Congregation at Prayer

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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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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