Introit for Reformation Day

Consecration and Sanctus (Isaiah, Mighty Seer) from DS V

A Mighty Fortress

Entrance Hymn sung at the Early Service on Sunday, the Feast of the Reformation:

Directory

St. Paul's published its first directory since the 150th anniversary - in fact, five years later.  What strikes me is the ART.  Since the 150th directory came out, we have added:

Two huge images of Christ to the front walls of the Church.
The Crucifix upon the altar.
The images of the Four Evangelists on front of the balcony.
The large image of St. Paul, our patron saint, on the south wall.
New stained glass windows (8 panels!) celebrating each Person of the Blessed Trinity between the nave and narthex, crafted by Pr. Gleason.

THAT'S a lot of art!

Looking a bit further back, since I came we have added:

A processional cross and torches (hand-crafted by Wilbur Schmidt).
Paschal Candle stand (handcrafted by Wilbur Schmidt).
New altar rails (handcrafted by Carl Steinmann).
Tenebrae hearse (handcrafted by David DeVries).
Banners too many to count (by the banner ladies of St. Paul's).
Quilt of the history of St. Paul's (by the banner ladies of St. Paul's).

All of these works, lovingly crafted, glorifying God's great mercy and love, invite the worshipper when he or she enters the nave to a sense of quiet contemplation and prayer.  Everywhere the Gospel is proclaimed in image even as it is vocally in song, reading, and preaching - and everywhere it invites to joyous yet peaceful prayer.

Here's my intro to the newest directory:


155 Years

That’s how long the Lord Jesus has been having Himself a congregation at St. Paul’s – or as it used to be called New Gehlenbeck.  For 155 years He has had His Word preached, His Eucharist celebrated, His children baptized, taught, and confirmed, His sinners absolved.  Here man and women have been united in Holy Marriage and their weddings sanctified by Word and prayer.  Here mourners have gathered to carry their dead to their resting place in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.  Here to the glory of Jesus bells have been rung, songs sung, prayers raised, tears shed, and joys overflowed.

“I was glad when they said to me, let us go into the house of the Lord.”  (Psalm 122) And such gladness continues to characterize the worship and service of this community of Evangelical Lutherans.  We rejoice to come to God’s house – for here HE serves us with His good gifts, enlivens us, and gives us hope.  Here He strengthens us to be witnesses to the joy of sin’s forgiveness and death’s destruction.  Here He imparts a foretaste of the heavenly feast that gives us the comfort and strength we need to bear whatever troubles and trials come our way.

Some in this family of faith have roots that go back right to the founding of this holy house.  Others have only later discovered this joyful family.  All together we form but one family of faith and we are glad that the Lord Jesus has given us each other as we journey with Him toward the Day that has no evening in His Kingdom – and we pray that He would continue to use us as a family of faith that many others might be joined to Him through and with us, and that we might come together at last to those joys which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, the good things God has prepared for those who love Him.

In Jesus,

William Weedon, 14th Pastor of St. Paul’s

Pr. C.H.G. Schliepsick  May 1856 to April 1860
Pr. J.M.M. Moll  August 1860 to October 1865
Pr. W. Heinemann  January 1866 to November 1876
Pr. G. Schieferdecker  July 1877 to November 1891
Pr. F. S. Buenger  January 1892 to Mary 1899
Pr. E. Flach  July 1899 to October 1904
Pr. Wm. J. Schmidt  January 1905 to December 1909
Pr. H.H. Hansen  December 1909 to December 1934
Pr. J. W. Hennig  March 1935 to March 1948
Pr. A. Deichmann September 1948 to April 1961
Pr. R. Bolin  June 1961 to December 1968
Pr. W. F. Hischke  October 1969 to October 1982
Pr. W. Dressler  March 1983 to July 1991
Pr. W. C. Weedon  July 1992
Pr. W. Gleason  March 2011

So...

I just discovered that my gmail account had stopped FORWARDING any mail I received there to my Mac address (which is the only one I regularly check).  Sweet.  So all you guys who are convinced I'm a jerk for not replying to you, please forgive me!!!  I didn't know you had written.  I've tried to respond to several of them, but it's a whole pile.  I'm not sure I'll get through the backlog.  I think it IS working now.  A thousand apologies.

New Lutheran Quote of the Day

Our spiritual life is a hidden journey with the risen Lord Jesus.  As we travel with Him, we receive everything from Him.  We share in His divine life as the Son of God the Father; we stand in His shoes and identify ourselves with Him.  With Him we travel on a holy way in which He makes and keeps us holy. -- Dr. John Kleinig, Grace upon Grace, p. 271.

