Congregation at Prayer

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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Catechesis Notes for the Week— We need pastors! Have you ever thought about your need for a pastor? We might say, “We need Jesus!” Every Christian would agree with that statement. We need Jesus who has died for us, shed His blood for us, who forgives our sins and gives us the gift of eternal life and the resurrection from the dead. We need faith in Him to receive what He has done, but this is why Jesus instituted the Office of the Ministry. It is not only necessary for Jesus to have suffered and died for our sins and to have risen from the dead the third day according to the Scriptures, but it is equally necessary for this Gospel to be preached to us that we might be called to repentance and faith in Him. This is why Jesus instituted the Office of the Holy Ministry. We need pastors to preach the Word of God to us, to call us to repentance, to baptize us, to forgive us, to give us Christ’s body and blood, to pray for us, to shoulder our burdens, to admonish us, to comfort us, and to give us counsel from God’s Word. We need pastors as much as a child needs a mother and father. The gift of pastors is rooted in Jesus’ compassion. “When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt. 9:36/ESV). “Pastor” means “shepherd,” so Jesus says, “pray the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into His harvest.” May we always pray for the gift of pastors to serve us with the life-giving Word of our Savior.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week—Confession of sin is confession of faith in Christ. For us as, as Christians, when we confess our sins, we are not merely admitting that we have done something wrong and feel badly about it. Non-believers can do that. No, true confession of sin involves contrition and faith in Christ. Contrition is the sorrow over sin that is worked by God. Faith in Christ confesses sin and flees to Jesus for rescue. “Acknowledging our guilt” and “seeking the face of Jesus” is what faith does. Our confession is not a work that merits God’s forgiveness. Confession is what He calls us to that He might help us. The refusal to confess, therefore, is the refusal to believe that you need Jesus. So the Lord’s call is one in which He invites us as sinners to trust in Him rather than ourselves. He calls us to contrition and faith so that He might help us. It is the absolution of the Lord that raises us up from the death of sin and gives us comfort, peace, and new life. When we respond to the Lord’s call, when we dare to confess our sins, when we flee to Jesus for His absolution, that is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. That is, very simply the call of the Holy Spirit to faith in Christ. Confession of sins is the fruit of the miracle of faith. This is why we confess our sins, that our faith might be strengthened and our consciences comforted by Christ’s absolution. So the Prophet Hosea encourages us, “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”

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Catechesis Notes for the Week—For God So Loved the World — “That there should be a God who would love the world and not begrudge it some good, is beyond all our ability to reason, comprehend, or understand. I would have wished for the world the fires of hell, and especially, I would do it if I were God, who knows the world inside and out. That is what I would do. But what does God do? Instead of his wrath, which the world has so richly deserved, he loves the world, and in such boundless and incomprehensible measure that he presents his very own Son as a gift to the world, his bitterest enemy… It would have been more than enough for God to wish the world ‘good morning.’ So he goes beyond this and loves the world, the disgraceful offspring. It is just about the most utterly hostile and ill-disposed contradiction. And in truth, that is what the world is: a pigsty of unabashedly evil people, who abuse all God’s creation in the most brazen way possible, blaspheme God, and provoke him to his face. These selfsame shameless people God loves. That is a love which transcends all love. This is truly a good God, and his love must be great, incomprehensible fire, greater by far than the fire which Moses saw in the bush, indeed greater by far than the fire of hell. Who would despair, seeing God is so disposed toward the world? It is too high and beyond my ability to elaborate on it, or to draw out the abundant riches that it truly contains.” Martin Luther

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Catechesis Notes for the Week—Table of Duties: To Widows and To Everyone—When someone loses a spouse, what should they do?  Whenever we lose any of God’s good gifts, the devil tempts us to fill the void with other things that not only can’t satisfy, but which may actually be sinful and a sign of mistrust of God.  This is what the Scriptures refer to as “living for pleasure.”  Instead, in the face of losses we are called to move even closer to Christ and His Word, putting our hope and confidence in the Lord who will fill the void of our lives with Himself.  Attendance at Divine Service, catechesis, and the mutual conversation and consolation of Christian brothers and sisters is critically important.  This leads us to the last section of the Table of Duties: To Everyone:  It is our common faith in Christ and the grace of God that unites us in love for one another, even as Christ loved us.  The source of true fulfillment is not in living for one’s self, but in giving of ourselves to one another out of our love for Christ.

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