The Lutheran Review

Jeremiah Complains

 

God has a way of picking “characters” to carry his message.  One of the interesting characters is the prophet Jeremiah.  Jeremiah would never have been featured in a church magazine as an example to follow if you wanted to establish a successful ministry.

  He grew despondent at times and gave himself over to complaining and not without reason.

Chapter 15 contains such a complaint.  V. 10 he complains to his mother that he rues the day she bore him. He is a “man of strife and contention to the whole land.”   He hasn’t lent anyone any money and charged usury rates of interest.  He hasn’t borrowed from anyone and therefore owes no one.  Yet everyone curses him.

His complaint continues in vs. 15ff.  He asks God not to forget about him and to take vengeance on those who persecute him.  He has been faithful to his call.  When God called him he said that he would put his word in Jeremiah’s mouth. (1:9-10) God’s word would both destroy and build up.  Jeremiah tells God that he was glad to speak whatever word God gave him.  “I ate them and your words became to me a joy and delight.’ (15:16)

He cut himself off from the people.  He didn’t join in their celebrations, but sat by himself at such reveling.  Well, if he has been faithful to his call, he can’t figure out why he suffers such unrelenting pain from the insults hurled at him.  He questions God’s faithfulness, “Will you be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?” (v. 18)

God isn’t sympathetic.  God offers no balm for his incurable wounds.  Instead the Lord tells Jeremiah that if he gets back to work of speaking his word and stops uttering such nonsense, then God will fortify him.   “I am with you to save you and deliver you…and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.”

 There are times when serving in the church is satisfying and joyful.  Other times one wonders if you are accomplishing anything at all.  God is always with us.  Christ is always with us.  The Holy Spirit is always in the faithful word we speak.  That is difficult to remember when things seem to be falling apart in several different directions.

Perhaps Jeremiah never knew that the word he spoke has informed God’s people 2,500 years.  Though he, like us moved back and forth between joy in service to God’s people and wondering if anyone is listening, yet it’s his word we have in scripture.  Those who opposed him and plotted against his life have disappeared.  Their words have not survived.  As Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will p.ass away, but my words will not pass away.”

   

 

A Morning at Concordia Seminary

 

The first thing I noticed when I walked up from the parking lot was the replica of the first log cabin seminary that was started in Perry County, Mo.  Now for someone who has never been on campus that may not seem like a big deal.  Perhaps it isn’t.  However, it always struck me as strange that the cabin had, for decades been tucked away on the side of a hill sort of between the campus mechanical workshop and the tennis courts.  A visitor to the campus would have been unlikely to stumble across it unless he/she were accustomed to strolling to out of the way uninviting places.  I don’t know how long it had been sequestered away like some embarrassing bachelor uncle, but it was being kept away from polite company back when I was at the seminary in the mid sixties.  But this summer it was brought out for public view.  It sits prominently on an open lawn in a heavily trafficked area between the Feuerbringer library and Koburg hall, one of the dining halls.

Extensive remodeling is going on in Koburg hall and in the kitchen area.  A new entrance is being built.  I haven’t been inside.  I just hope that they also remodel the food they offer, which has often been something to keep away from polite company.  After all they are competing with a St. Louis Bread Company, My Daddy’s Cheese Cake, Kaldi’s Coffee, a Subway and Karl’s, all within easy walking distance of the campus.  None of these establishments were in business when I was at the seminary.  Only the Triangle Restaurant was nearby.   At the Triangle you could get an eggs, bacon, toast and hash browns breakfast for less than a dollar and containing enough fat to last for a day or maybe a lifetime.

After being closed for two weeks, the library had opened that morning.  It’s the longest two week s of the year.  I returned a couple of books and found a book on 19^th century German history.  Since I don’t preach this weekend, I have time to back at writing a story about my grandparent’s emigration from Germany in the early 1880’s.

I was back in my car when someone rapped on the window.  It was John Luom who is director of the training program for foreign born pastors. He is from West Africa himself.  He is preaching at Immanuel at the end of September.  He introduced me to a man who had just arrived the day before from Mongolia.

