Us Lions

   I remember a conversation between me and one of my pastor friends (yes, they do exist) in the bookstore on the CTS seminary a decade or so ago.  I had been looking at some book, and I said something (I can't remember what exactly) about how our parishioners had such a reticence and repulsion to, not only the Saints, but the very idea that their own pastors stood in the exact footsteps, and held the identical OFFICE, of Saint Peter, Saint James, Saint Matthew et al.  My friend agreed and then opined and said: "and yet they hear us week after week saying: '...by virtue of my office...in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ...'"  Indeed, we Icon Christ but have a difficult time convincing others that we are in the Apostolic band (where are our Bishops when we need them  :)  ).

   I love C.S. Lewis and re-read much of his canon periodically.  In my heart I am an honorary member of the Penvensie family.  One of my favorite scenes in his sublime THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, comes near the end right before the final battle between Aslan and the forces of the White Witch. And I quote:

   "Of course," said Aslan, "And now! Those who can't keep up--that is, children, dwarfs, and small animals--must ride on the backs of those who can--that is, lions, centaurs,unicorns, horses, giants and eagles.  Those who are good with their noses must come in the front with us lions to smell out where the battle is.  Look lively and sort yourselves.
    And with a great deal of bustle and cheering they did.  The most pleased of the lot was the other lion, who kept running about everywhere pretending to be very busy but really in order to say to everyone he met, "Did you hear what he said? US lions.  That meant him and me. US lions.  That's what I like about Aslan. No side, no stand-off-ishness. Us lions. That meant him and me."

   To be sure there has been nothing in my life that has given me the peace and satisfaction that I derive from attempting to be my Lord's under shepherd on Sunday Mornings (on all mornings) during the conduct of the Mass (the Divine Service).  But, I readily admit that I am also like that "other lion" whenever I have the opportunity and joy to congregate with my brother pastors.  As I have recently returned from the SSP's annual Kansas Chapter Retreat (Immanuel Lutheran Church, Wichita, KS)  I am filled with both humility (well, a little humility) and sanctified pride, that I am in the same "Office" with my hero brethren.  Yes, I stand in the footsteps of Petros, Paulus, Timotheus, and Thomas...but they can't drink a beer with me or share a cigar, or ... look me in the eye quite the same way as my 'brothers-in-arms.'  I start to get excited and jump around just like that "other" lion in Narnia that I get to be with men that I admire  and aspire to imitate.   No, I will never preach as well as Frs. Brockman, Lovett, and Peck; teach as well as Frs. Boyle and Stark; or influence the hearts and minds of my peers as well as Fr. McDermott, but darn it.... I baptize as well as they do; I pronounce the absolution with the same authority and reality, and I give out the identical True Body and True Blood of Our God/Man Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.   
   It doesn't get much better than that.   Let them be the Aslans...I GET TO BE the other lion...and together we are:
   "US LIONS"
  

Here is the homily preached at Vespers, Tuesday March 26, for the Fourth Annual Retreat of the Kansas Chapter of the SSP.  - - JW

“BLOOD OF THE LAMB”

Exodus 12. 1-14; Saint Matthew 26. 17-30

26 March Anno + Domini 2019

Tuesday Vespers: Chapter Retreat

Fr Jay Watson, SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

   Or, in The Name of The Blood of Jesus.

As The King is His Kingdom and The Kingdom is The King, so too The Blood is Christ and Christ is The Blood.

   Pastors at District conferences, Conventions, winkels, and SSP retreats may initially feel the human urge to preach in a more dynamic, meaningful, and insightful way than normal. Eagerness is good (I suppose) but creativity is vain. When receiving The Words of Holy Scripture and the gifts of Messias, the 12^th Sunday after Trinity or the Tuesday of Oculi are as blessed and graced as The Nativity or Whitsunday.

   God gave light, life, joy, peace, and paradise. Re-read Genesis 1 and John 1.

   God gave blood (and the entire circulatory system).  Man took blood.  The blood from the two dead animals God skinned to cover your reprobate relatives. The blood hemorrhaging of out the dead shepherd Abel…coating the murder weapon and hands of the killer…blood soaking into the earth—the earth which Adam had been made from in His creator’s image.  Now that image would be stained by the war paint, the rebellious stamp of murderous blood. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  No.  You’re resentful backsliding thugs with murder in your heart, far to often.  Jesus is the protecting and always caring brother.

   Your Kittel, Nestle-Aland, and Septuagint exegesis notwithstanding; your Patristic gems and Reformation-era preaching passion notwithstanding, every text, miracle, parable, or doctrinal teaching of God in the Evangels, is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  Blood. Blood everywhere. There is a fountain filled + with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins.

   There is no forgiveness without blood sacrifice. For the blood is the life.  Your people, and you, need believe that even the good and salutary Lenten disciplines, the daily prayers, meditations, and good works are only Holy Ghosted in you by The Blood. The Blood of The Lamb.

   The Paschal Lamb of the Exodus left a lot of dead sheep and produced a lot of bloody houses. It saved God’s children. The destroyer passed over them—forgave them their trespasses.  Real lamb, not trope. Real blood not memorial.

   You’ve preached many times on The Lord’s Institution of The Sacrament. You’ve echoed Christ’s verba thousands of times into your own flock’s ears and then poured His, actual, true, real, and bodily BLOOD into their mouths and down their throats.  The same blood that was in the babe born in Bethlehem. The same blood shed at His 8^th day. The blood from His holy wounds staining the tree.  There the real hyssop of God’s finger tracing and staining the “house of rebellion” with the bloody branding of sacred justice +

   That Blood—The Blood of God—The Blood and sweat, and spittle, and breath, and ALL that is The God/Man, was struck not just on the side posts and upper door posts of Calvary’s Ensign, but also on your own infant self in the bloody, yet crystal clear, waters + of regeneration—marking your “house” your “temple of The Spirit!”

   Ichthuoi, loosed from the nets of sin, swimming freely in the waters of Baptism flowing from His speared punctured chest. Yes.  Oxygenated Christ-corpuscles washed clean by the Blood gushing from His pierced side and now, IN HIM, swimming in His Sacred Heart. Yes.

   Judgement has been executed. The Lamb has been slain.  The Blood is your forgiveness and life. The Blood is your food.  The Bleeder is your God and Lord. 

In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost

March 2019 Kansas Chapter Retreat

Two photos from the 4th Annual Society of Saint Polycarp, Kansas Chapter, Retreat.
Every year on the evening of OCULI, all Polycarpians (and others interested) are invited
to Immanuel Lutheran Church, Wichita, KS for a three-day/three night retreat of Praying
the Offices, Study, Silence, Fellowship, and Gemutlichkeit.

Life on the Edge

One of the more interesting things about Jn 8:1-11, is the fact that the vox populi ... conveniently armed as it was with stones ... didn't turn its blood-thirsty targetings away from the adulteress and begin to assail the ever-annoying Christ. It's not like the public was absent such hair-trigger tendencies (cf. Jn 8:59; Jn 10:31).   But I suspect this prospect would have terrified the fingered (and conspicuously solitary) woman even more.  One false “companion” had left her to hang by herself, earlier.  To have a male Champion face the prospect of being cut down before her eyes, would have proved utterly devastating to the sorely wounded psyche.   Our Lord surely would never have countenanced such additional trauma, and it simply did not happen.  The woman’s adversaries abandoned the field, their raging passions not satiated yet fully silenced, themselves being shamed by God’s light cast on the soul (and maybe even some odd sand-doodlings, revealing much).