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

Although we indeed are prepared to prove each and every one of our articles of faith that is in controversy with the Papists with the clear and lucid testimonies of the ancient fathers, and our people have done this very often, we nevertheless cannot and should not acknowledge the writings of the fathers as the norm of doctrine in the church.  -- Blessed Johann Gerhard, On the Church, p. 409

Patristic Quote of the Day

For instance, we all pray facing East, but few realize that we do this because we are seeking Paradise, our old fatherland, which God planted in the East, in Eden. -- St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, par. 66.

Kyrie and Gloria from Divine Service 5

Wow, oh, wow!

Absolutely wonderful Divine Service today for Reformation.  We used Setting V.  The congregation belted out the songs; the Jubilate Deo group did outstanding under Carlo's leadership.  They sang stanza two of "A Mighty Fortress," Kyrie, God Father; the choir parts of Festive Gloria; and alternate verses in the Hymn of the Day which picked up again during the Distribution.  The whole thing was amazingly powerful and rich.  And Carlo finishing it with Toccata and Fugue in D minor, well, icing on the cake!  And next week it only notches up a little higher with All Saints!  Love this time of the year from now, say, through PENTECOST!

Pr. Gleason said after the first liturgy that we really need to do that particular setting of the Divine Service more often; and I totally agree.  But it's a LOT of singing for the congregation to carry on its own without relief from a choral group.  Still, I think we'll have to do so.  God willing, I'll get some of the video posted this week.

"Thanks be to God, thanks be to God, thanks be to God in the highest!"

New Lutheran Quote of the Day

We resist the Evil One by praying the Lord's Prayer and using it as a pattern for our praying.  -- Dr. John Kleinig, Grace upon Grace, p. 268.

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

We do not remove the ranking among ministers of the church; rather, we retain the distinction between bishop, priest, and deacons.  By no means do we, however, establish the sort of difference of power and the sort of distinction the Papists want... The fact that bishops are set above presbyters in the church happens "out of a human institution after the times of the apostles to remove schisms" as Jerome teaches (Commentary on Titus 1). -- Blessed Johann Gerhard, On the Church, p. 407

Patristic Quote of the Day

If we attacked unwritten customs, claiming them to be of little importance, we would fatally mutilate the Gospel, no matter what our intentions - or rather, we would reduce the Gospel teaching to bare words. -- St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, par. 66

A Reformation Homily - 2011

[Romans 3:19-28 / John 8:31-36]


“If you abide in My Word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  So our Lord promises in today’s Gospel.  And it was a very wise Vicar General of the Augustinian Order, Johann Von Staupitz, who decided that that verse held the key to what on earth to do with his troubled monk, Martin Luther.  1511 was the year.  Luther could find no peace.  He went into the confessional – he confessed his sins hours on end, he did every penance that was given to him, he fasted and tortured himself.  There was nothing he didn’t try of what the Church commanded and yet he could arrive at no peace in knowing that his sins were forgiven.  He was brutally honest.  He knew his heart of hearts that he did not love God with all his being and he certainly did not love his neighbor as himself.  In fact, the more he dealt with God the more he came to hate and despise Him for giving humanity laws that no human being born in sin would ever be able to keep.  How can a man be righteous before God when he couldn’t even BEGIN to keep the Law of God for a single day?  Luther had an acute ear to hear every bit of God’s law, but he was utterly tone-deaf to the sweet strains of the Gospel.

How to help the poor man?  Staupitz decided:  “Make him a doctor of Holy Scripture.  God’s Word will do what I have not been able to do.”

And so Luther, monk and priest, was dispatched to the newly founded University of Wittenberg to assume the chair of a lecturer in Sacred Scripture and to become a doctor of the Church.  Staupitz was wise.  “If you abide in My Word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Abide in the Word Luther did.  And light began to dawn into his darkness.  But heaven broke upon his soul as he chased down ONE term.  He was seeking to understand the righteousness of God.  You see, he read in St. Paul in Romans chapter 1, that in the Gospel the righteousness of God has been revealed.  And he puzzled his puzzler over how that could be good news.  Moses was bad enough, but when Jesus started teaching about the Law, He made it a thousand times worse.  Moses said “Don't’ commit adultery.”  Jesus said:  “If you even look lustfully at another person, you’ve committed adultery in your heart.”  Moses said:  “Don’t murder.”  Jesus said:  “If you’ve been angry or said nasty words to your brother, you’ve killed him in your heart.”  The more Luther puzzled the less he understood how it could be GOOD news that the righteousness of God was revealed in the Gospel.

He prayed and read more.  He pondered and studied.  He continued to abide in the Words of Jesus, and suddenly he saw it.  It shown with shocking brilliance.  The righteousness of God that is revealed in the Gospel is not a righteousness that human beings bring to God; it is a righteousness that God freely gives to human beings.  Not a perfection you have to achieve – the Gospel is all about a perfection that Jesus achieved FOR YOU and delivers to you.  It’s not something you DO, it’s something you can only RECEIVE.