The names of the buildings at the seminary reflect the synod’s German background, just as Luther Northwestern seminary in St. Paul reflects it Scandinavian heritage.  But the center of Lutheranism is no longer in Europe.  It is shifting to continents and cultures other than European and American.  An article in the latest issue of Thrivent magazine reflects how congregations that once were 100 percent people of northern European descent are now reaching out to cultures which our forefathers and mothers would never have imagined.  Early in the 20^th century we had to learn to shift to the English language.  A century later we are learning to offer songs music and services that reflect more diverse cultures.  Bu through it all, the gospel of Jesus Christ is what the church has as its core and center, in whatever language and cultures it is expressed.

P.S.  George, sorry I erased your last comments.  I was getting rid of spam and got carried away.

Ron Jansen

        

       

Right where God wants us

Pentecost 11, 2011, Immanuel Chapel, Exodus 14:13-31

God had them right where he wanted them.  Through Moses the Lord turned Israel from traveling north to moving east to the shores of the Red Sea.  The Lord’s strategy led Pharaoh to conclude that the Israelites were wandering lost and befuddled in the wilderness.  Calling upon his crack charioteers, his cavalry and his ground corp the Egyptians pursued the Hebrews.

When the Israelites saw that they were trapped against the sea, they panicked. They complained to Moses, “Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt that you had to bring us out here to die?”   “What in the world were you thinking?”   “We were better off before than now.  Didn’t we tell you ‘Leave us alone?’?”  Now they were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. 

Have you ever been trapped, in a relationship that you can’t escape? In a job you can’t leave, because you have to eat? In a debt that keeps mounting and you can’t see the summit? In an illness that keeps closing in?  A habit that you can’t break though it threatens to break you and your family?  Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”  But we have been laboring for so long that we can’t lay our burdens down.  The enemy is so near, but God is so far away.  Israel had been trap.ped in slavery so long that they couldn’t imagine breaking the bond.

Yes, God had the panicked Israelites and pursuing Egyptians right where he wanted them.  God gives the reason.  “I will get glory and all the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.”  At that point neither the scared witless Hebrews nor Egypt with the taste of victory in their mouths were thinking of God’s glory.    It’s unlikely in a time of peril that we will think of how it will bring God glory.

In the midst of confusion and chaos Moses speaks a word of assurance.  “Fear not.”  God is present and at work in their behalf.  Much later in a little town of Bethlehem, a couple strangers in a strange town laid their newborn baby in a manger.  That baby was Immanuel, God present with us, to work on our behalf.  God’s messenger told some shepherd’s abiding in the field, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people.”  In the absence of all signs of God, God is present.  God who present in the manger, was present on the cross, was present at the Red sea and is every and always present in our lives.

 Moses urges the people whose hearts are throbbing, bodies drooping and knees knocking “Stand firm.” “Be ready to observe the good news of great joy that God will do before your very eyes.”  Moses commands, “Keep silent.”  Stop all the clamor.  God is about to act.  The psalmist says, “Be still, and know that I am God.  I will be exalted in the earth!  I will be exalted among the nations.”  In Lamentations, when Jerusalem lay in ruins and the people have been taken into exile, we read, “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”  In the midst of all our clamor we might miss the great things God is doing for our salvation.

For salvation, their salvation, their salvation as a people, their salvation as individuals, their salvation as carriers of the promises of God to be a blessing to the world, their salvation that one day God will raise up from his own people a Savior; and ultimately, our salvation is about to take center stage.    Thus Moses says, “Stand firm. “Keep silence.” “See the salvation of the Lord.”

When God’s great act of salvation once more took center stage in Bethlehem it was to those shepherds in the fields that God revealed the nature of the good news of great joy, “For unto you is born, in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.”  When the angels went away, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has done.”  Later, Simeon held our salvation in his arms.  He spoke words that we still sing “My eyes have seen your salvation.”  In this little baby born in Bethlehem, God had set a trap for sin, death and the devil.  God would spring the trap when the adult Jesus hung on the cross at the very verge of certain death.

            Now Israel would see the salvation of God.   But God had set a trap before, when Israel stood with their backs to the sea on the verge of certain death.  The angel of the Lord and the pillar of cloud took up positions between the army of Egypt and the host of Israel.  Usually, a pillar of fire burned, but that night only darkness and the cloud provided light in the night. 

