St James the Elder, Apostle

St James' Day was Monday, July 25th. We observed it yesterday at mass. The impetuous 'son of thunder' learned that, rather than seeking glory through the intercession of his mother, he was being served by the Son of Man who gave his life a ransom. So James willingly died from the sword (Acts 12), and so, like him, did the French priest Jacques Hamel, just this Sunday, July 24th, while celebrating mass. Such a glorious death! To be able, in effect, to say with Simeon: Now I can die in peace. Sermon for St. James the Elder is here.

St Paul's on the Air!

by Burnell F. Eckardt

Pastor David Ramirez (find his latest remark on this page) has been giving me a hard time about our blog lately, saying that it isn't active enough. He's right, of course, but I hope he notices that by way of correction we will now have entered four new posts in just one day here. That might be a record.

This one is an attempt to provide a link to an audio file of a half-hour radio program that goes out from St. Paul's in Kewanee, Illinois, every Sunday morning. I am not entirely confident it will work, since links to the www.box.com account have sometimes been faulty. So if the link doesn't work, let me know.

This recording of our show, "St. Paul's on the Air" is set to broadcast on WKEI on the AM dial in Kewanee this Sunday; but that's not a very strong station, so if you don't live in town, you'll need to listen on your computer; and maybe we can make this a regular thing.

It's actually our 346th recording, but the very first time on this blog.

We are beginning here a study of II Peter with this offering; specifically, the first eight verses. The recording is right here, and the passage is written here:

Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:

2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Dignus est Agnus

By Larry Beane

One of the things that drew me to the Lutheran Church as a 17-year old inquirer was the dignity of the worship service, for it bespoke the miracle of the coming of Christ to earth to save fallen creation, not only in the historic conception of Jesus of Nazareth in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, not only in His birth at Bethlehem and in His death and resurrection near Jerusalem, but in an ongoing gift through Word and Sacrament, sanctifying every time and place where His body gathers and where His blood atones.

This is no Watchmaker God we worship, but a God who is Man; a Man who is God. And he comes to be with us where we sojourn in space and time, just as He promised, unto the end of the age, deigning to grace us with His magnificent Presence in bread and wine, in a mystical and miraculous and Holy Meal.

The awe and majesty and wondrousness of it!

And as a token of our faith in this indescribable reality, and in profound thanksgiving (eucharistia) for this inexplicable warp in the time/space continum and in God's ongoing act of mercy of reaching through the barriers even of our own unworthiness, we participate in this Divine Service with reverent and holy joy, honoring this most unique and intimate encounter with Almighty God in hushed tones that proclaim and confess the dignity of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ, who has conquered sin, death, and the devil, and who continues to come to us poor, miserable sinners made into saints by grace.

The word "dignified" showed up on a tract about Lutheran worship that I saw when I visited the local LCMS parish.  It referred to Lutheran worship as "dignified" and "focused on the cross."  And though, I suppose, the conventional wisdom about "youth ministry" would find it improbable, I was completely smitten as a 17-year old motorcycling rock and roller with long hair and blue jeans.

I wanted nothing to do with gimmicks.  It was the transcendent that I desired, sought, and by God's infinite grace and mercy, that I found.  For the Lord delivers this transcendence in an intimate, authentic, and yes, dignified manner in the reverent and cruciform Mass of the historic Church Catholic.  Dignus est Agnus!" as the Church proclaims, "Worthy is the Lamb!", taking her liturgical cue from the Holy Spirit in Revelation 5 and the eternal dignified heavenly liturgy recorded therein.

The very worthiness of Christ - as starkly contrasted by our own unworthiness - this dignity of the Lamb is given to us as a free gift, and we worship Him in dignity, truth, beauty, faith, and reverence, awestruck by His coming among us and by His abiding with us.

Is this something we contemporary Lutherans still understand, believe, teach, confess, treasure, and practice?

Dignus est Angus!   

Out of the Barn!

How long? cry the saints.

And the answer: no longer! At long last, the delayed Trinity issue of Gottesdienst is out of the barn, and on its way to a mailbox near you. Soon (if you are a subscriber) you will at last open that mailbox and upon opening this journal of the blessed Lutheran Liturgy may, if you wish, even see fit to repeat the words of Keats:

“Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears,
and hopes, and joys, and panting miseries,
Tonight if I may guess, thy beauty wears a smile of such delight,
As brilliant and as bright
As when with ravished, aching, nassal eyes,
Lost in a soft amaze
I gaze, I gaze”

Wink, wink . . it is okay: It is a joke!

Uncle Screwtape says:

“Humour is for them the all-consoling and (mark this) the all-excusing, grace of life. Hence, it is invaluable as a means of destroying shame. If a man simply lets others pay for him, he is ‘mean,’ but if he boasts of it in a jocular manner and twits his fellows with having been scored off, he is no longer ‘mean’ but a comical fellow. Mere cowardice is shameful; cowardice boasted of with humourous exaggerations and grotesque gestures can be passed off as funny. Cruelty is shameful — unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke. A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous, jokes do not help towards a man’s damnation so much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of his fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a Joke.” — P.51-52

HT: Wolfmueller http://us13.campaign-archive2.com/?u=1b96d242af7bd7dfa5d097151&id=b9d278447a&e=06f84f5ca7