The Lutheran Review

A Thunder Storm

A Thunder Storm

A thunderstorm is rolling through the St. Louis area.  It’s the first of several that will pass through this weekend, so the weather people tell us.  Of course nothing of recent memory has matched the storm that blew up over St. Louis on July 18, 2006.  Becky and I were at the new Busch Stadium for a ball game.  She called home and our son said a tree was down in the neighbor’s yard.  We lost electricity for six days.

The Psalmist used just such a storm passing through Israel to sp.eak of the the power of god’s voice. 

Psalm 29 

3-9, The voice of the Lord is over the 4waters;

The god of glory thunders,

The Lord, over many waters.

The voice of the Lord is powerful;

The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;

The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf

And Sirion like a young wild ox.

The voice of the Lord frlashes forth flames of fire.

The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;

The voice of the shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth

And strips the forests bare,

And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

May the Lord gives strength to his people!

May the Lord bless his people with peace!

Prayer:  Lord our king, your voice sounds over the waters as you reign above the flood.  Helpm us who are born again by water and the Holy Spirit, to praise your wonderful deeds in your holy temple; through your son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Catherine of Siena

Catherine of Siena

Because of sin

You would not enter into your glory

In the way your truth had intended.

Your garden was locked up,

And so we could not receive your fruits.

This is why you made the Word,

Your only begotten Son,

A gatekeeper.

O gentle gatekeeper!

O humble lamb!

You are the gardener,

And once you have opened the gate of the heavenly

Garden,

Paradise,

You offer us the flowers

And the fruits

Of the eternal Godhead.

Catherine of Siena lived from 1347 to 1380.  She was a member of the order of Preachers (Dominicans), and she was the first woman in the Roman Catholic Church to receive the title Doctor of the Church.  He gift of mysticism extended back into her childhood.  She was the 23^rd of 25 children and her parents were dismayed at their unusual daughter.   They wanted her to be like other children.  As an adult she worked to alleviate the suffering of the poor and imprisoned.  She was concerned for the conversion of sinners.  She lived during the time of the “Babylonian Captivity” when the popes resided in Avignon.  She urged the pope return to Rome,”come, and you will see the wolves become sheep….Come like the lamb who, un armed, lays low his enemies, making use of the arms of love…come with the cross in your hand like a gentle lamb.” 

 

Spring Delights

 

Finally, the intermittent rain we have had for several days passed out of the area.  I took Boomer out to take care of business before going over to Collinsville to spend some time with the grandkids.  Well Boomer was more interested in whatever was under the blue spruce in the front yard.  Even my admonition, “focus Boomer” was ignored.  Leaving him to his reading the blue spruce, I turned around.  There I spied a pair of mallard ducks.  The drake was decked out in greens and grays, while the female was content with her hues of brown.  They were pecking in the too long lawn grass and residue of tree seeds that a weekend heavy down pour had left behind.  Soon they waddled down the lawn between our house and the sisters who live next door.  Boomer, finally had completed his mission, this time listened when I discourage him from wandering over and investigating.

 I have always taken a liking to ducks.  Their bills are shaped into a constant smile.  I suspect they may have a nest near a pond in the yard at a house one street over from us.

Mallard ducks were only the beginning of spring delights.  When I arrived at Collinsville, two and a half year old Lucas started talking about his blanket.  He brought it out of his room and spent some time sitting on my lap.  What is more delightful than that, no matter what the season?

Soon wife Becky, grandma and fulltime childcare provider, suggested that we go to a nursery and buy some plants.  Anything to get the grandkids out of the house.  Turning four and a half year old Abby loose in a large gardening shop is a wonder.  She loves plants, and since Becky was paying and not stingy me, anyway my social security hadn’t come yet nor the first paycheck from my current church, I could leave Abby to it.  So she picked plants to her heart’s content.  It changes the saying, “like a kid in a candy store.”  While I picked some plants too, Becky took the kids into the tunnel, that is, the plastic covered half circled nurseries.

And to top off the delights, while we were at the nursery, the gray skies cleared and we basked in the warming rain cleaned air.  Tomorrow we plant plants.

Remember Luther’s definition of the First Article?  I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that he gives me wife children, grandchildren, mallard ducks in wet grass, Newfoundland’s that read spruce trees, kids who delight in flowers and planting and sitting on grandpa’s lap, and sunshine following the rain.   Well those may not be exactly the way we memorized the catechism, but why should Luther be the only one to write, “What does this mean?”

