The Lutheran Carnival Resurrected!

What seems like ages ago there was once a Lutheran Carnival where a variety of Lutheran bloggers contributed posts in an effort promote some of the best writing coming from Lutherans all over the world. Then, after seventy editions of the Lutheran Carnival, there came a Sabbath rest as many great bloggers switched to microblogging on either twitter or facebook or just left the blogosphere entirely. The Carnival seemingly had run it’s course…

But Lutherans believe in resurrections and all and we knew that there was always a sliver of hope that maybe one day that the Carnival might emerge from it’s tomb. And so it has!

Pastor Alex Klages has resurrected the Lutheran Carnival over at his blog: A Begger At The Table with a post titled Welcome to the Carnival! with a focus on my favorite time of the Church's liturgical calender Lent! w00t!

Be sure to stop by, say howdy, and thank Pastor Klages for doing such a great job resurrecting a fine Lutheran blogosphere tradition.

Lenten Thoughts: Not A Dark Place But A Place Of Joy

An evangelical friend of mine, who I had not talked with for some time, called me Saturday evening on her way home. She said that since it was such a long drive she thought she would give me and the missus a shout as she had a few hours to burn.

When she asked me “guess what I did this morning?” I gave my usual random off the wall quirky answer “uh, you killed yerself a couple of possums?” Usually when people ask me a question to which I know I’m not going to even be in the right ballpark I’ll throw out the color blue as the reply and just wait for the look of muted confusion. I get that a lot even when I don’t try goofy words or phrases for some reason… I wonder why?

Anyhoo, the appropriate answer to my friend’s question was that she had used the Lutheran Service Book that I sent to her a few years back. I sent her a copy so that if I was ever asked lead a morning devotion, as I’ve been asked to do on occasion, I would have a copy of the Order of Matins to start us off. For what it’s worth, if I’m not attending a morning service that offers the Eucharist I would much rather follow the Order of Matins instead of one of our regular Divine Services whether it’s setting I or III as is the norm in my congregation.

My friend told me she followed the morning prayers, jumped around a little bit and ended up meditating on the one my favorite hymns: O Dearest Jesus, What Law Hast Thou Broken by Johann Heermann. She stated that it was “a dark hymn but sometimes we’ve got to go there”. And that got me thinking…

For those of us that follow the historical church’s liturgical calendar we are now almost through the season of Lent. Lent traditionally is viewed as a more somber or penitential season of the Church year which has the hymnody and the passages of Scripture focusing intently on Jesus’ turning His face toward Jerusalem and ultimately His cross to atone for the sins of all the world.

While the most popular voices of Americanized Christianity have eliminated any talk of the cross and Christ’s suffering on that cursed tree in our stead for a false assurance relying of their own good works and intentions as well as changing the world with visioned purpose, Lent for the more liturgically minded is a time of looking to the cross with confidence and through the eyes of faith; seeing God’s love on full display in that all the Father’s wrath has been propitiated through the sacrifice of the Son.

Lent for me has never really been a somber time of the year. It has however been a chance to stop (or at least turn down a bit) my own sinful narcissism and look, as we are called to do, to Jesus and what He did and continues to do for us each and every day. This is especially pertinent when we gather together in His name to hear the Word preached faithfully and receive the Sacraments rightfully administered.

Any season, week, or day of the liturgical church year that is able to focus our eyes back on the Crucified and Risen Savior is not a somber occasion but rather a joyous one. Yes, the depths of our sins become more apparent as the blameless one takes all our sins upon Himself at Golgotha to reconcile us with the God the Father but that is the tremendous depth of our Lord’s grace and love for His wayward children. The wonderful thing about Lenten hymnody, whether it’s from the pen of Heermann, Gerhardt, or any of a multitude of fine church musicians, is that what at first glance appears to be dark or somber, when seen through the eyes of faith, is really a proper understanding of how far a merciful Lord will go to redeem those who He loves. That salvific love hidden in the form of a cross is joy to Christian, even in the season of Lent.

A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining

Every now and then during Lent, the penitential time of the liturgical church year, I find myself enjoying a hymn that would seem to go against the standard that I’ve set up as a guide for judging hymnody. I’ve said both in private as well as publicly on this blog that a hymn should always reflect the scripture readings. Is it possible though to have a good or even a great hymn that doesn’t just reflect ten to twenty verses of a given Gospel but an entire theme of a particular season? I’d have to say yes, absolutely yes.

