Recycled OP is STILL OP

Sanctuary at Midnight

The last candle burned gently on the altar... Beyond the dark windows the midnight was already alive with bells and whistles, but here they seemed now like sounds from a lost world... In a sudden wind from the sacristy door the candle flickered forward and threw into bold relief the face on the crucifix... Shadows played over the red wounds, and in the eyes in which pain had been a prisoner these nineteen hundred years there was darkness... At the foot of the sanctuary steps stood the tree and the manger... The place of His birth was in the gloom, the place of His death was in the light... All the years of His way from the Manger to the Cross were in the brief steps up the sanctuary, up to the Everlasting Altar... Here were beginning and end... Not by the years could His Life and Power be measured, nor by the dust of centuries, but only by the wounds still red against the white dominion of His throne...

Was it the darkness or the hour which seemed to move His patient face in pity?... Surely no sculptor had caught the moment of "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"... That was so very long ago... The bells and whistles beyond me in the dark were marking the end of another year between His heaven and my world... There had been many of them now - almost twice as many as the number of His days before the eyes of men... Strange that all our years should be measured by His days and all the time of man by one day when, in darkness and pain, God was making eternity ready and history was preparing for B.C. and A.D.... Strange, too, with the wonder of heaven and hope, that I can repeat His prayer tonight... "Father, forgive."... Forgive me - for the lost but unforgotten hours of the dying year, for the erring way and barren heart... The pivot of the year is too brief to say more than the one word which makes the years an altar stair and the time of life the lifting of the angelic trumpets... Midnight is lonely now with lonely bells, and my candle of prayer burns low... There is only one cross on the altar tonight... On the hill there were three, but the children of the man on the cross to the left are blowing whistles tonight, and the children of the man on the right are in sanctuaries the world over... His time was short, perhaps shorter than mine, but his prayer was good, much better than mine... Remember me... Make my failures Thy victories and the years of my sins the eternity of Thy grace... Remember me... Thy footsteps grow brighter as the years grow dim, and no calendar can limit Thy power... Remember me... This moment, not of yesterday nor of tomorrow, is Thine just as the years are Thine...

There are other voices in the sanctuary now, the waiting saints made perfect at last and the great multitude past human numbering who have been remembered at altars in heaven and on earth... In a little while we shall be wise as they whose wisdom is a song: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing."...

The Pilgrim, pp. 23, 24

Christmas Gifts in Use

Gave Cindi a new breadmaker for Christmas and a new low-carb cookbook (you can see how my mind works - no, those weren't the ONLY things I gave her...) but today I'm trying both out. A delicious lo-carb bread is baking even as I write and making the house have that wonderful "bready" smell that is like unto no other. Believe it or not, the recipe is for a low-carb oatmeal molasses bread (yes, you read that correctly) that comes out to a mere 5 carbs per slice. I don't know what the final taste will be, but I can tell you that the smell is out of this world...

Death Has Become Guilty

For when death overcame him and slew him, without however having any claim or cause against him, and he willingly and innocently permitted himself to be slain, death became indebted to him, having done him wrong and having sinned against him and having handled all things inattentively, so that Christ has an honest claim against it. The wrong which death perpetrated against him is so great that death is unable to pay or to atone for it. And so death must be under Christ and in his power forever. Thus death is overcome in Christ and strangled. But since Christ did this not for himself, but for us, and since he has made us a present of this overcoming of death in baptism, consequently all believers in Christ must be masters over death; death must be their subject, indeed, their criminal whom they may judge and execute, exactly as they do when they die and on the Last Day. Through the gift of Christ death has become guilty against all to whom Christ has presented this gift! -- Blessed Martin Luther, Sermon for the Circumcision AE 52:156

