Congregation at Prayer

Catechesis Notes for the Week— How Do We Receive the Holy Spirit — When Jesus appeared to the disciples on Easter evening, He said to them, “Peace to You!  As the Father has sent Me, I also send you …Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20: 21-23, NKJV).  These words teach us much about “how” we receive the Holy Spirit.  We receive the Holy Spirit through our Savior’s Word of forgiveness.  There is an inseparable linkage between our Savior’s words and the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is “the Lord and giver of life.”  He calls us to faith in Christ.  He creates a new will in our hearts that desires to love God and serve the neighbor.  He produces in us the good works of love that flow from faith.  He brings forth in us the “fruit of the Spirit”—love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  He brings to us everything that Jesus has done for us.  By the Holy Spirit, Jesus Himself actually dwells in our hearts by faith.  The Holy Spirit does all this by the Word of our Savior.  Christians need to know where the Holy Spirit promises to be found: in the reception of the Word of Christ.  Therefore, we seek the Spirit in the very promises of our Baptism, in the ongoing preaching of the Gospel, in faithful catechesis of the Word of Christ, in the life of repentance and faith that confesses sin and receives the absolution.  Even the Lord’s Supper carries the promise of the Holy Spirit because Jesus’ word, “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” is at the center of the Sacrament.  When we pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are praying for the Holy Spirit to come to us and work in us where He promises to be found: in Christ’s Word—in all the wonderful ways Jesus’ word of forgiveness comes to us.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — The Third Article of the Creed—This week’s Bible Verse for memorization and meditation focuses our attention on what is the very heart of the Holy Spirit’s work: to testify of Jesus. The Third person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son to give life and salvation to us in Christ. How does He give testimony to Jesus? By the preaching of the Gospel, Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Holy Communion. By the Words of the New Testament in the blood of Christ, the Holy Spirit bears witness to our spirits that Jesus is Christ our Savior that we might believe in Him. By these same gifts He, the Holy Spirit, enlightens our hearts, minds, and lives to live from and in the freedom of Christ’s forgiveness. By these same gifts, the Holy Spirit brings Christ into our hearts and brings forth Christ in our lives in love toward others which is the fruit of faith. The Holy Spirit never shines upon Himself; He is always shining upon Christ. We should think of it this way: it is the Holy Spirit who preaches the Gospel, baptizes, forgives sins, and gives us to eat of Christ’s body and blood. It is the Holy Spirit who does all of these things, that our faith and life might be fixed firmly in Christ. That is the Holy Spirit’s work, as Jesus said, “When the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.”

