Congregation at Prayer

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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Catechesis Notes for the Week — Christ Meets Us to Minister to Our Every Need — Why do we come to Divine Service?  Answer: Because Jesus meets us in the Divine Service and ministers to our every need with His Word and Sacrament!  We should not think of worship as our doing something for God, but rather as Christ serving us.  True worship is faith that receives Christ’s Word, confesses sin, and trusts His gracious promises for life and salvation.  This is why the psalmist says, “Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your house and the place where Your glory dwells.”  True rest, or Sabbath, comes not by the observance of a particular day for worship, but by the Word of God that calls us to repentance and that bestows upon us the grace of God in Christ.  No wonder, then, that the explanation to the Third Commandment says that we are not to “despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”

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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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