Pioneer Lutheran Church

Christian, Evangelical Worship

2010-08-04T12:11:55-07:00

In this address to the 2003 WordAlone Conference, Steven Paulson outlines several aspects of a Lutheran understanding of Christian worship. It is crucial that these principles be both taught and maintained in the midst of current “worship wars,” the primary battlefield for which used to be the hymnal. Now, with less reliance on the printed text, it is all the more important to be able to recognize these principles, and learn how to put them to use in the service of our gathering to hear the Word of God.

Christian, Evangelical Worship: The Great Sacramental Reversal
by Steven D. Paulson

Christian worship that is evangelical is nothing but “that our dear Lord himself speaks to us through his holy Word and we respond to him through prayer and praise” (LW 51, 333). Nothing else should ever happen there. [So Luther preached at the dedication of the Castle church in Torgau Oct 5, 1544.] Christ says, “I forgive you,” and we say, “Amen.” A little child knows this. True worship depends upon getting a trustworthy word from God. You are at his mercy in that regard. So what exactly does our dear Lord say to you when he speaks? “In the former days, in many and various ways, God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets, but in these latter days he has spoken to us by the Son” (Hebrews 1:1). God who is extravagantly rich in his grace has given you the following specific words for your worship (that is, for you to trust):

First, the preached word: “Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, “was handed over to death for [y]our trespasses and was raised for [y]our justification” (Romans 4:25).

Second our Lord says: “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” Third Christ says, “given and shed for you for the remission of sins.” Fourth “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23) If these words were not enough, again Christ promises: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

True worship requires these specific words from God that sinners cling to for life. The true Sabbath—your only “true holy relic, above all holy relics.” (Large Catechism, 3rd Commandment, 91, 399, Kolb and Wengert): “By it all the saints have themselves been made holy…all our life and work must be based on God’s Word if they are to be God-pleasing or holy… for this Word is not idle or dead, but effective and living.” Worship is God daily putting the old sinner to death and raising the new saint and to both we say: Amen!

But the history of worship is the history of not trusting his word—it is always the most religious among us who run off looking for better words: producing heaps of human traditions and enthusiastic, spiritual personalities that we substitute for our Lord’s own holy word. That is, idolatry. Why? Because we don’t like God’s given words and prefer our own. Nor does the devil ever rest in this regard. One of Luther’s greatest writings on worship (commentary on Deuteronomy) highlights this temptation to false worship in the dramatic story of Baal Peor (Number 25):

The Israelites were encamped at Shittim across from Jericho; while waiting instructions to go in to the promised land, they took up with the native women of Moab “These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate, and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.” (Numbers 25:2-3). God instructed Moses to hang all the chiefs of the people who led them to this. And all Moab devotees of the Baal were killed. But One Israelite decided to flout this specific word from God, because he was in love I suppose, and brought his Midianite girlfriend into the camp, “in the sight of Moses and the whole congregation.”

[Now if this were a Hollywood movie, everyone would first be taken aback by the foreigner in their midst, and then we would learn that she was really a great person with a funny Midianite personality, and everyone would live together in diversity and peace—just like “South Pacific”—as if worshipping all Gods together makes for peace on earth.] But this story ends differently. Phineas, Grandson of Aaron the high priest, took up a spear, “and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman, through her body. Thus the plague was stayed from the people of Israel. Nevertheless those that died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.” (Numbers 25:8-9). From this I conclude: God is serious about this worship business! God must be given his due! It is as serious as the first commandment, in which all the others are found, “Thou shalt have no other God before me.” So when people go mucking with your hymnal and service book you ought to know. I also conclude that people constantly prefer something other than what God says, and inevitably in their search for better words they reverse the direction of worship—worship always becomes what we offer to God rather than what God commands and gives us. Beneficium becomes sacrificium. Or as Melanchthon once put it: we always prefer being “for” priests like the Levites—who sacrificed for sinners rather than “to” priests who stand up facing sinners and give God’s words to them (Apology XIII).

God’s own direction for worship follows the line of the incarnation—from heaven down to you while you are yet sinners. Lutherans are meant to help the whole world (ecumene) get the worship direction right by hanging tightly to God’s preached words: God comes down to us in his Son, then by sending his preacher—we don’t go up to him. So we are to help distinguish what religions constantly confused: proclamation is not prayer; faith is not love, gospel is not law, a gift cannot be both given and received at the same time—and yet churches and world are all tangled up in confusion over these by pursuing their own words in worship. Lutherans should be helping the whole world and its churches, but we have grown tired of being salt and want to be the meat, grown tired of being leaven and want to be the loaf in what today is called “an ecumenical spirit.”

I would much prefer starting in a different place than I do tonight, but like a doctor lancing a boil I must first do some messy work before things can get better and I can just tell you about Christ and what he has done for you. Some of the same forces in the ELCA that brought you Called to Common Mission (CCM) (and the Formula of Agreement) will soon make up their own form of blessing of same-sex unions. And again some of those same basic forces behind those two developments in our churches are now in the process of giving you a new hymnal. The number of people behind this new hymnal is small, but they are single-minded and determined to win the day by adhering to the sworn oath of the liturgical and ecumenical movements: lex orandi lex credendi—the way you pray is what you believe. “You don’t have to believe it, you just have to do it,” should sound familiar to you. “It doesn’t matter who puts his hand on you at ordination, just concentrate on your mission.” Over time the way you pray, your repeated ritual acts of liturgy produce new beliefs. CCM is already doing that with our young people, next will be the new hymnal. As the stepping-stone to a new hymnal we now have a series of books called “Renewing Worship.” These books (three of them already) are prepared by a very small group, the key members being experts who call themselves “liturgists.” These liturgists are not your normal academic types. They are prophets on a mission. They put most of us to shame for their willingness to work and sacrifice for their cause, because in their minds they are God’s own instruments to mend a broken church by instituting one eucharist in each place presided over by one authorized bishop so that when performed properly there will be one church–visible on earth as in heaven. This small group operates with three basic principles that run throughout the pinkish colored book published by the ELCA called Principles for Worship:

First, multiculturalism in song and liturgy is itself “mission.”

They believe they are harvesting the seeds that were sown during the “past three decades [that] have seen not only a growing ecumenical consensus, but also a deepened focus on the church’s mission to the world.” [A new movement!]