The scenes of Jesus deftly side-stepping the dangers to His physical life, again and again, furnish the Gospel account of the “beloved disciple” with a "hold-on-to-your-seat" grittiness and narrative nuance that is almost unparalleled in its companion books (outside the Passion story, of course).  Often we hear of back-room mutterings and political plottings to kill God’s Anointed; intentions, yes, but not specifics. There are a few exceptions.  In Lk 4, the Lord’s fellow Nazarenes at synagogue seize Him, and bring him to a precipice.  He chooses to shrug off and walk through the murderous crowd, untouched and with foot undashed against a stone.   Matthew’s stark revelation of the Herodian holocaust visited upon Bethlehem, and the Holy Family’s heart-breaking (and heart-racing) flight into Egypt, may to many minds approach the intensity of the acute crises detailed in John.  What I especially take away from St. John, however, is the knowledge of the Man, who truly could lay down His life whenever and however He deemed as being fit, and to divine plan.

See, stones could break a man, but were not especially cursed.  In fact, stones with Writings were sheltered safely inside the Holy Ark of the Covenant.  Their writings did not break Christ; on the contrary, He kept them safe and sacred.   Stones were not the plan, nor a headlong fall over a cliff.  No, a tree with a curse would be man's primordial demise; and a cursed tree for hanging was destined to be man's salvation. 

Illustration:  Jesus and the Sinner Woman  Vasily Polenov.  Oil on canvas, 1886-1887.  Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

“Departing Before the Mysteries … “ Ap XII.12

This is a great turn of phrase, used to high effect in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (AC). There are at least three ways to do it (i.e., depart), since the orthodox Lutheran party openly and fully acknowledges 2-4 Sacraments. One occurs with the dismissal’s blessing at the Altar, during the Holy Supper, which extends the very Peace of God to the penitent. Another “departing,” of a more sordid character, takes place with ANY abuse of the Mysteries, or Sacraments, of God.

Some context here, before continuing further. The ApXII.12 citation is directed at the Roman Confutation of ACXII, the article dealing with repentance. Melancthon argues that the Confutation’s rebuttal treats absolution “very coldly,” and bitterly complains that in the Roman church’s demands of external “satisfactions” for sin, “there is no mention of faith that grasps absolution and consoles the conscience.” This, declares the fuming professor, is “truly” a “departing from the mysteries.” According to Kolb and Wengert’s footnote, this expression is intended as an ironic jab (one phrased in Greek, naturally, by the brilliant Melancthon); one which references the ancient Church’s dismissal of catechumens from the Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist. Note, in passing, that the ancient Church always had a Eucharist in its Serviced-and-worshiping fellowship gatherings. Not all were allowed to fully participate in such fellowship. Things at the Altar were, well, they were closed … harsh as that sounds to modern ears, which paradoxically are thoroughly waxed to the examples of the true saints of the Church, anyways. So we pray to the Great Physician, that His otolarnygoscopic Spirit can fully pry these stubborn organs open, to embrace His will. Amen.

Yet another “departing” is the perverse AVOIDANCE of the Mysteries, those wonders with which the Lutheran has been abundantly blessed. Some self-described Lutherans have advocated the dropping of the Holy Supper from celebratory Services conducted on Christmas Eve and Easter, as a means of enhancing “outreach” on those presumably “high-volume," pew-filled days. Apparently, the blessed Sacrament is seen by these rascals as making hard work for the man guarding the paten's gate; or as a shaming device for the 21st century, caring-and-sensitive non-churched person. The truth is, the Church of the Scriptures was graced by the Body and Blood of her Lord EVERY Lord’s day, come what may, and GREW famously. I am guessing that a reverent and believing behavior towards the Mystery of God’s Presence would send a strong evangelical message to the non-churched that something wonderful is being witnessed at the Altar, quite beyond the mega-church’s understanding. But this is evidently beyond the comprehension of the so-called Lutheran, too; they are pitiable creatures demonstrably more into internal emotions and Church Growth scams, than Lord Christ’s insistent “DO this” anamnesis. But shame, of the seeker, is a great concern and worry to them. Perhaps the best available prescription to treat such malady, is to advise the so-called Lutherans to stop projecting their shame regarding the Sacrament, onto others.

 

Bait-and-Switch "Lutherans" VS. the Unmerited Switch of God

The "sin-and-who's-the-sinner" aspect of Luther’s Great Exchange is rarely emphasized by gutted (and gutless) evangelical "outreach" campaigns.  Christ saw human sin as a given, an disputable fact of the species, and didn't shy from risking an offense to the seeker-ego.   Indeed, among the very first words of the evangelical and preaching thrust of the Lord Jesus, to a lost and bumbling people, was "Repent ye" (Mt 4:17). It wasn't "The Kingdom of God is at hand! So use this, to touch and fellowship your inner-child.  Feel good!"

But ... following the actual example of our Prophet, Priest and King ... there is encouragement to talk of sin, and to do it boldly:  "Forsake the Lord Jesus, and you die in your sins. Accept Him, through the unmerited  grace and power of the Holy Ghost alone [1,2] ...  and our Lord becomes a despicable sinner for life -- your life."

There are some synodical “counselors,” who steadfastly refuse to explicitly talk of sin somewhere on their parish websites; which devices are putatively an introduction to the parish's heart-felt beliefs, and really, what they're all about. Evidently the "counselors" are of the business-driven opinion that "sin" scares people. It should.

Credits and Citations

1.  Carol Rutz (21 Jan 2015; Wednesday, via a Facebook comment), recognizing a potential ambiguity in the text, and encouraging a Lutheran clarification to the heretofore unadorned "Accept Him."  Credit where credit is due, then:  to Ms. Rutz, certainly and thankfully, but firstly also to the Holy Ghost.
2.  The Lord Will Answer:  A Daily Prayer Catechism, Concordia Publishing House (St. Louis MO), 2004; p. 97 (reading for Wednesday 2015, of Epiphany II; at the Office of Vespers):  "WE BELIEVE that, since Christ was our substitute before God, our Savior's perfect keeping of the Law is part of His saving work for us. and because of Him we are considered righteous before God.  In the Ten Commandments God shows us what His will is.  Christians, by the power of the Holy Spirit, are eager to do God's will."  Emphases mine.

On Praying for the Dead, Triumphant

I've suddenly come to realize, upon the occasion of the death of a Christian loved one, the paucity of formal resources for the poor layman, wishing to pray on behalf of the saint; the saint who now (by grace) is wondrously afforded a direct access to God and His Church Triumphant.  Secure in Jesus he or she may be. But that individual is still our brother and sister, still our neighbor.  He or she still exists by the mercy of God and is dependent on Him alone, if being altogether safe from the evil and temptations of this world.