            Remindful of the first works of creation, God sent a wind over the waters and it blew all night.  The wind separated the waters and as at the creation, dry land appeared in the midst of the waters.  But God the creator is also God the redeemer.  Through the forces of creation and the agency of Moses’ uplifted hands the Israelites passed through the waters to the other side on dry land.  How can we but see ourselves in the act of baptism passing through the waters from bondage to sin and death to freedom from the control of sin and to life and salvation?

            However, the Lord of creation and salvation is also the God of judgment.  And now as morning breaks night falls upon the chariots and the whole army of

Egypt.  They rush into the opening and God now closes the trap.  The Egyptians become stick-in-the-muds, literally.  The divided waters which were a way to life and salvation for God’s people, becomes a death trap for His enemies.  Egypt is now panicked, caught in the chaos of the collapsing walls of water.  Like the walls of Jericho, the watery walls fall down. They cried out, “The Lord fights for Israel against the Egyptians.”  At last, they acknowledge who they have been up against.

            Thus the Lord saved Israel and Israel saw the great power of the Lord in what he did.  And God had gained his glory.  The people sang, “I will sing unto the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously.”   To the shepherds in the field the heavenly host praised God saying, “Glory to Go in the highest.”  But it was Jesus glory to go to the cross for you and me, to die, and to rise again.  Because of that God exalted him above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Today, God has us right where he wants us.  Here, together, in Christ. Give God the glory.     

        

   

 

 

 

 

          

 

 

dveloping Theology

 

After school yesterday kindergartener granddaughter, Abby, brought me a book of bible Stories.  I sat in the middle of the couch, a five year old on my left and 3 year old Lucas on the right.  It was one of my favorite type story books when I was a kid.  The words of the story are interrupted periodically by a picture.  I loved those types of stories in our Sunday school folders.

The three of us read about Jonah, the exodus, Jesus walking on the water and his crucifixion and resurrection. Then Abby observed that the Father was God.  I said, “You’re a theologian.”  Two weeks of kindergarten at Holy Cross and she is developing theological understanding.

Then several of the stories concluded with statements about believing that God is with you in the time of trouble.  We also read the story of the woman who touched Jesus garment and was healed.  “Your faith has made you well. The Abby asked, “What’s believe.”  Let me see, we could define believe as faith, but then what’s faith?  The same for trust.   Hmm.  And me without me three volumes of Piepers Dogmatics.   “Too deep for me, Abby.”  Maybe her kindergarten teachers can answer that question.

Nothing too profound on a Friday night except for the very depths of God and faith.

 

St. Bartholomew, Apostle

 

What will believers in Christ know about you and me in 200 years? Unless all our blogs, face books Twitters and text messages are still available, believers in Christ nor anyone else will know of us at all.

I raise the above question, because when you say Bartholomew you’ve said all we know. 2000 years ago he was among the list of Jesus’ disciples in Matthew, Mark and Luke. In John the name Nathaniel is listed instead.

The epistle for his day from 2 Corinthians 4:7-10 begins, “We have this treasure in jars of clay.” though we will not be much remembered in a hundred year, yet like Bartholomew (Nathaniel) we carry the treasure of Jesus’ death and resurrection in our mortal bodies. Bartholomew was a disciple Jesus. He, with the other disciples, proclaimed the power of the Gospel, which lives on far beyond the time when his weak mortal body breathed its last and died.

Bartholomew reminds us that what is important is not how much power I have or how famous I think I am. What is of the utmost importance is that I show the power of Jesus’ life and his Gospel through my life.

As John the Baptist said in referring to Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Some traditions say Bartholomew preached in India or Armenia following the resurrection. In art, Bartholomew is pictured holding a flaying knife to indicate the manner in which he was killed.

The hymn, By All Your Saints in Warfare (LSB518) has a stanza dedicated to Bartholomew

Stanza 23

All praise for him whose candor

Through all his doubt You saw

When Philip at the fig tree

Disclosed You in the law.

Discern, beneath our surface,

O Lord, what we can be,

That by your truth made guileless,

Your glory we may see.

