“When we were still under the papacy, they used to tell this story.  Once upon a time the […]

“Let us, then, meditate upon the Nativity just as we see it happening in our own babies. I would not have you contemplate the deity of Christ, the majesty of Christ, but rather his flesh. Look upon the Baby Jesus. Divinity may terrify man. Inexpressible majesty will crush him. That is why Christ took on our humanity, save for sin, that he should not terrify us but rather that with love and favor he should console and confirm.

“Frankly, any idea of planning our own lives is out. God can come suddenly, while we are planning, and speak his true word about our life. We can be fairly certain when we are dealing with other people, but no one can be sure when dealing with the living God. Then human glory is silenced. Then palaces and thrones fall. Then one stands face to face with his creator and judge, who has come to him by night. Did he find him sleeping or watching? Now, that is the question. Neither status of office or rank, nor wisdom or prudence, count for anything now. The only hope lies there, when the judgment finally comes and all eyes are upon him, waiting. All hope lies in his hands. Far above all our attempts to protect our future, over all that we have done to secure our own life with our anxious busy-ness and self-torture, over all our cleverness, lies the beatitude of the waiting, watching servant and the sentence of death on the sleeping servant. The waiting servant expects everything, everything from God. Yes, he expects God himself and gives glory to him. He wants nothing for himself, all for God. Only the waiting servant is open, ready for anything. Only such can go from Advent to Christmas. Blessed are those who wait.”

“What I have hitherto and constantly taught concerning this I know not how to change in the least, namely, that by faith, as St. Peter says, we acquire a new and clean heart, and God will and does account us entirely righteous and holy for the sake of Christ, our Mediator. And although sin in the flesh has not yet been altogether removed or become dead, yet He will not punish or remember it.

“Beware of those who promise a sweet, calm, tranquility in this life from God by perfecting your commitment to spiritual exercises. They did not work for Luther in the monastery and they will not work for us. Do not believe that we can reach a lofty level of sanctification where we can be free of the battles that rage in our minds and hearts in this life. We walk by faith and hope for the better day that is coming when eternity blesses us with the full fruits of Christ’s victory at His Heavenly Banquet. For now, we join Christ in His battle against the powers of darkness within and without as very much a junior partner.”

The First Article: Creation

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

What does this mean?

I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my limbs, my reason, and all my senses, and still preserves them; in addition thereto, clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and homestead, wife and children, fields, cattle, and all my goods; that He provides me richly and daily with all that I need to support this body and life, protects me from all danger, and guards me and preserves me from all evil; and all this out of pure, fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me; for all which I owe it to Him to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him. This is most certainly true.

“What are we to say to the fact that most people are still willing, even eager, to have […]

“The infusion of European migration has been over for two generations. Assimilation to American cultural patterns proceeds rapidly. Lutherans now cannot avoid choices about how to relate more generally to other American churches and to the American environment itself…The choices that have been made so far seem to throw into doubt either the ability to communicate an authentically Lutheran word in America or a capacity to maintain such an authentic word…The dominating concern seems to be less the offering of Lutheranism to America than the promotion of social engagements and bureaucratic efficiency.”

“Christian community is like the Christian’s sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only […]

“Take me, for example. I opposed indulgences and all papists, but never by force. I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word: otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip of Amsdorf the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing: the Word did it all. Had I wanted to start trouble…. I could have started such a little game at Worms that even the emperor wouldn’t have been safe. But what would it have been? A mug’s game. I did nothing: I left it to the Word.”

“What the apostle actually says in this text [Romans 6:12-14] is that sin shall not be able to […]

“For contrition that precedes faith is nothing but suffering on the part of man. It consists of anguish, […]

“Further, we say, we do not put the main emphasis on whether the person baptized believes or not, for in the latter case baptism does not become invalid. Everything depends on the Word and commandment of God. This is a rather subtle point, perhaps, but it is based upon what I have said, that baptism is simply water and God’s Word in and with each other; that is, when the Word accompanies the water, baptism is valid, even though faith is lacking. For my faith does not make baptism; rather, it receives baptism. Baptism does not become invalid if it is not properly received or used, as I have said, for it is not bound to our faith but to the Word.”