The intercessions provided by the Lutheran hymnals (I've checked the pages of two so far, and have detected what could be a trend for all) and my prized Lutheran Prayer Book (LPB; Concordia Publishing House, 2003/2005; a maroon cover, yes, but still amazingly serviceable)  are frankly inadequate and tongue-tied in this matter of the dead who yet live.  The prayers  we are provided, as examples and for ready use, are lovely and spiritually nourishing for the ill, the convalescing and the dying to be sure.   LPB's "Devotion at the Approach of Death" (p.  239-243) is outstanding in confronting the realities which accompany dying, and furnishing a Christ-based comfort in the face of such.

But as to teaching the newly-grieving how to pray, Christfully,  when a loved-one is summoned to meet God's Face at last... here we are left adrift. 

Yet the Evangelical-Catholic confessors are unequivocal on the matter. The ramblings of Aelius are rejected, and the praying FOR those fallen asleep in Lord Christ's bosom is endorsed. See Ap AC XXIV.94-96.   Epiphanius (in his book detailing doctrinal malpractice, the Panarion Haereses) informs us that Aelius maintained that prayers for the dead were useless.  The papist adversaries slandered the Evangelical-Catholic party, accusing it of agreeing with the heretic.  In the Apology, Melancthon dismisses the calumny, saying flatly "we do not support Aelius [regarding such prayers]."  So then, the public acts or omissions, of "friendly" printing presses may call into question Melancthon's orthodox assertions, as to real-time Lutheran beliefs and resulting behavior ... yet again.

But I think we do have a sterling example to follow, in the Divine's own petition "Give us this day, our daily bread." You see, the dead's day may have been stretched into an eternity, yes; but they are like us in being still very much dependent on the full grace and Fatherly goodness of our King, even as they too wait for the Great and Glorious Culmination of all things.  And even with that Culmination and the emergence of a new heaven and a new earth, God alone will be our Font of all Goodness.  Right now we can cheerfully remind and thank Him for His promises of being all-sufficient forever, for ourselves and the departed. Those residing peacefully in God's bosom, I say again, are still very much our neighbor. Let us then remember and pray for those who have fought the good fight, and won, and are waiting at rest ...as any true Lutheran confessor would.

A Prayer to Jesus, for the Dead in Christ (Modified after St. Ambrose)

You were medicine to Your servant, when she was sick;

You were her strength, when she needed help;

You were life itself, when she feared death;

You were the Way, when she longed for heaven;

You are her Light,
You in Your wisdom having banished all her earthly gloom forever.

Thank you, dear Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Epiphanytide: The Time for Gentiles, for Gophers and for All

To feed is to grow; thus, the wise man approaches the once mangered and once crucified Christ, feeding on Him with all due reverence and adoration, for our salvation and eternal life.

Professor Northrup appreciated this.  He confessed:

"I recognize in Jesus not a mere man, however remarkable, but a messenger from God who had power to lay down his life and power to take it again, a Person fitted in all respects by character and power to be the light of the world and to reveal God to us as He really is. This, that and the other may disappear or change or perish, but Jesus Christ remains the same yesterday, today, and forever, the Son of man and the Son of God, the Divine Savior of the world."

Source:  http://www.ulcmn.org/About/History-Pless%20Note.html

Cyrus Northrup (1834-1922) was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut; eventually graduating from Yale University, and its law school as well.  For several years he clerked for both houses of the Connecticut state legislature. He then served as a professor of Rhetoric and English at Yale (1863-1884), before assuming the presidency of the University of Minnesota (1884-1911).

This Season, Blindmen Still Seek to "Remove" Him, E'en from Our Flesh: An Illustrated Tale

"Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in Peace,
according to Thy Word.
For my eyes have seen Thy Salvation,
which Thou has prepared before the face of all people ..."   Lk 2:29-31


"And Herod, when he saw that he was mocked by the wise men, was exceeding wroth and sent forth [to slay the Child] ... in Beth-lehem [which is to say, the House of Bread ] ..."   Mt 2:16

"[Let] the mind consider of what nature the act of this Supper is, Who is Present there, [and] what kind of Food is offered and taken there, so that one can prepare himself with due humility and piety for its reception ..."  Ministry, Word and Sacraments:  An Enchiridion, Martin Chemnitz, 1593/1603 (translation, Luther Poellot; Concordia Publishing House, 1981;  p. 131

"At the outset, it is again necessary, by way of preface, to point out that we do not abolish the Mass, but religiously retain and defend it.  Among us the Mass is celebrated every Lord's day and on other festivals, when the Sacrament is made available to those who wish to partake of it, after they have been examined and absolved."  Apology [i.e., Defense] of the Augsburg Confession XXIV.1 (Kolb-Wengert translation, 2000)

O Lutheran, Lutheran:  are you seeking to retain, treasure and defend "Who is Present there," or instead, ever-seeking to remove the promised "there?"

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" ... Mt. 23:37

Epiphanymass

At the Anderson cottage, the Christmass trees and outdoor foliage lights are extending their stay.  Certainly, they look very enchanting against that newly fallen 3+ inches of powder, discovered anew this AM.  It assists with the shoveling, when its too early for the coffee-additive Bailey's.  But keeping the photons gallantly streaming fits very well, too, with the Lutheran hymnody devoted to this season e.g., the German J. Franck's "O Light of Gentile Nations," and the German P. Nicolai's "How Lovely Shines the Morning Star."  After all, due to the God-enBabe'd ... adored by bowing Gentile kings ... all darkness, gloom and sadness are enfeebled and thoroughly banished, by His all-encompassing Light.

Once God was mangered; now He is altared.  That is emphasized in yet another great Epiphanytide hymn, composed by the Englishman J. Montgomery: "Angels from the Realms of Glory," its verse 4 (TLH 136) in particular.

Saints before the altar bending,
Watching long in hope and fear,
Suddenly the Lord, descending,
In His Temple shall appear.
Come and worship, come and worship;
Worship Christ the Newborn King.

See?  Saints behaving out their faith, their love and their fear towards the Newborn King.  See?  The august Lord Christ, stooping low again to visit His people, in His Temple, even if the numbers be as low as two or three gathered together in His Name.   Now, it is likely that Mr. Montgomery's immediate intent was to poetically reference the Lord's Presentation, and the Old Testament faithful waiting and yearning for such.  But there is more to the words than first  meets the eye, and the Lutheran should see the more and exult in it.  It is wrong, spiritually blind and intemperate to separate His Mass, His Supper, from the Lord's Day or any high festival day  ... whether that day be December 25 or January 6.  We'll be feeding for an eternity with and on the Once Feed-Troughed; all self-described Lutherans had best get used to it, then, in the here-and-now.

On the Evangelical-Catholic Ecclesiastical Polity

We are to honor the emperor; this is an Apostolic teaching. We are to honor our Lord and King, with our lips and with our heart-perfused human bodies.  Democracy is okay, temporally, although many a smart man has had his doubts about such ... including Plato, and surely Robespierre minutes before his head was lifted from his shoulders, by Dr. Guillotine's efficiency.   America's own evolving notions of equality, life and liberty have had their own acid-wearing effects on churchly behavior.   Many of us lack any respectable notions as to how to behave with fear and love, in the Presence of a saving King (eternity will correct this), or how to deal with the under-shepherd of the King's flock.  All too often, the bites of sheep hankering to be lions or bears come in the form of what is excused as "ballots."

