled his ingenious machine, each piece carefully assembled, balanced and put it in its proper place. He then wound it up and set it in motion. He then left it alone, only rarely touching it to clean it. God, Franklin thought, was watching us — from a distance.
While God is indeed a great craftsman, he is not distant at all. The Scripture tells us he is involved in every detail of our lives. He maintains the distance between Sun and Earth with precision. He controls the seasons, rains and all its rhythms. His providence gives us all we have and need to live and enjoy our lives. Some it he does directly, others using the people, things and creatures in this world. He even contains the evil our sins let loose in this world.
We tend not to notice all these ordinary miracles and are tempted to believe our blessings come from our own efforts. When things do not go well, we then blame God as if he doesn’t care about us. We can’t comprehend that God can permit sin and evil in the world without being its cause. This is another of the mysteries that we run into when we try to understand our creator.
This is why it is good to build thanksgiving to God into our daily lives, when we wake, when we eat, when we worship and when sleep. Most especially it is good to thank him for his mercy in Christ Jesus.
Encore Post: Childbirth was an exciting and frightening event at the time of Jesus. Many children and their mothers died soon after a birth. When both mother and child survived the ordeal, God’s law required male children to be circumcised on the eighth day following their birth. After forty days — when the greatest danger to the life of the mother and the child had passed, they were to present themselves at the temple to make a sacrifice. For the woman, this sacrifice made her clean again and able to return to worship God.
During the time of Jesus, Rabbis gathered in the temple in the court of the women, the closest to the Holy of Holies a woman was allowed to go. They would take each child in their arms and bless them. So it was that the Holy Spirit directed Simeon to Joseph, Mary and Jesus. The Spirit revealed to Simeon that Jesus was the coming Messiah. By the prophecy given to Him, Simeon pointed to Jesus’ mission to save both Jews and Gentiles and to the cross. Simeon’s song of joy is still sung by the church in worship.
Anna was a prophetess, like Miriam and Deborah, one of very few women God used to speak to His people. She likely served in the temple to help with a variety of tasks. In her devotion to God, she also saw Jesus and had the privilege of telling everyone that the Messiah had come.
On February 2, the Church celebrates the presentation of Jesus in the temple and the singing of Simeon’s song, known as the Nunc Dimittis. We also sing this song every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