“In preparing to die, we should turn our eyes to God, to whom the path of death leads and directs us. Here we find the beginning of the narrow gate and of the straight path to life [Matt. 7:17].  All must venture forth on this path, for though the gate is quite narrow, the path is not long. Just as an infant is born with peril and pain from the small abode of its mother’s womb into the immense heaven and earth, that is, into this world, so man departs this through the narrow gate of death. And although the heaven and earth in which we dwell at present seem large and wide to us, they are nevertheless as narrow and small in comparison with the future heaven as the mother’s womb is in comparison this our heaven [i.e. sky]. Therefore, the death of the dear saints is called a new birth, and their feast day is known in Latin as natale, that is, the day of their birth. However, the narrow passage of death makes us think of this life as expansive and the life beyond as confined. Therefore, we must believe this and learn a lesson from the physical birth of a child, as Christ declares, “When a woman is in travail she has sorrow; but when she has recovered, she no longer remembers the anguish, since a child is born by her into the world [John 16:21]. So it is that in dying we must bear this anguish and know that a large mansion and joy will follow [John 14:2].”

“But it is equally clear that…this generation of theologians—with few but significant exceptions—has defined its calling by pushing off against the preaching of the church. Theology has been professionalized; it has become a guild unto itself. Turned in upon themselves, the theologians have kept the church at a safe distance, treating preaching as incidental instead of as the goal of theological reflection. And so the church, with rare exceptions, has passed over this generation of theologians when it has sought leadership, leaving the guild to its own standards and devices and telling the schools, with increasingly slim financing, to fend for themselves.”

“[Religion] does have a redeeming feature: it’s the human race’s historic witness to our awareness that something is seriously out of whack with the way we try to manage life. Even though I’ve said that religion is the largest management error of all time — and despite the fact that it commands us to do all kinds of things we would never have bothered with if we hadn’t invented religion in the first place (there was no religion in Eden when it was under God’s management) — it stands as a testimony to the fact that we owe both God and our neighbors an apology for making the world such as mess. In short, religion reminds us that we’re damaged goods. Having given it that much credit, though, it’s still a loser: after 10,000 years of religion, the world is not noticeably a better place. Indeed, under our religious manipulations, it’s gotten decidedly worse. Here, therefore, ends the kind word.”

“The problem the world has with preachers is that they not only give strange and culturally local ideas like an after-dinner speaker might, but they proceed to elect sinners, which is to say they remove the free will. The do this categorically, that means, not hypothetically and completely without any condition. Giving Christ sucks the air out for anything else, especially the free will. But is not the free will what religion is supposed to uphold? No. Free will is a synonym for death, since whatever it is, it is demonstrably not the person of Jesus Christ. Christ is life, and what is not life is death. Preachers destroy the myth of the free will, which has become the ultimate hope, and this surgical removal is precisely why no one can hear them.”

“You can judge what people need to hear by what they’re most afraid of hearing. And what people seem to be most afraid of hearing is the notion of unqualified forgiveness–grace. When I preach a sermon on grace I see the people in the congregation smiling and nodding their heads. It is like 200 proof whiskey to people to understand that they are forgiven and loved and the fuss is all over. But by the time the service is over and they arrive at coffee hour, the smiles are gone and the people are full of qualifying questions. People want to hear the Good News but they dread the Good News. I don’t know why they dread it so much but they do. We are afraid of it. We are afraid of really being forgiven and being free. It’s very strange.”

“An American president is, indeed, a ‘governing authority’ to which we should submit; but he is by no stretch of principles a king. We should submit to the office, in that we obey the laws he is supposed to execute, but he cannot require citizens to do whatever he commands. Our Constitution does not give him that power. He is neither the source of law nor the interpreter of law. The public elects the President from a field of candidates. Submission to his authority cannot always include voting for him. Nor can it mean refusing to criticize him. In our legal and political system, the people must assess the President’s performance and that of other elected officials; otherwise it would be impossible to have a democratic republic.

“If the cross is the place where God reveals Himself, then it is further the place where God’s revelation contradicts human reason most severely. Judged by everything called wisdom by the world, the word of the cross, as already St. Paul has seen, is the most foolish doctrine a philosopher can meet. That the death of one man is to be the salvation of all, that this death on Calvary is to be the atoning sacrifice for all sins of the world, that the suffering of one innocent person should assuage the wrath of God: these are claims contradicting all ethical and religious feelings of natural man. Already beyond discussion for the world is the presupposition for these claims, namely, the doctrine of man’s universal sinfulness, because it means the end of all philosophical ethics. For all philosophical ethics rest upon the principle which has been formulated by Kant (1724-1804) in the words: Du kannst, denn du sollst, “Thou canst, for thou shalt.” Now Holy Scripture claims that just this foolish preaching of the cross is the wisdom of God, which brings to naught the wisdom of the wise of this world. Between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of this world there is a total and irreconcilable contrast. What for human reason is wisdom is foolishness for God, and God’s wisdom is foolishness for the world.”