Pious Lutheran

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas,  Caravaggio, 1601 Faith in that which cannot be seen After seeing flesh and blood, Thomas declares faith in Jesus’ unseen divinity We have not seen Christ nor His divinity, and yet declare our belief that Jesus is our Lord and God We receive this faith in the unseen through Jesus’ word of life In turn we boldly confess the faith, even at the ridicule of the world Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! As the idiom goes: seeing is believing. It’s a rule we often live by, skeptics we are, that we don’t believe something unless we see it. Nowadays with the rise of so-called Artificial Intelligence image, video, and audio generation, we’re skeptical of pretty much everything unless we see it in person. Considering our world is not unlike Crete, where we could say: “All Americans are liars,” it’s no wonder we’re so frequently skeptical. We are usually like St. Thomas who needs to see something before he believes it. “ Now Thomas, one of...

Illustration from The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ Written by the Four Evangelists, 1853 Jesus Drinks the Cup of God’s Wrath God’s wrath is a cup that must be drunk Jesus drinks the cup and is satisfied We receive the overflowing cup of blessing From the cross Jesus uttered, “ I thirst. ” Moments later a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch was offered to our Lord and He drank, finally declaring “ It is finished, ” “ and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. ” Isn’t it strange that our Lord would mention His thirst, especially when He had previously been offered wine mixed with gall and He refused it. Is our Lord simply picky about His beverage of choice, or is there more going on here than meets the eye?  Regarding these different drinks offered to Jesus, both of these drinks were readily available among Roman soldiers, but for different purposes. The wine mixed with gall or myrrh was a type of strong drink, often offered to those being crucified as a type of mercy, in...

Christ on the Cross with Three Angels , Albrecht Durer, 1523 Redemption made Manifest Not merely performing a drama The redemptive body and blood of Christ are made new again In this sanctuary the most precious treasure in the world is delivered to us What happens here in the Divine Service, and throughout the church year, is not some sort of a theatrical play or a dramatic retelling of history. Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday and culminating on Easter Sunday is often treated like a spectacle, something to be observed like attending one of the shows at Chanhassen, only this is more emotionally driven. Dramas are entertaining, but they’re foreign to the Divine Service, because this is no mere playacting but it is the real deal. See, if this were merely a spectacle, something you observe, then ultimately what happens here is just a bunch of empty rituals. If they’re empty rituals, then you might treat them like a joke or some sort of casual enterprise. But instead, since this is th...

Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen , Marten van Valckenborch, 1580 The Battle for the Vineyard The church of God is the vineyard In love for His church God sent His Son to die at the hands of evil men Those who reject the Son lose their place in the church Those who fall on Christ are welcomed into the church The Lord sings over His vineyard the church through the prophet Isaiah: “ Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.  He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. … For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!”   What love and affection the Lord showed the Israelites, preserving them eve...

Seventh Commandment: You Shall not Rob or Steal , Lucas Cranach, 1528 What is The Seventh Commandment? You shall not steal. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not take our neighbor’s money or possessions, or get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and protect his possessions and income. “ The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing. ” All good things come down from our Heavenly Father to us His beloved children. While we may presumptuously behave as if all that we have is a result of our hard labors, this is simply false. All things belong to the Lord, and He has given them to us freely as a gift. Regardless of how much you may think you deserve what you have, it’s a gift, not a reward. So the Lord sends rain upon the just and the unjust alike.  Thus, since all that we have is a gift from the Lord and rightly belongs to Him, as James teaches us: “...