In the Smalkald Articles (IV.7; 1537), Dr. Luther fantasizes on the possibility of the pope coming to his senses, and rejecting any notion of being the supreme head of the Church "by divine right; that is, by divine command."   Perhaps,  Luther granted, such a head could better pummel the inevitable  wacky sects and wolfish heretics;   but  such a head would first needs be "elected by the people, and it would remain incumbent upon their power and choice to change or depose this head (Kolb-Wengert translation, p. 308; Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2000)."  Have a massive, empowering Supreme Voters Assembly, a royal priesthood, a holy nation wildly beyond any previous Oecumenical Council's extent.

And here, then, is the sorry rub:  Yet "Christianity would not be helped in any way, and there would be even more sects than before, because they would not have to submit to such a head on the basis of God's command but rather as a matter of human good will."   But good will is in remarkably short supply, as short as peace treaties, on earth; Guillotine's ingenuity, unfortunately, is not.

The true Lutheran solution to this fleshly dilemma is this, from the Confessions themselves:  1) "the Church cannot be better ruled and preserved than if we all live under one head, Christ (SA IV.9)" and  2)  "all the bishops -- equal according to the Office (although they may be unequal in their gifts) -- keep diligent together in unity of teaching, faith, sacraments, prayers, and works of love etc.." (SA IV.9; italic emphasis mine)

Dr. Luther goes on to quote St. Jerome, to effect that the priests at Alexandria "ruled the churches together in common, as the Apostles also did and afterwards all bishops throughout Christendom, until the pope elevated himself over them all."  There is no immediate mention, here, of the elevating Donation of Constantine being an out-right fraud, and most slanderously attached to a pious bishop of Rome whom all Evangelical-Catholics laudably commemorate on the Sixth Day of the Christmastide.  But then, we all know this from Sunday School.  Or at least, from Melanchthon's Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope (and footnote 32 of the same, penned by Kolb and Wengert, pp. 335-6).

The point is, in my opinion, that one should not place undue confidence in periodic Lutheran elections, or the products of such, since few angels of good will are punching the tabulating electronic buttons; that humble country parsons are quite the equals of district presidents, in Office and in divine rank (although perhaps unequal in personal gifts, and certainly of perks); and that we of the Church of Augustana ought to be on the same page when it comes to such things as "teaching, faith, sacraments, prayers, and works of love etc.." 

What we teach and how we worship mattered to Dr.  Luther.  It matters to the Confessions, to which our preachers and celebrants have individually pledged their allegiances, in a vow to God.   Evidently, the simple priests/pastors of Alexandria long ago,  ruled in common; and it seems reasonable that they shepherded also in a common way.  How they "sacramented," and how they prayed, etc., etc., surely reflected the very Presence of the Lord among a gathered two or three or more, and not a Calvinistic concept of Christ "out there."  I think there is a need to parley among the priests and bishops, openly and honestly, and decide if we can live up to the name Lutheran in faith, polity, practice, and ceremonies.  I think the SA's own "etc.," above, covers those things quite nicely and very comprehensively.    Anything less, when it comes to our behavior, is dancing a tango delusionally and living a lie. 

 

Meet the LIMO

I honor the state's emperor (once they were called "presidents"), sure, but my true allegiance can only be to my Lord Christ, who saved me by His merits and bitter suffering and death ... and who continues to preserve me for all eternity.  Still, something of use can be learned from politicians and their rabid political party followers.

There is, for example, the salvifically drenched in red (blood), baptized and Evangelical Catholic, or true Lutheran (to adjectively say "confessional," as in reference to the Book of Concord, would be redundant); and then there is the LIMO ... the Lutheran in Mind Only.  Generally they are given to compromise, like the enfeebled, blue-nosed crypto-Calvinists who certainly resorted to mind, of a sorts.  Even the serpent had a mind, one nuanced and advanced above that of all the beasts of the field.  Including even that of a Seminary professor or two.

A dominating subspecies of the LIMO is the "stretch" LIMO, who 1) stretches the meaning of justification, so that the crucifying work of God needs to be augmented by the works of men ... without saying how much we are to sweat out our dynes of energy, which makes me anxious and cranky; or who 2) stretches out the Christly iconic nature of the Holy Office of the Apostolic Ministry, to include Eve's daughters, school-teachers and the un-ordained business-suited; or who 3) freely abandon or mutilate the Mass's sacramental eating and drinking, so that supposedly we poor sinners have to stretch out to attain an audience with a spatially-localized Christ, by soaring to heaven through means of our praise-band propelled emotions.

Your (unworthy) servant (and diagnostician),
Herr Doktor

Pine for Your Two Front Teeth ... But All I Want for Christmass is HIS Body and Blood.

The instructional folder of Zion Evangelical-Lutheran (Detroit), entitled "The Church Year: Advent," has recently fallen into your (unworthy) servant's hands, and the double-sided, triptych production is to be both cherished and commended.  The catechetical device discusses the history of the Adventide reverencing, the three-fold coming of Christ which the true Lutheran celebrates at this occasion, and its liturgical nuances and hymnology.  Conspicuously, it employs the term Christmass throughout, to make reference to that great Festival of the Nativity of our Lord which is observed on December 25.   I like this.  I hope this trend catches on and spreads, epidemically in fact.  The term allows us poor Christians ... we retain fallen flesh ...  to separate more easily from the cheap and seductive "eat, drink and go bankrupt" superficialities of the world at large, which will seek any reason to party and seek rest from its anxieties through numbing excess.

More deeply than this, though, the term "Christmass" focuses our attention, firstly, on Lord Christ; and secondly, on His loving, last-word-and-testamental provision of the Means by which His Presence is made known to us not only in the past, or in the Age to come, but among us today.  You see, the Lord visits His people today, in both Word AND Sacrament of the Liturgy of His Church.  In the Eucharist, we of His Body receive and maintain an intimate attachment with Him, in sanctified forms we humans can eat and drink.

But this has not always been faithfully professed by Lutherans of the past.  Only some 30 years ago, for example, a Children's Program published by the "conservative" Northwestern Publishing House had the Lord's little lambs give discourse on the acronym C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S, with a short devotional message based on each letter.  The spelling lesson went no further than the first six letters, however.  This interruption was not because of a fear that the treat-bagged oranges and peanuts were going stale;  but rather because ... so it was piously recited ...  "Christ is all we need."

Of course, one can safely presume that within a few short hours of the resounding declaration of this creed, both the preaching kiddies and the receptive adults were enthusiastically ripping the tissue from their begged-for gifts.  Even their church's brown-bagged health-foods would not be enough booty for them.  You see, stolid Lutherans can be a hilarious as well as a "peculiar people", as humorist Garrison Keillor would firmly prove to no little profit, a mere two decades or so later.

