Congregation at Prayer

Catechesis Notes for the Week — The resurrection and ascension of our Lord in the flesh to the Father’s right hand belong together as the great concrete manifestations of our salvation. God’s will at creation—to give of Himself to us—has been fulfilled. In Christ Jesus we share in the glory of God Himself, and reign with Christ as eternal victors over sin, death, and the power of the devil. What the devil promised Adam and Eve but could not deliver because he was not the God of love, God gave in the person of His Son by whom He took humanity into Himself. The Lord God has withheld nothing form us. Through the redemption of Christ Jesus we share in all the glorious treasure of heaven, not as “gods” for ourselves, but as recipients of the divine love and life of the blessed Trinity.—Excerpt from Lutheran Catechesis.CP230514

Catechesis Notes for the Week — Comforting Catechesis on the Holy Spirit, the Comforter — This week’s Bible narratives continue Jesus’ comforting catechesis in the upper room. In this discourse, He prepares the Apostles and the Church of future generations concerning the Work of the Holy Spirit and what they are to expect. The Holy Spirit works through the Word of the Gospel to call to repentance and faith in Christ. The Spirit does this by convicting us of our sin, proclaiming the righteousness of Christ in His death, and proclaiming God’s judgment against the ruler of this world who stands condemned and has no power to condemn us. By the Word of the Gospel of Jesus’ suffering and death, we learn that Our Sorrow Will Turn to Joy. By the certain promises of His Word, we are encouraged to Ask and You will Receive. And in Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer we learn that Jesus is praying for us and that Jesus Prays for the Apostles and for those who will believe in Jesus through their Word, that they and the Church of every generation might be sanctified by Jesus’ Word and abide in His name to the end. Against the backdrop of Jesus’ catechesis we cannot help but think of the work of the Holy Spirit as described in the Catechism: “He calls us by the Gospel, sanctifies and keeps us in the true faith…even as He calls, gathers, and enlightens the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.”CP230507

Catechesis Notes for the Week — St. Philip and St. James, Apostles: This week we celebrate the feast of St. Philip and St. James Apostles. “St. Philip is mentioned in the lists of the apostles (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13), but only in John’s Gospel is more told about him. Philip was from Bethsaida in Galilee and one of the first disciples called after Peter and Andrew. Philip also was instrumental in bringing Nathanael to Jesus (John 1:43-51). It was to Philip that Jesus posed the question about where to buy bread to feed five thousand men (John 6:5). During Holy Week, Philip with Andrew brought some inquiring Greeks to Jesus (John 12:20-22). And on Maundy Thursday evening, Philip asked Jesus to show the Father to him and to the rest of the disciples (John 14:8). According to tradition, Philip went to labor in Phrygia and was buried there. St. James was a son of Alphaeus and was also called “the Younger” (to distinguish him from James, the son of Zebedee, “the Elder,” whose festival day is July 25). His mother Mary was one of the faithful women who stood at the cross of Jesus (Matthew 27:56; Mark 15:40). James is mentioned in the same apostolic lists as Philip, but there is no other mention of him in the New Testament. There is also no information regarding his field of labor or the circumstances of his death, except that he may have been martyred by being sawed in two.” (Treasury of Daily Prayer). CP230430

Catechesis Notes for the Week — Jesus’ Encouraging Catechesis — Our Eastertide Bible readings in the Congregation at Prayer offer to us the comforting and encouraging words of Jesus to the disciples in the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday. In these readings He prepares them for their future ministry as His apostles and offers comfort to Christians and the Church of every age as we face hardship and persecution for confessing Christ. Many of these words we know by heart: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me…I am the way, the truth, and the life…I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper…even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you…If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love Him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him…the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” (Selections are from John 14). By the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection Gospel of Jesus’ peace and forgiveness is delivered to us. We are comforted and strengthened to remain faithful in our witness to Him who has given His life for us. By the testimony of the Spirit of Truth we have the assurance that we belong to Christ.CP230423

Catechesis Notes for the Week — Associating with Sinners—The Ministry of Absolution—The ministry of private absolution is retained in the church because of God’s passion to save the lost sinner. The baptized Christian still “daily sins much and deserves nothing but God’s wrath and punishment.” The devil, the world, and the Christian’s own sinful nature wage an incessant war against faith in Christ. Holy Absolution is spoken that the Christian’s faith in Christ might be restored and that his conscience might be comforted and strengthened against these attacks. Faith lives from the word of the Gospel. How wonderful it is that Christ’s absolution comes to us sinners in many ways: Holy Baptism, the preaching of the Gospel to the congregation in the Divine Service, ongoing catechesis, the Lord’s Supper, and even the comforting words of the Gospel spoken to us by our brothers and sisters in Christ. But it is also offered to us in the consolation our pastor is called to give us privately: Holy Absolution. Private absolution is a sermon of the sweetest Gospel for the individual sinner applied to the sinner’s specific need. Like our Lord who received sinners and ate with them, the Lutheran pastor is called by God to associate with the members of his flock who are tormented by the weaknesses of their sinful nature and plagued by a bad conscience. He is called to believe that he has no greater work than to offer the comfort of Holy Absolution. (Luth. Cat. p. 201)CP230416

