Congregation at Prayer

Catechesis Notes for the Week— Advent Life Is One of Contrition and Repentance — Advent means coming. It is the season of anticipation for our Lord’s return in glory. To be prepared for His coming and to rightly celebrate His nativity, we need to understand and believe in how He comes to us NOW. In His Word, Jesus is present. We need Him, even though we so often live life as if we don’t. By His Word He comes to us to show us our need. By His Word He calls us to repentance, so that by His Word He might comfort us with His forgiveness and restore our faith and hope in Him. The life of daily contrition (sorrow for sin) and repentance (turning away from self-reliance to Christ for life and salvation) is the proper focus for our advent meditations that we might rightly celebrate His birth and be prepared for His return in glory.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week— The End of the Church Year: Watching During the Great Tribulation—The Bride of Christ, the Holy Christian Church, waits eagerly for her Lord’s Second Coming.  Then she, of whom we are all members, will be delivered once and for all from sin and the corruption that is in the world.  The “Great Tribulation” of the last days is the struggle that the Church and every Christian in every age has had with the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh. These enemies attack faith in Christ. We, Christ’s Church, have been in the “Last Days” since our Lord’s ascension into heaven. The faith of the Church has always been under attack. Our only defense as Christians is the Word of God and the prayer of faith that claims Christ’s victory in the midst of this suffering.

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Catechesis Notes for the Week— Children of God and the Hallowing of God’s Name—The Lord’s Prayer sets forth for us the holy life of faith in Christ. Our lives are sanctified by the Spirit of God through the Word of God. Prayer is the voice of faith that rests upon the promises of God’s Word. Like dear children, we call upon God for all our needs, rely upon His promises, and follow Jesus in the life of love we live for others. The Introduction to the Lord’s Prayer is a confession of our status as baptized children. God is our dear Father and we are His dear children. This gives us access to our Father in heaven and boldness to cry out to Him in every time of need through our Savior Jesus Christ. Through Jesus’ blood and merit we have access to God. The most important person in the plural pronoun, “Our Father” is Jesus Christ, our Savior. Our prayers are heard for Jesus’ sake and we live in the confidence that we are joint heirs with Christ of all the treasures of heaven. God’s name is kept holy by the faithful teaching of God’s Word and by lives that are lived according to God’s Word. This is what makes the Christian life holy. God’s Word is received, believed, and lived out in the lives of His children. So in the First Petition we pray that God’s Word would be faithfully taught, and that we would live our lives according to it. Observe the wonderful symmetry of the Lord’s Prayer. By God’s name—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—given us in baptism His name is hallowed and we begin to live as Jesus’ disciples.

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Catechesis Notes for Week—The Third Article of the Creed — How Do We Receive the Holy Spirit — When Jesus appeared to the disciples on Easter evening, He said to them, “Peace to You!  As the Father has sent Me, I also send you … Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20: 21-23, NKJV).  These words teach us much about “how” we receive the Holy Spirit.  We receive the Holy Spirit through our Savior’s Word of forgiveness. There is an inseparable linkage between our Savior’s words and the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is “the Lord and giver of life.”  He calls us to faith in Christ.  He creates a new will in our hearts that desires to love God and serve the neighbor.  He produces in us the good works of love that flow from faith.  He brings forth in us the “fruit of the Spirit”— love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  He brings to us everything that Jesus has done for us.  By the Holy Spirit, Jesus Himself actually dwells in our hearts by faith.  The Holy Spirit does all this by the Word of our Savior.  Christians need to know where the Holy Spirit promises to be found: in the reception of the Word of Christ. Therefore, we seek the Spirit in the very promises of our Baptism, in the ongoing preaching of the Gospel, in faithful catechesis of the Word of Christ, in the life of repentance and faith that confesses sin and receives the absolution.  Even the Lord’s Supper carries the promise of the Holy Spirit because Jesus’ word, “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” is at the center of the Sacrament.  When we pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are praying for the Holy Spirit to come to us and work in us where He promises to be found: in Christ’s Word—in all the wonderful ways Jesus’ word of forgiveness comes to us.

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