It's true, though.  Christ is all we need.  That is why we fear, love and adore Him, and put our bodies where our mouths are by showing this love by obeying His Word.  His clear instructions are to DO that which the Scripture and our Lutheran Confessions refer to as the "breaking of bread"/the Mass/the Lord's Supper so that we come to remember and treasure His Passion which freed us from bondage to sin, Death and the Devil.   And to eat and drink His very Present Body and Blood, for the remission of sins.  By following and cherishing our Lord's "This do," we imitate what the growing ancient Church did at least every week, according to the Book of Acts; and we imitate what our Lutheran forefathers boasted, without sense of irony or facial "wink-wink," that they did with greater fervor, intensity and reverence than did the papal party.  Because the Mass clearly propounds the blessed Incarnation [2; p. 168] and just as surely, the comforting belief that our bodies, "when they share in the Eucharist ... are no longer subject to corruption but possess the hope of the Resurrection [2; p. 169]."   And finally, because the Mass, of course, teaches the real coming and presence  of our dear Lord in our Divine Service, now.  Today. 

Christmass without the Mass is Christ no mas, is a Christ "no more" ... to use the translated, 1980 surrender language of welter-weight boxer Roberto Duran against "Sugar" Ray Leonard [3].   At least, not a Christ the true member of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, including the patristic father Irenaeus [2; pp. 168, 169], would recognize. 

Apparently the WELS youths of the 80's learned their programmed scripts all too well.  Dynamically, as Freud once argued, the child is father to the man.   Now the synod's grown-up pastors, once upon a time professing little kiddies but now learned moderators of and contributors to the Institute of Worship & Outreach [1], are counseling the churches of their "conservative" denomination to drop the Mass from the congregational celebration of Christmas(s), as an evangelistic maneuver.  Apparently, the IWO concludes, Christmas(s) ... and Easter and even the High Church Festival of Mother's Day) ... are  big draws for the restless seeker; and the exclusivist nature of the Mass ... which gift does carry pastoral responsibility and a divine judgment if eaten without adult comprehension and faith ... carries a certain risk of shaming and angering the outsider.  Not to mention the "counselor" himself being fingered by the enraged 21st century skeptic, as being artlessly intolerant or at least cluelessly delusional.  This happened to the Lord Jesus Himself, as recorded in John 6 when He challenged His listeners with some very uncomfortable truths about Himself.  At that time, even a lot of perturbed "disciples" fled from His holy presence; and not all the blame can be placed on the Christ's failure to organize a rockin' praise-band to embellish His weekly synagogue visits and a lesson or two from Isaiah.

The personal fears of appearing foolish or a stumbling-block aside, the logic of the IWO does NOT follow the teachings and uncompromising practice of our Lord (including that teaching found in Mt 28; cf.  "teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you"), or the behavior of the early Church ... which grew and turned the world upside down by the power of the Holy Spirit, and not by a resort to the cleverly devised "bait-and-switch" tactics of man, to better snare the uninformed inside the nave.

Moreover, if the Mass were an encumbrance to the evangelical proclamation, and if "Christ [localized physically to heaven] is all we need" were true according its rank protestant understandings ("A sermon's enough!"), then why bother with the Lord's Supper on Father's Day (evidently something of a second-class liturgical holy-day, in WELS-think and Hallmark Card surveys, compared to that of Mother's own) ... or on any Sunday for that matter?

Maybe that logical step is to be left for the third or fourth generation, to follow the fathers' advice sowed in the 1980's.  

Citations:
[1]  J. Schroeder  "Worship and Outreach:  A Lutheran Paradigm,"  The Institute of Worship & Outreach; posted 7 September 2011   http://www.worshipandoutreach.org/paper/60/worship-and-outreach-lutheran-paradigm
[2]  M. Chemnitz "The Lord's Supper (De coena Domini)," Part X.G: The resurrection and salvation of the flesh are demonstrated by our participation in the Lord's Supper; Concordia Publishing House (St. Louis), 1979.  Translation from the Latin by J.A.O. Preus   
[3]  Leonard-Duran Championship Fight II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard%E2%80%93Dur%C3%A1n_II
 

Questions for Troubled Ladies and Their Husbands

At Facebook, the gifted Lutheran essayist and poet Chad Bird observes that the first recorded words of God directed at man on the spot, in Genesis and Luke's Gospel, share a distinctive similarity.  They are both in the form of questions ("Where art thou?" and "How is it that ye sought Me?," respectively).  They are hauntingly demanding, unsettling, and with a pinch of disappointment thrown in the mix.  What's this all about?

God is all knowing, and fills heaven and earth.  The first question, addressed to Adam and Eve, is not the whine of a befuddled old man or a buffoonish Zeus.  And, it has nothing do with precise latitude or longitude.  In my clinical opinion, this is a brilliant probe of creaturely man's spirit and mind; the perfect opener for a knock-down, brutally honest 50-minute session on the couch.  It is an invitation to bare all (pun fully intended) and sequentially participate in the first quasi-Private Confessions of all time.  But you know the script:

V:  "Where are you?"
R:   "Here's where we're at, LORD.  Our situation is desperate.  We are poor miserable sinners.  We thought we could freely abandon You, and do without You.  We spurned the "DO THIS" food You commanded for our blessing, and much preferred instead our own thoughts and wisdom as to procedure and matter.  Truth be told, our transference feeling is one of total sympathy with the evil Serpent, and a totally murderous hatred towards You.  In fact, we'd hoist You on a tree if opportunity presented itself.  But we're weak and scared.  We need help, therefore; we need You.  For we deserve nothing but annihilation and death.  Have mercy on us, Three times over."

Of course, while the fate of Creation itself hung in the balance ... remember(with Jonah) wicked Nineveh's sparing, upon its donning of sackcloth and ashes ... NO such confession was forthcoming.  That's the tragic history.  While the couple was frightened and embarrassed as to their shocking vulnerability and dependency, there was no despairing remorse or a spoken recognition of their -- not God! -- being absolutely lost.   God resolutely sought the truth from them; but what He received was excuses from Eve, and a slap in the face from Adam.  The great name-giver of every living creature of God,  was tongue-tied and resistant when it came to identifying his own depravity.  "Somebody else is to blame, certainly not me."   This creed continues to be a universal scream of our age; and perhaps accounts for the scandalous decline and conscious avoidance of Private Confession, although our Book of Concord stoutly insists "Oh, yes, yes; among the Lutherans, we do keep and treasure such." Our own dogmas judge us, as a people.

The little Lord Jesus ... steadily growing in wisdom, strength, and favor with both God and man ... challenges His parents in a way quite similar to that in which He probed our first parents.  Jesus' parents had been caught in a spot, too, losing sight of God and faith-based expectations of His behavior.  "Examine yourselves," He confronts the Best Parents the world has seen.  "You who tabernacled Me in the womb, doing My Father's business:  "Why did you not expect to find Me safely tabernacled in My loving Father's House, doing His business?"  Significantly, Luke records no satisfactory response for the lapse in understanding and indeed,  I maintain, of faith.    They had frantically sought Him among kin and acquaintances, and spent three additional days of agony and fear of Jesus' death in the vicinity of Jerusalem ... a rehearsal for the Passion to come.  But they sought in anything and everything but the established, earthly abode of His Father.  See, the Scriptures are razor-sharp in exposing the failings and frustrations of the heroes and heroines of our merciful God.   They are not less heroes in God's sight, through Christ His Son, for all that.

"Oh come all ye unfaithful" ... to worship and bless our Incarnate Lord, as Chad Bird brilliantly phrases it.  So true! The Lord is a compassionate physician to the ill, not the self-satisfied self-deluded.  Bird is dangerous, and if he keeps this up, could potentially put the entire psychiatric community out of business.  But I digress.     

