04 December 2010
Joys of Populus Zion Divine Service
New Lutheran Quote of the Day
You may not divide Christ. Wherever Christ is, there is the whole Christ. A Christ who is only God is not the Christ who is our Savior. Here we see something very characteristic about Luther's approach. He does not begin with our body that can only be in so many inches of a place and then impose that upon Christ's body. He begins with Christ's words and we can be sure that He does with His body what He says He does. His body can be anywhere. We may not impose our measurements and prescriptions upon Him. -- Dr. Norman Nagel, The Springfielder, Fall, 1963, p. 45.
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
Adam transgressed God's law and fell into grievous sin. But You, O Lord Jesus, fulfilled all God's law and gave us Your perfect obedience, that, being covered with it, we might stand in Your Father's presence. -- Valerius Herberger, On the Great Works of God, p. 167
Patristic Quote of the Day
For even the God of all, having power to launch His thunderbolt against them that blaspheme Him, makes the sun to rise, and sends forth the showers, and affords them all other things in abundance; whom we ought to imitate, and so to entreat, advise, admonish, with meekness, not angry, not making ourselves wild beasts. -- St. John Chrysostom, Homily 29 on Matthew
03 December 2010
Absolutely LOVED Singing
in the concert tonight. It went very well right up till partway through Christmas on Broadway when Lauren (standing between Cindi and me) nearly passed out. She hadn't eaten and was overheated. And she assures us she's not pregnant (DRATS!). Lauren and Cindi both did a bang up job on the opening solo - a beautiful rendition of the Magnificat that really gets at the radicalness of the canticle: "for the world is about to turn!" Maybe we'll pull it off one day here at St. Paul's. It's enormously similar to the tune for "No Tramp of Soldier's Marching Feet" but different enough in spots to make it quite difficult for those of us who know that tune. And it is always a GREAT joy to sing in the lovely Holy Cross.
02 December 2010
Chorale Concert
Anyone in shoutin' distance, remember that tomorrow (Friday) evening at 7 is the Collinsville Chorale's Christmas Concert at Holy Cross Lutheran Church. The entire Von Weedon family singers will be joining in: Cindi, soprano; Lauren and Bekah, altos; David and I, bass. Join us if you can!
Church is all
set up for Divine Service on Sunday. Homily on pulpit. Intercessions in altar book. Hymn numbers on board. Bulletins in narthex and on the seats for acolytes and for me. Children's bulletins and such in place. Bible Study on the desk and Catechism Service also. I LOVE it when I manage to get everything tended to prior to my day off. It usually allows the day off to really be that, without having the weekend's preparations weighing on the mind.
New Lutheran Quote of the Day
The dominant characteristic in man's thinking in religious matters is the notion that it is up to him to do or be something that will get him right with God. -- Dr. Norman Nagel, Springfielder, Fall 1963, p. 41.
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
Adam was shaped by God's hand from pure, virgin earth unsullied by the blood of a man. O Lord Jesus, You were conceived by the Holy Spirit, under Mary's chaste, virgin heart unmarred by impurity, unstained by intercourse with man, that by Your holy conception my sinful conception might be sanctified. -- Valerius Herberger, On the Great Works of God, p. 161.
Patristic Quote of the Day
So on this account they were cast into perplexity, saying, What manner of man is this? since while the sleep and the outward appearance showed man, the sea and the calm declared Him God. -- St. John Chrysostom, Homily 28 on Matthew
01 December 2010
Before the Ending of the Day
Today was the first "regular" service at which we introduced Compline's hymn "Before the Ending of the Day." I was surprised at how well it was sung. I shouldn't have been. I mean, St. Paul's is a musical congregation and the hymn is largely one note. Is there a better hymn to close off the day, I ask you? It asks for everything needful. Singing it as the last hymn of Evening Prayer gave us a flavor of Compline too.
Homily for First Advent Midweek
The Water that Leads Home - Isaiah 35:1-10 / Philippians 3:13-21
I think it profoundly true that repentance grows fundamentally into homesickness. The a-ha about this world as it now is finally sinks in and we realize that it is not our final home. Good thing. Because this world shares the fate of all the homes in this world. They are always vanishing away. The people who make them the homes all grow up, move away, grow old, die, and are buried. And with their passing, the home passes. Doesn’t matter how great and wonderful your home is now – or how horrible and sad – either way it’s not going to last.. It is a sad truism that here we have no lasting city, no lasting homeland.
How well did the people of Israel in their exile experience this home-sickness. They would ache for the city and land they were destined to lose. But Isaiah foretold a wondrous day that would come. He saw a miracle unfold before his very eyes.
The desert blossomed and came alive with the sound of singing. The scared with knocking knees suddenly straighten up and their hearts fill with joy. God is coming! And when He comes, He comes to save. He comes to rescue His afflicted people. Joy overflowing!