From Starck's Upon New Year's Eve

And so I now cast myself before Your throne and plead for mercy. O Lord, remember not the sins of my youth; according to Your mercy remember me for Your goodness’ sake. Enter not into judgment with me; for I can no more be justified before You than any sinful being. Cleanse me from all sins, also my secret faults. If during this year I have failed to listen as devoutly and attentively as I ought to have to Your revealed Word, which makes me wise unto salvation, forgive my inattention, and let me from now on be changed from being a mere hearer into a doer of Your Word. If I have not loved You and my neighbor as I should have, remove from my heart all coldness and kindle the fire of divine love in my soul so that I can love You with my all and my neighbor as myself. If in my vocation and in the works of my calling I have not shown proper faithfulness, forgive me in Your great mercy, and grant that in the future I may better apply the talent You’ve entrusted to me. At all times may I be found a good steward, ready to face You when You shall call me to render an account of my trust. There is forgiveness with You, O God; and so I seek forgiveness with You. Now that the year is closing, blot out the record of my guilt, which is great indeed. Cancel it with the precious blood of my Savior, which I make my own by faith. Let my sins vanish like mist from before Your eyes. Remove them far from me and remember them no more ever again, lest in the new year I should have to appear in Your sight as a debtor.

Further, take me under Your gracious protection this night and be a wall of fire around me, that no harm befall me. Should this night prove the last for me in this dark vale of tears, then lead me, Lord, to heaven to You and to Your saints in glory. May I thus live to You and die to You, O Lord of hosts! In life and death You help me from every fear and need. But if according to Your counsel I am appointed to live on for more years; if on waking, I am to enter a new year, let Your goodness accompany me. Lead me in Your paths. Make me godly in word and deed. Guide me in an even way, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me, that I may live for You, serve You, and obey You. Yes, my God, this is the only thing I ask of You before I fall asleep: give me a new mind and spirit in the new year, a spirit which shall unhesitatingly perform what Your commandment bids me do, that my spirit, together with my soul and body, may remain the abode of Your Holy Spirit.

-- pp. 67, 68

Merry Christmas! Day Seven

Which means today is Maupin's birthday. Happy birthday, dear brother! Maupin is my nearest sibling in age, but he is nine years older than I. He's a remarkable man in so many ways. Kind, gentle, full of laughter, and easy going. I don't think I've ever seen him RUSH to do anything. When I was little, he was my favorite toy. And he put up with it too - amazing.

New Lutheran Quote of the Day

Our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, from our lips and our lives, is offered through Christ. He receives our prayers and offerings and renders them acceptable before God. Few of our people are aware that a real offering of ourselves, our souls and our bodies, does take place. Yet in the Offertory or General Prayer the sustained emphasis is on a Biblical conception of oblation, the offering of gifts humbly presented, bread and wine, silver and gold, one's own life and talents, to the service and glory of God's holy name. -- Ernest Koenker, *Worship in Word and Sacrament* p. 21

[Note: from the General Prayers I and 2: "Receive, O God, our bodies and souls and all our talents, together with the offerings we bring before You, for by His blood Your Son has purchased us to be Your own that we may live under Him in His kingdom." "Accept, we implore You, our bodies and souls, our hearts and minds, our talents and powers, together with the offerings we bring before You as our humble service." - Altar Book, p. 441]

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

In all this God is only looking for humility, that man take captive his reason and be obedient to divine truth. Thus, this foolish rite of circumcision was given to Abraham and his seed so that they would give glory to God and permit him alone to be wise. -- Blessed Martin Luther upon the Circumcision of Our Lord (AE 52:150)

Patristic Quote of the Day

Praise to Thee, Who hast redeemed the human race when it had perished, lifted it up Thy shoulders, and carried it into the house of Thy Father. -- St. Ephraim the Syrian, *A Spiritual Psalter* #52

On Luther

If anyone tells you they have the key to unlocking Luther, you can almost stop the conversation right there. The amazing thing about Luther is that he is utterly unboxinable. Yes, that's a word. I just made it up. But it fits. Anyone can find almost anything in his writing, and so construct a Luther to fit one's own notions. After having tried this a time or two, and having Luther himself in other writings bring the whole thing down, I've finally decided to give up trying to box him in. He just won't stay put, I don't care how carefully you build the box [early Luther? late Luther? Hang it up!]. Better instead to delight in the truth he confesses in a given situation and always remember that that truth may not be his final word on a given subject if the context changes. A modern example: The Finns did a good job of highlighting a neglected aspect of his thought; but when a "school" develops out of that that thinks "theosis" is the key to interpreting all of Luther, they fumble. Hence, as Watson once argued about Luther's theology "Let God be God" so I'd argue about Luther's theologizing: "let Luther be Luther." Enjoy him and learn from him, laugh with him, cry with him, and learn from him to forsake all your own righteousness and find in Christ an altogether perfect and spotless righteousness that is given you as gift. He'll wrap you up in Christ in more ways than you think possible. Just don't try to think you've got HIM wrapped up. He'll surprise you every time.