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — During the next two weeks we celebrate the Reformation and All Saints’ Day. These two feasts appropriately go together. Reformation celebrates the recovery of the Gospel, that sinners are justified (declared righteous) by grace alone, through faith, for Christ’s sake. This justification is what makes all saints “saints.” They are clothed with the righteousness of Christ. This is the teaching of the epistle for Reformation: “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God…Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the Law.” The Gospel for Reformation continues this theme in the words of Jesus: “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).  The Word of Jesus calls us to repentance and declares us righteous on account of what He has done for us in His death upon the cross.  The righteousness of Christ—the forgiveness of all our sins—is received by faith alone and sets us free from punishment and the judgment of the Law to live in the joyous freedom that only Christ’s forgiving Word can give us.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — The Second Article of the Creed —Redemption is the theme of the Second Article. It is a word that indicates that we have been “purchased and won” by Christ from Satan who had been our lord and taskmaster. Satan held sinful man and each one of us in his clutches. His power over us was the Law through sin. Because of our sinful rebellion he was able to lay claim to us and hold us under the Law’s condemnation. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, the condemnation of hell and the power of Satan, by becoming a curse for us under the Law and pouring out His life-blood into death for us. This is how He, as the Seed of the Woman, would “bruise” or “crush” the devil’s headship and authority over man. Now we have freedom from Satan’s tyranny through faith in Christ.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — The First Article and the Fall into Sin — The Scriptural account of the creation of the heavens and the earth move quickly to the creation of man as the crown of God’s creation and the object of God’s greatest affection and love. Though man squandered God’s free gifts in the creation, God did not abandon His affection and love for us. The story of man’s fall into sin is quickly followed by God’s first promise of salvation from the devil and the condemnation that this fall brought upon us. This promise is contained in God’s Word to the devil: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” The “Seed of the Woman” is the Virgin-born Son of God who crushed the devil’s claim upon man when His heel was bruised in His suffering and death upon the cross. This promise of salvation is also accompanied by God’s curse of the fall. The curse of the fall was necessary in order that sinful man might come to believe in His need for God. The curse of the fall gives the preaching of the Law its teeth. The Law preaches repentance—revealing the sin and rebellion from which we need God’s salvation—and the experience of the curse of the fall teaches us that the problem of sin is real and has separated us from God. It is in this context of the Law’s preaching and the experience of our fallen condition that the Gospel enters in to bring forgiveness and comfort, and to raise us up to the new life of faith. By faith in Christ and the promises of salvation through Him, we are enabled to bear up under the curse of the fall until we are delivered from all the suffering of our fallen condition on the last day in the resurrection of the dead.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — The First Article of the Creed — “All that I am and all that I have comes from God. Apart from Him I am and have nothing.” These assertions are central to the Christian teaching concerning God. They declare that we, and all of creation, are completely dependent upon Him. Even when we abuse the life and gifts that He has given, we do so by His power in us. This is what makes such evil all the more blasphemous! Martin Luther’s Creedal Hymn confesses both our dependence upon God and His love for us that motivates Him to create, provide, protect, and defend us. “We all believe in one true God, who created earth and heaven, The Father who to us in love has the right of children given. He in soul and body feeds us; All we need His hand provides us; Through all snares and perils leads us, Watching that no harm betide us.  He cares for us by day and night; All things are governed by His might.” The Catechism helps us to understand that what He has made and given is ALWAYS good, even if our sinful human reason might not think so and might even rebel against such gifts. There is great freedom in the gift of faith that accepts the truths of the First Article. All Christians, the deaf, the blind, and the lame, still confess that God has made them, including their “eyes, ears, and all their members,” even if they don’t work the way they want them to work. God’s created gifts are given AS THEY ARE, that we might learn to trust in Him through these gifts, extolling Him alone as God and relying upon His grace in our weakness.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — Review of the Commandments and the Close of the Commandments — The first commandment is behind all the commandments, and all the commandments are interconnected in the demand to love God above all things. The threat of the Law to punish anyone who turns away from God is visited upon Jesus in His death upon the cross. He was punished for the sin of the fathers in fulfillment of the law. Therefore, there is grace and mercy for us sinners, because Jesus “loved and trusted in God and gladly did what God demanded.” He did this even to the point of suffering the punishment that we sinners deserved. Death and condemnation are the result of turning away from God, the source of all life. The tablets of the Law that were hurled at the Jews from Mount Sinai show how all our righteousness is crushed under the scrutiny of God’s commandments. This is necessary. If we do not feel the crushing blow of the Law, we cannot receive the righteousness of Christ. Christ bore the crushing blow of the Law’s condemnation in His death. He willingly took our place, like a scapegoat, and suffered all that we deserved by our sins. Why did He do this? His love and desire to save us and give us life is at the heart of all that He does for us, even when the Law is proclaimed that crushes our self-righteousness and pride. This week’s Bible verse teaches us that death is the result of transgressing God’s Law and that eternal life can only come through Jesus Christ who has suffered that death for us. The “fear, love, and trust” demanded in the first commandment is the foundation for all the commandments. Salvation from sin is a free gift of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We receive this free gift by faith alone. Any attempts to attain righteousness by the Law are a denial of Christ’s sacrifice for us under the Law’s condemnation.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — Covetousness and Contentment—The Ninth and Tenth Commandments both speak of covetousness.  Covetousness is the desire of our hearts that insists upon having those things that God has not given to us.  Many of the things that we might desire are very good things indeed.  “Food, drink, clothing, shoes … a devout husband or wife, devout children,” etc. are all good things and good gifts from God.  Sometimes, however, through our own sin or through the Lord’s gracious providence we are not allowed to have certain good things that we might otherwise desire and that might make life easier.  Desires for good things become covetous and idolatrous whenever we won’t take no for an answer, whenever we insist that we must have this or that we must have that in order to be happy and content.  At the center of the Christian faith, which trusts Christ for salvation, is learning to be satisfied with Him—with His love, with His forgiveness, with His Word, with everything that He is as our Savior and God.  True contentment actually comes not from getting what we want and what we believe we must have, but from the faith that rests in Christ and is content with Him especially under the cross of suffering and affliction.  When we have Christ and His love as our one thing needful, then His Word transforms our lives turning us outside of ourselves and our own desires to the sacrifices of love for others.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week— The Seventh and Eighth Commandments — By the Seventh Commandment, “You shall not steal,” God desires to protect His gifts of property, and that we help and serve our neighbor in the preservation of what belongs to him. Jesus fulfilled the Seventh Commandment by using all of His property in loving service to us, without counting the cost.  By the Eighth Commandment, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” God desires to protect His gifts of a good name and reputation, and that we help our neighbor preserve his honor. The Eighth Commandment forbids gossip, even though the words that we speak might be true. By gossip we do not cover our neighbor’s sins, but hurt and harm his reputation, which God has not given us to do. Jesus’ catechesis on the Eighth Commandment in the Sermon on the Mount teaches us that He is the fulfiller of this commandment. He blesses those who curse Him. He prays for those who persecute Him. By His Words He bestows upon us the Good Name of God, covering our sin with His mercy, that we might confess Him with our tongue in words of blessing and prayer on behalf of our neighbor. Jesus’ love in fulfillment of the Law is seen in the cross where He prays for His enemies and preaches the Gospel to the penitent thief. The verse for the week emphasizes that “love is the fulfillment of the Law”—love that gives of itself for the welfare and benefit of another, even and especially if they are undeserving.  Christ fulfilled the Law for us in His loving sacrifice upon the cross.  His love takes shape in us as we learn to live by faith in His forgiveness and mercy.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — Sanctity of the One Flesh Union—In the Fifth Commandment, God protects His gift of life and the sanctity of human life.  In the Sixth Commandment God teaches us that this gift of life is brought into this world through the sanctity of the one flesh union in marriage.  The sexual union is both a physical and a spiritual union.  When a husband and wife come together in the physical intimacy of sexual intercourse, they are not just “having sex”; each is actually giving his or her very self to the other as an act of self-less love for the comfort and strengthening of the other.  This means that love in marriage moves out of the self to give of itself to the beloved. The question of the lover is not “what am I going to get out of this?” but “what am I going to give to the one I love?”  In marriage, there is no greater gift than to give oneself to his spouse.  This bond is so profound, intimate, and sacred that it is called “one flesh.”  The Church should not only condemn the self-centered sins of fornication and adultery against the Sixth Commandment but should also hold up the wonderful gift of human sexuality and how God intends it for the giving and receiving of marital love.  This is why the Catechism itself speaks in positive language about the Sixth Commandment: “We should fear and love God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do, and husband and wife love and honor each other.”

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