They believe in what they call “a renewed understanding of the central pattern of Christian worship” (this is an unfortunate search begun in a handful of monasteries by erstwhile monks searching for the original shape of all human worship in all religions—that original shape is then presumed to be brought to its pinnacle in what is called the action of the “eucharist”). These beliefs have present and future consequences for the way you worship. Lutherans have a very clear teaching about church that is “the assembly of saints in which the gospel is taught purely and the sacraments are administered rightly” (CA VII). But in this new material we get new “principles” of worship like this: “Because we cannot fully comprehend the mystery of God, the language of worship on the one hand points to and evokes the God who surpasses all understanding.”[1] Liturgy “points to and evokes God”—my, what have we Lutherans come to? We have become peeping Toms trying to catch God in a moment of unguarded mystery while unpreached! To the contrary, we already have a clear word from God that our sins have been laid on Christ—and that is to be given for you as a promise! Worship is not pointing and evoking mystery! It declares. The authority for teaching in these Renewing Worship books is given over to what they call the “worldwide ecumenical discussion” as in Principle L-8 where they attempt to explain why we should keep baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit since so many people don’t like to say “Father” anymore: “Most church bodies”, following Matthew 28, have baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Then they quote from ecumenical movement’s Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry document: “While a worldwide ecumenical discussion is now underway about such language [apparently with the outcome in some doubt!], we have no other name in which to baptize than the historic and ecumenically received name.” By what authority do we baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Scripture is gone; your confessions vanish—when someone questions the administration of the sacrament what authority do you call up? The worldwide ecumenical discussion now under way, and in the meantime we do “what most churches are doing”! The problems in this material are like Abraham going out on a starry night and numbering the stars! We cannot name them all, but the main problem with the ELCA’s Renewing Worship movement is that all these principles are built into one document that surpasses all others in authority: The Use of the Means of Grace statement accepted by the 1997 Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA. It’s argument is more pointed and directly opposed to the Confessions:

The Use of the Means of Grace begins with a quotation from the Apology XIII (in almost direct parallel with the introduction to the LBW): We believe we have the duty not to neglect any of the rites and ceremonies instituted in Scripture, whatever their number. . . .”

“Not neglecting any rites and ceremonies” (Principle 1) is a phrase that is then taken out of context to assert (Principle 2) that the Word and sacraments are “given to the church.” The church then must see that they are “not degraded by sin,” (Background 2C) and so exercises an authority over the sacraments: “As a church in this time, we seek to give and receive God’s Word and sacraments as full and reliable signs of Christ.” [The same thing can’t be received and given at the same time! God alone gives his word, the church receives it, and this is hardly “signs,” but Christ himself.]

Then we watch the given commands and promises of God fall like dominoes before the church’s own vaunted authority: Any changes in worship have to be for the purpose of “unity amidst diversity,”[2] not for “merely antiquarian or legalistic interests” [Goodbye Reformation and good riddance!] (Principle 4, Background 4A).

Then they give what they call the basic shape of liturgy in two parts: Part I: Word “read and preached” and Part II: “sacraments celebrated” (Principle 6) There is that word that turns the worship direction backward: from us to God. They are not longer given, but “celebrated.”

Principle 34: Nevertheless the two parts “form one act of worship” –so liturgy is a whole mystery action that we do.

Principle 36 introduces the term “eucharist” “to see that the whole meal is a great thanksgiving for creation and for creation’s redemption in Jesus Christ.”

Principle 40: Introduces a priest presiding at Holy Communion as a “witness that this sacrament is a celebration of the Church, serving, its unity…”and proclaims the Great Thanksgiving” (not Christ’s last will and testament).

Which finally leads to the purpose of this whole exercise: the holy grail of the Renewing Worship plan that they believe will re-unite the church into a visible whole: Principle 43: “The biblical words of institution declare God’s action and invitation. They are set with the context of the Great Thanksgiving. This Eucharistic prayer proclaims and celebrates the gracious word of God in creation, redemption, and sanctification.”[3]

The only thing that was missing from this worship laid out by the liturgical and ecumenical movement was to rejoin the historic episcopate so that we could become closer to the basic teaching: one Eucharist, one bishop, one church. There you have the foundation for your renewing worship materials. But if this is not bad enough, we have two flanks for this fight, not one: This liturgical movement that has separated from the Confessions, with its blessing of water before baptism, the required eucharistic prayer for joint communion services with Episcopalians, affirmations of baptism, removal of Lutheran catechetical hymns and the piling up of human traditions like the oil, the ever-present laying on of hands, and metaphors galore where once stood the name: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But it is worse yet; on the other side of us we have the host of American religions and the corrosive melting pot of culture that seeks God inside yourself on your various spiritual journeys. They do not want a preacher; they want a personal, spiritual guide with visible gifts. Spiritualism like this wants no baked God, it rejects baptism, and does not want to repent and be absolved, it rather seeks what it thinks are higher and better words than Christ gave us, swallowing the Spirit feathers and all—it seeks its own self that it expresses to the outside world and demands that others worship their right to do so. [Luther rightly called it Fanaticism] With a whole host of problems on each flank what do we do? Just what the earliest Lutherans did: we preserve the Reformation and unleash the Gospel by using the Small Catechism. We do what Luther saw was necessary for his poorly taught German churches: “First, the German service needs a plain and simple, fair and square catechism.”[4] Well, so does the American worship service. We sometimes observe that the Reformation was preserved by the catechism, and so it was and so it must be today. Though these forces are great, they are no greater—maybe even less—than those faced by the Reformers. Despair is not allowed, since God’s word alone will stand against them—even though we have three forces seeking to destroy true worship and the teaching of it in the catechism. The self-named liturgical movement and ecumenical movement have studiously removed the catechism from your hymnal in order to make worship no longer an “ear house,” that hears the law and gospel in public proclamation, but instead makes it an “eye house”—a koinonia mystery cult called simply: “the eucharist.” It doesn’t want you to have the Apostle’s Creed as God’s work alone given “for you” in the present. They want to join your work and God’s. At the same time, the American spiritualists have removed your catechism from worship because they don’t like categorical preaching and sacraments—because they leave no room for the free will to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. Fanatics hate the sacraments and so remove them for purpose that they call getting “seekers” in or so that worship is not such a “downer.” Our culture has also worked to remove your catechism because it hates the Ten Commandments. To combat these enemies in their own day, the Reformers did two things with worship:

