From “Our Father”

      As we prayed the Our Father in yesterday’s service, I was stricken by a very powerful observation concerning what the Lord Jesus has directed us to pray.

      In earlier occasions I have also observed that the Lord Jesus teaches us to pray differently than He prayed and prays. Whenever Jesus prays, He prays: “My Father.” But He teaches us to pray: “Our Father.” This is because Jesus is the only-begotten of the Father, even from eternity. Jesus is truly one with the Father. We are made to be brothers of Jesus, created in His image, for Jesus is the very image of God.

      In His prayer for His disciples Jesus prayed that they would be made one even as He and the Father are one. He did not in any way imply that we would be one with Father, except that we are made to be one in Jesus. In Jesus we are made to be one, even as in the Godhead the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one. In Jesus, in His body, we are married to God, as St. Paul declares this mystery in Ephesians 5. We are not married to God as individuals, but together as the bride of Christ. Thus we pray, “Our Father.”

      In this connection, as we pray the Our Father, I observed yesterday another affirmation that this prayer is really very simply an extended “Amen!” to all that God teaches us in the Holy Scriptures. I observed that the Fourth Petition begins a reiteration and explanation of what we prayed in the first three petitions. In the first three petitions we affirm that as our Heavenly Father, God proclaims His holy will to be that His kingdom comes to us even now as we live our earthly lives and that His good and gracious will be worked to us and in us so that we live in accord with His good and gracious will within His Holy Church and in our daily lives. Having prayed this as what God’s will is for His beloved children, we then affirm this as our Daily Bread, our daily need fully supplied by our loving Father. Then we affirm that God’s kingdom coming to us through our baptism and being renewed among us in the Holy Supper, we receive God’s promise to forgive us freely of all of our sins so that we eagerly will also freely forgive all others for whom Jesus has won this forgiveness. We then further acknowledge that this is the very means by which God delivers us from the evil one and all of the evil in the world so that we live in the safety of His household all our days. We then conclude, praying an extended doxological Amen.

      Truly the Lord is our Shepherd and as His beloved sheep we shall have no want.

+ + +

Crap! Crap! Crap!

I am really tired of all of the crap!

Yet I find myself neck deep in it every day. Everywhere I turn, more of it. It piles up all around me. It stinks! It makes moving forward in a positive manner seemingly impossible.

Thank God for Sunday and the divine service! Thank God for the Our Father (Lord’s Prayer)! Thank God for the Creed! Thank God for the Catechism! Thank God for the gift of my loving and faithful wife! Thank God for the life that we share in Him!

Suddenly the crap is gone!

+ + +

Praying with Hearts that Hear

The Collect of the Day for this past Sunday teaches us to pray with amazing boldness what can only be prayed from the most absolute humility.

Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Thine only-begotten Son, so that by His coming we may be enabled to serve Thee with pure minds; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth, and reigneth, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.

Does anyone really pray this way anymore? How many churches even use this prayer in their worship anymore? Of those that do, do they actually believe that God gives what is besought in this prayer?

Does anyone today really believe that God enables those who are His children and who gather in the name of Jesus to serve or worship Him with pure minds?

Do people even understand anymore what it means that we should worship with pure minds?

More and more what is said or professed by people as their belief is that the perfect Church cannot be found or exist on earth. More and more what people confess rather than the holy catholic Church is that the Church cannot be holy because it is made up of imperfect people, sinners. More and more the belief that the Church is the gathering of those whom God has purified into the name of Jesus through Baptism to believe and confess with the same mind and mouth the one true faith by which He keeps us united with Jesus Christ through the means of grace is set aside and discarded, except perhaps in their so-called “quia” subscription to their official book of doctrine. But do they still believe that God grants that we may be enabled (by Him alone) to serve Him with pure minds?

It is amazing how many do quote the Psalms regarding “singing a new song.”

This would be truly wonderful if these folk had any clue as to what this means. They imagine the “new song” to be one that they produce and sing. But the new song that the Psalms teach is the new song that God has given, the new song of the new man. This song is new to the Old Adam, but is actually the original song given to Adam in Creation. This new song is the renewed song that is written for us in Holy Scriptures. This is why the New Testament admonition is as in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16:

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

This is the new song that the Old Adam and our sinful flesh resist and reject. According to our own reasoning we imagine that the original song is worn out and weak. We do not realize that the real strength for happiness and true exuberance comes from the original song of Creation that is established forevermore as the New Song of Regeneration. This song is called the new song because it takes lifeless and corrupt fleshly people and makes them new again in Christ.

This can only happen when we are made to serve or worship God in the unity of the pure mind that God renews to each of us in Baptism and preserves in us through His Holy Communion.

It is interesting that in the prayer that the Lord Jesus gives us to pray that there is absolutely nothing new from what has already been fore-written in the Scriptures. Everything that He teaches us to pray is what the Lord God has already declared to be His holy and gracious will for us. He teaches us the meaning of being made to be a new creature again, new as God ordained from the beginning and even from eternity.