You know...

...almond thins with extra sharp cheddar cheese topped with jaleño-stuffed olives (sliced in half) and heated for 20 seconds in the microwave. Choice. Very choice.

New Lutheran Quote of the Day

All liturgy is thanksgiving to God for the grace He has shown in His Son. -- Earnest Koenker, *Worship in Word and Sacrament* p. 20

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

When I die I shall see nothing but black darkness, and yet that light, "to you is born this day a Savior" remains in my eyes and fills all heaven and earth. The Savior will help me when all have forsaken me. - Blessed Martin Luther, Sermon for Christmas Day 1530 (AE 51:214)

Patristic Quote of the Day

Glory to Thee, Who didst descend to save our souls!
Glory to Thee, Who didst take flesh in the womb of the Virgin!
--St. Ephraim the Syrian, *A Spiritual Psalter* #2

Merry Christmas! Day Six

And a thought today from Luther's homily upon the Nativity from the year 1532:

"For, do you, whoever of you is able to think deeply about it (let alone express it in words), do you reckon that we poor, miserable sinners should so presume to receive this child and not doubt but believe with certainty that he not merely is born unto us, but also this very same son is given unto us? No heart can fathom it, no human tongue can explain it.

"For 'to give' means to grant freely, gratuitously, without price. The prophet now says, This son is given to us, which means as much as he is present, a free gift unto us; he is yours and mine in such a way that we do not purchase or pay any money for him, but that he is absolutely a free gift.

"The world really does not deserve hearing even a single word about this because of its shameful unbelief. The pious Virgin and noble mother does indeed bring this son into the world, sot hat the very same son is your and my son and gift, just as surely as if he were put right into your and my hand. And for this we have positive and sure signs, God's Word and the holy sacraments. The prophet Isaiah stands as witness of this and says that this Son is given unto us.

House Postilla III:223

One of the Greatest

new Christmas hymns in our LSB is by Jaroslav Vajda, set by Carl Schalk:

Where shepherds lately knelt and kept the angel's word,
I come in half-belief, a pilgrim strangely stirred;
But there is room and welcome there for me,
But there is room and welcome there for me.

In that unlikely place I find Him as they said;
Sweet new born babe, how frail! And in a manger bed;
A still small voice to cry one day for me;
A still small voice to cry one day for me.

How should I not have known Isaiah would be there,
His prophesies fulfilled? With pounding heart I stare:
A child, a son, the Prince of Peace for me.
A child, a son, the Prince of Peace for me.

Can I, will I forget how Love was born and burned
Its way into my heart - unasked, unforced, unearned,
To die, to live - and not alone for me,
To die, to live - and not alone for me!
LSB 369

Here's a beautiful presentation of it (yeah, I know it's performed by Mormons; but it is musically well done - and the hymn was written by a Lutheran and the composition by a Lutheran):

Sigh...

Another webiste has lately suggested that where the bells sound, there poping soon follows. Let me clarify this, once and for all. The use of bells at the consecration was a practice that was employed in Lutheran Saxony in the height of Lutheran Orthodoxy and no more indicates a desire for Rome than singing the so-called "common doxology" indicates an immanent conversion to Calvinism (from which both song and tune originated). [You can download and listen to the Our Father and the Consecration with bells in this Bach setting of the Mass for Epiphany: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0018NKE8Q/ref=dm_dp_trk34?ie=UTF8&qid=1262133296&sr=8-1 ]

Is Weedon a "closet Romanist"? By no means. As a Lutheran Christian and pastor I renounce:

purgatory
merits of the saints
invocation of the saints
pope as divinely appointed bishop of the church
Rome's incessant confusion of justification and sanctification
buying/selling of masses
a divinely established distinction between presbyters and bishops