They took out noxious elements that couldn’t possibly stand because they moved in the wrong direction—from us up to God in the mode of sacrificing and by dissolving the word of God into our own work as church (this happens when the words being given by God end up as sacrifice, thanksgiving that we make to remember God, or an action of the church mystically uniting us with God). So they removed praying to saints, encrusting baptism with all sorts of unnecessary and dangerous symbols, and most importantly the canon of the mass or eucharistic prayer wherever it buried Christ and the publication of his last will and testament. The Lutheran Churches should never forget what Luther did when he first made the liturgy a “local option”–for there the canon of the mass was removed, and when it was gone, so went the papacy. At the same time it made the freedom regarding worship and liturgy an accomplished fact—gone were ordo and structures or “patterns of worship” that are supposedly done in all places and times. At the same time, local traditions all must be tested—“weigh it in the pan of God’s Word,” Luther said. That means everything in worship is tested as to whether it brings home the down-to-earth gift of our crucified and risen Lord and makes possible the faithful “Amen,” to him. Where traditions go in the wrong direction and oppose our chief article they must go. And whenever traditions, however, venerable are required, so too they must go. That means, whenever liturgical “may-be’s” (human traditions) are turned into “must-be’s” they cease to be free (adiaphora).[5] Then the Reformers did another thing even more important: they put in the catechism—in prayer and song and direct proclamation to sinners that makes the justifying faith. They preached the faith, and then they taught it that it might be learned and retained. Our constant re-translating has ruined our memory. Our hymnals have grown too large so that we might represent every possible group and belief under the umbrella of the ELCA, but they have removed direct, catechetical hymns, especially Luther’s. They also remove any reference to your Confessions, including the Small Catechism. Why? Because such confessional unity is viewed as the obstacle to visible union with other churches, liturgy must unite by expunging confessional particularity! Instead they put slogans: consensus of the first five centuries, historic episcopate, and “ecumenical consensus.” Now to glimpse how this is done, we may start with the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer:“Hallowed be thy name: God’s name certainly is holy in itself, but we ask in this prayer that we may keep it holy.” How does this happen? God’s name is hallowed whenever his Word is rightly taught and we as children of God live in harmony with it. Help us to do this, heavenly Father! But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to the Word of God dishonors God’s name among us, Keep us from doing this, heavenly Father!”

True worship requires a prior, first and final word of God. Without which you endlessly seek vainly inside yourself for God. But we have such a first word from God: “I am the Lord your God,” This Lord says two things: You shall have no other God before me—demanding complete trust in his word–and so this commandment includes all the others. [Law] But this same God who demands so much also gives all, and so we have our Creed: “I believe that Jesus Christ—true God, Son of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary—is my Lord. He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, saved me at great cost from sin, death and the power of the devil—not with silver or gold, but with his holy and precious blood and his innocent suffering and death.” [Gospel: The faith we have not, he gives—at great cost to himself, but declared freely to the ungodly he chooses by the proclamation itself.]

This simple starting place for true worship reverses the direction of all human “patterns” as liturgists call them. The direction of all worship is from God downward through the means of preached word and sacraments. We call it—the sacramental reversal. In every way we resist seeking better words, especially by multiplying of “metaphors,” creation of our own creeds, the flowering of ever new symbols, blessings of everything that moves in the new ritual de jour—laying on of hands, (which you are supposed to see as having many, many uses, not only for passing on the historic episcopate)!

God’s word is not only first, it comes in several specific, given, historical forms, and so does our little “Amen,” our response of simple trust. God speaks to us presently, directly, publicly (sometimes even individually), through the reading of Scripture, preaching, baptism, the Lord’s Supper and absolution. The benefit of each is Christ himself as our righteousness apart from works of the law, that means: When worship takes this direction, Christ comes to forgive your sin—and remember where there is forgiveness of sin there is also life and salvation! Our “Amen,” our clinging to this word comes out in spoken prayer, song, praise, thanksgiving, confession and petition (asking God for help). In these we:

Thank Christ for his benefits.

Confess our unworthiness.

And ask for more grace, more grace, more and more and more.

By speaking the first and final word—God creates us anew in faith itself; that means his word creates the church. [The Word alone creates churches. Baptism is never initiation into Church, nor do we “renew it” with our vows, nor does the event of eucharist make the church as a “ritual action.”]

Preaching

Enthusiasts of either the Roman or American spiritualists sort seek God within themselves (or the church) rather than in God’s external, preached word. You must rather come to worship to receive these gifts from God. Liturgism’s current attempt seeks to make the Lord’s Supper the highest form of “celebration”—preaching serving as only an entrance to this “feast.” Instead, proclamation must come first, in its oral, public form as public absolution of the repentant, public preaching, and in its form in the sacraments themselves: Lord’s Supper and Baptism. That is why Luther once said, “To correct these abuses, know first of all that a Christian congregation should never gather together without the preaching of God’s Word and prayer, no matter how briefly…”[6] Preaching is nothing else than God’s word in human words. It is sacramental in the sense of having an actual, red-blooded human using his or her voice to speak words into the ears, according to Christ’s promise: “he who hears you hears me” (Luke 10:16). Not just anything any preacher says is God’s word: The preacher must discern the law and gospel and not commingle them, for this reason preaching is always from the Bible text. In the law God sets out what is required of us, and what he holds against us—how he judges us. We hold the Ten Commandments ever near and help the flock know plainly God’s most salutary doctrine of life. The Gospel then raises us to new life from the condemnation of death by witnessing to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for sinners. The Holy Spirit makes these preached words effective in the heart where and when he wills, “for I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts and sanctified and kept me in true faith.’ The Gospel in a nutshell always needs a giver—a proclaimer doing what Luther called the right application of the pronoun “for you.”[7]

Baptism

Our catechism teaches as the Bible does, “Baptism is nothing else than the Word of God in water.” It is God’s act for us in which he delivers us from death and the devil, and gives everlasting salvation to all who believe what he has promised. The promise is the thing! “Shall be saved.” It is, of course, witnessed to by the community of believers, but is not initiation into the group of the holy either by magical rites [why we do not bless the water] or adults making vows of fidelity to God. Baptism is never over and done with, but needs no “renewal,” instead it means “that our sinful self, with all its evil deeds and desires should be drowned through daily repentance; and that day after day a new self should arise to live with God in righteousness and purity.” Use it, not renew it. Bring forward the gifts of baptism. It is not past oriented, but future—not wiping the slate clean but the object to which you cling in times of trouble so to cling to God himself for you.

The Lord’s Supper

It is nothing else but the Word of God in bread and wine. Faith feasts on this promise “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” For there Christ forgives your sin.

It is not eucharist—not our celebration that makes it what it is. That direction is wrong! The words of Christ at the Last Supper cannot be confused with prayer up to God.

Instead, the Lord’s Supper is Christ’s last will and testament, in which the maker of the will is Christ himself, who names his estate: “the forgiveness of sins,” and his heirs “given and shed for you”–who are after all his very betrayers. He also bestows this in the promise itself: “Given and shed for you,” beneficium, not sacrificium. With the seal of bread and wine. The direction is always from God to us, the act of his giving, his promising to sinners. Not prayer.

