Congregation at Prayer

CP210530Catechesis Notes for the Week — Psalm 119: Aleph and Beth — A Meditation Upon God’s Word —“The 119th psalm is a long psalm, containing prayers, comforts, instructions, and thanks in great number. It is chiefly written to make us excited about God’s Word. It praises God’s Word throughout and warns us against both the false teachers and against boredom and contempt for the Word. Therefore, it is primarily to be counted among the psalms of comfort. Its primary concern is that we have God’s Word in its purity and hear it gladly. From this concern, then, come powerful prayers, instructions, thanks, prophecies, worship of God, suffering, and all that pleases God and grieves the devil. But where one despises the Word and is satiated by it, there all these cease. For where the Word is not purely taught, there is truly an abundance of prayers, instructions, comforts, worship, suffering, and prophecies—but totally false and condemned! For it is then only service to the devil, who is thus impure with all his heretics.”—Martin Luther, Praying the Psalms.

Catechesis Notes for the Week — Psalm 118:15-29 — A Prayer of Confidence in the Lord’s Salvation – Rejoicing is characteristic of the Christian faith. Our boast is in the Lord Jesus and the certainty of salvation that He won for us. Jesus, the Son of God our Savior, is the Father’s “right-hand man” and He has secured salvation for us. He is also the Lord, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. He is our righteousness. He is the Stone which the High Priest and Sanhedrin had rejected. He is the Cornerstone of the Church. He is our righteousness, and His righteousness is the gate through which we, the justified, enter into eternal fellowship with God. He is salvation. He is the Lord, and He is our God. His mercy endures forever. Because of what Christ has done we shall live, and death cannot destroy us. The day of His death and resurrection is the Lord’s doing. We will rejoice and be glad in it! Psalm 118, so central to the Passover Celebration in the Old Testament, was rightly applied to Jesus on Palm Sunday: “Save now (Hosanna)…Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” He is the true Passover Lamb, the Sacrifice that was bound to the altar of the cross, and the High Priest whose blood establishes an eternal righteousness that covers all our sin!  No wonder every day is a day of rejoicing, even in the midst of grief and sorrow. Christ is our salvation; therefore we have nothing to fear!

CP210523

Catechesis Notes for the Week — Psalm 118:1-14 — A Prayer of Rejoicing in the Confidence of Faith—Psalm 118 was prayed regularly as part of the Passover celebration. It contains the call to rejoice and give thanks for the Lord’s salvation of His people. It has both a corporate and individual dimension to it. The basis for the congregation’s celebration and that of every individual Christian is mercy. “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! Because His mercy endures forever.” The enduring mercy and faithfulness of the Lord is the only reason that Israel was redeemed from countless occasions of rebellion, and it is only the enduring mercy and grace of God that sustains and comforts us as individual Christians. So Psalm 118 begins with the call to the entire congregation of Israel to confess the mercy of God and then leads into a personal confession for every believer: “I called on the Lord in distress; The Lord answered me…The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?… It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.” The first half of the psalm concludes with comforting assertion: “The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.” CP210516

Catechesis Notes for the Week — Psalm 117 — A Fervent Missionary Psalm – Psalm 117 is a brief and fervent prayer for the conversion of the nations to faith in Christ. The call, “Oh, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, Laud Him, all you peoples!” is really a call to faith. The highest praise of the Lord is to confess Him to be our Savior and to flee to Him in repentant faith. The baptized faithful, together with the whole Church on earth, yearn for others to join them in praise of the Lord, “For His merciful kindness is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord endures forever.” How lovely it is to contemplate that the conversion of sinners results in the praise of God for His merciful kindness in Christ for all people.CP210509

Catechesis Notes for the Week — Psalm 116 —The Lord Loves Me and Hears My Prayers — “I love the Lord, because He has heard My voice and my supplications…Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.” Psalm 116 begins with the confident and comforting assertion that the Lord hears our prayers. When we are troubled by our sins, He hears. When we are surrounded by trouble and adversity, He hears. When the pains of death threaten us, He hears. This psalm echoes the words of the Apostle John, “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19), and His ears are open to every cry, complaint, and need of the Christian. This is why we love Him. Our Lord has died for us, shed His blood for us, forgives us, protects us, upholds us, defends us, and never fails us. So, the psalmist confesses, “Gracious is the Lord…I was brought low, and He saved me…You have delivered my soul from death…I will call upon the name of the Lord.” The faithfulness of the Lord is what draws us to the Divine Service to receive the blessing of His Word and Supper. “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.” Psalm 116 also speaks of the inevitable death of the Christian but does so in the confidence that when the Christian leaves this world he is with the Lord and will forever praise Him for His love and faithfulness. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” Confirmation vows of lifelong faithfulness to the Lord rest upon His eternal faithfulness to us.

CP210502