The Lutheran Review

Bev's Recipes: Ham Balls

Ham Balls

            2 lb. ground ham            Sauce:
            1 lb. ground pork            1 c. vinegar
            2 c. milk                    1 c. water
            4 eggs                       1 1/2 c. brown sugar
            4 c.  cracker crumbs              1 tsp. dry  mustard
            4 T. brown sugar

            Mix  ingredients in first column.  Roll in balls.  Roll  balls in flour.
            Place in glass pan.
            Mix  items in second column.  Heat sauce and pour over balls.
            Turn halfway  through baking.
            Bake 1 hour.

            *  When you want to enjoy your  family  during Christmas
            celebrations, this recipe can easily be prepared ahead
            of time and is always wonderful.

Eco-Thank You Cards

Let's get crafty!

From the blog Eco Child's Play, an neat idea for reusing your wrapping for thank you cards.

Supplies

• Cardstock (You can find this at most craft stores for only a few dollars)
• Glue
• Scissors
• Left over pieces of wrapping paper, ribbon, and tags

Take a sheet of cardstock and cut it into a 11 inch by 4 inch rectangle. Fold your sheet of cardstock in half, pressing firmly across the folded edge to create a clean fold. One half of the outside fold will be the front of your card. Decorate this with your pieces of paper and ribbons, gluing them into place. For unique cards create each one from the paper used by the gift giver you are sending it to.

If you don’t feel very creative in designing your own thank you cards look to professional cards for ideas. When in doubt remember that less is more.

Pro-Life Workshop in St. Louis

From the Reporter Online:

Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, is offering a workshop titled "Making Abortion Unthinkable" from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 31.

The workshop will be led and moderated by Dr. Jeffrey Gibbs, professor of exegetical theology at the seminary.  Using video-based presentations and discussion, Gibbs will "explore the question of abortion with regard to clear, focused apologetics and human reason at its best," according to a seminary news release.

The workshop is designed to "strengthen and clarify understanding for those who attend, as well as equip them to speak winsomely, even to non-Christians, on behalf of the unborn."  It is open to anyone with an interest in pro-life issues.

Registration for the workshop is $10 and includes lunch and materials.  Registration deadline is Jan. 25.

For more information or to register, contact the St. Louis-based seminary at 314-505-7486 or ce@csl.edu.

 

Merry Christmas!

  Christmas Eve: We let the kids open their stockings and at the bottom of each was a walnut and orange. My husband's mom put those in his Christmas stockings as a kid.

Abby got a music set and was very thrilled with triangle. 

  Posing with my son in front of his big gift. 

Winner Announced

Well, it was a tight race, but the winner is Jim!!  Ha.  He is the only one who entered so his odds were remarkable. 

Jim, soon you will be enjoying the Treasury of Daily Prayers.  Email me at thelutheranreview@gmail with your mailing address. 

If you missed out on this one, there will be more nice giveaways in the future. 

O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our king and our Lord, the anointed for the nations and their Savior: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

The last of the O antiphons is from Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord will give you this sign; the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.”

God had asked king Ahaz of Judah to ask a sign of the Lord his God in which God would show him that he had nothing to fear from those two burned out stumps of torches of the northern kingdom of Israel and their ally Syria. Ahaz had no need to make an alliance Assyria. After all Ahaz had the Lord his God as his ally. But Ahaz refused God’s offer claiming that he would not test the Lord.

Therefore, God said that he would give him a sign, a child born of a virgin. We don’t know who this child was in the time of Isaiah and Ahaz., However, in the time of Joseph and Mary, the child was named Jesus, God’s Savior. Since his birth at Bethlehem, Jesus, both God and Man, has been Immanuel, God with us, and will be until the age of this world ends. (Matthew 28: 20) After that we will be with Jesus in the heavenly realms forever and ever.

O come, O come Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel.

O King Come

O King of the nations, the ruler they long for, the cornerstone uniting all people: Come and save us all, who You formed out of clay.

