November 14, 2024

Today's Reading: Catechism - Table of duties: To Employers and Supervisors

Daily Lectionary: Jeremiah 29:1-19; Revelation 14:1-20; Matthew 26:36-56

Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him. (Ephesians 6:9)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

It can be fun to consider the changes in descriptive language from the time of the Bible and the Catechism to our current generation.

The Bible speaks of farm and ranch life. A man’s wealth was his sheep, his olive orchard, and his water wells. At the time of the writing of the Catechism (the 1500s), the descriptive titles at the workplace included master and servant. Even words such as slave had meanings ranging from household servants to indentured servants and also those slaves captured as bounty in war.

Now, we don’t often speak of masters and servants. The titles might be Executive, administrative assistant, clerk, shift supervisor, project engineer, janitor, owner, or franchisee. You can probably think of many more.

The titles change (just as a farmer now plows a field with a tractor, not a pair of oxen), but we can still discern our Lord’s desire for us. He gives us to love our neighbor as ourselves (e.g., Mark 12:30-31). How do we love our neighbor? Love for neighbor flows from the heart of faith— faith that clings to Jesus’ love and mercy for the sinner and then brings forth the fruit of that faith in words and acts of love toward one another.

This love for neighbor has practical results in our lives. Our minds and hands produce actual, real-world benefits. This is how we may understand our vocations in life. We are the Lord’s servants to our neighbor. So, if we are employees, we serve our vocation well by rejoicing in our work and being productive employees. If we are employers or supervisors, if we’re given the job of boss at the workplace, then we serve our neighbors by treating our employees with respect, honoring our contract with them, and rejoicing in helping them to be productive in their employment.

The language has certainly changed since the days of speaking of master and servant, but the Lord has not changed. He still uses us in our many and various vocations to provide for our neighbors. We know that the Lord who has redeemed us with His own blood is using our lives, even our minds, and hands, to provide food and home, safety, and honor for those He loves. And our Lord loves our neighbor.

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Lord, help us walk Your servant way Wherever love may lead And, bending low, forgetting self, Each serve the other’s need. (LSB 857:1)

-Rev. Warren Graff, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Albuquerque, NM

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

Spend time reading and meditating on God’s Word throughout the Church Year with the Enduring Grace Journal. Includes scripture readings, prayers, prompts, and space for journaling. The Church Year Journal, Enduring Grace, now available from Concordia Publishing House.

November 13, 2024

Today's Reading: Matthew 26:20-35

Daily Lectionary: Jeremiah 26:1-19; Revelation 13:1-18; Matthew 26:20-35

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you,for this is my blood of the [new testament], which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:26-28)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Jesus is with His Apostles in the Upper Room, preparing to go to the cross to die. Three days later, He will be raised from the dead. Forty days later, He will ascend to Heaven, leaving His Apostles and His church here on Earth.

Jesus is the Lord who will not leave His people alone. Ascended to Heaven, He will never not be with His church. So, on the night when He was betrayed, He gave His church a mandate. He instituted the Gift by which He would bodily be with His church until he comes again.

Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the [new testament], which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Until that day, when He comes with glory to judge both the living and the dead, He remains with His Church. He brings us again and again into His remembrance, forgiving our sin.

In the midst of the church, He is with us in his Body and Blood. Among the people He loves, He is proclaiming His Father’s Name (cf. Hebrews 2:11-13), cleansing us of all sin, declaring us innocent of all guilt, and covering all of our shame. Here, among us, with us, He is bestowing on us the wealth of His cross.

That’s what Jesus was doing in that Upper Room with his Apostles. A Man on His way to death— He was instituting His Last Will and Testament so that upon His death, the wealth of His cross would be freely given out to His beneficiaries, to all those He calls into His Church (cf. Hebrews 9:15-16).

It’s His Gift. Christ instituted it. It is life itself, instituted by Christ for us Christians to eat and drink.

The sureness and certainty of this Gift depends upon Him alone. We do not make the Sacrament, nor does it derive any authority or worthiness from us. It is His Body and His Blood. Your sins are forgiven.

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Your body and Your blood, Once slain and shed for me, Are taken at Your table, Lord, In blest reality. (LSB 628:3)

-Rev. Warren Graff, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Albuquerque, NM

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

Spend time reading and meditating on God’s Word throughout the Church Year with the Enduring Grace Journal. Includes scripture readings, prayers, prompts, and space for journaling. The Church Year Journal, Enduring Grace, now available from Concordia Publishing House.

November 12, 2024

Today's Reading: Hebrews 9:24-28

Daily Lectionary: Jeremiah 25:1-18; Matthew 26:1-19

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf… But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:24, 26b)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Is there anything worse than standing at someone’s face when you’re in trouble? Maybe you had to tell your dad you broke the car window with a baseball or tell your mom that you dropped her pottery bowl on the ceramic tile floor.

There’s nothing worse than having to stand at someone’s face in judgment.

But then there’s Holy God! To stand at his face, where’s relief from that?

Wait. Someone’s standing at the face of God! It’s Jesus. Holy and blameless. He stands with no sin of His own. Why is He standing there? The Letter to the Hebrew Christians tells of Jesus standing at the Father’s face on our behalf (Hebrews 9:24). He’s at His Father’s face not for Himself, but for you, for me!

Are we troubled? Is Satan able to twist your conscience with guilt? He keeps bringing up your malice and inadequacies. Are the demons covering you in shame for what you have done, but also for what has been done to you?

You have someone standing in your place before the Father. The Apostle John says this: You have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous! (1 John 2:1-2) The Apostle Paul speaks of Jesus testifying to his Father on your behalf: Jesus is at the right hand of God interceding for you! (Romans 8:34)

What is Jesus saying on your behalf? What is His intercession for you? It is the testimony of his own blood. Jesus testifies that His sacrifice on the cross has put away your sin (Hebrews 9:26). With your sin put away, you’re guilty no more. You are no longer covered in shame. Jesus covers you in the honor of His own Name.

We do, indeed, stand at the face of the Father, but there’s relief. By the word of Jesus, you stand before His Father with no sin, no guilt, and no shame. You are now clothed in honor— you have Jesus’ Name on you!

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Lord of life, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Declare me clean of all my sin. Against you only have I sinned. Purge me with the blood of the cross, cleanse me and my conscience will be whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and give me your Spirit. Let me stand before your face in righteousness, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Amen. [paraphrase from Psalm 51]

-Rev. Warren Graff, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Albuquerque, NM

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

Spend time reading and meditating on God’s Word throughout the Church Year with the Enduring Grace Journal. Includes scripture readings, prayers, prompts, and space for journaling. The Church Year Journal, Enduring Grace, now available from Concordia Publishing House.