　

Paul's Heartache in Romans 9-11

Paul’s Epistle to the Romans

While there are some great and comforting passages in Romans, it remains a challenging epistle to study.  Throughout most of the first 8 chapters he maintains that neither Jew nor Gentile has an advantage over one another when it comes to having a need to be saved through Jesus Christ alone.  All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory and are justified by his (God’s) grace given through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God put forward as the means to bring all into a favorable view with God. (3:23-25)

In chapter 9 Paul begins to address the situation of his fellow countrymen, the Jews who have rejected Christ.  He has such great sorrow and anguish over the situation that he wishes that he would be cursed and cut off from Christ in order that his brothers might be saved.  (9:2&3)  The Israelites have been so blessed for so long having received the covenant promises and the patriarchs come out of them and not least by any means Christ is of the race of the Jews.

They have a zeal for God but just don’t get it. (10:2) God has not rejected them.  Not all have rejected Christ.  But what many don’t get is that salvation does not come through keeping the law, but by grace, as a gift. (11:6).

The Gentiles have no reason for schadenfreude.  Gentiles are Johnny-come-late lies, added by God to make Israel jealous and thus induce them to come to salvation.

Perhaps Paul recognizes that his line of argument is a bit hard to grasp.  So he ends this section with a hymn of praise “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (11:33)

In the end that is where we all end up in trying to fathom the depths of God, for as Paul reminds and exclaims, “for from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Even the efforts to fathom the things of God are beneficial.  Once we discover it’s all beyond us, we can end in praise of God.  Who in the world or even beyond wants a god who is no smarter than we are?       

Moses, God and the Burning Bush

I have been posting my sermons on a separate blog under my name.  From onw on I will be posting them on the Lutheran Review.

 

Pentecost 10, 2011 Immanuel Chapel, Exodus 3:1-15

I want to tell you about a day in the life of a shepherd.  He had started out life with many advantages, but hadn’t done much with them.  At age 80 he couldn’t afford to retire, but worked for his father-in-law.  For the last forty years he had lived as a fugitive from justice; an exile from his native land.

  On one particular day he took the flock deep in the wilderness.  It was fry-egg-on-a-stone hot and spit-cotton-dry.  Then the day took a strange turn.   He saw a bush that burned, but it did not burn.  Astoundingly, the voice of God spoke out of the bush, “Moses, Moses.”   God was visible in midst of the burning bush.  Moses answered, “Here I am.”From that moment on, the shepherd’s life, his life when as a newborn his mother wove a little reed ark and placed it in the Nile River, from where it was “drawn out of the water” by a princess of Egypt, would never be the same again and neither would your life and mine.

In Egypt, God had blessed Abraham’s descendants with fruitfulness.  However the pharaohs, who had forgotten Joseph, viewed the multiplying Israelites as a danger.  They oppressed the Israelites into slavery.  They sought to undo God’s blessings through ethnic cleansing.  How many times, in this fallen  world, has the scene in Egypt been repeated?  On every continent in every age, some have viewed others, not as God created fellow humans, but as people who are less than people, dangerous, simply because they exist.  Seeking to undo God’s blessing in creation to be fruitful and multiply, the stronger seek to dismiss and erase from a meaningful life, those whom they look down upon.

God had looked down upon the oppression by which his people were oppressed.  The groans and moans of the people under their taskmasters had come up to God.  He knew their suffering.  God remembered his covenant promises.      God who, centuries before, chose Abraham to be the Father of a great nation who would be a blessing to all nations.  He renewed his commitment to Abraham and Sarah’s son, Isaac.  He was faithful to his promise to Abraham’s ethically challenged grandson, Jacob. God was pained over the bondage of his people whom he loves.  His heart went out to them.  “I have come down to deliver them.”      

We know of God’s pained love for people.  We’ve seen it in God’s son, Jesus.   God bowed the heavens and came down via the flesh and blood ark of the Virgin Mary’s womb.  His compassion for those who came to Jesus, sick and hungry.  They were like sheep without a shepherd.  Once again his people were oppressed by those who ruled over them and by stringent religious rules.  They were living in bondage to the power of sin that led them astray from God and into the darkness of the valley of death.  It’s the same bondage to the power of sin under which we live and leads us to look down on another person or a segment of people.  But Jesus entered into the valley of death before us.  On a dark Friday afternoon, a place called “The Skull” became a mountain of God, a holy place, a life giving place.  There God’s love burned so fervently for you and me that he sent his own son to die on a cross.  Thus we were freed to live.  The apostle John writes, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

Acting out of that pained love, God determined that he would snatch his people from the grasp of Pharaoh.  He would bring them up from the land of hunger and want, of danger and fear, of life constricted and controlled from the rising of the sun to its setting, leading nowhere save the grave.  He would bring them up to a good land where they would be free to eat of the bountiful harvest of the land and care for animals which would provide them with food and clothing.  It was described as a land of milk and honey. They would be a people living at the crossroads of the nations, serving as witness to God’s good and saving will.  It would be the place where in the fullness of time God would send his own son Jesus to die on the tree of the cross and rise from a dark dank tomb with life and eternal salvation for all who loved his appearing.

