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Advent, December 22, 2017
Pastor Gregory L. Jackson
The Psalmody Psalm 14 p. 124
The Lection
The Sermon Hymn #136 Angels from the Realms of Glory
The Lection
The Sermon Hymn #136 Angels from the Realms of Glory
The Faith of Children - Professor Kinder Teaches
The Prayers and Lord’s Prayer p. 44
The Collect for Peace p. 45
The Benediction p. 45
Luke 1
26 And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
29 And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.
32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
36 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.
37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.
38 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
39 And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda;
40 And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.
41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:
42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
45 And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.
46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.
50 And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
53 He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
54 He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;
55 As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.
56 And Mary abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house.
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The Faith of Children - Professor Kinder Teaches
Every so often, someone inflicts a theology book on me. I received one in the mail, which I am still reading. The book is supposed to be Evangelical and conservative, but it glorifies the guild of theologian and lacks the faith of children.
I used a German pun in the title - Professor Kinder means Professor Children. That is because Jesus said, "Unless you believe as a child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God."
That is the great swindle today, that so many use god-words in their academic language, but they are only talking about a topic, not indicating any faith in that topic at all.
Jesus said about children, "Do not forbid them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God."
Children teach in the plainest possible way.
"How can Jesus turn water into wine?"
They answer, "Because Jesus is God. He can do anything."
"How can He walk on water?"
They say, "God can do anything, Jesus is God."
He said, "Blessed are those who do not stumble into the pit because of Me." (Jackson Living Bible) This is not a minor stumble but a fall into a trap, because the scandalon (scandal, offense) was the trigger of a trap.
Adults Are Explainers and Improvers
We have to accept the problem basic to being educated in a secular and rationalistic society. Adults explain and improve on everything religious.
They may think they are helping, but they are bridging the gap between faith and society's frown upon child-like faith.
Explain Creation - God took billions of years and used evolution to perfect our earth.
Explain Jesus - He is the Son of God for those who believe that He rose from the dead. That is the Easter faith of the disciples. He would always live in their hearts.
Explain miracles - People had faith in Jesus, so their attitude provided miracles in their eyes.
Luther warned that we must be especially wary of those who explain and improve upon the Bible. They are inserting their philosophy into the Word of God, because they only have a sentimental attachment to the Scriptures. They were raised in the Faith, for the most part, and were trained away from it. To be acceptable to the best and brightest, they must publicly reject the Faith.
That power works on the clergy too, who want to be regarded as intellectuals, as members of the upper middle class, invited to the right social gatherings and never excluded for having strange views.
Managing boards for colleges and seminaries only need one or two apostates, and they quickly become 100% apostate. No one else can be on the board. Then no one else can be a professors. And no one else can graduate as a pastor. That initial position changes the course of history.
Tillich
Everyone has forgotten Paul Tillich now - and for good reason - but when I identified him as a pagan pantheist (everything is god) then the professor intervened - "Lutherans do not understand Tillich." I was quoting from a scholarly book by Tillich's friend and colleague. But I was an embarrassment. The professor is at Harvard with an enormous salary.
Faith of Children
People have a way of diminishing the brain power of children. I watch the babies in the store and see them observing everything, studying what is going by, looking in people's faces. They are born with PhDs in psychology, which fades away by the time they become parents. They have to learn it all from scratch then.Their physical and mental energy is intense, but one thing is completely true - they are utterly dependent on their parents.
They know their parent's voices before they are born, and they communicate with those voices before they can say a single word.
They lack all those adult powers of reason, but they do not faith. If given faith in Christ, through baptism, when the Spirit plants faith in their hearts through the Gospel, that faith is easily nurtured.
What nurtures this faith we give them in Holy Baptism? The Word of God. The more we teach and the way we teach gives them increasing and more mature faith in God.
For example, it is good to show Jesus as the Good Shepherd, but even better to connect Isaiah 40 and Psalm 23 and Luke 15 with John 10 - not to mention the Passover Lamb. And of course, that is good for adults too.
Nothing shows the unity of God's Word better than the portrayal of Jesus. If we only start with that, then we can see Jesus throughout the Bible and teach Him where He appears so clearly.
Martin Luther called the Five Books of Moses the goldmine from which the divinity of Jesus in mined. The nuggets of gold are there - the Lamb, the Bread of Life from heaven, the Two Natures.
With these passages, we do not explain and improve in the adult sense, but show our wonder at the mysteries revealed by the Holy Spirit.
For example, Jesus said, "The ancient wise men and rulers longed to know what I am teaching you here." and "Blessed are those who believe."
The Virgin Mary - Truly Portrayed and Then Distorted
I saw a video from a movie we saw long ago. It showed Elizabeth coming down the steps and peering out at Mary, who had arrived, as described (with less detain) in this lesson.
As the song is sung, Elizabeth feels her child, the future John the Baptist, leap in her womb.
Sadly, after the Council of Ephesus, Mary slowly replaced Jesus as the Savior, having all of His characteristics while He was portrayed as an angry judge. The best one can hope is to have a few thousand years of torture in Purgatory, comforted only by Mary coming to comfort believers. There is no real forgiveness, no payment for sin, no mercy and love from Jesus.
That is how Mary came to replace Jesus as the object of worship in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
A Lutheran clergy couple (crunchy Lutherans) posted that their first service upon joining Eastern Orthodoxy was celebrating the birth of Mary.
That reminded me that teaching against Justification by Faith destroys faith and makes people long for comfort. Many have found that in entertainment evangelism with the digital organ grinders and monkeys - or - in the smells and bells of Eastern Orthodoxy.
When faith in Jesus is denied, that hollow space will be supplied with something, often a bad imitation, often an unintended parody.
Elizabeth
This narrative is so powerful that I get goosebumps when I read the verses. After Mary was told how she was elected to bear the Savior - as a Virgin - she went to see her cousin.
Luther had a humorous comment - that Mary did not stop and chat with various people along the way "as our women do." (Chatting where roads meet is the source of the word trivia - where three ways - vias - meet.) But she "went with haste."
41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:
42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
This is fascinating because the two men will meet again for the Baptism of Jesus. All these details are important, but they are overlooked or forgotten when we are not engaged in the study of the Scriptures.
When children learn the basics from the Word itself, it sticks with them, and they love to have their fathers take the lead in this. I taught our son John's Gospel in Latin and Greek, every verse. And we learned vast amounts from that experience, which was leveraged by doing this again over the Net.
The more we see the Word with child-like trust, the more we appreciate those treasures.
43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
45 And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.
As someone wrote, as a veteran of the Greek class on the Net, once we see how faith is repudiated by the modern Lutherans and taught by the Bible, the gap is like looking across the Grand Canyon (10 miles) for the first time.
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| Norma A. Boeckler's artwork site. |