I have nothing but the deepest respect and love for our Lady St. Mary, the Ever-Virgin Mother of God.  Again, in this episode of the 12-year old Jesus' life, we have dear Mary giving us an example to ever ponder and keep in our hearts what her God-man Son says, and does.  To me, this memory from Dr. Luke also underscores why I love and treasure her so.  She too was fully and really human, no plaster-cast Santa, but a human subject to the same fears and frettings associated with a perceived loss.  But she also possesses a heart's attention which  fixates once again, solidly, on Jesus ... her self-professed Savior.  My attention is more scattered, and unlike hers, outrageously cowardly among men.  But He is my Savior, too, and for this grandness, tonight, I rejoice with her my Lady; dear St. Joseph; all my brethren; and all the hosts of Heaven.  Gloria in Excelsis!

Farewell, Salutation.

Of course, the Salutation of the Church's Divine Service is a high point of many stirringly enriching moments, pulsating and surging with meaning and ... dare I say it ... thrillingly tense drama, too (peruse the picture above; I'll explain below).  It's something grand, something which the riff-raff cacophony of the "praise-band" simply can't match.   The Salutation (which in this posting, is understood to include the laitical Response) shouldn't be treated lightly, or carelessly eliminated from the liturgical flow so as to de-emphasize the tender relationship existing between shepherd and flock.

According to the 1908 "An Explanation of the Common Service"[1; pages 30, 50, 66], the Salutation:

1.  is prayer invoking a Divine blessing, voiced sequentially between the pastor and his congregation, on behalf of the other.
2.  is a shared acknowledgement of God's serving and saving Presence, in the "now" setting of the Divine Service.
3.  was employed by the Medieval Church to "introduce every main part of the Service."  In other words, the Salutation for centuries has ordered the Divine Service, and usefully directs the attention to critical moments of intercession, blessing, grace, and joyful thanksgiving.

According to the Rev. Fr. Burnell Eckardt  [2; pp. 34-35], the Salutation:

1.  is an adaptation of the risen Christ's blessing of peace, lovingly addressed to His crest-fallen followers, cowering in their fearfully "secured" room; and faithfully messaged again by today's ordained ambassador of Christ.  Says Fr. Eckardt, the "pastor is repeating the pattern set by Christ Himself."
2.  is a preparatory maneuver for the heart's hearing of God's Word.  Fr. Eckardt has noted that in the ceremony of the Mass, "these are the first words (the pastor) speaks to the people as pastor."    This is because the Common Service's "Service of Preparation," which includes the General Confession, is in a liturgically technical sense not part of the Mass proper.
3. includes the laity's fervent prayer (i.e., "and with thy spirit") that the Holy Ghost will rest on the pastor, as a ritely and rightly-established bearer of the Spirit's own Holy Office.  This concrete Office entails solemn, serious and significant responsibility; and as Fr. Eckardt stresses in his book, it is a responsibility for which great divine "grace is required."  We add:  Those who think not, and prefer instead to entertain the poor laity with their clever jokes, or conduct sports-polls in the nave, should recall the toasted fate of the nonchalant duo Nadab and Abihu.  As St. Paul solemnly reminds the Corinthians and us, the very angels of God take interest in our chosen behavior, in the course of worshiping their Master.  One presumes they have long memories.

According to Professor Luther Reed [3; pages 262-263], the Salutation:

1.  is "a form of greeting" capturing the reality of the Hebrew expression Emmanuel ("God with us").  God is here, now, in the Mass.  Does your mind and body's behavior attend to and reflect this remarkable Truth?
2.  takes origin from several Old and New Testament pronouncements (e.g., Ruth 2:4;  Jdg 6:12; Lk 1;28; and, perhaps (sic), the Pauline benedictions (e.g., 2 Th 3:16; 2 Tm 4:22; etc.).
3.  has from the earliest times been constituted "as a significant responsive introduction to new and different parts of the Service."  In other words, the Salutation acts, then and NOW, as a marker of place, phase and progression in the course of God's Service to us.  It reminds us poor laymen:  "Watch!  Be alert!  Is your lamp of faith and wisdom filled, for what lies ahead?"
4.  is, in an extremely powerful sense, a holy and liturgical "endorsement" of the pastor to converse with God, and to indeed speak and act on behalf of the Almighty, to the benefit of the gathered believers.  It is a recollection of the congregational call, and the ecclesial ordination, of the presiding shepherd-servant.  Here, Prof. Reed quotes the French theologian Fernand Cabrol (1906) to splendid effect:  "The people answer 'And with thy spirit' as though commissioning him (the priest) to speak for all."

This ... this is powerful stuff.  The Salutation surely recalls the events occurring at the foot of Mt. Sinai, where at the rightfully quaking Israelites ... caught in the stupendous and over-powering presence of the Holy, Holy, Holy of their fathers ... pleaded with Moses the man, specifically and personally, to entreat the Tri-Personable Transcendent for them (Ex 20:18-21).  Yes, the Israelite Sinai of Law has now become the Lutheran Altar of Grace and Salvation.  Hallelujah!  But God Himself is no less Holy than when He chose to meet with Moses, millennia ago.  God does not change.  He still uses properly chosen and vested ambassadors of Christ.  Christ, the Incarnate LORD ... "like unto [Moses]," but immeasurably greater ... urges His sheep:  "Unto these My men, you shall hearken."   Pray for these My men, all ye saints.   Pray that the Spirit will descend on and enliven their spirits, so as to speak (and administer) the Truth which leads to salvation.  Pray, pray without ceasing.

And this we do, in the Salutation.

By the way, the beautiful distinction ... and responsibilities ... inherent in the orthodox Salutation is utterly lost with the Romish conciliar-inspired travesty of a Responsory i.e., "and also with you."  It's polite enough.  But a more complete leveling of shepherd and flock cannot be conceived by human gray matter, although experience teaches it's best not to under-estimate the fallen neuron's ability for conceiving additional mischief.   Through language and cognitive changes of our times, the Salutation has become less of a renewing, or recollection of Godly commissioning and ordination, than a time-consuming and potentially disposable exchange of pleasantries.  This is no small threat.   Be aware that doing the wave in the nave/"auditorium" is far more in tune with the prevailing religious sensitivities of America's true place of worship (the Super Bowl).  As evidence supporting the contentions here, consider this sorry circumstance existing among the "conservative" Lutherans.

In 1941's The Lutheran Hymnal, the Salutation occurs in three places within the "Order of the Holy Communion" (p. 15ff).  Firstly, at the Collect of the Day (an extraordinary encounter of God and all His people, where the pastor gathers the prayers of congregation, the entire orthodox Church, and indeed the orthodox Church of all time ... and  relates it to the theme of the liturgical week).  Secondly, at the Preface to the Eucharistic Mass, which precedes the pastor's handling and distributing the very Body and Blood of our Lord.  Lastly, its third occurrence  is found at near the post-Communion Benedicamus and Benediction, in which the human ambassador of Christ calls again on the Trinitarian God.  This, to entreat the LORD to lovingly and protectively send His people off to engage an oft-hostile world, in the abiding Presence and countenance of their Savior.  These are three liturgical encounters of great blessing, and great promise.  They truly merit the introductory convocation of hearts, embedded in the liturgy's Salutation.