Blind eyes see! Deaf ears will hear! Lame men are suddenly dancing like deer! And the tongue-tied are suddenly singing a song of joy. Why?
Suddenly in the wasteland there is water, streams in the desert, pools in the burning sand, and along the water runs a way, a highway. It’s a miracle path. Those who walk on it are safe and saved and sweetest of all: are headed home. Home to a home unlike any in this fallen world that is passing away. They’re headed to a home that they will never lose. A home where there are no more good byes. A home from which sorrow and sighing turn tail and run away, leaving everlasting joy and gladness. A home forever.
You will never love the Church as God would have you love her until you see her for what she is: she is the path toward home. She is the path alongside the waters that God causes to spring up in this wilderness, this desert, where all things pass away and fade, where nothing ever seems to last except the long sorrows of sin and death. Suddenly there is something that lasts. A water that refreshes the weary! A path that leads alongside that water, filled with singing, toward a lasting, a permanent home! Yes, the Church is the gift of what lasts given into a world where nothing else does.
As Paul thought of it he could cry out: “Forgetting what lies behind (all the sin, all the sorrow, all the pain and unending grief in this age) and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ.” He warns that many who bear the name of Christ, fail to do this. Instead, they walk as enemies of His cross with their god being their belly and their focus being simply on the things of this world, this age. That is just the way of destruction, he says. But our citizenship – our true homeland – is in heaven, and from it we await the Savior, our Lord Jesus, who will come in glory as He once came in humility. Only this time it won’t be to bear and fight and die. It will be crowned with glory like the sun that lights the morning sky. It will be to make US shine like that sun. To literally transform our bodies like His glorious body – the body that was on the cross and experienced the worst that death can do – and yet now is already raised in glory, forever beyond the power of corruption. As I like to say: unfallapartable ever again! And that’s how He will make our bodies too – as He brings us into the true home, the Zion, He has prepared for us as His sisters, His brothers, His family. Home to the Father.
He came into this world as that little baby to find His lost family and bring them out of the ruins of this world into His unending realm. He would one day be called the Carpenter, for He would build for His own a home they would never lose. “I go to prepare a place for you.” From manger to cross to empty tomb, He was at work laying the path and constructing the palace.
And how is all of this ours? He gave it to us in the water. In Holy Baptism, which is not just plain water, but the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s Word. This is the water that breaks out in the desert and that flows all along the side of the way that leads towards our true and final home. It’s miracle water. It gives those who pass through it, trusting His promise, a new birth, a new life, a new family, a new home.
Because of your Baptism into Christ, you know that all of that is yours. You live in this world as one who is one the way to your true home. And that changes how you live. Picture the difference between the poor wanderer whose home has been destroyed, whose family has been enslaved, whose country captured, who doesn’t even have a hope of home anymore. Compare the journey of such a one to the man who knows that his home is standing and safe, whose family is eagerly awaiting his arrival, and whose country is victorious and ever shall be, and who through the growing gloom can glimpse up ahead the lights of home. While the first is bowed down in fear and grief and uncertainty; the second is standing tall and striding forward with peace and joy and the calm of certainty, singing as he goes! Home beckons!
Baptism into Christ gives you the gift of being the second man – the man whose every step brings him closer to home. For by your Baptism into Christ He has given you forgiveness for all your sin, rescued you from death and from the power of the devil, and given you and all who believe the gift of eternal salvation – the promise of living with Him in His home, made beloved children with Him of His heavenly Father by the working of His Spirit. You were washed! You were sanctified! You were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. To this blessed Trinity be all the glory, now and forever! Amen.
I think it profoundly true that repentance grows fundamentally into homesickness. The a-ha about this world as it now is finally sinks in and we realize that it is not our final home. Good thing. Because this world shares the fate of all the homes in this world. They are always vanishing away. The people who make them the homes all grow up, move away, grow old, die, and are buried. And with their passing, the home passes. Doesn’t matter how great and wonderful your home is now – or how horrible and sad – either way it’s not going to last.. It is a sad truism that here we have no lasting city, no lasting homeland.
How well did the people of Israel in their exile experience this home-sickness. They would ache for the city and land they were destined to lose. But Isaiah foretold a wondrous day that would come. He saw a miracle unfold before his very eyes.
The desert blossomed and came alive with the sound of singing. The scared with knocking knees suddenly straighten up and their hearts fill with joy. God is coming! And when He comes, He comes to save. He comes to rescue His afflicted people. Joy overflowing!
Blind eyes see! Deaf ears will hear! Lame men are suddenly dancing like deer! And the tongue-tied are suddenly singing a song of joy. Why?
Suddenly in the wasteland there is water, streams in the desert, pools in the burning sand, and along the water runs a way, a highway. It’s a miracle path. Those who walk on it are safe and saved and sweetest of all: are headed home. Home to a home unlike any in this fallen world that is passing away. They’re headed to a home that they will never lose. A home where there are no more good byes. A home from which sorrow and sighing turn tail and run away, leaving everlasting joy and gladness. A home forever.