The Absolution (or Confession and Forgiveness)

Uses the keys of the kingdom given by God so that in human voice God’s forgiveness is given to sinners. Absolution brings forward the gifts of baptism, the Christian life being the daily return to the first promise of baptism. The declaration of forgiveness is the real thing in absolution by which God works repentance and does not count the trespass. The word accomplishes what it says—ending the sinner and creating the saint.

And so we do not despise this promise, but give it and use it—publicly and privately,

We do not think of starting our service here as “negative,” or “premature,” nor is it a mere prelude to the Lord’s Supper as if you must be made holy before receiving communion. For all these things that make worship we need an external preacher, outside ourselves bringing the external word. The ministry is instrumental in God giving us his words—the instrument of God to give these words. It is not part of our prayer or sacrifice of praise to God. This confusion makes “for” priests rather than “to” priests who believe they are mediators who sacrifice on our behalf—and is the great problem for worship life of the CCM and romantic liturgical movement—for they cannot distinguish our prayer from God’s proclamation and God’s word is lost in a fog of ritual holiness that is nothing more than a sect making its own form of worship. So the true church created by God’s word is commissioned by God to witness in word and deed that salvation is by Christ alone by giving the gospel in oral proclamation and the sacraments (CA 5). This is the right and duty of all believers (the priesthood of all believers). But to assist and enable the community in this proclamation there is the office of the pastor whose particular calling is the public proclamation of God’s word in preaching and administration of the sacraments (CA 14).

Finally, after all this, we come to Faithful Response to the Words: Our Amen.

God commands us to pray and promises to hear our prayers. Prayer is nothing but opening your sack wide and asking for help, calling out to God in expectation of his interceding graciously on your behalf (even with sighs and groans too deep for words, Romans 8). Thanksgiving delights in God’s benefits already given in Christ, and so waits with great anticipation for seeing what we now have in faith. Offerings and “thanksgivings” of prayer do not complete a great ritual circle or appease God’s anger—they are fruits of faith meant to help others.

So here is my plea: Lutherans, let’s get the direction right in worship, and refuse the religious sounding innovations of the Renewing Worship movement. The church and world cannot survive attempting to worship a mysterious God that is not preached by coaxing him out by our thanksgiving. So let us return to our catechism and from it learn again how God has come down to get you while your are ungodly. Ludwig Helmbold put it in this catechetical hymn (1594):

Lord God, keep us for evermore  
in catechism doctrine pure— 
that through your Luther is made known
 for simple youth to make their own.

The Ten Commandment here we learn, repent of sin, and so discern to live by faith in you alone, the Father, Son, and Spirit, one.
Our Father, source of heavenly grace we pray to you before your face, that we (baptized) may come to be fulfilled in Christ eternally.
And when we fall, we seek relief and make confession, with belief, and take the Body and the Blood.  Amen. God grant our end be good.[8]

Footnotes

[1] Principle L-5, Principles for Worship, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 2002. [2] Changes in sacraments should be for “unity amidst diversity,” not for “merely antiquarian or legalistic interests” Principle 4, Background 4A, Principles for Worship. [3] In application 43A: “The full action, from dialogue through the Lord’s Prayer, including the proclamation of the words of institution, is called the Great Thanksgiving. Our congregations, synods, and churchwide organization are encouraged to use these patterns of thanksgiving.” The reference is to the Apology again, article 24. 76—not actually printed out, but here is the full quotation: “There are also statements about thanksgiving [among the Fathers], like that very beautiful statement of Cyprian [pseudo-Cyprian] concerning those who receive the sacrament in godly fashion: ‘He says, In returning thanks to the Giver for such an abundant blessing, piety divides its thanks between what has been given and what has been forgiven.’ That is, piety focuses on what has been given and what has been forgiven; it compares the greatness of God’s blessings with the greatness of our ills, our sin and our death, and it gives thanks. From this the term ‘Eucharist” arose in the church. Nor is the ceremony itself a giving of thanks ex opere operato that can be applied for the benefit of others in order to merit the forgiveness of sins for them, etc. or in order to free the souls of the dead. The theory that a ceremony could somehow benefit either the worshiper or anyone else without faith conflicts with the righteousness of faith.” But the use in Means of Grace above misses that this thanksgiving either comes after or is simply the whole “ceremony.” “Remembrance” is not like seeing a play. It is not the “eucharistic prayer,” as it has come to be used in modern liturgical renewal. In fact that is what “conflicts with the righteousness of faith,” because it gets the direction wrong. [4] LW 53, 64. [5] But whenever local traditions and liturgies meet the criteria—free and true to the gospel—then they should not be altered by anyone without the consent of the congregation using them. [6] Concerning Public Worship, Leisnig [7] So, Luther’s catechetical hymn “Preserve us, Lord, by thy dear Word, from Turk and pope defend us, [perhaps we could update, fanatic and liturgist]…. (Translation from Robert Wisdom 1560, in Leaver, 397). [8] Her Gott, erhalt uns für and für for Teaching Children the Catechism from Ludwig Helmbold (1594) (trans. Robin Leaver) In Robin Leaver, “Luther’s Catechism Hymns,” in Lutheran Quarterly XI, 4 Winter 1997, 405-6.

A Spiritual Legacy

2010-07-31T11:03:08-07:00

Dear Friends in Christ,

While we have been reading, studying, and reflecting upon the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, and rebuilding our own house of worship, one of the questions presented is that of legacy. What were the effects of the Israelites’ efforts for future generations? What will the things we do now mean for future generations of Pioneer Lutheran?

One of the first things to come up when we think about leaving a legacy is providence. How can I provide for for the needs of my loved ones after I’m gone? We want to leave something of meaning and significance behind, so that we might be remembered by future generations as someone who did something good for their family, community, or church. And we want as a congregation to see to the needs of future members of the Pioneer community of faith. One of the most evident ways of doing this, of course, is building and maintaining nice facilities for worship and ministry. At the same time, as we learn in Psalm 127[:1], “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.”

So how are we supposed to know if it is the Lord building the house or just us? We have at least a basic indication in the very description we give our efforts: we’re building a “house of worship.” If the house is established to further the purposes of God in the world, that’s a pretty good indication the blessing and presence of God is with our work. If who we are as a congregation is centered on our gathering to hear the Word of God, offering our prayers, praise and thanksgiving, and encouraging one another in our faith, then it’s pretty clear who is behind it all.

That being said, we also need to be taking our thinking about who we are and what we’re about as a congregation further. One of the commands of Jesus pushes us in this direction rather pointedly: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19-20) As useful as our house of worship may be, it is still not the kind of treasure that will last in the way that heavenly treasures do. And so we have to ask, “What are the kinds of treasures, along with our learning and passing on the Word of God, that will last in ways that earthly goods will not? What will be our spiritual legacy?

