I am Jesus’ little lamb, Ever glad at heart I am; For my Shepherd gently guides me, Knows my need and well provides me, Loves me ev’ry day the same, Even calls me by my name. — “I am Jesus’ little lamb” LSB 740
After a very long labor, my late wife Kris delivered our twin sons. While she enjoyed a very much earned sleep, I took each boy, one after the other, into my arms and sang, “I am Jesus Little Lamb.” When their sister was born three years later, I took my daughter into my arms and sang it again. Our family would sing this song together many times over the next few decades.
Day by day, at home, away, Jesus is my staff and stay. When I hunger, Jesus feeds me, Into pleasant pastures leads me; When I thirst, He bids me go Where the quiet waters flow. — “I am Jesus’ little lamb” LSB 740
When our children grew up and began to have our grandchildren, I dusted off this hymn again. The first time I held each of my grandchildren, I sang this song to them. Should more come along, I plan to continue this little tradition. Who knows? Perhaps God will give me a decade or two more and I will be able to hold great-grandchildren and sing them this song.
While we were preparing for Kris’ funeral, my daughter found a playlist on our Alexa instance. On that playlist was “I am Jesus’ Little Lamb.” The pastor missed it during the funeral, so it wasn’t sung on that day. The next day was Good Shepherd Sunday at church and we did sing it then. I could almost her then — and now — Kris singing the last stanza to us,
Who so happy as I am, Even now the Shepherd’s lamb? And when my short life is ended, By His angel host attended, He shall fold me to His breast, There within His arms to rest. — “I am Jesus’ little lamb” LSB 740
[Twenty-Sixth in a series of posts on church words]
Encore Post:
“You won’t die,” hissed the snake. So, what could it hurt? So Eve and then Adam ate the fruit. What they didn’t realize is they had ruined everything. In effect, they told God they knew better than him. They built a wall between God and us. But that was not all. They built walls between them and set their descendants up for constant warfare in one form or another forever. And, it turns out, God was right. Cut yourself off from the source of life, and you die. Slowly, but surely, your body wears out. Creation itself tries to kill you, and everything lives for itself and nothing else. Thorns infest the ground.
When two people are angry with each other, someone has to bring them together. Often it is an apology sealed with a small sacrifice, — one man buying his angry friend a beer, a husband bringing flowers to his wife or other sign of giving a part of themselves to reconcile. The bigger the breach, the more dramatic the sacrifice. An employee resigns to save the company and restore faith in it. A child works off the cost of the window her softball broke.
God told us from the beginning what the sacrifice must be. A holy God cannot live with a sinful, selfish being. To be reconciled to God means to die. Yet God loved us from before he made the world and does not want sinners to die. So God himself provided the sacrifice to bring about at-one-ment — atonement. First, it would be prize lambs or other livestock that would be hurt for a shepherd to lose. Yet that would never really do. So his people still die.
It would take the sacrifice of a sinless human life to bring God and his children back together. Yet they are in short supply — all humans are born sinful. And God himself is sinless — but he cannot die — or so it seems. God in his grace decided to redeem us with the sacrifice of his Son — his only Son– whom he loved. This is not divine child abuse as the atheists charge because God is the Holy Trinity. When the Son of God died, God sacrificed himself. So, the Eternal Son, the author of life, became a man in the womb of the Virgin Mary. When he died on the cross for us, he saved us with his own blood. The curtain of the Holy of Holies tore from top to bottom, and the walls between us came tumbling down.
Now we are at one with God. In every Divine Service, the Lord Jesus seals the New Covenant in his blood. He gives us his body to eat with the bread and his blood to drink with the wine. It is a down payment on the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, which we will join all too soon. Then, fully reconciled with God, we will live with him forever.
[Twenty-Fifth in a series of posts on church words]
Encore Post:
One of the most used words in the church’s vocabulary is salvation. We sing about it; we preach about it. It is the goal that every Christian aims for. You can ask even a child what it means. It means that we go to heaven when we die. Right?