Indeed, in some gatherings of the saints, like that routinely found at Zion Evangelical-Lutheran Church (Detroit), the Ordo used allows for even more Salutations to be expressed, as occurs prior to the reading of the Scriptural Lessons of the day, and at the Post-Communion Collect.     

Inside the pages of the WELS' Christian Worship (1993), in contrast, its self-described "version" of the Common Service has stripped the Salutation from the closing Benediction.   Moreover, within the synod-endorsed alternative to its "Common Service" (viz., the "Service of Word and Sacrament," p. 26), the empowering Salutation has been stripped away from the Prayer of the Day (i.e., principle Collect),  and thence diverted to the commencing Service of Preparation, at the very start of things.  Here, the WELS' neighborly Greeting (sic) is exchanged between pastor and laity, coming at the expense of the august and abandoned Invocation of the TLH (and the ancient Western Rite, more generally, and even the WELS' idiosyncratic version of it, self-designated as "The Common Service").

Since the WELS is in the first stages of formulating a new hymnal for itself, there is no little cause for concern about a further vanishing of the Salutation, among a segment of the Lutheran community (with an established penchant for innovative red-lining of catechism, no less than  hymnal).

But it remains a mystery of group-psychology theorizing as to why the Salutation is treated in such loose fashion by Lutherans.  Maybe there is need, by a small minority, to be regarded as ever-trendy in the busy-busy world around.  Perhaps Dr. Adler was a right; there is a strong drive to flex a threatened self-identity's muscles, in order to seem assertive and to appear competent.  And yes, the WELS too often was type-cast in the role of little brother, for years, in that Synodical Conference which produced TLH.  Now on its own, it's rustling the head-feathers; or arching the back; or wielding the shovel and throwing the stuff found in the sandbox, among the other kids.   It's making a statement, an independent one, although the quality of the sandbox's material can at times raise the eyebrows and the nose.  

Or maybe ... given the high sacred meaning of the Salutation as perceived by Lutherans over one hundred years ago, and Eckhardt and Reed ...  a public exposure of the WELS' limited grasp and appreciation of the concrete Office of Holy Ministry and God's Service (Gottesdienst)  only becomes something inevitable and sorely evident, in its worship pages. "Lex oralis etc.." Verily, though, the endangered status of the Salutation in the Mass is NOT arising from synodical impatience with repetition or inefficiency.  After all, Christian Worship has chosen to introduce periodic refrains into the very midst of the Psalms it provides to be chanted.  Then again, with these intrusive "improvements" to God's Word, comes a simultaneous paring down of the absolute number of David's songs and too often of verse, found in the pews' same bound volumes.

So then, who can fathom these things?  Sometimes the blot of a Rorschach exercise remains only a blot.


Citations

[1]  F.E. Cooper et al. (1906) "An Exploration of the Common Service," United Lutheran Publications House, Philadelphia PA; Reprint: Emmauel Press (2006), Grand Rapids MI  www.emmanuelpress.us

[2]  B.F. Eckardt Jr. (text: 1998-2005) "Why? A Layman's Guide to the Liturgy," Repristination Press, Malone TX

[3]  L.D. Reed (1947)  "The Lutheran Liturgy," Muhlenberg Press, Philadelphia PA    

Mysteries of G-d ... (Part 2)

In a stirring conclusion to a letter which was published about 30 years ago [1], Rev. Richard Wurmbrand  of Torrance CA asserted the following:  "The Jewish people believed from the beginning the one God to be a Trinity. ... It is the Christian Church and not what is called Judaism now, which perpetrates the last religious truth.  Jesus is God."

The assertion is grounded on the revealed Word of God, of course, and certain interpretations of the four letter name of God (YHWH), which Rev. Wurmbrand claimed were "held and transmitted orally since time immemorial."  We cannot hold to "mystical" interpretations as being inspired or canonical, to be sure; but they are interesting, indeed useful, when and where they are stringently normed against the standard of God's Word, and are presented in that light.   Rev. Wurmbrand wrote, "When Jesus commanded to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, He appealed to an article of faith generally admitted in Israel.  So also the prophets before Him.  They did not have to explain themselves.  The teaching about the Trinity belonged to the primordial revelation, before the writing of the first book of the Bible."  Thus, St. Ambrose spoke rightly when he commented on Genesis 18, which details the mysterious appearance of three visitors to Abraham.  But the three were One, who spoke to the patriarch.  St. Ambrose observed:  "Abraham saw three.  He adored One."  Rev. Wurmbrand notes that Abraham "was not astonished to see the One as three."  Indeed.

1.  On Genesis 1

In its very beginning, Genesis reads in the old Hebrew tongue this way: "Be-Reshit bara Elohim et h-shamaim ve-et ha-aretz."   According to Wurmbrand, ancient Hebrews preferred letters as convenient "stand-ins" for numerals.  Thus "be[th]," the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, represents "2;" from time to time it can mean "through," as well as "in" ... which has Christian creedal implications.  The word Reshit , of singular tense, is a term referring to divine "Principle, or "Wisdom" according to some rabbinical commentaries.

Of no little interest to the Christian is its prefix "2."  In olden days, Psalms and entire books were known by the first few passages of their communication; we see this custom retained, in such liturgical devices as the "Gloria  Patri," the "Kyrie," and the "Gloria in Excelsis," as well as the Latin identifiers of the Psalms themselves (cf. The Lutheran Hymnal , p. 123-157).  Be-Reshit is the opening expression of the Bible.  And so it happens, fittingly, that the very Word (or Wisdom) sallies forth and introduces the entirety of God's Word.   Christ, the Incarnate Word, is indeed the first fruits of all that is good; the one thing needful, upon which Mary of Bethany fixed her rapt attention!  The Christian's Holy Bible could be named "Christ (of Two Natures)," as accurately as the 117the Psalm is known as Laudate Dominum.

In this regard, Wurmbrand rightly argued that Be-Reshit captured the "high mystery" enclosed in the name Jehovah, as did certain rabbinical commentators; and that a much preferred and literal English rendering of Gen 1:1 would be along the lines of  "Through the Divine Wisdom, which has two natures, the Godhead (of composite Persons) created the heavens and the earth."  Thus proclaimed, the verse not only elaborates the truth of the Trinity, through the use of the plural form of God (Elohim), but also testifies to the two Persons of our Lord (one hidden ... His Divinity; and the other, revealed ... revealed in the Garden, that the promised Messiah would come in the flesh, the Seed of a Woman as promised to Eve).  How glorious!

 2.  The Name of God
According to Rev. Wurmbrand, some "primordial" Jewish sources perceived the name of YHWH in this way:  "Y" is the Generating Principle, which gives birth to all; the "H" is "Word."  The latter is repeated at the end of the Name, to emphasize emphatically that the Word possesses two natures.  "W" denotes "waw," symbolizing the Hebrew conjunctive expression for  "and."  It is produced, or "proceeds" from the "Y" (Father) and the "H" (Son); or at least so some circles of ancient Hebrew maintained.   The "W" (in text, and in Being) acts functionally to bind together; it corresponds to the Holy Ghost, Whose divine attributes include concord and loving connection.

