“THE DAY OF
PENTECOST 2013”
Saint John 14.
23-31
WHITSUNDAY—The Feast of Pentecost: 19 May Anno
Domini 2013
Fr. J.W. Watson
SSP
In The Name +
Jesus
If a man loves Jesus he will keep His words.
What are His words? He is the Word made flesh. Yes keep the Decalogue! Yes love
God above all things. Love God with your time, money, effort, and prayers more
than your hobbies, interests, addictions, and playthings. Love your neighbor
with self-sacrificial love and not just your spouse, children, and parents. But
if you love Jesus it means you have faith in Him and that you believe in Him.
If you have Jesus The Word inside of you, you will be connected to His words, wills,
and desires as well. You will also listen attentively to His preaching and
teaching like Saint Mary of Bethany did. If you love Jesus you will confess Him
with your body as well as your mind and heart. If you trust in Jesus, love Him,
you will receive His gifts the way that He chooses to give them to you. You
will attend His corporate Divine Services and you will believe He places into
your mouths His Body and Blood. The Father loves you this way, that His Son
Who has Him for Father is placed into your ears and body so that you too have
Him as Father. You pray the “Our Father” right
before the Holy Consecration of the elements.
So yes, you keep His sayings but this
doesn’t mean that you perfectly obey and do…for you don’t. Rather keeping
His sayings means that you continue to believe “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” It means that
you make the sign of the + Cross and receive the Eucharist in faith, by faith,
through faith, repent, are re-invigorated, and resolve to continue the fight.
As the Holy Ghost inspired and guaranteed
the Apostles and Evangelists to preach, teach, and record correctly the person
and work of Christ the God/Man, so too the same Spirit inspires you to believe,
teach, and confess their witness, and Christ’s miraculous works today through
Holy Baptism, Absolution, and Supper.
The Lord leaves you Peace by leaving you
Himself. The Peace that passes understanding is His balm of soothing absolution
in His evangel, yes, and His Peace is His bodily presence
in the Feast of Peace. Deny Jesus’ words and you call Him a liar. Deny Jesus’
Sacramental last will and testament and you call Him a liar. If you focus upon sectarian fantasies of Pentecostal
“gifts and powers” rather than on The
Word of God in Scripture and the Word of God in the appointed Sacraments, and
you call Him a liar. If you think God works outside the “means of Grace” you call God a liar. REPENT!
The Day of Pentecost has arrived and you are
all in one accord: One Faith, One Hope, One Lord, One Baptism, and One
Confession of the Word, HERE—in this place!
The sound of a mighty rushing wind fills
this house at this very moment. It is the sound of the Paraclete comforting you
through the wind of the voice from Christ’s under-shepherd. The tongues of fire
flicker on your head NOW even as they ever have since the day of your death +
and re-birth! You are filled with the new tongues and language of love and
forgiveness; of confession of sins and confession of truth! Your lips have been opened by Christ and you
sing His praises! Overland Parkers, and Olathians, and Shawnee-ites, and the
dwellers in Lawrence and Leavenworth, and in Lenexa and the Plaza, you do hear
now the wonderful works of God. Your
disobedience has been satisfied and completed by Jesus’ obedience; your sins
have been punished by Christ’s substitutionary punishment and death.
You hear the wonder that you are home, that
you have a family, that you have a tender Redeemer Who wipes away your tears
and feeds you and clothes you and Who will never, ever leave you comfortless.
The Paraclete anchors you in Christ’s Words and Wounds and you have blessed
assurance. You are filled with this Spirit
and now you will be filled again, not with new wine, but with the wine that is
the Eternal and Life-Giving Blood of Jesus.
In The Name of
The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
"You will attend His corporate Divine Services and you will believe He places into your mouths His Body and Blood. The Father loves you this way, that His Son Who has Him for Father is placed into your ears and body so that you too have Him as Father. You pray the “Our Father” right before the Holy Consecration of the elements."
ReplyDeleteAmen and amen. Most unhappily, not all Lutherans entreat their dear Father for their Bread of Life, "right before" the prayer is answered in an incomprehensibly glorious fashion.