While things like buildings, money, and monuments are not without value, they will most certainly be consumed eventually by the moth and rust of this age. But there are things that will last and have significance in a different way. Through the relationships we establish in our families, church, and community, we can pass on stories, teaching, and values that we know are godly and true. So we need to continually ask ourselves, what kind of things am I communicating when I tell stories with my friends and family? How am I teaching biblical principles and values to my children, or through my actions?

Even more concretely, we can think of creative ways of passing on these kinds of things. You could write a letter telling someone about your own faith story, or share with them a biblical story you think they might need to hear. You could write a letter for your children or grandchildren to read after you’re gone, in which you relate your hopes for them in their relationship with God. Start keeping a prayer journal, which you could pass on to a loved one. Write up a collection of your favorite scriptures, maybe with a description of what they have meant to you, and share it with someone. Write a commentary on the catechism and what each part has meant for your understanding of God and how he is at work in your life.

Another way such treasures are passed on is through the traditions we learn in our families. What are the traditions you have, or would like to have, where you teach your children to do things like pray together? What about having a family devotional time? Setting aside a time for bible study and discussion? These sorts of traditions can become a blessing for an entire lifetime, and require such little effort on our part. The truly important work is done by God who comes to us when we gather together around his Word, puts the Holy Spirit in our midst, and shapes our lives in such a way that we can experience fully the blessings he gives us, and bear the burdens placed upon us.

A life informed and shaped by the Word of God is literally infinitely different from one in which religion is just one piece of the puzzle of one’s life put in place when it’s convenient. As Jesus said it, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39) This is the spiritual legacy left to us by the Son of God, who gave up everything for our sake. The question for us is how will we make it ours?

God bless you and keep you, in Christ,

Pastor Tyler Andor

Luther on Ecclesiastes

2010-07-26T10:38:22-07:00

Some remarks from Luther on the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes:

But you say: Many people die of their own initiative and rashness, and they would otherwise have lived longer; and others have hurled themselves into death alive. Could they not have saved their lives? I reply: No, God has set this hour and even this means and kind of death. Experience teaches this also. Some men receive mortal wounds and yet are easily cured and survive, while others who are lightly wounded die nevertheless. The astrologers ascribe this to the stars, others ascribe it to fortune. But Holy Scripture attributes this to God, with whom the moments of our life and of our death are fixed, to whom it does not matter whether you perish of a large wound or a small one, so that He may confound all the wisdom and counsel of man.

He says that he is speaking about the highest and greatest of vanities, that men are extremely vain in all their endeavors, because they are not content with the things that are in the present;

With this word, therefore, that attitude which is called “good intentions” is rejected, as is commonly said: “I meant it for the best.” But a good intention is nothing unless it is regulated by the Word of God and takes its beginning from faith. Other intentions, even those that appear to be very good, are deceptive and extremely harmful.

Christian wisdom, therefore, means to commit oneself to the power of God and to turn one’s cause over to Him who judges justly. A Christian can indeed, by the office of the Word, judge sin, but he should not raise his hand against it unless he is compelled to do so by God or commanded by the Word.

Often dinner parties are arranged to create a happy atmosphere, with foods and entertainment intended to make the guests happy. But usually it comes out just the opposite way, and only seldom does a good party result. Either there are gloomy and solemn faces present, or something else upsets all the arrangements, especially when there is such deliberation and planning about how much fun it will be. By contrast, it often happens that someone happens upon a most joyful dinner party by accident, that is, by the gift of God.

As it is a sin to invite anxiety and sorrow by our own counsels and also a sin to refuse to suffer them when they are imposed on us by God, so it is also to be condemned if we run away from happiness and do not accept it when it is given by God. This is what those sanctimonious killjoys do when they “disfigure their faces”

Look at the Roman republic, how the consuls and emperors who followed always revoked what had been done by those who had preceded them; they were bored with the present and the past, and they looked to the future. Why then do you afflict yourself with many cares, as though your descendants were going to approve of what you are doing or even were going to feel the same way?

Those pleasures are to be condemned which we by our own counsels seek to achieve for the future, and those labors are to be condemned which we strive to carry out by our own counsels. But those pleasures and labors which God gives are good, and they are to be used for the present without anxiety about either future afflictions or future pleasures. But who is capable of such things?

He proves that it is a gift of God to be content with the things that are present, for this is given to the man who pleases God with-out any preceding merits.

Via Luther’s Works, Volume 15, and some from the Confessional Gadfly.

Preface to the Wittenberg Hymnal

2010-07-22T13:02:25-07:00

There were several hymnals published during Martin Luther’s lifetime, most of which he was asked to provide a introduction or preface for. It is instructive how Luther focuses even in music on our receiving God’s Word and teaching as the key matter of worship, and noteworthy that the concern for training youth in the faith does not seem all that different in the 16th century than it is today.

Preface to the Wittenberg Hymnal

That it is good and God pleasing to sing hymns is, I think, known to every Christian, for everyone is aware not only of the example of the prophets and kings in the Old Testament who praised God with song and sound, with poetry and psaltery, but also of the common and ancient custom of the Christian church to sing Psalms. St. Paul himself instituted this in I Corinthians 14 and exhorted the Colossians to sing spiritual songs and Psalms heartily unto the Lord so that God’s Word and Christian teaching might be instilled and implanted in many ways.

Therefore I, too, in order to make a start and to give an incentive to those who can do better, have with the help of others compiled several hymns, so that the holy gospel which now by the grace of God has arisen anew may be noised and spread abroad.

Like Moses in his song [Exodus 15], we may now boast that Christ is our praise and song and say with St. Paul, I Corinthians 2, that we should know nothing to sing or say, save Jesus Christ our Savior.

And these songs were arranged in four parts to give the young–who should at any rate be trained in music and other fine arts–something to wean them away from love ballads and carnal songs and to teach them something of value in their place, thus combining the good with the pleasing, as is proper for youth. Nor am I of the opinion that the gospel should destroy and blight all the arts, as some of the super-religious claim. But I would like to see all the arts, especially music, used in the service of Him who gave and made them. I therefore pray that every pious Christian would be pleased with this and lend his help if God has given him like or greater gifts. As it is, the world is too lax and indifferent about teaching and training the young for us to abet this trent. God grant us his grace. Amen.

Via Luther’s Works Vol. 53, pp. 315-16.

