Pious Lutheran

"Mark the Evangelist" by Il Pordenone (c. 1484-1539)   Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Today is the festival of the evangelist St. John Mark. Mark wasn’t one of the twelve apostles, although he was with Jesus from the beginning and he was a cousin to the apostle Barnabas. Though earlier in his life he was the young man who ran away naked at the arrest of Jesus, Mark is also the author who wrote the second of the four gospels which bears his name. Mark’s gospel is the shortest of the four, but it’s also the most action packed and moves from one scene to the next with great urgency; one thing happens, then “immediately” the next thing happens!  Mark is a complex person in the Bible, and he’s well worth considering today. During the earlier part of his ministry he became discouraged and fearful, quitting the ministry, but later on he once again took up the yoke laid upon him. He had been distraught for a time, yet Christ raised him up again to accomplish...

 “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’” According to God’s ordering, He formed Adam from the dust of the earth and Eve from Adam’s side. For all the generations which have followed, God created us according to this same beautiful pattern: man and woman, husband and wife, male and female, XY and XX. The differences between men and women God has established in nature; differences in genetics, physiology, abilities, vocations, and personalities. Men and women, while similar in many respects (and equal in regards to salvation and value), are not the same. God designed the sexes to be unequal to each other in order that they may complement one another. The differences between the two is what gives each their strength. The fact that men are to be men and that women are to be women is what gives our lives such vibrancy and vigor. One very significant aspect of this is that only men can be husbands and fathers, and only women can be their wives and be mothers to...

  "Luther at the Diet of Worms" by Anton von Werner Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! A few years ago, in 2017, we celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. In 1517, Martin Luther had posted the 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg, which we mark as the beginning of the Reformation. But honestly, the posting of the 95 theses wasn’t that interesting nor that groundbreaking. The real excitement was yet to happen! Posting the 95 Theses was no more than posting an academic paper on a board filled with numerous other academic papers, so no excitement there. And the 95 theses themselves weren’t even all that good, they mainly focused on the abuses of indulgences and purgatory, but otherwise weren’t really Lutheran. They did get the ball rolling, however. Over the next few years Luther studied the scriptures more deeply and he became an actual Lutheran. No longer was it just about indulgences, but it was about the Gospel and salvatio...

"The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" - Caravagio, 1601   Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Last Sunday we celebrated Easter, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. Having risen from the dead, Christ made it abundantly obvious that He has overcome the world, namely He’s overcome the devil, sin, and death. Since Jesus, who is our brother, has overcome the world, we too overcome the world with Him. “ For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. ” What does it mean to overcome the world? It means to resist wicked passions and desires. “ For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. ” We must overcome the world, because the world and its desires are passing away, and if we belong to the world then we too will pass away. So St. John says “ Do not love the world or the th...

  Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! “Where is Jesus?” Presumably this was a question racing through the women’s and Peter’s and John’s minds when they raced to the tomb that Easter morning, only to discover it empty. Mary, Mary, and Salome went to the tomb, not expecting to see Jesus alive, but dead. They had purchased burial spices, meant to have preserved the body of Jesus they assumed was decaying.  But upon reaching the tomb they discovered the stone rolled away and Jesus not there. Where was Jesus? Instead of Jesus they were greeted by a young man, a messenger, dressed in white telling them: “ Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. ”  When the women told the apostles that Jesus wasn’t in the tomb and that He’d risen, the apostles didn’t believe it. It was a story, a fable, a fairytale! Yet, Peter and John couldn’t help it, they ran to the tomb without st...

  “ Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden. ” The story which began in a garden here comes to its completion in a garden. In the first garden, the first Adam was overcome by Satan into death, and in the second garden Satan has been overcome by the second Adam, Christ, by death. In a garden all were created and died, and in a garden one died so that all would be recreated. The Garden of Eden was to be like a botanical nursery. Not a nursery just for plants, but a nursery for man. In this nursery man would be nourished and watered, fed by the hand of God from the very tree of life. Once man had lived, grown, and matured in this nursery, God would transplant man to the garden of heaven. Like Enoch and Elijah, man wouldn’t have died but simply been taken from the nursery of Eden to the garden of heaven.  But an Evil entered into that garden. Satan, the deceiver and murderer of the world, that ancient dragon, disguised himself as an angel of light, like a simple...

  The yearly Passover meal for the Israelites was a memorial meal, by which they recalled God’s loving providence for them in sparing them from death and delivering them from bondage in Egypt. When they celebrated the Passover, the actual Passover wasn’t happening again, they weren’t reenacting the Passover, it was just a memorial. Many protestants view Communion the same way: just a memorial, a time to remember what Jesus sacrificed for us. But those protestants couldn’t be further from the truth. There is some value in remembering what Jesus did for us, it’s good to ruminate and ponder the profound work of redemption Christ performed on our behalf. But remembering a past event pales in comparison to participating in the event itself! To make this abundantly clear, would you rather just remember a loved one or be with that loved one presently? Obviously being with the person is far better than just remembering the person. So the Lord’s Supper is no mere memorial; we’re not just re...