Pious Lutheran

Saint John the Baptist in Prison Visited by Two Disciples , Giovanni di Paolo, 1460 Before we reach the joys of paradise, we must first endure the violence of reformation. Tomorrow is the feast of All Saints, and we’ll observe it next Sunday. All Saints Day is a happy, joyful, glorious, comforting day in which we rejoice with all the saints who are in heaven waiting for the resurrection! We sing those tear-jerking hymns, like For All the Saints and Behold a Host! It’s a great day!  But before we can get to All Saints Day we have to go through Reformation Day. Skipping Reformation Day and going straight to All Saints is like sleeping 364 days and waking up on New Year’s Eve to celebrate the close of the past year and the coming of the new year; it makes for an empty celebration if you didn’t actually experience the past year with all of its ups and downs. Don’t get me wrong, Reformation Day is joyful and celebratory! It acknowledges the victory of the eternal Gospel over sin and dea...

Man in Armor,  Rembrandt, 1655 We are living in some tumultuous times. Here in America we were spared most of the major tumult of the 20th century, at least on our own land. Certainly there was Pearl Harbor and many riots and demonstrations, but nothing like our Civil War in the 19th century or what much of Europe faced in the 20th century. But now some fissures and chips are starting to appear in the shiny facade of our highly decadent society. Like the Cold War era, people are starting to get the impression that something isn’t quite right. In that era they built bomb shelters, today the risks are different so people are trying to live more sustainably. Gardening, raising small livestock, canning and preserving foods, these are becoming incredibly popular especially with the younger generation and in some places finding supplies is getting difficult. Similarly, with threats of banning guns and fears of civil war or meat shortages, the sale of firearms and archery is through the r...

The Wedding Feast , Pieter Brueghel the Younger, 1620 “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” Most of our resources in life are renewable. If you spend all your money you work for more. If you eat all your food you can grow some more. If your clothes wear out you can sew some more. Especially today in our consumerist culture where things are quite cheap and easy to obtain, it’s easy to treat many things with little care because you can just throw them away and buy new. This consumerist attitude tends to make us wasteful. There is one resource which is not renewable and yet very easy to waste and that’s time. We all have an undisclosed finite amount of time. Each day has just 24 hours. Life isn’t like a movie which you can rewind. We can’t hit the...

Jacob's Ladder,  Tintoretto, 1578 “ And Jacob dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!... Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. ” According to Rock and Roll, there’s a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven. I suppose that’s kinda Biblical, because Jesus says: “ Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it. ” Thus, a highway to hell and a narrow stairway to heaven. But where are those places? Where’s the highway to hell and where’s the stairway to heaven? Where are the holy pl...

Agnus Dei , AdCrucem.com Dear Nancy, children and grandchildren, family and friends of Francis, God’s peace be with you all. Francis is a baptized child of God and belongs to the Lord, even now. “ He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? ” Indeed, God loves Francis enough to have died for him in order to gain for him eternal life. So as you mourn the death of a beloved husband, father, grandpa, brother, and friend, remember that God’s love for Francis and you extends beyond this life and into the next.  I never knew Francis when he was young, but from what I’ve heard and been told, he was a hard working man who loved to have a grand old time. Likely this hard work contributed to his breathing difficulties in more recent years; he just wore out his body. When it’s hard to breathe everything is laborious, even the simplest tasks require work. After 81 years of much labor, God has granted Francis rest. “ ...

Thou Shalt Love the Lord Thy God,  Maurice Schnell, 1830-1902 Who do you love and how do you choose who to love? Most Americans don’t have arranged marriages, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but we choose our spouses more or less. Typically we choose who to be friends with, we choose those we will love. I would guess most of the time we choose those people based upon a level of reciprocity: I scratch your back, you scratch mine.  Usually we don’t choose to love others who don’t give us something in return for our love. I know you might say we don’t choose our family, those are just given, and so we don’t have much choice in loving them. But it happens all the time in families where parents choose not to love their kids, or kids become estranged from their parents, or siblings have terrible feuds and never interact. Even many families choose not to love each other if they don’t get something out of it. The Lord, however, is different. “ The LORD set his heart in love...