Isaiah

2010-07-06T11:14:52-07:00

Isaiah son of Amoz is considered to be the greatest of the writing prophets and is quoted in the New Testament more than any other Old Testament prophet. His name means “Yahweh [the Lord] saves.” Isaiah prophesied to the people of Jerusalem and Judah from about 740 B.C. to 700 B.C. and was a contemporary of the prophets Amos, Hosea and Micah. Isaiah was a fierce preacher of God’s Law, condemning the sin of idolatry. He was also a comforting proclaimer of the Gospel, repeatedly emphasizing God’s grace and forgiveness. For this he is sometimes called the “Evangelist of the Old Testament.” No prophet more clearly prophesied about the coming Messiah and his saving kingdom. He foretold the Messiah’s miraculous birth (Is 7:14; 9:6), his endless reign (Is 2:1–5; 11:1–16) and his public ministry (Is 61:1–3), but most notably his “Suffering Servant” role and atoning death (52:13—53:12). The apostle John’s description of Isaiah, that Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory and spoke of him (John 12:41), is an apt summary of Isaiah’s prophetic ministry. (Via “Commemorations Biographies,” Lutheran Service Book, LCMS Commission on Worship)

Here is Luther’s introduction to the book of Isaiah:

Preface to the Prophet Isaiah – 1545 (1528)

by Martin Luther

If anyone will read the holy prophet Isaiah with profit and thus understand him the better, let him not despise this advice andinstruction of mine, unless he has better advice and is better informed. In the first place, let him not skip the title, or beginning, of this book, but learn to understand it as thoroughly as possible, so that he may not think that he understands Isaiah well, and afterwards have to put up with, it when someone says that he has never understood the title and first line, let alone the whole prophet. For this title is to be considered almost a gloss and a light on the whole book, and Isaiah himself points his readers to it, as though with his fingers, as the occasion and reason for his book. But to him who despises or does not understand the title, I say that he shall let the prophet Isaiah alone or, at least, that he will not understand him thoroughly, for it is impossible to gather or observe the prophet’s writing and meaning rightly and dearly, without a thorough understanding of the rifle.

When I speak of the title, I do not mean only that you read or understand the words “Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Kings of Judah”; but that you take up the last book of Kings and the last book of Chronicles, and take in the whole contents of them, especially the stories, speeches, and events that occurred under the kings named in the title, clear to the end of those books. For if one would understand the prediction, it is necessary that one know how things were in the land, how matters lay, what was in the mind of the people, and what kind of intentions they had for or against their neighbors, friends and enemies; and especially what attitude they took, in their land, to God and the prophet, toward His Word and His service.

It would be well, also, to know how the lands were situated with reference to one another, so that the strange, unfamiliar words and names might not make reading disagreeable and understanding dark and hard. To do my simple Germans a service, I shall briefly describe the country situated aboutJerusalem or Judah, where Isaiah lived and preached, so that they may better see whither the prophet turned when he prophesied toward “noonday” or “midnight.” On the East, the nearest thing to Jerusalem, or Judah, is the Dead Sea, where, in ancient days, Sodom and Gomorrah stood. Beyond the Dead Sealies the land of Moab and of the children of Ammon. Farther beyond lies Babylon, or Chaldaea, and farther still the land of the Persians, of which Isaiah speaks much.

Toward the North, lies Mount Lebanon and, across it, Damascusand Syria, but farther on, and to the East, lies Assyria with which Isaiah deals much. Toward the West, along the Great Sea, lie thePhilistines, the worst enemies of the Jews; and along the Sea, to the North, lie Sidon and Tyre, which border on Galilee. Toward the South are many lands, — Egypt, the land of the Moors, theRed Sea, Edom, and Midian, so situated that Egypt lies to the West of the middle.

These are the lands and the names about which Isaiah prophesies as neighbors, enemies, and friends, surrounding the land of Judahlike wolves around a sheepfold. With some of them they madealliance after alliance, but it helped them not at all.

After this, you must divide the prophet Isaiah into three parts. In the first he deals, like the other prophets, with two subjects. First, he preaches to his people and rebukes their many sins, especially the manifold idolatry which has got the upper handamong the people, — as godly preachers, now and at all times, do and must do, — and keeps them in check with threats ofpunishment and promises of good.

Second, he disposes and prepares them to expect the comingKingdom of Christ, of which he prophesies more clearly and more often than does any other prophet. He even describes, in Isaiah 7:14, the Mother of Christ, how she is to conceive and bear Him without injury to her virginity, and in Chapter 53, His Passion together with His Resurrection from the dead. He proclaims Hiskingdom powerfully and in plain language, as though it had then come. This must have been a splendid, highly enlightenedprophet. For all the prophets do the same thing; they teach andrebuke the people of their time, and they proclaim the coming and the Kingdom of Christ and direct and point the people to Him, as to the Savior both of those who have gone before and of those who are to come; but one of them does this more than another, one more fully than another; among them all, however, Isaiah does the most and is the fullest. In the second part, he has to do especially with the empire of Assyria and the EmperorSennacherib. He prophesies more and at greater length than any other prophet about how the emperor shall subdue all neighboring lands, including the kingdom of Israel, and impose much misfortune on the kingdom of Judah. But there he stands like a rock, with the promise Jerusalem shall be defended and besaved from him; and that is one of the greatest miracles in the Scripture, not only because of the event, that so mighty anemperor should be defeated before Jerusalem, but also because of the faith, with which men believed it. It is a miracle, I say, that any one at Jerusalem could have believed in such animpossible thing. Isaiah must, without doubt, have heard many bad words from the unbelievers. But he did it; he defeated theemperor and defended the city. He must have stood well withGod and been a precious man in His sight!

In the third part, he deals with the empire of Babylon. Here he prophesies of the Babylonian Captivity, with which the people are to be punished, and of the destruction of Jerusalem by theemperor of Babylon. And it is here that he does his greatestwork, encouraging and upholding a people yet to come amid this future destruction and captivity, so that they might not believe that all was over with them, that Christ’s kingdom would not come, and that prophecy was false and vain. What a rich and fullpreaching he presents! — Babylon, in its turn, will be destroyed, and the Jews be released and return to Jerusalem. He even tells, with proud defiance of Babylon, the names of the kings that shalldestroy it, namely, the Medes and Elamires, or Persians; and he expressly mentions the king who shall release the Jews and help them back to Jerusalem, namely, Cyrus whom he calls “God’sanointed,” long before there is a kingdom in Persia. For he is concerned altogether with Christ, that His future coming and thepromised kingdom of grace and salvation shall not be despised, or be lost upon His people and be of no use to them, because ofunbelief or great misfortune and impatience; and this would be the case, unless they expected it and believed surely that it would come. These are the-three things that Isaiah deals with.

He does not treat them in order, however, and give each of these subjects its own place and put it into its own chapters and pages; but they are so mixed up together that much of the first matter is brought in along with the second and third, and the third subject is discussed somewhat earlier than the second. But whether this was done by those who collected and wrote down the prophecies(as is thought to have happened with the Psalter), or whether he himself arranged it this way according as time, occasion, and persons suggested, and these times and occasions were not always alike, and had no order, — this I do not know. He has at least this much order, — he brings in and deals with the first and most important subject, from beginning to end, all the way through the second and third parts; and that is what we ought also do in our sermons, always running along with the other things our most important matter, viz., the rebuking of the people and the preaching of Christ, even though we may now and then undertake, as occasion arises, to preach of other things, such as the Turk or the emperor, etc.

