Congregation at Prayer

Catechesis Notes for the Week — Take Up the Catechism Daily—As we begin another school year, we have the opportunity to renew our meditation upon God’s Word through the faithful contemplation of the Small Catechism.  Beginning this week, the Congregation at Prayer will walk us sequentially through the Small Catechism, from the Ten Commandments through the Table of Duties.  Daily recitation of the small sections of the Catechism at home throughout the next nine months will enable a person to learn the Catechism by heart rather easily.  Learning the Catechism by heart helps us to interpret and understand Scripture, sermons, and liturgy.  It also shapes the way in which we think about our lives and live in our vocation, so that we live faithfully as Christians.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — The Crucifix and the Preaching of the Gospel—St. Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians about what was at the center of everything in the Church: Christ, the crucified!  “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. … And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God.  For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Cor. 1:18; 2:1-2)  A crucifix is not the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but it is a symbol for that preaching.  The proclamation of the Gospel saves, creates faith, forgives sins, and rescues from death and the devil when it is received by faith precisely because it is the PROCLAMATION to sinners that God in Christ reconciled them to Himself through the death of His Son, who fully atoned for their sin and won their forgiveness.  “Jesus is your righteousness, life, and salvation for you as a sinner because He suffered and died for you upon the cross.  His death paid the full price for all your sin.  Be of good cheer, for the sake of Jesus’ death upon the cross your sins are forgiven.”  That is the “message of the cross” that saves the penitent sinner who believes it.  When one believes the message of the cross, the crucifix can be a comforting reminder of all that Jesus did for us in His death upon the cross.  The message of the cross does not deny the resurrection of Jesus, rather it is the source of life from the dead for Jesus first and then for all who believe the message of Christ crucified.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.” (Titus 2:13). “Through the Gospel we have been given a treasure which is not goods and gold, power and honor, joy and happiness of this world, and not even life on this earth, but hope, even a living and blessed hope, which will quicken us into life and blessedness in body and soul, perfectly and eternally. To this treasure the Gospel calls us, and in this treasure we are baptized. Therefore let us live this earthly life bearing in mind that we shall leave it behind, and let us stretch out after that blessed hope as ‘toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ’ and seek after it and await it at all times. But how long shall we wait for that blessed hope? Will it remain but a hope for ever, and will it never be fulfilled? No, he says, our blessed hope will not always remain a hope, but it will eventually be made manifest, so that we shall no longer only hope and wait for it, but what we now believe and hope for will then be made manifest in us and we shall possess with full certainty what we now await. But meanwhile we must wait for that blessed hope until it be revealed.” —Luther

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — Approaching the Sacrament —How should we come to the Lord’s Table? It is precisely our need for Christ that draws us to receive His body and blood. We come with repentant hearts, believing that we are sinners and that Christ alone is our salvation. We come confessing our sins and claiming the promise of His forgiveness. We come laying aside all the sins of others against us, forgiving them even as God in Christ has forgiven us. We come in prayer, asking for our Lord to fix our faith firmly upon the Words of Jesus: This is My body which is given for you…This is My blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. We come believing that Jesus actually gives us His true body and blood and that this heavenly food not only strengthens our faith, but with such strengthening it also produces in us the fruit of loving service to others. We come with a yearning to be freed from our sin and all the corruption that sin has brought into our lives. We come firmly believing that the Lord’s body and blood is spiritual food for our earthly pilgrimage and that on the last day it will bear the ultimate fruit in the resurrection of our bodies from the dead.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week — “He Has Redeemed Me”—The Small Catechism preaches the Gospel to us in such sweet and comforting words.  “My Lord has ‘redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own…’”  Sin separated us from God and resulted in death and condemnation. Jesus, the Son of God, stepped into our human flesh and assumed the guilt for our sin.  He carried our sin and its consequences all the way to the cross.  He suffered our death and condemnation, so that by the shedding of His blood unto death we are set free from the devastating consequences of our sin. Now we belong to Him! We live under the all-sufficient mantel and covering of His “righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.” Jesus’ redemption, the shedding of His blood in love for us to set us free from sin and to rescue us from eternal death, is at the heart of the Christian faith and life.  Not only is there no salvation apart from Jesus’ redeeming work; His redeeming work, received in the Gospel and the Sacraments, is the source of the holy life that we live.  It is His redeeming work, received by faith, through the Gospel and sacraments that produces the fruits of faith in us.  These fruits of faith are Jesus’ own works of love and mercy in us toward our neighbor. His redeeming work is the center of our salvation, faith, and life.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week—St. Mary Magdalene (July 22)—Whenever the New Testament Gospels name the women who were with Jesus, St. Mary Magdalene is listed (John 19:25 is the only exception, perhaps because she was the first to see the risen Savior alive. Luke 8:2 reports that Jesus had cured her of being possessed by seven demons. Through the centuries, she has often been identified with the repentant “woman of the city” who anointed Jesus’ feet as He sat at the table in the Pharisee’s home (Luke 7:36-50). But there is no biblical basis for this identification of her with a penitent prostitute. Nor is she to be identified with Mary, the sister of Martha, in Bethany. According to the Gospels, Mary Magdalene saw Jesus die; she witnessed His burial; and, most important, she was the first to see Him alive again after His resurrection (John 20:11-18). It is for good reason that Bernard of Clairvaux calls her “the apostle to the apostles.” – from the Treasury of Daily Prayer

