What Does This Mean?

Peter and Jesus

St. Peter was a man of action. He was always eager to act, quick to speak and full of enthusiasm. He was as subtle as a loaded freight train. Tradition has it that the Evangelist John Mark was his companion and that the Gospel of Mark was written to preserve his teaching and preaching of the gospel. Mark’s famous favorite word “immediately” is a great motto for Peter.

Like most men of his age, Simon Peter had two names — one for use in Jewish circles — Simon bar Jonah (Simon, son of Jonah) — and one for use with the gentiles — the nickname Jesus gave him, Peter (Little Rock). He was a partner in a successful fishing business in Capernaum with his brother Andrew, Zebedee and his sons James and John. Jesus called him early in his ministry and Peter would soon rise to be a leader for the disciples.

On Maundy Thursday, had Peter and John prepare the Passover meal. During the dinner, Jesus told His disciples that they would abandon Him and that St. Peter would deny Him three times before the rooster crowed. Peter quickly swore he would rather die than betray his Lord. Later, during the trial before the High Priests, Peter denied he knew Jesus.

After Jesus rose from the dead, Peter began to change. Jesus appeared to Peter alone on Easter day. A few weeks later, Jesus asked Peter three times if Peter loved Him. Three times Peter said he did. Jesus showed He forgave Peter when He commanded Peter three times to feed God’s sheep. From then on, Peter was no longer a fisherman. He was now a pastor, “a shepherd,” to care for God’s people with God’s word and His sacraments.

Later, On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached to the crowd. Three thousand people were brought to faith and baptized that day. Peter went everywhere preaching, teaching, healing the sick and suffering for His Lord. According to tradition, he later helped to found the church in Rome and would die a martyr, crucified upside down.

Seeing is Believing

St. Thomas was a practical, down to earth man. Called “the Twin,” the few words we have from him were very direct. When Jesus was determined to go to Lazarus’ Tomb, not five miles from Jerusalem, Thomas said, “Let us also go and die with Him.” (John 11:16) When Jesus told the disciples at the Lord’s Supper that He was going to prepare a place for them, he asked, “Lord, we don’t know where You are going, how can we know the way?” (John 14:5) Subtle, Thomas was not. Loyal, strong and down to earth, he was.

When Jesus was crucified, Thomas had no doubt the Lord was dead. He knew every detail. He did not want it to be that way, but he was a realist. Jesus was gone — end of story. So when the other disciples told Thomas with joy, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas would have nothing of it. He had to see the wounds that marked Jesus to believe. Even seeing would not be enough. He had to touch the wounds. On something as important as the life of the Lord, Thomas would not be fooled.

All of this changed when Jesus appeared to him and the rest of the disciples the Sunday after Easter. Turning to Thomas, Jesus invited His hard-headed disciple to see for himself. “Stop doubting,” Jesus said, “and believe.” This was all Thomas needed. He dropped to his knees to worship Jesus. All he could say was, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus mildly rebukes him and then blesses us. “You have seen and believed,” Jesus said, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” It was enough for Thomas. According to church tradition, Thomas would go to India and establish a church there. To this day, a faith tradition of four million in India call themselves Thomas Christians.

And so it would be. Billions of people who did not see Jesus believed him and loved him. St. Peter said it best: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8-9) Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Allelujah!

The Day of Resurrection | Stay with Us, Lord, for it is Evening

God is Hands On

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.

God Made Me and All Creatures

Life can sometimes be confusing. Maybe you have two good opportunities that you have 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 begin to 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 women, 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 his own.” Such a statement can bring peace no matter the mess around you.

What is it?

When Martin Luther visited the churches of Saxony, he discovered that everyday people knew very little about the Christian faith. To help pastors and parents learn the basic truths of the Christian faith, he wrote a little book called The Small Catechism.

A catechism is a book which uses questions and answers to teach people about the faith. One of the most common questions Luther asked in his catechism is: “was ist das?” which means “what is it?” or “what does this mean?”

This blog is named for this question. My goal is to share the Christian faith in an organized way. I hope to provide for you a way to remember the details of what Christians believe, to make sense of more formal writings in Christian theology and understand how such teachings relate to each other. In scholarly language, this is called systematic theology.

In order to be straight with you, let me tell you a little bit of my background. I am a Confessional Lutheran clergyman, a member of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. I serve as the Electronic Resources Librarian at Concordia Theological Seminary, a graduate school of theology. We prepare pastors and deaconesses for service in the church and provide advanced education for missionaries and leaders of the church. Before coming to serve here, I served as a pastor for two small town Indiana Lutheran churches. I also served as the Archivist and Historian of the Missouri Synod’s Indiana District. I occasionally write for The Lutheran Witness magazine and other periodicals. I use my Facebook profile (https://www.facebook.com/cosmithb) as a way to be a reference librarian in the 21st Century, sharing resources my Facebook friends find useful.

Expect that my assumptions, viewpoint and leanings will come from that background. While my comments here will be faithful to the Bible, Lutheranism’s confessions as contained in the Book of Concord, and the doctrinal statements of my church body, this blog is not an official statement of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod or my seminary. These words are solely mine.

Comments are always welcome here or by email at cosmithb@gmail.com.