Not really. Salvation is not about what we are saved for. It is about what we are saved from. The Hebrew word ישׁע (yasa) and the Greek word σῴζω (sozo) mean “to help, to make whole, to save, to deliver” and similar things. The Hebrew word is behind the names Joshua, Jesus, and Isaiah, and many others. It is used to save people from disasters, sickness, enemies, and oppression. God saved his people from slavery in Egypt. He saved and preserved his people countless times, not because they deserved it, but because he loved them.
It is also used by the prophets for the ultimate rescue from sin, death, and the devil’s power. These begin with the promise to Adam and Eve that their Seed would crush the head of the serpent, Satan, and he would bruise the heel of the Seed. (Genesis 3:15) The promised Messiah would bear our sins, atone for them, and intercede for them. (Isaiah 53) Finally, he would be born of a virgin at just the right time. (Galatians 4:4-5) The Angel announced to Joseph that he would name the Messiah “God saves” (Jesus) because he would save his people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21) Jesus was the Lamb of God, who bore the sins of the world to the cross. (John 1:29) His death destroyed death, and his resurrection won the victory for us, opening the grave for us on the last day. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)
Ultimately, then, what Jesus saves us from is sin. Sin threatened to destroy us and separate us from God forever. Therefore, we do not return to sin, now that we are baptized. It would be like having a firefighter carry us out of our burning home, only to try to go back to get our favorite pictures. There is no point in being saved when you are going to put yourself in danger. When we were baptized, we died with him. When he rose, we rose to new life.
So, what are you saved from? From sin, death, and the power of the devil. Why? So that you can live as his child, redeemed, forgiven, and be with him forever.
[Twenty-Fourth in a series of posts on church words]
Encore Post:
After Jesus was baptized and tempted by the devil, he went from town to town, mostly in Galilee, near the Sea of Galilee. He preached, taught, and healed the sick. The longer he did this, the more people came to see him. What he saw moved him deeply. He had compassion on them. They were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. So he sent seventy disciples out to care for them. (Matthew 9:35-38)
The English words compassion and sympathy are very similar in meaning. Compassion is from Latin and sympathy from Greek. Both are from words that mean “to suffer with.” The word used for compassion in the Gospels and St. Paul is σπλαγχνίζομαι (splagchnizomai — a feeling of sorrow over the suffering of others that comes from deep inside [literally, the liver, stomach, heart, etc., move with concern]). Compassion is a feeling that moves you to action. You just can’t watch such suffering and not do something.
True compassion begins with God himself. When God finished creating the world, he looked at everything he had made, and he called it all “very good.” He knows what life was like for Adam and Eve before they sinned and what life would have been like for us if sin never existed. He knew how sin would ruin everything. He warned them, “In the day you eat of it, you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:17) It is no surprise, then, that he became very angry when Adam and Eve fell. Death colors everything in our world. Sickness and suffering are the beginning of death in our lives as they seek to tighten their grip on us.
So God, in his love, shares our pain at the effects of sin in our lives. In the person of Jesus, he experienced all of its effects and died to break its power over us. The Holy Spirit suffers along with us, praying for us even when we cannot pray. (Romans 8:23-26) One day, Jesus will return to bring an end to sin, death, and the power of the devil forever.
God, in his compassion, does not wait for the end of time to help and to save. Today, he calls on us to be compassionate, as he is compassionate. He sends us to where people need his presence and his help. He especially sends pastors with his gifts and spirit, and deaconesses, to meet people’s physical needs. We are then, his heart to suffer with others, his hands to care for them, and his feet to go where others will not go. Through us, he shows his own self-description: the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love.
[Twenty-Third in a series of posts on church words]
Encore Post:
One of the most common stories of redemption in the Old Testament comes to us in the book of Ruth. That whole book is about her redemption. Remember, Boaz was her kinsman’s redeemer. There are redeemers in the Old Testament, but the story of Ruth and Boaz has always caught my attention. By that act of redemption, Ruth is grafted into the genealogy of Jesus, the redeemer of the world! But what do we mean by “redemption”?