A few years ago one of the gifts my wife received from a student was a clay pumpkin.

My wife was about to discard it when our daughter informed her that that pumpkin was indeed a valuable item created by a St. Louis artist. So it was retrieved from the discard pile and placed on display in our house.

When we read the O antiphon above we might wonder why a king would bother with saving a bunch of clay figurines he had formed; especially, when they became so deformed and no longer things of beauty.

Yet not only did the King of kings and Ruler of rulers save us, He gave us clay figures the honor of telling the news that all the deformed clay figures are now saved from the trash heap. God doesn’t want any to be discarded; therefore, He sent Jesus Christ Son of David and son of Mary to live up to His name and save us all.

If there is to be peace in this world and unification in place of division, then it must be based on the foundation of Jesus Christ at who’s coming the Heavenly Host praised God and announced, “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”

O come, Desire of nations, bind

In one the hearts of all mankind;

Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,

And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

O Dayspring

O Dayspring, splendor of light everlasting: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

It’s hard for us to imagine the era in which the prayer that was turned into the O antiphons was written. Over the centuries tribes such as the Goths (eastern and western) Vandals, Franks, Slavs and Huns from Mongolia, had attacked Western Europe. To the north in British Isles the Celts and Anglo-Saxons ruled. Later the Vikings rampaged through these areas. Society was in upheaval. Slowly each of the groups was converted to Christ, but only after great violence had been suffered.

Out of those dark days came the cry that Christ would return and shine upon those sitting in darkness and under the threat of death, often right out side the monastery or church walls.

We live in a more secure society, but those Christians in the Middle East, in Iraq and Iran, in certain provinces of India, or in several African countries would know the terror that befell the Europeans in the middle Ages.

Had I considered these things this morning I would have sung O come, O come, Emmanuel with more depth of understanding.

O come, Tbou Dayspring from on high,

And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O Key of David

O Key of David and scepter of the house of Israel, You open and no one can close, You close and no one can open: come and rescue the prisoners who are in darkness and the shadow of death.

The one who had the key of David had authority to either admit or exclude people from the king’s presence. He also had the great trust of the king.

Isaiah 22:22 “And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

These words are applied to Christ in Rev. 3:7.

Christ who in his dying, opened the way to the holy of holies in the temple has given the keys of the kingdom of heaven to the Church, you and me. (Matt. 16:19).

Now we have the great privilege, responsibility and authority to speak Christ’s words of rescue to those who still sit in the darkness of sin and the shadow of eternal death.

Yet we ourselves pray in the hymn verse,

O come, thou Key of David, come,

And open wide our heav’vly home; Make safe the way the leads on high,

And close the .path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

O Root of Jesse

The antiphon that follows the singing of the Magnificat during the service of Vespers on December 19 is, O Root of Jesse, standing as an ensign before the peoples, before whom all kings are mute, to whom the will do homage: Come quickly to deliver us.

The promise of a branch growing from the root of Jesse in Isaiah 11 is telling us that deliverance for Israel will not come from the royal court of David with all its pomp and glory. Rather the shoot sprouting from the stump of Jess hearkens back to the more humble origins of David’s father who kept flocks of sheep in the environs of Bethlehem.

When the Christ comes He will spring forth from Bethlehem, the hometown of his forefathers.

When the root of Jesse, Jesus Christ, springs forth He shall be the signal that He is the gathering place for all nations and for the remnant of Judah. Old hostilities will be gone. Ephraim (northern kingdom of Israel) and Judah will not be jealous of one another nor harass each other. People will be drawn to Christ from the four corners of the world. Thus when the Savior was nearing the time of his crucifixion he said, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself.” Christ’s cross stands as the banner that draws all nations to Him.

O come, thou Branch of Jesse’s tree,

Free them from Satan’s tyranny

That trust Thy mighty pow’r to save,

And give them victory o’er the grave.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.