Remembering this, anyone can readily comprehend the prophetand be at home in him, and not be led astray or become impatient because of the order of the prophecies, as it happens to those who are not accustomed to it. We have done our best to make Isaiah speak good, clear German, though he has accommodated himself to it with difficulty and done his best to prevent it. Those who know both German and Hebrew well, will easily see that, especially the hair-splitters, who persuadethemselves that they know everything; and there are enough words of threatening and terror against the stubborn, proud, hard-heads, — if that would help. What profit there may be in reading Isaiah, I prefer to let the reader discover for himself, rather than tell him; and for one who does not, or will not,discover it for himself, there is not much profit to speak about. He is full of living, encouraging, heartening sayings for all poorconsciences and miserable, disturbed hearts; and there are enough words of threatening and terror against the stubborn,proud, hard-heads; if that will help.

You should not think of Isaiah, except as a man who was despisedamong the Jews and considered a fool and madman. For they did not regard him as we now regard him, but, as he himself testifies, in chapter 58, they shot out their tongues and pointed their fingers at him and held his preaching as foolishness, all except a few godly children in the crowd, such as King Hezekiah. For it was the habit of the people to mock the prophets and hold them madmen; and this has happened to all servants of God andpreachers; it happens every day and will continue.

It is also to be observed that the thing for which he most rebukesthe people is idolatry. The other vices, such as display,drunkenness, avarice, he touches on hardly thrice, but reliance on their own self-chosen idol worship and their own works, or theirconfidence in kings and alliances, he rebukes all the way through. This was intolerable to the people, for they wanted suchconduct to be right. Therefore they are said, at last, through King Manasseh, to have slain him as a heretic and deceiver and, as theJews say, to have sawn him asunder.

The Goose

2010-07-06T11:06:53-07:00

Jan Hus, a Bohemian reformer, was condemned on this day (July 6) in 1415 and burned at the stake for heresy by the Roman Catholic Church (b. ca. 1370). Among his alleged last words is the prophecy, “You, this day, burn a goose, but a hundred years hence a swan will arise, whom you will not be able to roast or boil.” 102 years later Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

Here is Hus’ final declaration, written July 1st, 1415, followed by a collection of Hus’ letters written during his exile and imprisonment, with a preface by Martin Luther.

I, Jan Hus, in hope a priest of Jesus Christ, fearing to offend God, and fearing to fall into perjury, do hereby profess my unwillingness to abjure all or any of the articles produced against me by false witnesses. For God is my witness that I neither preached, affirmed, nor defended them, though they say that I did. Moreover, concerning the articles that they have extracted from my books, I say that I detest any false interpretation which any of them bears. But inasmuch as I fear to offend against the truth, or to gainsay the opinion of the doctors of the Church, I cannot abjure any one of them. And if it were possible that my voice could now reach the whole world, as at the Day of Judgment every lie and every sin that I have committed will be made manifest, then would I gladly abjure before all the world every falsehood and error which I either had thought of saying or actually said!

I say I write this of my own free will and choice.

Written with my own hand, on the first day of July.

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On Christian Liberty

2010-07-03T12:39:54-07:00

We recognize our historical independence as a nation this weekend, celebrating a kind of freedom that is long and hard fought for in this world. At the same time this presents an opportunity to tell the story of a different kind of revolution, a far grander one, that wins for us an entirely different and still more profound and powerful liberty. It is the revolution of God’s campaign to end the rebellion against his creation on the part of his own creatures.

This revolution was wrought not by a war between nations, but a battle between God and man. It began with the incarnation of his Son, Jesus Christ, and culminated in his crucifixion and resurrection. This revolutionary event turned everything upside down for us. For this godly war against us turns out actually to be for us. The one who apparently was defeated actually won. Those who thought they had triumphed in fact sealed their own doom. Those who thought they were free were put in chains, while the bonds of the prisoners were loosed. They eyes of those who thought they could see were darkened, and the blind were made to see. This is how God has chosen to “overcome the world,” to become our sin, to kill our death, and lay waste once and for all to the devil and his hell, so that washed clean of sin, death, hell, and the world in the blood of the Lamb Jesus Christ, we can rejoice in the one who came “to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.” (Isaiah 42:7)

The following is a brief selection from a treatise Luther wrote on the nature of this freedom for which Christ has set us free.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death” (Phil. ii. 5-8).

“Paul’s meaning is this: Christ, when He was full of the form of God and abounded in all good things, so that He had no need of works or sufferings to be just and saved–for all these things He had from the very beginning–yet was not puffed up with these things, and did not raise Himself above us and arrogate to Himself power over us, though He might lawfully have done so, but, on the contrary, so acted in labouring, working, suffering, and dying, as to be like the rest of men, and no otherwise than a man in fashion and in conduct, as if He were in want of all things and had nothing of the form of God; and yet all this He did for our sakes, that He might serve us, and that all the works He should do under that form of a servant might become ours.

Thus a Christian, like Christ his Head, being full and in abundance through his faith, ought to be content with this form of God, obtained by faith; except that, as I have said, he ought to increase this faith till it be perfected. For this faith is his life, justification, and salvation, preserving his person itself and making it pleasing to God, and bestowing on him all that Christ has, as I have said above, and as Paul affirms: “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God” (Gal. ii. 20). Though he is thus free from all works, yet he ought to empty himself of this liberty, take on him the form of a servant, be made in the likeness of men, be found in fashion as a man, serve, help, and in every way act towards his neighbour as he sees that God through Christ has acted and is acting towards him. All this he should do freely, and with regard to nothing but the good pleasure of God, and he should reason thus:

Lo! my God, without merit on my part, of His pure and free mercy, has given to me, an unworthy, condemned, and contemptible creature all the riches of justification and salvation in Christ, so that I no longer am in want of anything, except of faith to believe that this is so. For such a Father, then, who has overwhelmed me with these inestimable riches of His, why should I not freely, cheerfully, and with my whole heart, and from voluntary zeal, do all that I know will be pleasing to Him and acceptable in His sight? I will therefore give myself as a sort of Christ, to my neighbour, as Christ has given Himself to me; and will do nothing in this life except what I see will be needful, advantageous, and wholesome for my neighbour, since by faith I abound in all good things in Christ.