You will never love the Church as God would have you love her until you see her for what she is: she is the path toward home. She is the path alongside the waters that God causes to spring up in this wilderness, this desert, where all things pass away and fade, where nothing ever seems to last except the long sorrows of sin and death. Suddenly there is something that lasts. A water that refreshes the weary! A path that leads alongside that water, filled with singing, toward a lasting, a permanent home! Yes, the Church is the gift of what lasts given into a world where nothing else does.
As Paul thought of it he could cry out: “Forgetting what lies behind (all the sin, all the sorrow, all the pain and unending grief in this age) and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ.” He warns that many who bear the name of Christ, fail to do this. Instead, they walk as enemies of His cross with their god being their belly and their focus being simply on the things of this world, this age. That is just the way of destruction, he says. But our citizenship – our true homeland – is in heaven, and from it we await the Savior, our Lord Jesus, who will come in glory as He once came in humility. Only this time it won’t be to bear and fight and die. It will be crowned with glory like the sun that lights the morning sky. It will be to make US shine like that sun. To literally transform our bodies like His glorious body – the body that was on the cross and experienced the worst that death can do – and yet now is already raised in glory, forever beyond the power of corruption. As I like to say: unfallapartable ever again! And that’s how He will make our bodies too – as He brings us into the true home, the Zion, He has prepared for us as His sisters, His brothers, His family. Home to the Father.
He came into this world as that little baby to find His lost family and bring them out of the ruins of this world into His unending realm. He would one day be called the Carpenter, for He would build for His own a home they would never lose. “I go to prepare a place for you.” From manger to cross to empty tomb, He was at work laying the path and constructing the palace.
And how is all of this ours? He gave it to us in the water. In Holy Baptism, which is not just plain water, but the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s Word. This is the water that breaks out in the desert and that flows all along the side of the way that leads towards our true and final home. It’s miracle water. It gives those who pass through it, trusting His promise, a new birth, a new life, a new family, a new home.
Because of your Baptism into Christ, you know that all of that is yours. You live in this world as one who is one the way to your true home. And that changes how you live. Picture the difference between the poor wanderer whose home has been destroyed, whose family has been enslaved, whose country captured, who doesn’t even have a hope of home anymore. Compare the journey of such a one to the man who knows that his home is standing and safe, whose family is eagerly awaiting his arrival, and whose country is victorious and ever shall be, and who through the growing gloom can glimpse up ahead the lights of home. While the first is bowed down in fear and grief and uncertainty; the second is standing tall and striding forward with peace and joy and the calm of certainty, singing as he goes! Home beckons!
Baptism into Christ gives you the gift of being the second man – the man whose every step brings him closer to home. For by your Baptism into Christ He has given you forgiveness for all your sin, rescued you from death and from the power of the devil, and given you and all who believe the gift of eternal salvation – the promise of living with Him in His home, made beloved children with Him of His heavenly Father by the working of His Spirit. You were washed! You were sanctified! You were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. To this blessed Trinity be all the glory, now and forever! Amen.
Witness Article
New Lutheran Quote of the Day
The Lutheran understanding of the church and the means of grace also throws light. The church is there where the means of grace are. We hold to nothing less and nothing more. These are extra nos and therefore sure. We may not tamper or add. We cannot permit the certainty to be undermined by the insistence on something of man whether it be polity of Popes, bishops, ore presbyters, a discipline or a degree of sanctification. The means of grace are not within our judgment or control. -- Dr. Norman Nagel, CTM 1956 p. 708.
Old Lutheran Quote of the Day
O Lord Jesus, in church I hear You extolled as the Fountain of Life. Oh, help me to love church, the place where this comfort resounds! Help me to keep the pitcher of my heart pure, to fill it to the brim from Your well of salvation, to carry it attentively home, nor to neglect it through carelessness, but to make great use of it in my prayer, cross, affliction, distress, tribulation, and death, and to share its comforts with others also. -- Valerius Herberger, On the Great Works of God, p. 158.
Patristic Quote of the Day
Forasmuch then as they are in a sort of senseless state, being turned to dead men, let us in their behalf draw near unto Jesus, let us entreat Him to raise them up, let us take away the stone, let us loosen the grave clothes. For if you take away the stone, that is, their insensibility to their own miseries, you will quickly be able to bring them also out of the tomb; and having brought them out, you will more easily rid them of their bonds. Then shall Christ know you, when you are risen, when unbound; then will He call you even unto His own supper. As many therefore of you as are friends of Christ, as many as are disciples, as many as love him that is gone, draw near unto Jesus, and pray. -- St. John Chrysostom, Homily 27 on Matthew
30 November 2010
With the Divine Service for St. Andrew's Day past...