One of my favorite hymn writers for the season of Lent is Paul Gerhardt. The thing I love about most of Herr Gerhardt’s hymns is how well he rightly focuses us on our utter depravity and need for the salvific work of Jesus’ cross at Calvary. Gerhardt’s hymns have a beautiful way of holding up the mirror that shows us the ugly side of sin that will only bring death deserved by the sin we all inherited from our father Adam. The other side to the great Gerhardt hymns is the certainty that we will end our journey at the foot of the cross that is our very salvation. Whether it’s willingly or whether it be kicking and screaming, we all wind up at Jesus’ cross.

Gerhardt’s hymn “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining” is one of those lovely hymns that we sing during Lent that encompasses not one or two verses of Scripture but rather Christ’s entire journey, heavy laden with the sins of all the whole world, to His cross where He will offer himself up as an atoning sacrifice and our propitiation. Nailed to the cursed tree, He who created all that is, dies in our stead so that we might wear His righteousness as our own. What better story could we sing than that?

Here’s the text for Gerhardt’s beautiful and sublime hymn from page 438 of the Lutheran Service Book:


"A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth"

1. A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth,

The guilt of all sinners bearing;

And laden with the sins of earth,

None else the burden sharing!

Goes patient on, grow weak and faint,

To slaughter led without complaint,

That spotless life to offer;

He bears the stripes, the wounds, the lies,

The mockery and yet replies,
"All this I gladly suffer."

2. This Lamb is Christ, the soul's great Friend,

The Lamb of God, our Savior;

Whom God the Father chose to send

To gain for us His favor.

"Go forth, My Son," the Father said,

"And free my children from their dread
Of guilt and condemnation.

The wrath and stripes are hard to bear,

But by your Passion they will share

The fruit of Your salvation."

3. "Yes, Father, yes, most willingly

I'll bear what You command Me;

My will conforms to Your decree,

I do what have asked of Me”
O wondrous Love, what have You done!
The Father offers up His Son!

Desiring our salvation
O Love, how strong You are to save!

You lay the One into the grave

Who built the world’s foundations.

4. Lord, when Your glory I shall see

And taste Your kingdom's pleasure,

Your blood my royal robe shall be,

My joy beyond all measure.

When I appear before Your throne,

Your righteousness shall be my crown;

With these I need not hide me.

And there, in garments richly wrought

As Your own bride, shall we be brought

To stand in joy beside You.

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday for those of us who follow the historic liturgical calendar and I must say that I’m stoked! Ash Wednesday is the church catholic’s big kick off to the Lenten season.

Lent, the Church’s original forty days of purpose, is considered a penitential period where the focus of our attention is on Christ and his journey to the cross at Golgotha. As Jesus turns his face towards Jerusalem, so do we as we look to His Passion and His cross that He bears in our stead, for our sins.

The Scripture readings and the hymns during these forty days are among my favorite of the church year and I will no doubt have a post or two or three in the upcoming weeks.

Did I mention that Lent is my favorite time of the church year?

Unexpected Phone Calls, Sorrow, And The Comfort Of Lenten Hymnody

My morning started off very, very badly. About fifteen minutes before I was to leave for church I received a phone call from my oldest friend, Anne. She was calling me to request my presence when her husband comes home from the hospital to die. Anne’s husband Les has been on dialysis for kidney failure for many years now and he’s well past the average time that most people with his condition survive. Simply put, Les is at the point where the dialysis no longer does what it is supposed to. In six days he will come home for the last time to die with his family. Anne and Les consider me to be the not so sane younger brother, their three children all call me Uncle Frank, and for this reason, because I’m considered family, I too will be there at his passing.

This is not the way I expected my Sunday to start. Who knew? Not me I assure you. So needless to say I went off to church not in the right frame of mind. Fortunately, God’s gifts through His promised means of grace are not dependent on me being in the right frame of mind. The preached Word does what it does in spite of my emotional state whether it be distressed and cheerless or joyful, it makes no difference. Thankfully the Word of the Lord is not subjective but rather objective and alive and active. The comfort of God’s undeserved gift of grace through faith in Christ preached purely did what it was intended to, it comforted me.