 Psalm 36, “How precious is your steadfast love, O God!  The children of mankind…feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.  For with you is the fountain of life; in your light to we see light.”

Christ our Spring

Christ our Spring

Spring has now unwrapped the flow’rs;

Day is fast reviving.

Life in all it’s fertile pow’rs

Toward the light is striving.

Herb and plant that winter-long

Slumbered at their leisure,

Now bestirring green and strong

Find in growth their pleasure!

All the world has come alive.

All the earth is budding.

Bees are humming round the hive,

Done with winter’s brooding.

Snow and frost have been undone.

Winds are soft and tender.

High above the regal sun

Shines in all its splendor!

This our joy and this our feast,

This our great surprising:

Young and old and best and least

See their own arising.

We, newborn patterns are

Of our God and Maker:

Christ, our spring beyond compare!

Christ, our good creator!

Easter carol

Sixteenth century

Mark, the Evangelist

Martin Franzmann characterizes Mark’s Gospel as a “Gospel of action.”  Mark is a gospel of action indeed. Read the opening chapter of Mark and consider what Christmas would be like if we only had his gospel.

Jesus bursts on the scene in Mark fully grown.  “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.”  Mark does not record any conversation between John and Jesus.  Jesus comes up out of the water and immediately the heavens are ripped open.  The spirit descends as a dove.  A voice from heaven speaks directly to Jesus, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.

Jesus doesn’t even get a chance to towel off.  Before he can even catch his breath the Spirit drives him, not leads Jesus, but drives him into the desert.  Satan tempts him.  The wild animals keep him company and angels serve him.

John is arrested.  Jesus returns to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God.  He immediately calls his first disciples from their fishing.  “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  Those disciples had better be in good shape, because Jesus is taking them along on a marathon.  So frenetic is his pace that when he returns home his family is afraid he has lost his mind.  Jesus might be compared to someone who is in a manic state.

Throughout the gospel people are amazed.  “Who is this?” is a common question.  The unspoken answer is that this is God, who never slumbers nor sleeps.

Mark’s gospel ends so abruptly that later writers added what they thought was a more complete and satisfying ending.  16:8 is the original ending, “And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  We are left hanging on the resurrection.  The question arises for you and me, “What will we now do with this news that, “He is not here.  He has risen.”  After all, Mark’s account begins, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  His gospel makes a good beginning to recounting the good news of the Son of God.  We are the continuation.

So what are you sitting around reading this on your computer?  Get up and get busy.    

 

Johann Walter

 

I would venture to say that not many of us have heard of Johann Walter (1496-1570).  But in 1992 an asteroid was named in his honor.  So who was he?

Johann Walter (Walther) was the first kantor or church musician in the Lutheran church.  He helped Luther prepare the first protestant hymnal 1524.  He also assisted Luther in developing the German Mass in 1526.  Recall that all worship was in Latin up to that point.

Millar Patrick writes in his book “the Story of the church’s Song,” that Walter was present when Luther sought to bring congruity between the theme of a hymn and the spirit of the music.  “While his (Luther’s) friends, Conrad Rupff and Johann Walter, sat waiting to take notes, Luther marched up and down the room trying suggested melodies on his flute, and, no doubt, singing them from time to time in ‘his seemingly weak but penetrating voice’.”

Though he wrote numerous hymns, LSB, 514, “The Bridegroom Soon Will Call Us” is his only hymn in LSB.   Most of his hymns appeared in a children’s song book, published in 1566.  He also wrote choral arrangements for hymn including “Christ is arisen,”  “Christ Jesus lay in Death’s Strong Bands” and “A Mighty Fortress.”

The Bridegroom soon will call us,

“Come to the wedding feast.”

May slumber not befall us

Not watchfulness decrease.

May all our lamps be burning

With oil enough and more

That we, with Him returning,

May find an open door!

Anselm

Anselm Bishop of Canterbury, 1109

Anselm was an eleventh and twelfth century Benedictine monk who stands out as one the greatest theologians between Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.  He was a medieval mystic who emphasized the maternal aspects of God.  Of Jesus, Anselm says, “in sickness you nurse us and with pure milk you feed us.”  He is best known for his “satisfaction” theory of atonement.  God demands payment for human rebellion.  But we are unable to pay up.  Therefore God took on human nature in Jesus Christ to make the perfect payment for sin.

Anselm”s emphasis on satisfaction is reflected in LSB hymn 574, 4, “Before the Throne of God Above.”

Because the sinless Savior died,

My sinful soul is counted free;

For God, the just, is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me.

