Congregation at Prayer

Catechesis Notes for the Week —Christ Is Fulfillment—This week begins another academic year in which we pray through the Small Catechism sequentially, beginning with the Ten Commandments and concluding the last eleven weeks of school with the Table of Duties (descriptions of what faith in Christ looks like in our several stations and callings in life). The year begins with Bible stories that move from the giving of the Law upon Mount Sinai to the Monarchy of David. This year will also include eight weeks of “Catechism Stories” highlighting the Sacraments and the annual “Church Year Stories” clustered around Christmas, Passion, Easter, and Pentecost. When we speak of Christ as the One who fulfills the Law, we most often think only of the moral Law given in the Ten Commandments. But the Law of Moses also includes all of the ceremonial Law in the Old Testament Divine liturgy. The year begins with a description of that liturgy in the Ark of the Covenant, the priestly garments, the ransom money, and the Sabbath law. As you read those stories, ask yourself the question, “How is this fulfilled in Christ?” or “How does the description of this ceremony, vestment, or Tabernacle appointment point to the person and work of Jesus?” Answering these questions is what gives this portion of the Old Testament relevance for us today as it deepens our understanding of Jesus’ work and the gifts that flow to us from Him in the New Testament Sacraments. In this sense, the Old Testament ceremonial Law was both provisional and catechetical as it taught Old Testament believers their need for Christ. Along with these readings from the Old Testament we will take up readings from the book of Hebrews. This book was written to Hebrew Christians to catechize them in how the Old Testament Law with all of its sacrifices and rites was fulfilled in Jesus’ sacrifice upon the cross. He became for us the greatest High Priest and the greatest sacrifice for sin. He is the Tabernacle of God on earth, and in Him we receive true Sabbath rest.CP230827

Catechesis Notes for the Week — Prepared for Christ’s Coming — We conclude our summertime readings from Matthew this week by looking forward to Christ’s Second Coming. The Parable of the Fig Tree teaches us that the signs of the times (false Christ’s, false prophets, earthquakes, famine, pestilence, wars, persecution, etc.) teach us that the new and better life in Christ is about to dawn, like the budding leaves of the fig tree that teach us that summer is near. “Heaven and earth will pass away” but Jesus’ Word will never pass away. Who is the Faithful Servant but that minister or Christian that is living faithfully according to Christ’s Word. Ministers faithfully preach, teach, and administer the Sacraments. Christians live in the station in life, confessing Jesus with faith in Him and love to the neighbor. The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins teaches us that we are prepared for Christ’s return in glory as our heavenly bridegroom if our hearts are filled with the Holy Spirit and faith in Christ. This preparedness only comes through the ongoing reception of Christ’s Word and Sacrament. The Parable of the Talents teaches us that the Lord has committed His Gospel and sacraments to His servants, that they might preach and administer them faithfully in His stead until His return. All ministers will be called to account on the Last Day for the administration of His gifts. In the Second Coming in Judgment, Jesus will separate believers and unbelievers. The works of mercy and compassion that are cited in the sheep are the works of love that flow from faith in Christ and which identify Christians as followers of Jesus. The fact that the sheep are amazed that Jesus cited such things, shows that their faith is not in such works, but that such works are the sign of living faith in Christ. When Jesus’ returns again in glory, we will hear His sweet word of comfort, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”CP230820

Catechesis Notes for the Week — The Final Challenges to Jesus’ Ministry and the Signs of the End — Should we honor and obey the government, or should we honor and obey Christ? The answer is YES to both! When Jesus says, Render to Caesar the Things that Are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s, He teaches us the sublime doctrine of how God rules and governs in two kingdoms. In the secular kingdom, represented by Caesar, God rules through the force of Law to protect the innocent, maintain order in society, and to punish law-breakers. God stands behind the authority of all civil rulers and they are to be honored because of this, but their authority stops at what God’s Word allows. Civil authorities have no right to bind our conscience or to demand something of us that is against God’s Word and our faith in Christ. In the spiritual kingdom, God governs the heart by faith through the ministry of the Lord’s Word and Sacraments. Here the Gospel reigns supreme and the heart is not governed by the coercion of the Law, but by faith in Christ created by the Gospel. In Questions About the Resurrection, the Sadducees, who do not believe in the resurrection or in life after death, challenge Jesus with a snarky question about a woman who had multiple husbands saying, “in the resurrection whose wife will she be?” Here Jesus reprimands them by clarifying that marriage does not exist in the resurrection as we know it today, but rather we will all worship the Lord in the life to come as the angels of heaven do so now. In the Greatest Commandment, Jesus teaches us that the foundation of the Ten Commandments rests upon love for God above all things and love for the neighbor as oneself. When Jesus speaks Woe to the Scribes and Pharisees, He upbraids them for what is the greatest sin of all, namely, to reject the mercy of God in the Gospel of Christ in the self-righteousness of impenitence. In Jesus Predicts the Signs of the End, He weeps over the impenitence of Jerusalem for rejecting Him and He foretells both the destruction of the Temple as God’s judgment for unbelief and the rise of false prophets and lawlessness as His Second Coming approaches. “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”CP230813

Catechesis Notes for the Week — “I Desire to Show Mercy and Not to Receive Your Sacrifices” (Hosea 6:6/Matthew 9:13) The hatred that Jesus experienced by many throughout His earthly ministry was centered in a rejection of the Gospel of God’s mercy. The impenitent and the self-righteous despised Jesus’ mercy for the sinner. They did not believe that sinners were worthy; and if you were suffering an affliction of the body, they believed that you had done something to deserve it. The truth is: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The call to repentance and faith in Jesus is a call to reject all self-reliance, confess your sins, and cling to Jesus for the gift of mercy that comes by grace alone. He desires to show mercy to us all and not to receive our sacrifices. None of us could atone for our sin or make up for what we have done. Christian faith clings to Jesus and His love for us. Out of this repentant faith, all good fruits flow. The irony concerning those who hated Jesus for His ministry of mercy, is that they hated the one who truly loved them and desired to be their Savior. This week’s Bible readings from Matthew highlight the Lord’s mercy and the phenomena of impenitence that rejects His mercy. In Two Blind Men Receive Their Sight, we hear the simple prayer of the penitent, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!” When Jesus Cleanses the Temple, He does so because the Jews had turned the order of salvation upside down. Instead of God providing for them through the sacrifices that He made for their salvation upon the cross, they adopted the works-righteous view that they could pay for their sins by their own sacrifices. Instead of the Temple sacrifices pointing to their fulfillment in Christ, they believed that they were a liturgy of salvation by works. The Fruitless Fig Tree is an illustration of how this “works-righteous faith” of Israel resulted in no true fruit of repentance and faith in God’s mercy. Therefore, they were under the curse. The Parable of the Two Sons contrasts faith in the Father’s mercy in Christ in the reception of the call to repentance versus impenitence and unbelief that refuses the call to repentance. The Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers is an illustration of Israel’s history in the Old Testament. He sent them prophet after prophet to call them to repentance and faith in His mercy, but they rejected and persecuted them all. In the end, they persecuted and martyred the Father’s Son. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” Finally, our week ends with The Parable of the Wedding Feast. In this parable we see the idolatry of setting one’s affections on the things of this world, rather than the free gift of salvation in the King’s Son. The ministers of the King go out into the highways and byways to call both “bad and good” to the wedding feast of salvation. It must be received as a gift of God’s mercy in Christ, or it cannot be received at all. Only those who are clothed with the wedding garment of Christ’s righteousness can enter into the feast.CP230806