Congregation at Prayer

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.”

CP260830

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.

CP260823 – Corrected

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.

CP260816

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

CP260809

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.

CP260802