Redemption is one word that dutifully describes the work of Christ’s atoning sacrifice for us. Redemption involves gaining possession of something in exchange for payment. Dr. Luther is a master at discussing the term “redemption” when speaking about the meaning of the second article. There, Luther says in line with Scripture, “[Jesus Christ] has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins from death and the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His innocent sufferings and death….”
It is not like, however, that Jesus is paying Satan, as if Satan has power over Jesus. No, it’s not like that at all. While humanity was in the grasp of sin and death, it was not Satan who needed the payment of Christ’s blood. Rather, it was Holy and Righteous God.
God, who is indeed Holy and Righteous, could not be in the presence of sin. Therefore, He certainly could not be in the presence of sinful man, and allow them to live. However, by the work of the Son, Jesus Christ, He came to redeem sinful man. He came to gain possession of humanity from the grips of everlasting death for himself.
Jesus pays what we owe to God, who has been gracious and merciful to us, having sent his own Son into the world to be our redeemer. Jesus is the bridegroom is who pays the dowry to have His bride. And He pays that price with His own body and blood at the cross. Christ’s bride is the Church. And He dresses her in his own clothing and presents her to Himself. Redeemed and a possession of Christ forever.
Commemoration of Friedrich Wyneken, Pastor and Missionary
Kramer Chapel
May 4, 2020
Text:
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light…” (1 Peter 2:9–12)
Introduction
One hundred and eighty‑two years ago, a dense forest stretched from the Great Lakes west to the Illinois prairie and south to the Ohio River Valley. The frontier was a cathedral of towering oaks, sycamores, elms, maples, chestnuts, pines, and cedars. Even young banker Hugh McCulloch was moved to awe at the sight.
Into this wilderness poured thousands—soon tens of thousands—of Germans and Irish, drawn by the promise of fertile land where a man might carve out a farmstead and leave a heritage to his children. They found hard work in a hard climate. They found isolation. The bush might keep you from knowing you even had neighbors… No church bells would call you to worship in non‑existent churches.
The settlers came. Pastors, by and large, did not.
Even when a congregation was blessed with a servant of the Word, tragedy often struck. In Fort Wayne, St. Paul’s Lutheran Congregation mourned the death of its young German‑American pastor. Elder Adam Wesel wrote to the Pennsylvania Ministerium on June 4:
“If you canvass the northern part of Indiana, you will soon see how important it is that you send us a faithful shepherd… If it is not possible to send us a pastor, dear brothers, then send us a circuit rider. We hunger and thirst for the Word of God.”
God heard their prayer.
Three days before their pastor died, Friedrich Wyneken set sail for Baltimore on the Brig Apollo. As Wesel’s letter arrived in Pennsylvania, Wyneken presented himself to the mission society, ready to receive a call. They sent him to gather the scattered German Protestants of Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. And he did.
“Called Out of Darkness Into His Marvelous Light”
(1 Peter 2:9)
Peter’s words fit Wyneken’s world—and yours.
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). God called Wyneken out of darkness into His marvelous light, and through him God called thousands more.
And now, God calls you.
As God’s people prayed for a pastor then, so they do now. As God answered their prayer, sending Wyneken, so he answers their prayer and sends you.
You bear the same call Wyneken bore. You preach the same Gospel. You administer the same Baptism (Matthew 28:19). You grant the same Absolution (John 20:23). You celebrate the same Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23–26).
The office is the same. The Christ is the same. The mercy is the same.
“Sojourners and Exiles” (1 Peter 2:11)
Yet the world into which you are sent is no less foreign than Wyneken’s frontier.
While a remnant of Christian America remains, we live in a pagan culture. The fear of death drives the world’s actions (Hebrews 2:15). What little they know of Jesus or His Church is often a caricature.
Peter’s counsel is sound:
“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11).
And again:
“Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable” (1 Peter 2:12).