Thus from faith flow forth love and joy in the Lord, and from love a cheerful, willing, free spirit, disposed to serve our neighbour voluntarily, without taking any account of gratitude or ingratitude, praise or blame, gain or loss. Its object is not to lay men under obligations, nor does it distinguish between friends and enemies, or look to gratitude or ingratitude, but most freely and willingly spends itself and its goods, whether it loses them through ingratitude, or gains goodwill. For thus did its Father, distributing all things to all men abundantly and freely, making His sun to rise upon the just and the unjust. Thus, too, the child does and endures nothing except from the free joy with which it delights through Christ in God, the Giver of such great gifts.”

Flung to the Heedless Winds

2010-06-30T14:03:05-07:00

On this day (June 30) in 1523 “Flung to the Heedless Winds” was written by Martin Luther to commemorate the martyrdom of two young Augustinian monks, Heinrich Voes and Johann Esch, who were burned at the stake in Brussels. Voes and Esch had been condemned to death after examination by the Cologne Inquisitor, Jacob von Hogstraten, and at the instigation of the Louvain professors.

Flung to the heedless winds,
Or on the waters cast,
The martyrs’ ashes, watched,
Shall gathered be at last.

And from that scattered dust,
Around us and abroad,
Shall spring a plenteous seed,
Of witnesses for God.

The Father hath received,
Their latest living breath,
And vain is Satan’s boast,
Of victory in their death.

Still, still, though dead, they speak,
And, trumpet tongued, proclaim,
To many a wakening land,
The one availing Name.

German Text

Luther sings on of the two young martyrs:

By help of God I fain would tell
A new and wondrous story,
And sing a marvel that befell
To his great praise and glory.
At Brussels in the Netherlands
He hath his banner lifted,
To show his wonders by the hands
Of two youths, highly gifted
With rich and heavenly graces.

2. One of these youths was called John,
And Henry was the other;
Rich in the grace of God was one,
A Christian true his brother.
For God’s dear Word they shed their blood,
And from the world departed
Like bold and pious sons of God;
Faithful and lion-hearted,
They won the crown of martyrs.

3. The old Arch-fiend did them immure,
To terrify them seeking;
They bade them God’s dear Word abjure,
And fain would stop their speaking.
From Louvain many Sophists came,
Deep versed in human learning,
God’s Spirit foiled them at their game
Their pride to folly turning.
They could not but be losers.

4. They spake them fair, they spake them foul,
Their sharp devices trying.
Like rocks stood firm each brave young soul
The Sophists’ art defying.
The enemy waxed fierce in hate,
And for their life-blood thirsted;
He fumed and chafed that one so great
Should by two babes be worsted,
And straightway sought to burn them.

5. Their monkish garb from them they take,
And gown of ordination;
The youths a cheerful Amen spake,
And showed no hesitation.
They thanked their God that by his aid
They now had been denuded
Of Satan’s mock and masquerade,
Whereby he had deluded
The world with false pretences.

6. Thus by the power of grace they were
True priests of God’s own making,
Who offered up themselves e’en there,
Christ’s holy orders taking;
Dead to the world, they cast aside
Hypocrisy’s sour leaven,
That penitent and justified
They might go clean to heaven,
And leave all monkish follies.

7. They then were told that they must read
A note which was dictated;
They straightway wrote their fate and creed,
And not one jot abated.
Now mark their heresy! “We must
In God be firm believers;
In mortal men not put our trust,
For they are all deceivers;”
For this they must be burned!

8. Two fires were lit; the youths were brought,
But all were seized with wonder
To see them set the flames at naught,
And stood as struck with thunder.
With joy they came in sight of all,
And sang aloud God’s praises;
The Sophists’ courage waxed small
Before such wondrous traces
Of God’s almighty finger.

9. The scandal they repent, and would
Right gladly gloss it over;
They dare not boast their deed of blood,
But seek the stain to cover.
They feel the shame within their breast,
And charge therewith each other;
But now the Spirit cannot rest,
For Abel ‘gainst his brother
Doth cry aloud for vengeance.

10. Their ashes will not rest; would-wide
They fly through every nation.
No cave nor grave, no turn nor tide,
Can hide th’abomination.
The voices which with cruel hands
They put to silence living,
Are heard, though dead, throughout all lands
Their testimony giving,
And loud hosannas singing.

11. From lies to lies they still proceed,
And feign forthwith a story
To color o’er the murderous deed;
Their conscience pricks them sorely.
These saints of God e’en after death
They slandered, and asserted
The youths had with their latest breath
Confessed and been converted,
Their heresy renouncing.

12. Then let them still go on and lie,
They cannot win a blessing;
And let us thank God heartily,
His Word again possessing.
Summer is even at our door,
The winter now has vanished,
The tender flowerets spring once more,
And he, who winter banished,
Will send a happy summer.

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Nero

2010-06-24T12:19:31-07:00

It was on this day in the year 64 the Roman Emperor Nero (AD 37–68) first began persecuting Christians. The persecution began after a fire erupted in Rome and burned much of the city over the course of five days. Several legends have spread about the course of events. The historian Tacitus, who was only nine at the time, says Christians confessed to the crime; but it is most likely any such confessions were induced by torture. Accidental fires were also not uncommon in Rome, which suffered two other large fires in 69 and 80. About Nero it is speculated that he played the fiddle during the fire. An unfortunate circumstance for this claim, however, is that the fiddle did not yet exist–the lyre, however, did. Suetonius and Cassius Dio do report that Nero sang “Sack of Ilium” in costume as the city was consumed in flames; but the more detailed account of Tacitus places Nero in Antium at the time of the fire, in addition to claiming that the story of Nero playing his lyre and singing as the city burned was mere rumor.

In the account of Tacitus, Nero returned home from Antium after hearing news of the fire to organize and fund a relief effort. Once the fire abated, he is said to have contributed to a new plan for re-development of the city with preventative measures–houses were spaced out, built with brick, and faced by porticos on wide roads–and a new palace complex, the Domus Aurea. Of course it also included a 30 meter statue of himself, the Colossus of Nero.

The persecution, once again according to the account of Tacitus, came on the heals of public reaction to the fire. There were rumors spreading which aimed at holding Nero responsible. To escape blame, Nero pointed his finger at the local Christians. More than this, he gave orders that they should be thrown to dogs, crucified, and burned. Here is how Tacitus describes the event:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians [or Chrestians] by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

So Tertullian identified Nero as the first persecutor of Christians, as he writes, “Examine your records. There you will find that Nero was the first that persecuted this doctrine.” And in the famous remark from his Apologeticus, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

Jesus said, In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Take a moment today to pray for the Christian martyrs of our age.

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Pictures

2010-06-21T21:28:36-07:00

Here are some pictures of the new church going up. Thanks to Mike for taking these!

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