Still, all of that was in the future.   God said to the 80 year old outlaw shepherd living in exile, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”   Suddenly Moses sees a problem.  “Wait a minute,” we can almost hear him say.    “God, you said you came down to snatch Israel out of Pharaoh’s grasp, but now you are sending me to do the snatching.”

“Who am I that I should go?”  Moses remembered that forty years before, Pharaoh had put a price on his head.  His own people had rejected his efforts to bring peace and unity among them.  Now, He is supposed to go to Pharaoh and demand, “Let my people go.”  He is to say to his people, “Follow me.”

            Moses is the first person to receive such a call.  As we can see, being an 80 year old fugitive exile did not disqualify him as far as God is concerned.  God’s call can come to anyone at anytime.  Like Moses we do well to take it seriously and wrestle with God’s call to serve him.  God’s call is often to do something for which we are not qualified, that we may want to do.  God has a way of not paying attention to resumes.  He doesn’t do background checks. The question is not, “Who am I.”  But who is God?

God is the one who is with us.  As far as God is concerned, that is all we really need to know.  The rest of it is none of our business.  God even gives Moses a sign.  He will know that God has been with him when he leads the people back the place of the burning bush to Mt. Horeb, otherwise known as Sinai.  For Moses there is a lot of difficult water that will pass down the Nile River before he and people arrive at Sinai.  In the meantime God will be with him and Moses simply will need to proceed in faith.

            Moses wanted a little more than God was giving.  “What’s your name?” God says, “I am.”  If I were Moses, I wouldn’t find greatly reassuring, because the mystery of who is “I am” isn’t revealed until Jesus.  Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”  Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus is the great “I am” who came to set all people free.

              As St. Paul writes, “Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways…to him be the glory forever.”            

                              

   

 

       

Bernard

Bernard hansen and Bernard of Clairvaux

I had a cousin from my mother’s side of the family, named Bernard. He was born two days before my mother, his aunt, in 1912. He married my aunt Mildred from my father’s side. One day when I went to visit their son, Monte, who was both a first cousin and second cousin, depending on which branch of the family tree you were swinging, my aunt Mildred said, “Monte, I hope you grow up sometime, because your father never will.” That pretty well described my cousin Bernard or “Cy,” as he was known. With good reason we much younger cousins enjoyed being around him.

He was a milk hauler in the days when milk was picked up at the farms in cans and boosted up into the truck before being hauled to the creamery or cheese factory. It was great fun going with “Cy.” Monte and I would try our best to pull the can out of the tank in which farmers kept the cans sitting in cold water. Most of the time the suction was too great for us. Then we usually couldn’t quite get them boosted into truck. In the winter the trucks were equipped with a snowplow. The milk haulers were usually the first to plow open town roads and driveways.

The Bernard the church remembers today is not my cousin, at least that I know of, and he died in 1153. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux was a man of great spiritual depth. He was born in 1090 to an affluent Burgundy family. At age 22 he entered the monastery at Citeaux and two years later started a new monastery at Clairvaux. He was known for his charity work and political ability. But his preaching and hymn writing are what make him particularly memorable.

Two hymns in LSB are attributed to him, “O Jesus King Most Wonderful” and “O Sacred Head Now Wounded,.” ”Jesus, the very thought of Thee,” possibly another of his hymns is found in TLH.

He devoted much of his writing to the humanity of Christ. His sermon on the Song of Solomon treats that Old Testament book as an allegory of Christ’s love for humanity. (Personally, I think Song of Solomon is about what it is about.)

I’m including two stanzas of “O Jesus, King Most Wonderful,”

When once You visit darkened hearts,

Then truth begins to shine,

Then earthly vanity departs,

Then kindles love divine.

O Jesus light of all below,

The fount of life and fire,

Surpassing all the joys we know,

All that we can desire.