You are not sent to win arguments. You are sent to bear Christ.
Let them see your good works—not to glorify you, but “to glorify God on the day of visitation. (1 Peter 2:12).
Never Alone
“We are founded on the living cornerstone, chosen and precious” (1 Peter 2:4). “We are not redeemed with silver or gold, but with His precious blood” (1 Peter 1:18–19). “We are now His own holy nation, a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9).
And though you may seem alone, you are never alone.
Wyneken was not alone in the forest. You are not alone in this culture. Christ is with His Church. Christ is with His pastors. Christ is with His people.
He who called you out of darkness will keep you in His marvelous light.
And now may the peace of God, which passes understanding, set watch over your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus to live everlasting. Amen.
Encore Post: The Young Fritz Wyneken was the tenth of eleven children, the sixth of six sons. He joined a family of dedicated and prominent servants of heavenly and earthly kingdoms. One uncle served as the Court Preacher of the King of Hanover, another the commander of the Queen of Denmark’s bodyguard, and a brother the Rector of a seminary. Other Wynekens served as pastors and officers in various occupations in Denmark and Germany.
When Friedrich was five years old, his father died, leaving his mother, Louise, to raise their eleven children. To accomplish this, she depended on a meager church pension, took in boarders, and called on family and friends to make ends meet.
Friedrich attended a Gymnasium in his hometown of Verden. At age seventeen, he enrolled at the University of Göttingen, the traditional Wyneken alma mater. Yet the school’s strict atmosphere and its students’ vulgar behavior proved intolerable to the young man. After one semester, Friedrich enrolled in the University of Halle’s Theological Faculty, where he remained until he graduated two and a half years later.
At Halle, Friedrich found a mentor in Augustus Tholuck, a leader of the 19th-century German Awakening and supporter of the Prussian Union. During Friedrich’s years at Halle, Tholuck taught courses in New Testament, Dogmatics, and the History of Doctrine.
Through his influence, Wyneken became an “awakened” and “believing” Christian. Upon graduation, Wyneken served as a private instructor in the home of Consistorial Counselor von Henfstengel at Leesum, a town near Bremen. The area was a stronghold for the Awakening and a place where Friedrich Wyneken would grow both in his faith in Christ and zeal for missions. No doubt his relatives played a part in this development, since many of them lived in the area. After four years in Leesum, he briefly served as the director of a Latin School in Bremervörde and then as a private instructor of a boy, whose health required him to live in Italy and the South of France.
Wyneken’s education and experience had made him into a strong, convinced pietist, full of zeal for the Lord and “a fanatic full of fire to oppose strict churchhness.” Wyneken returned to Germany in 1837, fully groomed for a promising career in the church. Then he read accounts of the spiritual needs of German Lutherans on the American frontier in mission society journals. Everything changed.
[Twenty-Second in a series of posts on church words]
Encore Post:
The sanctified life of the Christian is one of self-control, the last of the “fruits of the Spirit” that Paul speaks about in that famous Galatians passage. Self-control is, in particular, the ability to control one’s emotions in conformity with God’s will.
Doing a simple bible word search just in the ESV, you first find the translation used in Proverbs 25:28. There, a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. Nothing good happens in a city like that. The city would be lost to looters. In a similar fashion, a man lacking self-control, who loses his temper or emotions easily, loses respect and dignity in the sight of his counterparts.
St. Paul warns young Timothy that self-control is an extremely important characteristic for those seeking to serve the Church as pastors. Having self-control is important because we need to remember that it is most easily lost with a loose tongue. But self-control is also an important trait for everyone.
Involved in self-control is the discipline in what we say and do. What better way to be disciplined (a follower) by the Word of God, from which we hear the good news of our justification in the sight of God for Jesus’ sake?
Paul reminds us that we were once a people who were slaves to our sinful passions. But in light of Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection, we have been granted new life, and it is in this new life that we desire to control our sinful desires and flesh. The Christian life involves self-control. It is intimately connected to returning to the font of holy baptism through confession and absolution. There we put to death our old, sinful Adam and daily rise to the new obedience, actually desiring to do the things which God commands of us.
