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This Month Archive
St. Mark's Lutheran Church

 

 2016

 Sermons



Dez 25 - The Gift

Dez 24 - God's Love Changes Everything

Dez 18 - Lonely?

Dez 18 - Getting Ready

Dez 11 - The Desert Shall Bloom

Dez 4 - A Spirited Shoot

Nov 27 - Comin' Round the Mountain

Nov 20 - Power on parade

Nov 13 - Warnings and Love

Nov 6 - Saints Among Us

Okt 30 - Reformation in Catechesis

Okt 23 - The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Okt 16 - The Word of God at the Center of Life

Okt 9 - Continuing Thanks

Okt 8 - The Cord of Three

Okt 2 - Tools for God’s Work

Sep 25 - Rich?

Sep 23 - With a Word and a Song

Sep 18 - To Grace How Great a Debtor

Sep 11 - See the Gifts and Use Them Well

Sep 4 - Hear a Hard Word from Jesus

Aug 28 - Who is worthy?

Aug 21 - Just a Cripple?

Aug 14 - Not an Easy life with Christ

Aug 6 - By Faith

Jul 31 - You can't take it with you

Jul 25 - Companions

Jul 24 - Our Father

Jul 18 - Hospitality

Jul 17 - Priorities

Jul 11 - Giving

Jul 10 - Giving and receiving mercy

Jul 3 - Go!

Jun 26 - With urgency!

Jun 19 - Adopted

Jun 12 - A Tale of Two Sinners

Jun 5 - The Laughter of Surprise

Mai 29 - By Whose Authority?

Mai 22 - Why are we here?

Mai 15 - The Spirit Helps Us

Mai 8 - Free or Bound?

Mai 1 - Let All the People Praise You

Apr 24 - A New Thing

Apr 17 - A Great Multitude

Apr 10 - Transformed

Apr 3 - Here and There

Mrz 27 - The Hour

Mrz 26 - Dark yet?

Mrz 25 - The Long Defeat?

Mrz 25 - Appearances

Mrz 24 - Is it I?

Mrz 20 - Bridging the Distance

Mrz 16 - Singing the Catechism: Holy Communion

Mrz 13 - What is important

Mrz 9 - Singing the Catechism: Holy Baptism

Mrz 6 - What did he say?

Mrz 2 - Singing the Catechism: The Lord's Prayer

Feb 28 - Pantocrator

Feb 24 - Singing the Catechism: the Creeds

Feb 21 - What kind of church, promise, and God?

Feb 17 - The Catechism in Song: Ten Commandments

Feb 14 - Available to All

Feb 12 - Home

Feb 10 - The Catechism in Song: Confession and Forgiveness

Feb 7 - Befuddled, and that is OK

Jan 31 - That We May Speak

Jan 24 - The Power of the Word

Jan 17 - Surprised by the Spirit

Jan 10 - Exiles

Jan 3 - The Big Picture: our Christmas—Easter faith



2017 Sermons      

      2015 Sermons

Singing the Catechism: the Creeds

 
Third Wednesday in Lent - February 24, 2016

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin

 

Last week we considered the Ten Commandments, and discerned that their chief function is to convict us of sin and to point us to Christ Jesus.

This week our subject is the Creeds, and how they function to proclaim Jesus Christ, who is the point of contact between heaven and earth.

Walt Haussmann told me that one of the teachers they came across in their study in the Lay Worship Assistants program was dismissive of the role of the creeds, especially the Athanasian Creed.

That is a shocking situation, since this is not a matter for optional opinions, since at ordination, Lutheran pastors pledge to preach and teach in accord with the confessions of the church, and the first items in the Book of Concord are the three creeds.

They were not up for debate at the Reformation; they are simply assumed as the bedrock of confessional truth.

 

There was a slogan in Luther's time that what was important was

 was Christum treibt, that is, what brings us Christ.

It was the key way to look at and interpret the Scriptures, and the Creeds carry this process forward.

They bring us Jesus, in relation with the Father and the Spirit, and also in relation to us.

 

As we discussed last week, Luther teaches not only by word but also using music.

He turned the Nicene Creed to poetic verse and joined it with an adaptation of a melody from 1300AD, as LBW # 374, We All Believe in One True God.

It has three very long stanzas, one for each person of the Trinity.

The first stanza parallels the explanation of the first article which we did in dialog a few minutes ago “All we need his hand provides us.”

The second stanza gives the purpose of Christ's coming as “...that the lost might life inherit....”

The third stanza proclaims the Spirit's work: to let us know that ”Here forgiveness and salvation Daily come through Jesus' merit.”

Many folks are scared off when they see a hymn that goes on for three pages, so we have not yet learned it here at St. Mark's.

 

But that is not the end of the subject.

There are other hymns which can help us learn and proclaim Christ to one another.

Since the 4th century, we have sung the Gloria in excelsis.

This Hymn of Praise begins with the song of the angels at Bethlehem, Glory to God in the Highest..., and then expands to praise God for all the work of Jesus among us, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world whom we ask to receive our prayer.

The hymn concludes with praise of the Trinity:...you also are the most high, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father.

 

Right around the same year that Luther was starting to put the faith in hymn-form, there were also others engaged in this important task.

One of them was Nicolas Decius, almost an exact contemporary of Luther, and who studied for a time in Wittenberg.

He took the Gloria in excelsis and turned it into poetry so that it could be sung to a hymn melody which he also composed.

This is the hymn LBW#166 which we sang a bit ago.

The first stanza echoes the angels' song in Luke 2.

The 2nd stanza says of the Father: Your Lordship calms our troubled spirit.

The 3rd stanza center our thought and praise on Jesus, and prays O Lamb of God, conform our lives to your design.

The final stanza praises God for the work of the Spirit among  men and women saved by Christ, ...whose  ...lives are in your keeping.

Our long history of favoring this hymn has prompted the rubric that we might sing this hymn on some occasions when the singing of the Gloria in excelsis might otherwise happen.

 

Some hymns come and go, a few stay around for a long time.

Why have we kept the Gloria in excelsis in prose form since the 4th century and in hymn-poetry since the 16th century?

The first a key reason is that it reminds us of our proper job.

Our first and primary task is to praise God for the gift of Jesus, and we are reminded of that by the angels' song.

That is what they can do at all times!

How is that possible, how can they be engaged in praise always?

Because they know that God in deciding to be  God, declared himself to be God for us.

Remember the line at the head of the commandments:  I am the Lord your God.

 

The angels make the announcement, and then the Spirit does the work: Jesus says All that the Father has is mine,.... and  the Spirit ...will take what is mine and declare it to you,

 

And what should our reaction be?

Our first job is our last job, and our all-the-time job as well:

Praise to the Father, in the name of the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit....Thanks be to God!  Amen.

 

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.