Catechesis Notes for the Week — The Holy Spirit and the Resurrection of Our Lord — During this week of the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we also meditate upon the Third Article of the Creed. It is the Holy Spirit who brings Jesus’ victory over death to us through the sweet message of the forgiveness of sins. By this Word, sins are forgiven, faith is created, and we are raised up by the Spirit of God to walk in newness of life. Jesus gave up the Holy Spirit when He died upon the cross and in the upper room He breathed the Holy Spirit upon the disciples when He said, “Peace be with You!” The message of Jesus’ peace and forgiveness is the message of the Holy Spirit by which we are continually renewed in faith and life. This same Holy Spirit will raise us from the dead, with Jesus, on the Last Day. By the power of the Holy Spirit, through the Word and Sacraments of Christ we will forever enjoy the resurrection of the body and the life-everlasting.CP230409

Catechesis Notes for the Week — “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand” (Isaiah 53:10). “It was God the Father’s gracious will for our salvation that His Son should be crushed for our iniquities and that His soul should be offered up in atonement for our sin. In Jesus’ baptism and in His transfiguration the Father spoke of His delight in His Son who was obedient unto death and who willingly offered Himself in love for the sin of the world. ‘This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased’ (Matthew 3:17; 17:5). The Father made Jesus an offering for sin. Jesus’ ‘seed’ are all those who have come to faith in Him through the preaching of the Gospel. Through the Word of the Gospel Jesus becomes the spiritual father of every believer in Christ, as the prophet Isaiah earlier named Him the ‘Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’ (Isaiah 9:6).” Excerpted from Lutheran Catechesis: Catechist Edition, p. 106bCP230402

Catechesis Notes for the Week — Weep Not For Me — “Jesus turning to them said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.’” (Luke 23:28) “He suffers for our sake. For this reason, it grieves the Lord that His suffering should make us weep. He wants us to be happy, to praise God and give thanks for His grace, and to glorify Him and bear our witness, for it is through His Passion that we received God’s grace, and were freed from sin, and death, and became God’s dear children. But we are as slow to the one as to the other, for by nature we are contrary. When we should weep over our sins, we laugh; when we should laugh and our hearts be joyful because Christ, through His death, has won eternal life for us, we weep. For either we have no regard for such joy, because our hearts are bewitched by the merriment of this world, or we weep, lament, and pine as if Christ had never died, never paid for our sin, never stilled the wrath of God, and never redeemed us from death. Therefore, prayer is needed for both: first, that God through the Holy Ghost may touch our hearts, that He may make us loathe sin, may draw us away from it, and take away our trust in ourselves. Then, that He may kindle in our hearts His comfort in the midst of sin and give us a firm confidence in our Lord’s sacrifice and satisfaction.” – Martin Luther, 1545, Day by Day we Magnify TheeCP230326

Catechesis Notes for the Week — A New Commandment I Give You that You Love One Another as I Have Loved You—The Passion narrative in St. John’s Gospel begins with Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anointing Jesus with oil. It was an act of love for Jesus and a confession of faith in Him. Mary loved Jesus because she had been touched by His love and anointed His body for His coming burial. On Palm Sunday the pilgrims who greeted Jesus with “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” had also been touched by Jesus’ love and confessed their faith in Him because of it. When Jesus’ washed the disciples’ feet in the upper room, He forgave their sin, sanctified them by His Word for service as His apostles, and “loved them to the end” by preaching His forgiving grace and dying for their sins and the sins of the whole world upon the cross. At the conclusion of this week’s narrative, we hear the words of Jesus: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Jesus loved us by laying down His life for our sins and by speaking those words of forgiveness that bind up our wounds and comfort our troubled consciences. This is why Mary, the Palm Sunday pilgrims, and all Christians love Jesus. John would later write of this, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Jesus calls this command “to love one another” a “new commandment” because it is rooted in the New Covenant in His blood. It’s meaning defines what is at the heart of the Gospel: “the forgiveness of sins.”CP230319

Catechesis Notes for the Week — The Giving of the Law and the Ministry of Moses—This week’s Bible Stories conclude the Old Testament narrative for the current academic year, from Creation to the Giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. In these narratives we learn something about the ministry that God had assigned to Moses. On the one hand, he is referred to as a prophet of the Law; on the other hand, Moses also appears as a redeemer figure through whom God brought about Israel’s redemption from slavery in Egypt. Yet there was need for a Prophet greater than Moses, namely, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Christ fulfills every commandment of the Lord and every promise of salvation. By His Word of grace and forgiveness we have life and salvation. In the Advice of Jethro, the Father-in-law of Moses we see the New Testament ministry anticipated. Moses could not handle all the work there was to do in the ministry for Israel. In the same way, Jesus not only called and ordained Apostles, but the Church has continued to ordain ministers today according to the Lord’s mandate. As Israel Encamps at Mount Sinai we learn that they are sanctified by the Word of God, even as we are. They were called to be a holy nation and a royal priesthood for the benefit of other nations. The Church is called to carry on this sacred calling today. At Mount Sinai, they saw the glory of God’s Law in the thunder and lightning. There would be no approach to God apart from the access to God that Jesus would bring to His people by His atoning sacrifice upon the cross. Finally, the climax of the exodus occurs in the giving of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments record God’s moral law, what is good and right, what is evil and wrong. The Law is written upon the hearts of all men, but in the Ten Commandments we learn to know what this Law is in all its certainty against the attempts of the flesh to deny what is good and true. The Ten Commandments, God’s Law, shows us our sin and how much we need Christ, the only One who could fulfill the Law for us. In the Lord’s Covenant with Israel, the Lord pledges to be faithful to the promises He has made to His people, and the children of Israel promise the Lord, “All the words which the Lord has said we will do.” Israel broke its pledge. The Old Covenant was broken by their unfaithfulness, but in the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood the Old Covenant is fulfilled for all.CP230312