 

 

The Canaanite Woman

 

Wasn’t Israel supposed to wipe the Canaanites off the face of the earth when they entered the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua?  Apparently, they missed some.  In the gospel lesson for last Sunday, Matthew 15:21-28, Jesus withdrew into the area of Tyre and Sidon, north of Galilee. He has ventured out of the Promised Land.

Some Pharisees and scribes had come down to Galilee from Jerusalem.  They questioned Jesus about letting his disciples ignore the tradition of the elders by neglecting to wash their hands before eating.  We might expect that Jesus would tell his disciples to go back into the bathroom and use soap and water.  However, personal hygiene is not the concern of the Jesus questioners.

Jesus asked them why they break God’s commandments for the sake of keeping tradition.  The fourth commandment says that we should honor our father and mother.  However, if a son should declare that what he would normally have given his parents to support them in their old age is dedicated to God, then he doesn’t have to give that money to his parents because it belongs to God.  Of course they didn’t actually give it to God, but kept possession of it themselves.

Jesus goes on to say that it’s not what a person puts in his mouth that defiles him, but what comes out.  The Pharisees are mightily offended over being called hypocrites.

Peter asks what Jesus means by his parable?  Jesus says that what we eat goes in and is then expelled.   But that which a person expels from his mouth originates in the rotten condition of the heart.  Unwashed hands don’t defile anyone.  But an evil heart defiles a person through the through.

After Jesus and the disciples head north the Canaanite woman accosts him.  What comes out of her mouth is a plea for mercy.  Whereas the Pharisees don’t know who Jesus is, the foreign “pagan” woman knows that Jesus is the promised Lord, the son of David.  Her daughter is possessed by a demon.  When we speak of crying out loud, the woman was doing that at the top of her lungs.

Now the story gets a bit strange.  Jesus, whose heart went out to the folks who followed him around the lake and led to the feeding of more than 5,000, ignores the Canaanite woman.  The disciples are consistent.  Before, they wanted to send the people home so they could buy food, here they suggest Jesus send her away.

Then Jesus said, “I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  But who is he talking to?  The text doesn’t say.  Is he talking to the woman, the disciples or musing to himself?

Now the loud crying woman kneels before him pleading, “Lord, help me.”

Jesus responds, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”  No matter how we read those words, they come as surprise.  Was he repeating a familiar saying?  It seems so rude considering the plight of the woman’s daughter.  Commentators have numerous opinions, but I think I will just leave it hang out there.  Jesus had called the Pharisees hypocrites.  He had then spoken to the people about these religious leaders as blind guides.  His disciples he wondered that they still didn’t get it.

But this woman is not to be bested.  She gives as well as she gets.  If she is to be equated with a “pagan” dog, so be it.  She will be satisfied with whatever crumbs the Master might throw her way.

Then the grand conclusion.  Her refusal to give up is a demonstration of her mega faith.  Jesus grants her wish.  The demon is gone.

This text is worthy us letting it roll around in our brains and see if we can come up with how we might apply to ourselves and our day.   

    

Mary, Mother of our Lord

 

On August 15, the church remembers Mary, mother of Jesus. St. Paul writes in the epistle for the day, Gal. 4:4-7, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman.”

“The fullness of time,” was the time in the history of the world and the history of God’s plan for redeeming the world from sin that He said to the Son, “Okay, now go!”

For Mary, “the fullness of time” came nine months after the angel Gabriel told her that she had found favor with God. She would conceive in her womb and bear a son whom she would name Jesus. In “the fullness of time” when her womb was filled with God she sent forth her and God’s Son. God, born into human flesh was completely obedient to God’s demands in His commands. He suffered death on the cross as the price for buying us back from captivity to our disobedience of the demands of His commands.

God honored us, adopting us as his children thus making us heirs of eternal life.

We remember Mary, the girl from Nazareth, who had the singular privilege of giving birth to God’s Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. No wonder Elizabeth loudly exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”

Because of that “blessed event” we too are among the blessed.

We sing of Mary, mother,

Fair maiden, full of grace.

She bore the Christ, our brother,

Who came to save our race.

May we, with her, surrender

Ourselves to Your command

And lay upon Your altar

Our gifts of heart and hand.

LSB855 st. 8 For all the Faithful Women