Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Genesis 8,18-22. 20. Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

Genesis 8,18-22 5419

20. Sn. n. Trinitatis 065

Pirmin, Apostle of Westrich ✠ 753/4

3. November 2019

1. O Lord, our Gracious Host; send forth Your gospel into the world, so that the Holy Spirit works faith in Jesus Christ among those who hear Your Word. Amen. (Matthew 22,14)

2. »So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in His heart: „I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.“«

3. The Apostle Paul does not mince words; he gives us the straight truth: »The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ« (1. Corinthians 15,56-57). We hear these verses at a funeral and the graveside committal. We are soberly reminded of our sinfulness, its curse and our redemption from that curse of death. We simultaneously mourn and rejoice. The Lamb who was slain has been through it all and made the way through for us (Nagel 316). He doesn’t just talk comfort; He has done it for us at Calvary (Nagel 316).

4. With All Saints’ Day, the Church remembers all who have left this temporal life for the heavenly life. Some have been gone for decades, even centuries, and others may be a few months, but they all have a place in our hearts and minds. Gone from us, but never forgotten; nevertheless we long to see them once more.

5. What does it mean to be a saint? Christians are called saints or holy ones. That means they’ve been taken away from this world, cleansed in Christ’s blood and united with Christ Himself (Giertz 781). This righteousness has been given to us in our Baptism. The Apostle Peter tells us: »Baptism now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ« (1. Peter 3,21). The apostle furthermore links Baptism to the ark and the Flood: »the ark … in which … 8 people, were brought safely through water. Baptism corresponds to this ark« (1. Peter 3,20-21). Noah and his family were saints, and God saved them from the Flood, for Noah had found favor in His eyes (Genesis 6,8). After he departed the ark, Noah offered burnt offerings to God as thanksgiving for thing saving him and his family. God approved of Noah’s sacrifice, for Noah is a righteous man, a saint.

6. Noah was also called a son of God (Genesis 6,2). One becomes a saint, a son/daughter of God, through the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who declares us righteous freely and graciously in the waters of Holy Baptism. Faith receives this righteousness as one’s own, and thus, forgiven and redeemed, we are saints of God our Father. The Apostle Paul uses another image in his epistle to the Corinthians: »you are a letter from Christ written with the Spirit of the Living God on hearts of flesh« (2. Corinthians 3,3). Paul says we are letters of exhortation and encouragement. When we think about saints, we often think of the things they have said and done that have been of benefit to a neighbor or helped someone through a trial or temptation faced in this temporal life.

7. Every day of the year has a saint assigned to it; 3. November is set aside for Pirmin. You have probably never heard of him, but Pirmin was born in 700 in Aragon, Spain and died on 3. November 753/4 in Hornbach, Germany. He was a monk and missionary who founded or restored numerous monasteries and churches in Alsace along the Upper Rhine. He wrote several books, the most important one being a collection of Scripture verses and quotations from earlier Church Fathers that missionaries could use in their preaching and teaching (Dicta Abbatis Pirminii c. 710-24). It contains the earliest written text of the Apostles’ Creed as we confess it today. The missionaries used this Creed at Baptisms, and thus we continue this tradition and practice 1300 years later!

8. Luther nailed his 95 Theses on Schloßkirche (Castle Church) which is also called All Saints Church because it was Elector Frederick III’s castle church; it was dedicated by Duke Rudolph I in 1340 on 1. November, hence its name All Saints Church. On 10. November 1858, 375 years after Luther’s birth, new bronze doors replaced the old original wood doors, and on these bronze doors all 95 Theses are inscribed in Latin, commemorating that fateful act on 31. October 1517.

9. Luther often irked his lord and benefactor, Frederick III, because he often preach that we only set before us the memory of saints so that we may follow their faith and good works, but we do not invoke the saints nor ask them for help for Scripture sets before us Christ; He is to be prayed to, and Christ has promised that He will hear and answer our prayers (Augsburg Confession 21). Lutherans continue to emphasize the same about the saints.

10. Let us also meditate upon our congregation. This past Thursday, on 31. October, our congregation celebrated 104 years of existence. Such a milestone is a testament to the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst for over a century. Many Christian saints have sat in these pews throughout the years, and they heard the same message of God’s grace and forgiveness given to us through Jesus Christ. As His saints, we rejoice today for the gospel delivered to us in the Word and Sacraments.

11. The 1. Baptism in this church was Grace Anna Caldwell on Easter Sunday 31. March 1918, the daughter of James Caldwell and Grace nee Herzog. She was baptized by Pastor F. Jena. The first saint in this church to enter paradise was Harry Aron Keder on Good Friday 25. March 1921 (buried Easter Monday 28. March), a young man, 21, who died from influenza. No one here knew these 2 saints, perhaps some still recall or know of the Caldwell and Keder families, but Grace, Harry and all the other departed saints in this church are known to Jesus; they dwell in fellowship with Him and are a cloud of witnesses who gather with us as we worship Christ our Lord. And our church remembers them, each one faithfully recorded in our record books: their Baptisms, confirmations, weddings and funerals – all there on pages dating back over 100 years. Your name is recorded too in those books, and we are thus connected with those in this congregation who have gone before us.

12. All Saints’ Day is like a family reunion. We remember the saints, and give thanks to God for them, even if it is only a name on a page, for they are known to Jesus; He saved and redeemed them, just as He saved and redeemed all of us, as He saved and redeemed Noah and his family. There are other saints remembered in our church. Each stained glass window is engraved with the names of those who donated them for the glory of God and the beautification of this church. Others are listed for their service to God and country, some laying down their lives so that others may live in freedom. The works of the saints surround us, and they draw our attention to Christ our Lord and Savior; we give thanks to God for them. Amen.

10. Let us pray. O Heavenly Father, who makes sinners into saints; since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us look to Jesus, so that in Him we rejoice for He is the Founder and Perfector of our faith. Amen. (LCMS Verse for All Saints’s Day; Hebrews 12,1a.2a)

To God alone be the Glory

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Löhe, Wilhelm. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Wartburg Publishing House, Chicago circa 1912. Concordia Publishing House; Concordia on Demand.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Genesis 8,18-22. 20. Trinity

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