I can't resist the puckish observation that this YHWH interpretation seems to settle comfortably on the Western side of the great "Filioque" Controversy, but holding to the Latin Rite as I do, I'll admit to some entrenched biases.

3.  The Shema of Israel

In Deuteronomy 6:4, "One" was expressed in the Hebraic language as echad, and NOT iachid.  The difference is of monumental importance. The ancient Hebrews clearly recognized the difference between a single something of "composed" unity, and that of an "absolute" unity.  The atom of physical chemistry (and Democrites) is one, but more precisely an echad made up of elementary particles (protons, neutrons, electrons, etc.).  The Muslim of yesteryear and today sees his god as being an absolute unity, or iachid.  Not so the Christian, nor the patriarchal Jew of old.  In Genesis, two humans (male and female) were made to be one flesh ... an echad.  Likewise, the day of Gen 1:4 is a composed unity of  evening and morning ... one day, an echad.  As Rev. Wurmbrand noted,  God is One, but He too is linguistically designated in His Word as an echad ... thus putting a lie to all so-called world "religions," which preach for wisdom the delusional guesses and hapless approximations of mankind.

The great Shema ... according to Rev. Wurmbrand ... is best portrayed and accurately rendered this way:  "Listen Israel: YHWH Eloheinu are YHWH of composed Unity."  There are no accidents to be found in God's Word.   God's Name is repeated three times.  Echad is used in the ancient texts to evoke the One, and I'm afraid that Maimonides, a physician-scholar-theologian, did the Jewish people no eternal service by favoring the translational rendering of iachid, as a Muslim would.

An obvious and immediate implication is that Islam's Allah is not the revealed God of the Old Testament.  Politicians who think and claim that they are, do so for the base purpose of pandering for votes and achieving a false, earthly national unity (echad).  But they, and sadly some Christian voices, are wrong, in terms of basic doctrine and philological analysis, and need to heed the serious warning of Ps 2:10-12.    JESUS IS GOD.  To assert that God is an iachid, is to deny our Rock and our Redeemer, and to deny our Father as well.  The Father was Father of Jesus Christ, before time and we human beings were on the scene!

Another implication is that high-priest Caiaphas did not reject the concept of the Son of God ("H"), or the Angel of the Lord, who was acknowledged and worshiped as God repeatedly in the Old Testament.  Instead, his furor and his showy robe-ripping was prompted by a refusal to see the smitten and bound Jesus from Galilee, "a respecter of no man," as being the kind of Son of God he desired ... and imagined.  St. Isaiah, centuries before, knew better.

Citation
[1] R. Wurmbrand : The Kabbala, the Trinity, and the Two Natures of Christ; The Christian News, 16 May, 1983; p. 13      

Lutheran Theotokos: The Way We Were

Perhaps a few comments are in order,  concerning the profound archeological discovery put on display above.

1.  Both the Holy Child and His blessed Virgin Mother grace the cover of this hardcover book (218 pages, including four 4-colored maps, pronunciation guide and a glossary).  It contains 50 Old Testament and 50 New Testament accounts.  One reasonable guess for the selection of the cover's illustration is that the book is purported to be "practical for extra-school purposes, such as Sunday school and home instructions, summer schools, Saturday schools, and the like," i.e., edifying for the education of youth.  "Extra-school?" you say; "Why, that sounds just like the mouthings of a primly parochial intra-school[marm] sister, one wearing a wimple and flailing her wrist with an ominously attached ruler!"  Indeed,  the text is truly meaty, like the cover portrait, and not infantilized or driven to entertaining.  The Virgin is not portrayed as some veiled cucumber, clutching  a diapered Oscar the Grouch to her breast; while the Bible Stories narratives are secured entirely from an authorized translation of Holy Writ.  And a pertinent and reinforcing Scriptural passage from elsewhere in the Bible, and a short phrase or two from a catechism, accompany the holy text so as to "convey points of the story."  

2.  Our Lady, cloaked in white and blue, views her audience fixedly but with great calm and solemn serenity.  Most noticeably, her forefinger is extended and gesticulates towards her Child, Lord and Savior ... and insistently directs our attention to Him, and not to herself.  The emphasis of the cover is pointedly Christological, not zoological.

3.  The cover motif means that, for the children to whom this book is purposed, the thoughts of Child and Mary, and the wonder of God-in-the-flesh, are not simply relegated to a crèche at Christmass (the spelling is fully intentional).

4.  If you guessed that the authorized version referred to above is the Vulgate or the Douay, you would be wrong.  If you guessed that the catechism referred to above flaunts a Vatican imprimatur, you would be wrong.  But this being 2014 A+D, and given the power of protestant inroads over the years, we understand your confusion.  You probably also guess that Professor Pieper was subject to too many Lewy body inclusions of frontal lobe neurons, when he declared in his Christian Dogmatics that Semper virgo is the default orthodox position, of the Church of the Augsburg Confession.  You would be dead wrong.

Surprise.  The publisher of the book is not Ignatius Press.  Here we have  the frontispiece of that book with the cover just discussed previously.  Unfortunately, no human editor or even a copyright is identified therein; although given the textual content of the book, the Author responsible for its bulk can be confidently identified as God.  I cannot hazard the date of publication, although this book has undergone four printings.  The text is the unvarnished Authorized Version.  The short catechetical reminders are lifted directly from the pages of Luther's Small Catechism.

In the copy in my possession, there is a penciled inscription on the inside front cover reading "Miss Tekla Loeber," which is the maiden name of my mother-in-law.  Mrs. Otte is a direct descendant of Rev. Fr. G. H. Loeber, one of the young pastors who came to Missouri with the Saxon immigration.  She is well over 95 years of age.   This suggests that the book is quite old, arising from a different time, and perhaps from a different spirit.

This startling archeological find will likely carbon-date to 2003 (p <0.001).  It has a hardcover format (which makes it very old, indeed) and consists of all of 64 pages.   It contains, we are assured by its St. Louis book-purveyor, thirty-five "well-known" Bible stories (18 Old Testament and 17 New Testament) by (sic)  Leena Lane.  The animals on the cover look warm, extroverted, docile and fuzzy, but appear unpaired to my trained physiologist's eye, at least to a first approximation, so the absence of an Ark is understandable.  Mary -- a spunky woman prefigured by yet another Ark (i.e., one containing life-giving manna; a budding-growth surging from a barren rod; and the Word breaking forth from rock, unhewn by man's hands) -- is not seen though; true too, of any manger.   But that comet in the sky sure looks like it could pass for David's Star, and maybe this is an artistic interpretation of Bethlehem by night, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.  With a few delightful additions, of course.  These are to meet the 21st century's insistence that the instillation of fear and love of God,  in the hearts of His Kingdom's children, requires froth and whimsy.  So that the kids might predictably chant (responsively), to their Bible and their Babar alike:  "Good night moon!  Pack it in pachyderm!"

This is Russian artist Vassily Polenov's remarkable rendition of home-town school life in Nazareth, entitled "Was Filled with Wisdom."  Here the little Lord Jesus, by Whom all things were made,  is studiously attending to His Father's business (and growing in knowledge about Himself, the Word) ... even if there are no warm, extroverted, docile and fuzzy animals on the cover.