The Mequonites of Wisconsin tout their 1993 hymnbook's "The Common Service" as "a version of the historic liturgy of the Christian church (sic)," and I can only say that, yes, yes; a "version" it is in fact, but one of rank molestation and desolation. Something concretely devised by the brains of men unworthy to unlatch the cowl of Fr. Luther, their version rips asunder prayer and Divine deliverance. Among the Evangelical Cheeseheads, the prayer is recited by the assembled quite before the Preface, divorcing our Lord's words from the Verba. Indeed, if you like, you can cheaply divorce the Lord's Prayer from the Distribution of the Body and Blood entirely (cf. p. 20 of "CHRISTIAN WORSHIP: A Lutheran (sic) Hymnal, for "Where there is no Communion (emphasis mine, the service continues on page 25 ).") By such inelegant means a rogue American synod shamelessly makes liars of the Evangelical Catholic fathers, when they proudly point to the Church of Augustana's unparalleled devotion to the blessed Mass.
Every child should know that each and every petition of the Lord's Prayer is answered in the Mass. For our Lord Christ indeed comes quickly, to serve His flock as He has promised, to sustain us until He returns in power to make all creatures (sheep and goats alike) bend the knee. This will include the pietistic low-church types, whose behavior once more belies and betrays the Presence of Whom we may speak so very glibly with our lips, but whose legs (perfused by the heart's doings, in theory) are so very far from Him.
Your (unworthy) curmudgeon,
Herr Doktor
My dear MOST WORTHY curmudgeon Herr D - - -
ReplyDeleteI have eschewed the wels hymnal since it first appeared solely on the basis of the hideous change in the N/C CREED. There is no such thing as "human"... that is an abstract term not fit for incarnational ontological TRUTH! I have never met a "human" or even seen a "human" walking down the street. I see only men and women made in His Image... And He, as we will again see on the morrow, THE FEAST OF THE HOLY TRINTIY, is Christ Jesus of Nazareth, the God/MAN, and not the god-"person."
But now, what you share about the Pater Noster and wels' hymnal, makes me mourn all the more for you and yours.
Also, thanks for the comment- "period" My blog has languished as of late for several reasons; nice to know someone is "still out there."
Pax
frJ
By all means (we the orthodox Lutheran do not despise "means") carry on, Fr. Watson. You bring the Living Water to us the parched, by Word and by sacramental Deed.
ReplyDeleteIf I may continue my earlier rant: the straying WELS eschews the rituals and rubrics of the Church Catholic (which term is not limited to that Roman collection which itself has unhappily strayed from the thought of Peter, Linus etc.), because ... according to their constipated pietists ... there is no basis for such in Scripture. Thus they bowdlerize blessed Martin Luther, and air-brush away the sign of the cross from their laity's prayers to the Triune God. Yet they profanely and dishonestly claim to teach and confess Luther's Small Catechism!
Piffle, I say! Not unless the witch of Endor has conjured up the old Doctor, in this our age, so as to plaster "White-Out" on his little manual of Truth.
The mighty seer Isaiah was unequivocal: "One shall say, 'I am the LORD's;' and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand, 'Unto the Lord,' and surname himself to the name of Israel." (Is 44:5, AV); emphasis mine).
Lutherans were verily inscribed with the Name of God, by the priestly use of the Word and by a crossly gesture; or by a crossly sign, as St. John would phrase it. Let's not sniff at signs. Even the baptismal fonts often speak of a New/Eighth Day, by its octagonal configuration. Eight means more "Go forth and LIVE," and not so much "STOP."
Hand work attesting to the handiwork of our Lord is not to be despised through the censorship of the fearful offspring of Mequon. It can witness mightily, in the sanctuary of God and the restaurants of Adam's children. The shame for Lutherans is that the witness, anecdotally, is confused as being that of a good Roman Catholic!
I comfort myself with the thought that two out of three isn't bad. That folks don't see such as being the behavior of a good Augustanan Catholic is, for the most part, our fault, our own fault, our most grievous fault.
Cheerio! Keep up the good fight, Fr. Watson.