It is a continual struggle, as even Paul attests. Self-control is a character trait that needs to be developed and exercised. God’s gift of self-control is continually developed by being in His Word and by being formed by the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.
[Twenty-first in a series of posts on church words]
Encore Post:
Many Lutheran pastors begin their sermons with the greeting: “Grace, Mercy and Peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” St. Paul used this blessing to begin both his letters to Timothy, and St. John used it for one of his letters. Two other posts cover grace and peace. In this one, we take up the third of the triad, mercy.
Yet, in a way, we’ve been here before. One of the Hebrew words for love, חֶ֫סֶד, often translated lovingkindness, is also used for mercy. You probably already know the Greek word for mercy. It is ἐλεέω — eleeo — the word in the ancient prayer we call the Kyrie Eleison: “Lord, have mercy.” This prayer appears as the congregation’s response to prayer in worship services of the 4th century (300s AD). To this day, Christians still pray it in traditional worship services. The word mercy is love in action. It is the response someone who cares has when they see another in great pain and suffering.
When God shows mercy, he acts out of his compassion to save, to help, and to heal. Most of the time, the person suffering cannot help themselves. All of the time, they do not deserve mercy. Mercy comes from the love and grace of God. Sometimes the person asking for mercy is about to be sentenced for a crime and hopes for punishment less severe than he should receive. God’s mercy is always for the sake of his Son, who took the punishment we deserved, atoned for our sins on the cross, and suffered for us in full. God is indeed merciful to us, for he forgives our sins and grants us everlasting life.
Yet mercy does not end with God. Because God is merciful to us, we are merciful to our suffering neighbors. Since the very beginning of the church, Christians have sought to be channels of God’s mercy to all who suffer. They have visited the sick and brought healing where they could. They have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, sheltered the homeless, visited the imprisoned, befriended the lonely and those grieving, and cared for orphans and widows. In us, they see God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and full of faithful love. Most of all, we bring the good news of God’s greatest mercy — salvation in Christ Jesus, our merciful Lord.
Every culture has a different way of greeting. We say “hello” informally, “Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” and “Good evening.” The Romans said, “Salve” (“be well”). The Greeks said, “χαίρετε” — kairete (“be joyful”). From ancient times, the Hebrews —and now Israelis —say “שָׁלוֹם” — shalom (peace, be well, whole and complete). They also say shalom when they say “Goodbye.”
When we say “peace,” we mean that everything is calm, that we are not at war, and that all is calm. In God’s Word, it is much more than that. Peace means everything is right with our world. Peace begins with our relationship with God. It comes from knowing he loves us, cares for us, will be with us always, and knowing we will live with him forever. No matter what else is wrong in our world, nothing can take away our peace. Peace is what Adam and Eve had in Eden, when God saw all that he made and said it is “very good!”
Yet sin makes it nearly impossible to find peace on earth. Theologians say that we are “curved in on ourselves.” Sin makes us think of what pleases us, to seek our own interests over others, and to run over anything that gets in our way. This outlook on life puts us in conflict with God, with others, and with our world. It is the source of evil, sickness, grief, and death. No matter what we do, we cannot reconcile with God or each other with our own power. Selfishness is a part of everything we think and do. Death rules, and fear of it colors all we are.
To bring peace, God’s Son, the Prince of Peace, became one of us. He lived his life in perfect harmony with his Father. He offered himself to pay the price of our rebellion and warfare against God. He reconciled us with God by his own blood. In his body, all walls that separate us from God and each other fell. We are now at peace with God, even in this world of war.
Soon, the day will come when the Prince of Peace returns to rule. Then he will once and for all bring an end to sin, death, and the power of the devil. God himself will live with us. No more will there be sin, sorrow, grief, and pain. All these things will pass away as he makes all things new. Then peace will reign, and God will again say, “See! It is very good!”