Oh, when he saw it, he said it was as though the very gates of paradise swung open before him.  He had continued in the Word of Jesus, and the Word of Jesus did exactly like Jesus promised:  it totally set him free.  Suddenly the faith was filled with joy.  The Gospel revealed not a God ready to crush him for his failures and sins; it revealed a God who LOVED him, sinner though he was, and who provided him a perfect righteousness.  And suddenly even love became possible:  for there is nothing loving about USING another person to exercise your good works on so that YOU can achieve some sort of standing before God.  Why, that’s the height of selfishness itself!  It leaves the human heart totally self-seeking in the doing of what it thinks is good.  Good works can become good when we do them cheerfully and to the benefit of our neighbor – not because WE accrue some benefit from them, just to be a blessing to another person.  They can’t even begin to add to your righteousness, because YOUR righteousness is whole and complete:  it’s Jesus and what He’s done for you.

Did you hear it ring through chapter 3 of Romans?  The law is there to shut up every mouth, to hold the whole world accountable to God, and by the works of the law – by doing your very best – no human being will ever be justified, that is, declared righteous before God.  BUT NOW the righteousness of God (there’s the term Luther was worrying at), now God’s righteousness has been manifested – it showed up – apart from the law!  Apart from your doing and not doing!  It showed up as God’s gift in Jesus to all who believe.  All have sinned, all fall short of God’s glory, and all are justified – declared righteous – by God’s grace as a gift through the redemption that’s in Jesus Christ.  God put Him forth before you as your propitiation – the sacrifice that wipes out of your sin and the world – His blood does that.  His cross was all about that.  And faith trusts that His blood has done the job.  Your sin on Him and so gone.  His righteousness then on you.  God is your justifier.  You don’t need to justify yourself.  You can’t.  But He can.  He did when He raised His Son from the dead.  It counts for you and for all who believe.  No boasting then, no pride.  Wiped out by the way faith works.  Instead, God declares you righteous – holy, perfect, without sin – by faith, apart from anything you do or don’t do.  What a gift!  For God’s heart to you!

Ah, the prison opened!  Instead of ceaselessly trying and failing to somehow do enough for God to love you, accept you, embrace you; the Gospel gives you free, unearned, even unsought that love, that acceptance, that embrace.  You’ve got all you need for time and for eternity from the hand of God.  And so, as I said earlier, you’re free then to love your neighbor without the backward glance of how many divine brownie points its earning you.  You do it with freedom and abandon so that you can even say:  “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?”  Faith only looks to Jesus and not to its own doings.

So today the great Feast of the Reformation.  Is it still good to celebrate, even after all these years?  You better believe it, people loved by God.  For there is simply nothing that is so freeing as the Gospel and when anything in the Church’s life comes to obscure or cover or God forbid deny that the good news of the free gift of God’s righteousness to the sinner, then it must be removed.  For the sake of the whole Church and for the sake of the world.  So that all people might be able to hear and by God’s Spirit rejoice in that righteousness freely given in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

“If you continue in my Word, then you are my disciple, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”  Jesus’ promise came true for Martin Luther.  It will come true for each of you too!  And for that blessed freedom, the free gift of divine sonship and perfect righteousness, all glory to our Giver-God, to the  Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages!  Amen.

Or listen here.

The Champs

I think it would be

true to note that in general, church bureaucrats distrust and dislike blogs and blogging.  And why?  Why the need to constantly run down bloggers as though they were some evil force in Christ's church?  I think it is simply because it drives them BATTY that they do not control the flow of information anymore.  And I say:  hurray for that!  Oh, ye bloggers, fight the good fight and do not give up!  Speak the truth and bear the calumny that is dished out in your direction.  It's worth it.

Today's Reading - Deuteronomy 29

But to this day the Lord has not given you heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.

...sounds like Luther's Bondage of the Will.  Calls to mind Acts 16:14 about Lydia.

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

...sounds like Luther's huge distinction between the hidden/revealed and how we don't go nosing around in the hidden things by trying to answer theological questions Scripture itself has not revealed the answer to with our own speculations.

New Lutheran Quote of the Day

He [the devil] does his best to sabotage or end our daily devotions.  That's why it's so difficult to sustain them. -- Dr. John Kleinig, Grace upon Grace, p. 267.

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

Ordination by three bishops is not simply and absolutely necessary, because it is not an apostolic sanction, but an ecclesiastical constitution.  It is enough that the presbytery lay their their hands upon the ordinand who has been legitimately called to the ecclesiastical ministry, for in this way presbyters were ordained in the apostolic church (Acts 14:23; 1 Timothy 4:14). -- Blessed Johann Gerhard, On the Church, p. 407

Patristic Quote of the Day

It is fitting that when we see Christ, the Image of the Father's glory, it is always through the illumination of the Spirit. -- St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, par. 64,