...tomorrow night's Evening Prayer service looms large. I cannot tell you how dearly beloved this service is. From the opening service of light with its ancient Phos Hilaron (Joyous Light), to the Psalms and readings, the Magnificat and the beautiful sung litany - it all breathes a spirit of peace. You spend time in the evening together as the family of God singing, listening, praying, and you walk away joyful and content. It's hard to describe but simply the experience of so many.
In peace, let us pray to the Lord... for the peace from above and for our salvation, let us pray to the Lord... for the peace of the whole world, for the well-being of the Church of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord... Give to Your servants that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey Your commandments and also that we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may live in peace and quietness... Before the ending of the day, Creator of the world we pray, Thy grace and peace to us allow, And be our guard and keeper now...
In peace, let us pray to the Lord... for the peace from above and for our salvation, let us pray to the Lord... for the peace of the whole world, for the well-being of the Church of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord... Give to Your servants that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey Your commandments and also that we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may live in peace and quietness... Before the ending of the day, Creator of the world we pray, Thy grace and peace to us allow, And be our guard and keeper now...
Homily upon St. Andrew's Day - 2010
A God who is everywhere is as useless to you as a God who is nowhere. What you need, and need desperately, is a God who is somewhere. A located God, coming to you in grace and mercy.
“We have found the Messiah” St. Andrew tells his brother, St. Peter. “He brought him to Jesus.”
Finding Him and bringing someone else to Him only happens when you know where He is. Andrew didn’t have any doubts about that. St. John the Baptist had pointed Him out: “Behold, the Lamb of God!” And so Andrew and another disciple had followed John’s pointing finger to the – to all outward appearances anyway - unremarkable Man, and began literally walking behind him, going where He was going. “What are you seeking?” He asks them.
He asks us much the same. What are you looking for? For indeed, He will be a bit of a disappointment to you if you’re looking for anything else other than the presence of God in human flesh and blood. He’s not the quick fix or easy answer to the problems that you tend to obsess upon. Rather, He challenges your thinking that those things are so big and important. I think it’s great that Andrew doesn’t ask for anything more than this: “Where are you staying?” Where are you located? Where can we find you?
“Come and see!” He invites and off they go to find where He was staying, where He was located. They spend the day there, listening to Him speak, but most of all: simply being with Him. And something clicked for them in that. They realized in a way that they likely never had imagined that life itself was different now. Just spending time with Him and listening to Him – being in His presence – it changes you and it discloses to you exactly what life itself is made for. For that’s it! We were made to be in His presence.
This is what was lost in our first parents. This walking with God in the garden in the cool of the day and conversing with Him and just being with Him. And behind all the intense longings of this world, this is the hidden longing. “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our souls are restless until we rest in You.” – St. Augustine.
And that restlessness leads us into all kinds of sorrow, all kinds of mischief. We do some mega stupid things to try to quiet it and sometimes when stupid doesn’t work, we try stupider. But they’re all doomed to fail. Every last one. That ache inside? It is only quenched by one thing: the One for whose companionship you were made.
How well did old David confess this! “In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Or even more explicitly: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon the earth that I desire besides Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever.”
And not to know where this One is located so that you can be with Him – that is agony indeed. And so when you find Him and spend time with Him, suddenly Your heart swells with a joy that cannot be kept to yourself. This is not just what YOU were made for; this is what EVERYONE was made for. Hence Andrew’s immediate confession to his brother: “We have found the Messiah” and he brought him to Jesus.
Oh, people loved by God, if our confession of the Christ has grown weak, might it be that we have forgotten where He may be found? If we follow John’s finger to the Lamb of God, where do we arrive but at this altar. “O Christ, Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us, grant us Thy peace.” Here we kneel down and experience the most intimate communion imaginable. The Son of God, the very One Andrew followed, He comes to you here with His body and His blood – the body and the blood that He assumed for your sake from the Virgin’s womb, the body and blood that He offered on Calvary’s tree to free you from condemnation, the body and blood that were raised in glory and exalted to the right hand of the Father – this He comes to give you and He puts it right into your mouth with His promise: “for you, for the forgiveness of sins.” And so He bodies and bloods you to Himself. "Because I live, you will live also." One body with Him.
How can we not, then, with Saint Andrew, walk away from this house where Jesus is staying and go into the world and announce to our families, to our friends, to our neighbors, to our parents and our children, that we have found the Messiah? He is not long ago and far away. He is here and present, continuing to teach us in His words and to impart Himself to us in His body and blood.
We too can “bring them to Jesus” for we know now where He is, and we know that this is what life itself was meant to be: communion with the Son and the Father in the Holy Spirit. God bringing us not that which solves the pressing issues that WE think we face, but God simply in unfathomable love giving us Himself that we might have the joy we were created for in the first place.
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