God does indeed cause us to serve Him with pure minds, when the minds with which we serve Him are the minds that He renews in us through His pure and unchanged means of grace. When our services are purely the gathering to receive from Him the service that He has ordained, we do receive the pure minds for which we pray, the pure minds that He gives in place of the corrupt minds that we bring to Him. In true humility we pray and even expect to receive what only He can give. What we pray with the humility of expectant faith, He grants with His own mighty AMEN!

Communication ≠ Contest

A lesson that seems to be very hard learned is that communication is not equal to contest.

This fact is especially hard for a person to acknowledge once the person has entered into an argument. An argument is a contest. Those in the argument are contesting one another, seeking to gain a superior position to the other, seeking to make one’s own point to prevail over the other’s.

This is actually the opposite of communication.

Communication is a giving and a receiving.

Argument is contestation. It is one sided from two opposing sides. It results in escalation. Argument continues until one side or the other or both begin to listen, to receive, and not just to attempt to give forcibly. Argument is violent.

Communication is peaceable. It begins with agreement on at least some point. It has agreement as its objective. It always includes listening with actual hearing.

An adage applied to communication is that a person is created with two ears and only one mouth for a reason.

Those who are wise remember this adage when attempting to communicate.

This is especially true in communication with God. We apply the term “worship” to this. Worship includes such things as prayer. Worship is communication where the two to one principle is absolutely necessary as we approach it. If we forget the two to one principle in this communication, it ceases to be true worship.

Jesus said:

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:23-24)

Spirit and Truth, both are from the Father. Neither are from the worshiper. Worship is not something that is produced by the worshiper. This includes true prayer. True prayer is listening and hearing God.

The liturgy of the divine service is designed with this as its structure. This is why so many today desire to discard the historic liturgy. The liturgy teaches us to hear God. But people are inclined to want to tell God, not to hear God. And so the liturgy does not appeal to most people.

Jesus teaches that true worship is in spirit and in truth. Where are the Spirit and the Truth encountered? In the preaching and in the Sacraments. The Truth is the Word. Jesus is the Truth. He is present and continually speaks to us throughout the divine service where the Word is preached purely and the Sacraments are administered accordingly. The Spirit also is present and at work wherever the Word is present.

So what appearance then does true worship have? God speaks and the worshipers hear what God says. Then the worshipers respond with what they have heard, hearing yet again God’s grace, mercy, and peace proclaimed. Thus the two to one principle is in full effect. The worshipers hear God speak and they hear God again as they speak and sing what God has given to them to speak and sing. This is what the Lord Jesus teaches in the Our Father. This is what the prophets and the apostles admonish.

When this is the pattern that rules the hearts of those who confess faith in Christ, then this becomes the pattern in their daily lives. Their communication reflects this. Thus, when Christians are walking in spirit, they do not argue. When arguments arise, the person walking in spirit realizes that this is not communication and not the way of the peace of God and the person becomes silent until the other person is willing to speak peaceably. If that does not occur, the Christian walks away from the one who rejects his peace, which is really the peace of God.

Arguing is not equal to communication. Arguing actually has the opposite result of true communication. Remembering this when an argument is in the formative stages is invaluable. Those who do remember this are called blessed. (Matthew 5)

Our Daily Bread

Smack in the middle of the Our Father the Lord Jesus placed the Fourth Petition: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

What did the Lord Jesus mean by this? We usually hear from this the wonderful explanation that Dr. Luther supplies in the Small Catechism.

However, considering the context of the entire prayer, could it be that the Lord was teaching much more to us as His disciples?

Consider His declaration to the Jews in John 6:26-35.

Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?

Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? What dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.

Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

With this declaration from the lips of the Lord, does the Fourth Petition sound richer and fuller? Is there a reason that this sits in the middle of the prayer that He gave, saying, “When you pray, pray this”? Could it be that the Lord means for us to receive this petition as more than the center of the prayer but also the very foundation of our life of faith?

Since Jesus declares that faith in Jesus is the work of God, does it not seem fitting that He would teach us to pray that our Father in heaven would daily give us this bread of faith for our life in Him?

Wouldn’t you agree that this is “food” for thought?

Give Us Our Daily Bread

In our prayer that the Lord Jesus supplied us, He teaches what we are unwilling to hear.

Right in the middle of this prayer He teaches us to pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

What does this mean? Why is this placed in the center? We tend to want to put it first, asking for this and that need and want of body and soul. Yet the Lord Jesus places it squarely in the center of the prayer that He commands us, “Pray like this.” In our attempts at piety we may even be tempted to place this at the end of our prayers. But not our Lord. He places it in the center, where we cannot miss it.

Why?

Because this petition is not what we think it is.

If we examine this prayer carefully, very carefully, and if we examine it from the perspective with which our Lord commands us to pray, we learn that each petition is really a repetition of the previous one, with them all centering upon the central petition of “Give us this day our daily bread.”

If you doubt this, consider what Jesus told Satan.

Matthew 4:3-4

And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Then again in Matthew 6:31-33 the Lord declares:

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Is this not what the Our Father teaches us to pray? If so, then, where do we find our daily bread?

Acts 2:44-47

And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

Is this not what our Lord teaches us to pray in the prayer that He gave to us?

If we prayed with this as our understanding, would we not continually say with David in Psalm 23:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. . . . Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.