Spring, 2010

Spring Rushed In

When I was up to the farm in northern Wisconsin for my father’s funeral in late March, my youngest son, Adam, and I walked down the gravel town road, otherwise known as 183^rd Ave., as if it were in New York City rather than seven miles from Turtle Lake.  The only similar between the city and the village is that both have newspapers named, “The Times.”

Walking down this gravel town road or avenue, which ever you prefer, we passed by a small swamp halved by the road or avenue, whichever you prefer.  There from either side of this manmade passage through a swamp came the croaking of frogs.  I hadn’t heard frogs spring croaking since we moved from Clay School Rd outside Collinsville, IL more than more than six years ago.  Then we came upon frost boils in the middle of the roadway.  I recounted for my son how in yonder days before the roads were improved, frost boils could make the roads impossibly impassable.  The phenomenon that caused us to stop and wonder was a thick tar like substance that oozed out of one of the boils.  Could we have oil bubbling out of the ground right there in that gravel town road or avenue, whichever you prefer?  Of course, though it had the appearance of oil, it was but a form of tar like clay, good for little but burying cars up to their axles, if given half a chance.

Wayne, my younger brother, called yesterday.  “I just wanted to tell you, that everything is green around here.  Things are two or three weeks ahead of usual.”  Today he is letting the cattle out of their winter pens.  They will leap and dance at the new found freedom.  They haven’t had an opportunity to kick up their heels with impunity for all the months of winter.  He’s excited about going out and building fence. 

Spring has rushed in this year here too.  On April 1^st the temperatures went from 15 degrees below normal to 15 degrees above normal.  Flowering trees burst out into color of pinks and whites.  But almost as soon as the redbuds and pears and crab apple blossoms appeared, the leaves came pushing their way out too, impatiently shoving the flowers out of their way.

The killdeer have returned to the cemetery.  A bird, whose name I do not know because I don’t know the names of a lot of birds, called out from his perch above a sign telling dog walkers to pick up their dog’s waste.   I always mind the sign with a plastic bag in my pocket.  However, the bird didn’t mind my presence one bit, but called out in song loud and long.

Daffodils blooms are long gone.  Hostas have sprung out of the ground.  Azaleas are blooming and dogwoods too.  And in a corner of my backyard Jack in the Pulpits are getting ready to preach and Trilliums will soon praise the Trinity.

But most wonderful of all, is that I cut my first cutting of rhubarb last weekend.  God is great and God is good and I thank him for my rhubarb.       

Swedish Lutherans

 

Lutheranism Comes to Sweden

Most of us are familiar with the birth of the Lutheran faith as it arose during the Reformation in Germany.  However, we may not know how Lutheranism came to the Scandinavian countries.

Today is a day to remember two brothers who introduced the Lutheran movement to the church of Sweden.  Olavus Petri who died in 1552 and his brother Laurentius (1573) studied at the University of Wittenberg where Martin Luther an d Philip Melancthon were professors.  Luther and Melancthon  were among those who made the new university a leading center of studies and theology.

When Olavus and Laurentius returned to Sweden they began their work with the support of King Gustavus Vasa.  Olavus pub lished a Swedish catechism, hymnal the a Swedeish version of the mass.  He resisted the king’s efforts to gain control of the church.  Laurentius became a professor at the University of Uppsala.  He persuaded the king to not carry out a plan to abolish the office of bishop.  Thus the church of Sweden continues to have an episcopate form of structure.  The brothers also published the complete Bible in Swedish and revised the liturgy in 1541.

Five hymns in LSB have Swedish tunes including 343, Prepare the Royal Highway and 801, How Great Thou Art.  The ELW lists six hymns with Swedish tunes.

For those who can read Swedish here is the first verse of Children of the Heavenly Father,

Tryggarre kan ingen vara

An Guds lilla barnaskara,

Stjarnan ej pa himlafastet,

Fagein ej I kanda nastet.

Leaf From Leaf

Leaf From Leaf

By Christina Rossetti

Leaf from leaf Christ knows;  Himself the Lily and the Rose:

Sheep from sheep Christ tells; Himself the Shepherd, no one else:

Star and star He names, Himself outblazing all their flames:

Dove by dove, He calls To set each on the golden walls:

Drop by drop, He counts The flood of ocean as it mounts:

Grain by grain, His hand Numbers the innumerable sand.

Lord, I lift to Thee In peace what is and what shall be:

Lord in peace I trust To Thee all spirits and all dust.