Oh, the list could go on. And last time I checked, the Pope wasn't too interested in folks who didn't buy into all that... ;)

I'm a Lutheran because I hold to the teaching of the Lutheran Symbols - and I hold to this even and especially when it flies in the face of current anti-liturgical pressures from American Protestantism. Anyone who thinks that ringing bells during the consecration is by definition unLutheran and papist reveals he hasn't the first clue wherein true Lutheranism (or true papism) consists. How well did our dear Walther grasp this! He wrote:

We refuse to be guided by those who are offended by our church customs. We adhere to them all the more firmly when someone wants to cause us to have a guilty conscience on account of them…. It is truly distressing that many of our fellow Christians find the difference between Lutheranism and Papism in outward things. It is a pity and a dreadful cowardice when one sacrifices the good ancient church customs to please the deluded American sects, lest they accuse us of being papistic (i.e., too catholic!). Indeed! Am I to be afraid of a Methodist, who perverts the saving Word, or be ashamed in the matter of my good cause, and not rather rejoice that the sects can tell by our ceremonies that I do not belong to them?”

We are not insisting that there be uniformity of perception or feeling or of taste among all believing Christians – neither dare anyone demand that all be minded as he is. Nevertheless it remains true that the Lutheran liturgy distinguishes Lutheran worship from the worship of other churches to such an extend that the houses of worship of the latter look like lecture halls in which the hearers are addressed or instructed (NOTE: if he were writing today, he’d no doubt add: they look like movie theatres in which the hearers are entertained!), while our churches are in truth houses of prayer in which Christians serve the great God publicly before the world. (Essays for the Church, Volume 1, p. 194 (St. Louis, CPH, 1992).

Christmas Oratorio

What a great piece of music to listen to during these Christmas days. Every time I listen, I must confess my favorite is the duet:

Herr, dein Mittleid, dein Erbarmen,
tröste uns und macht uns frei!

How utterly true. AND listening to it through my new speakers (thanks, Gleasons!) is all the more wonderful.

A Few Gems from Ratzinger on Liturgy

that I happen to think are bang on right:

"The freedom with which we are concerned in the Christian feast - the feast of the Eucharist - is not the freedom to devise new texts but the liberation of the world and ourselves from death. Only this can make us free, enabling us to accept truth and to love one another in truth." Benedict XVI (Feast of Faith, p. 65)

"The community does not become a community by mutual interaction. It receives its being as a gift from an already existing completeness, totality, and in return it gives itself back to this totality. We cannot go into detail here, but this is why the liturgy cannot be "made." This is why it has to be simply received as a given reality and continually revitalized.... In this sense liturgy *always* imposed an obligatory form on the individual congregation and individual celebrant. It is a guarantee, testifying to the fact that something greater is taking place here than can be brought about by any individual community or group of people. It expresses the gift of joy, the gift of participation in the cosmic drama of Christ's resurrection, by which the liturgy stands or falls." (p. 66, 67)

"It is also worth observing here that the 'creativity' involved in manufactured liturgies has a very restricted scope. It is poor indeed compared with the wealth of the received liturgy in its hundreds and thousands of years of history. Unfortunately, the originators of homemade liturgies are slower to become aware of this than the participants..." (p. 67,68)

And from *Spirit of the Liturgy*:

"Only respect for the liturgy's fundamental unspontaneity and pre-existing identity can give us what we hope for: the feast in which the great reality comes to us that we ourselves do not manufacture but receive as a gift." p. 168

New Lutheran Quote of the Day

For an appreciation of worship one must be firmly convinced that God is worthy to be praised for His own sake. -- Ernest Koenker, *Worship in Word and Sacrament* p. 18

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

When the Wisdom of God speaks in Ecclesiasticus: "My pleasure is with the children of mankind" it is to be understood as referring to the Son of God in that He, out of great delight and from the love that He bears for us men, assumed flesh and blood and had His special delight and pleasure in this work of becoming man. -- Blessed Johann Gerhard, On Holy Christmas Day V, Postilla I:84