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Catechesis Notes for the Week— Christian Meditation— “When the language of the catechism is learned by heart, it becomes an indispensable aid in meditation and is continually used by the Holy Spirit for our comfort and to awaken in us new understandings. Christian meditation is to give one’s mind and heart to the contemplation of God’s Word. It is to reflect upon and ponder the Word of God. To put it crassly, Christian meditation is the ‘regurgitation’ of the Word of God. Like a cow that chews her cud, it involves recalling the Word of God that has been previously “implanted” in the heart, for the purpose of receiving from it even greater blessings for our faith and life. This can only happen when the Word of God and the text of the catechism are committed to memory, or ‘learned by heart.’  Unlike other forms of meditation which teach the individual to find renewed strength and peace from that which is within the self, Christian meditation directs us away from our sinful self to find our comfort, strength, and life in the ‘implanted word, which is able to save [our] souls’”— (Excerpted from the Introduction to Lutheran Catechesis, p. 3). The Congregation at Prayer affords us the opportunity to discipline our flesh with the Word of God and prayer. It sets before us regular portions of the Catechism, Bible Verses, Bible Stories, Psalms, and Hymns for meditation and prayer. The table of psalms enables us to pray through the entire Psalter (150 psalms) over a 60-day period. The psalms are God’s Word given us to pray, confess, and sing. They are understood through faith in Christ who learned and prayed them by heart throughout His life. We can pray them through faith in Him since He “carried all our sorrows and infirmities” and was still, for us and for our salvation, the righteous man of faith.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week— Holding forth the Word of Life— “Give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine” (1 Timothy 4:13).  “I am often aware of temptation, and even to this day can scarcely guard myself sufficiently against it.  This I confess openly as an example to any who are interested, although I am an old doctor and preacher and am so much more versed in the Scriptures, or at least ought to be, than all those wise ones who attack me; I must still grow daily, like a child, saying aloud early every morning the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and such precious psalms and sayings as I choose, just as the children are now being taught to do, although I have daily to study the Scriptures and to fight the devil.  I may not say in my heart: You know the Lord’s Prayer, you know the Ten Commandments, you know the Creed by heart, etc. No, I must go on learning every day and remain a pupil of the Catechism.  I feel how noticeably it helps me, and I find by experience that the Word of God can never be exhausted, but that it is really true as Psalm 147 says: ‘His understanding is infinite’”—Martin Luther

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Catechesis Notes for the Week— To Love Christ Above All Things — Jesus’ words are jarring: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:37-39). Is Jesus denying the obligations of the Fourth Commandment? No! Is He urging us to abandon our sons or daughters? No! Instead, Jesus is confessing that He alone is our God—our Creator and our Savior. If we let go of Christ, then we have nothing! Our lives and our salvation are entirely gifts of God through Christ. Apart from Him we do not exist, and apart from Him we cannot be saved. Jesus’ catechesis distinguishes between the First Commandment and the Fourth Commandment. The Fourth Commandment is the first commandment under the Second Table of the Law and clearly sets up the authority of father and mother, and their obligation to care for their children and their children to honor them, as foundational for all human relationships. But the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods” is greater because Christ is the source of everything. The Gospel of God’s love in Christ creates the faith that the First Commandment demands. And the miracle of faith is that he who loves Christ above all things loves father and mother, son and daughter in the best possible way.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week— Confessing Christ — Jesus promises that whoever confesses Him before men, He will confess before His Father in heaven. To confess Christ can sometimes mean a lonely life. The depth of human sin and its hold on people can be seen in the hatred people often exhibit toward the Gospel and those who confess Christ. We confess Jesus as the Savior of all who loves all and has redeemed all, but not all accept this gift. Why would they reject this precious Gospel that is their salvation? This is a mystery that we cannot answer. We are to take comfort in the promise of the Gospel and commend those who reject Christ to the same love of God for them that gives us comfort. Jesus knows our need. Do not fear those who hate you. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. The Lord knows your need, even the hairs of our head are numbered. “Whoever confessed me before men, I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” This Word of the Lord is both a comforting promise and a sobering warning. Yet even the warning is given so that when we fall, as Peter did, we might return to Him whose mercy is new every day. As He restored Peter through His absolution, so He promises to restore us when we are brought to contrition and repentance. This is why we hold fast to Him especially in persecution.

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