Your (unworthy) servant,
Herr Doktor
Monday of Trinity Octave
We give what we have been given, my good Herr Doktor. The Lord is gracious and generous and if we believe His Word (by the gifts of the Paraclete) we simply distribute that which we have been showered with. The WELs, and yes, Misery too (i.e. lc-ms [sic]) are simply not willing to face the reality that they (many, way too many of their 'members') are functional "HIGH CALVINISTS." The reason we worship like respectful protestants (if even so lucky with that concession in this day and age of sacrilege and goof-ball-ness) and not like the Evangelical Catholics we've been called and Baptized to be, is that our people DON'T REALLY Believe in the Sacramental Bodily Presence of the Christ in the the consecrated elements. If "Lutherans" really believed in the "IS" of the Holy Verba, everything in our worship would change,would be properly normed, and would joyously receive the manifold gifts of Grace. I am most certainly not a Romanist, but I will die as a Catholic (Deo volente). And, I will fight in these bloody and uncomfortable trenches with you Herr D!
ReplyDeleteI tremble greatly that you are right; the all too casual approach to Almighty God, expressed in our "worship" behaviors betray us. Even Freud the infidel understood that the language of the body speaks volumes about the mind's true intents and motivation. The reality of the Presence, if it is clung to, will naturally evoke the fear and love of God to which Luther speaks ... not warmed-over, borrowed Calvinist pap which celebrates a God that existing far from us, as a Ba'al on vacation to some Mormon planet, or maybe to an Islamic hubba-hubba pleasure-dome.
ReplyDeleteGod the Servant/Shepherd comes to us. In the Garden, He sought after that couple hiding in the bushes, to commune with them (and us, too; we were positioned in Adam's loins). He came down from heaven, says the blessed Creed, via a manger ... a simple and humble means, because He loved that which was lost in the thickets and brambles of our sin. He came to trembling fools, locked behind the doors of their blindness. He encouraged His dumbfounded Apostles to touch Him; and he blessed the orthodox Lutheran (it won't be the racketeering High Calvinist); the orthodox Lutheran who truly and whole-heartedly clings to His Promise, viz., "Wherever two or three are gathered together in My Name, there I AM in the midst of them." An aside, here: to me, "together" clearly speaks to the Mass, to the Holy Communion ... you know, that eucharestic celebration which Master Melancthon tells the world that the Lutheran does more diligently than any other party.
Of course, Christ blessed our Lutheran fathers when He observed to St. Thomas the Twin: "Blessed are those who have not seen, but yet believed." We the baptized possess two sets of eyes: one set in our sockets, and one set in our chests. Our rods and cones may not comprehend the Presence of God in the flesh; but the undimmed eyes of the water-and-Word-circumcised heart, the believing heart, the sacred heart, most certainly do. God cannot lie. In a little while we do not see Him; and in a little while, we do. This is not only true of the Apostles, during a forty day span before a glorious Ascension to the Father. It is most certainly true, of we in this age ... if we truly believe I AM in a burning bush, in the womb of a Virgin, in an Altared meal. If we truly believed in I AM's "IS," quite frankly. Instead of trusting our bipolar-freaky emotions and those peculiar, innovative "contemporary" rituals better suited for the Ba'alists ... who knew them well. They cut themselves happily and very loudly, to call the remote Ba'al's attention to themselves and their gyrations. The orthodox Evangelical Catholic bows and genuflects to the God-Who-Is-Here, to call attention to He Who is present to commune and with and strengthen His cross-carrying people.
If "Lutherans" really believed in the "IS" of the Holy Verba, everything in our worship would change, would be properly normed, and would joyously receive the manifold gifts of Grace.
Amen and amen!
Your (unworthy) infectious ticks-collector,
Herr Doktor
As you no doubt (well maybe not) have observed the posting of, er, posts, on this blog has dramatically decreased. About all I've posted lately are homilies (I'll probably fill you in over at our Yahoo SSP page) and so, I'm doubly grateful for your attention and comments dear friend. Your most recent comment (above) is the kind/type of blog post I should be writing. Maybe I will become inspired (but not in a goofy pentecostal way). I almost feel (but not in a goofy lute-rin way) like running my cursor/mouse over your comment (the ol' copy and paste schtick) above and simply posting it on MEGALUNEI as a "guest blog post." Could you start sending me these M,W,and F, so I could have more material :)
ReplyDeleteWere that I knew as much psychology, counseling and MD type stuff as you know deep Theology Herr D! You are a true (I was going to say Renaissance man, but that would be an insult to true historians such as we claim to be) Medievalist my good Doctor! Write On!
Pax,
frJ