Setting by Henry V. Gerike (c)2013
64
…Grandchildren on my knee
An-ni-ka and Karl.
…Will you still need me,
Will you still feed me,
WHEN I’M SIXTY-FOUR?
The King is Dead. Long Live the King!
Text: John 19:14-15, 19
Date: Good Friday + 3/29/13
Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Yes, we say it again, even on this occasion. We say it again because Pontius Pilate declared the kingship of a guiltless Jesus when he had the phrase affixed above Jesus on the cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
But we just heard it. This King, The King is dead! Continue reading “The King is Dead. Long Live the King!”
12 30 12 Prelude: "Jesus! Name High over All" by Tim Smith
Heather Lunneberg, Soloist
Jesus! The name high over all,
With sweetness fills each breast;
Let all men now before Him fall,
And in His presence rest.
Jesus! The name to sinners dear,
The name to sinners giv’n;
It scatters all their guilty fear,
And turns their hearts to heav’n.
O that the world might taste and see
The riches of His grace!
The arms of love3 that compass me
Would all mankind embrace.
Happy, if with my latest breath
I might but gasp His name;
Proclaim to all and cry in death,
“Behold, behold the Lamb!”
12 30 12 Prelude: "Jesus! Name High over All" by Tim Smith
Heather Lunneberg, Soloist
Jesus! The name high over all,
With sweetness fills each breast;
Let all men now before Him fall,
And in His presence rest.
Jesus! The name to sinners dear,
The name to sinners giv’n;
It scatters all their guilty fear,
And turns their hearts to heav’n.
O that the world might taste and see
The riches of His grace!
The arms of love3 that compass me
Would all mankind embrace.
Happy, if with my latest breath
I might but gasp His name;
Proclaim to all and cry in death,
“Behold, behold the Lamb!”
12 30 12 – Psalm 111 Setting by Henry V. Gerike
Heather Lunneberg, Cantor
REFRAIN
Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb. Continue reading “12 30 12 – Psalm 111 Setting by Henry V. Gerike”
The Proclamation of the Birth of Christ
Today, the twenty-fifth day of December,
unknown ages from the time when God created the heavens and the earth
and then formed man and woman in his own image.
Several thousand years after the flood,
when God made the rainbow shine forth as a sign of the covenant.
Twenty-one centuries from the time of Abraham and Sarah;
thirteen centuries after Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt.
Eleven hundred years from the time of Ruth and the judges;
one thousand years from the anointing of David as king;
in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel.
In the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;
the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome.
The forty-second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace,
JESUS CHRIST, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,
desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,
being conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months having passed since his conception,
was
born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary.
Today is the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ
according to the flesh.
Christmas Gospel
Luke 2
You Are Christ's
Text: 1 Corinthians 3
Date: 8/9/12
Occasion: KFUO “His Time”
In the Christian faith everyone starts as a spiritual baby—some literally since they (we) were baptized as infants, and some who, even as adults, have been schooled only in the basic, elementary teachings of the faith. We heard the apostle St. Paul writing to the Corinthians reminding them of this fact. The problem is that by this time he figured they shouldn’t be spiritual infants anymore. By this time the faith built on the foundation that no one else can lay “which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:11) should have matured beyond the elementary, “new member,” catechism class sort of faith.
So the apostle writes a relatively scathing letter to the Corinthians, first, reminding them of the foundation he himself laid, the foundation of their Christian faith which is the pure, creedal, doctrinal, catechism faith of the thoroughly Biblical teaching of Jesus Christ—the Son of God, who came down from heaven, “incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man,” who then gave Himself as the bloody and only qualified sacrifice for the sin of the whole world (yours, mine and everyone’s!), and who, nevertheless, was raised from the dead because of His victory over sin and death. Now, the apostle says, everything else that is written, taught or preached about this gospel must build on this foundation, which is, to say it briefly, Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
He gives some options, however, for you to consider. You can build on this foundation, he says, either with what he calls “gold, silver or precious stones,” or with “wood, hay or straw” (3:12). The first, obviously, he is recommending as Biblical, faithfully doctrinal, may I say clear, Lutheran teaching. The second option: overlaying the Biblical teaching and doctrine with any sort of human additions. “You must add,” they say, in some way to your baptismal faith by good works or a good attitude or good anything from the point of view of the world, which he calls “the flesh.”
This is the point, he is saying, whether it was preached by himself, Paul, or by the wonderful and impressive preaching of Apollos, or even by the famous Cephas, Peter, the chief of the apostles himself! In other words, it doesn’t matter who’s your favorite pastor. (Well, okay, it does if that favoritism has to do with the faithfulness of his preaching and teaching and not just his personality.) It has to do with the doctrine, the teaching on the basis of the revelation of God Himself in His Son and through His holy, scriptural Word.
The warning and the promise is this: gold or stubble? The gold is every teaching, every prayer, every sermon that is clearly based on God’s clear Word and emphasizes the Gospel, that is, God’s love and what He has done for you for the forgiveness of your sins. The straw is the exact opposite. It may seem as logical and valuable and desirable as anything, but is, actually, in opposition to the Gospel.
The Gospel, finally, has nothing to do with our own emotions, any worldly so-called wisdom that detracts from Christ and destroys that on which all salvation and true wisdom depend, namely, the cross of Christ. This is what the apostle himself says when he wrote in the first chapter of his letter, “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Cor 1:17).
St. Paul wraps it all up in the words, “For all things are yours.” It doesn’t matter whether it’s from Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or your favorite pastor, or the world or life or death, (which we have come to know their place from God’s Word), “all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor 3:21-23). In other words, this “YOU” wipes out all the “I’s” of all the old slogans of a man-centered faith. Christ died for YOU. Christ lives in YOU. YOU belong to Christ.