And the closing hymn comforted me as well. I’ve written at length about my love of Lenten hymnody because of the focus on Christ’s passion and his journey to Jerusalem to offer Himself up as a sacrifice for all poor miserable sinners, like me and the rest of the planet. Our closing hymn was My Song Is Love Unknown by Samuel Crossman, written in 1664 was found on page 430 of our hymnal, LSB.

My song is love unknown,
 My Savior’s love to me;
 Love to the loveless shown,
 That they might lovely be.
 O who am I, that for my sake
 My Lord should take frail flesh and die?

He came from His blest throne
 Salvation to bestow;
 But men made strange, and none
 The longed-for Christ would know:
 But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed,
 Who at my need His life did spend!

Sometimes they strew His way,
 And His sweet praises sing;
 Resounding all the day
 Hosannas to their King:
 Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
 And for His death they thirst and cry.

Why, what hath my Lord done?
 What makes this rage and spite? 
He made the lame to run,
 He gave the blind their sight,
 Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
 Themselves displease, and ’gainst Him rise.

They rise and needs will have 
My dear Lord made away; 
A murderer they save,
 The Prince of life they slay,
 Yet cheerful He to suffering goes,
 That He His foes from thence might free.

In life, no house, no home
 My Lord on earth might have;
 In death no friendly tomb 
But what a stranger gave.
 What may I say? Heav’n was His home; 
But mine the tomb wherein He lay.

Here might I stay and sing,
 No story so divine; 
Never was love, dear King!
 Never was grief like Thine. 
This is my Friend, in whose sweet praise 
I all my days could gladly spend.

What a beautiful confession it is that repeats back in song the very story that is the good news for a fallen world. This Lenten hymn comforted me every bit as much as the reading of this morning's Scripture readings. I pray that I’m in some way able to share that same comfort that I sung this morning very soon with those I love dearly.

Please keep Anne and Les, my oldest friends, in your prayers.

Lenten Hymnody, The Windsor Saucepan Of The Liturgical Church Year

If one looks in my profile they will find out that one of my interests is gourmet cooking. I’ve loved to cook ever since I struck out on my own after leaving the orphanarium for what seems like such a long time ago. I guess the thing that I’m the best at is deserts. My key lime pie is tops and my jalapeno truffles would blow your mind. My torts and cakes are all particularly good. But my baklava, well, that’s in a class all by itself. I could challenge anyone to attempt, to come remotely close to as good as a recipe as mine but it wouldn’t be fair of me. It just wouldn’t be fair, trust me.

But a good cook needs to be balanced and must prepare something other than pastries. Cooks need to know how to cook their duck breast, their tuna steak, as well as the usual cuts of meats, all without overcooking said meat, as so often happens, into inedible and dried out pieces of animal flesh that even raccoons wouldn’t pull out of trash can.

Now, the thing that separates the wannabe cooks from the good cooks are the sauces necessary to compliment the meat and for that matter the entire dinner. There really too many variations of sauces to go into here with this post so I’d like to just look at the most important tools for creating a great sauce, the Windsor saucepan.

The Windsor saucepan is a slanted or flare sided pan that allows for efficient reduction, due to the large surface area of the sauce, though evaporation. If you need a sauce reduced, this is your pan! The slanted sides make for easy whisking over medium to medium high heat for even the most delicate French sauce. While not an absolute necessity for cooking, the Windsor saucepan is a valuable tool for slack jawed yokels who think they can cook and true cooking connoisseurs alike.

But what does this have to do with the usual topic? It’s simple, Lenten hymnody is the Windsor saucepan of the historical Church year. Like the Windsor saucepan, Lenten hymns have a way of reducing hymnody to it’s consummate essence, the cross.

Lent is a time of the liturgical church year for penitential reflection. As Christ turns his face towards Jerusalem to complete His ministry and atone for mankind’s sinful nature, we journey with him. As we look to the cross we are reminded that it is us who deserve to be nailed to that cursed tree. As we look to the cross we see God’s entire wrath poured out upon the only person that did not deserve it. We look at the cross and we see mercy undeserved as our Lord offers himself up as the atoning sacrifice.

Good Lenten hymnody allows us to sing our confession of the suffering servant journeying on the way to His cross to finish his salvific work on earth. Let’s look at a few verses of some favorite Lenten hymns;

Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed by Isaac Watts
1.Alas! and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die!
Would he devote that sacred head for sinners such as I?
2. Was it for crimes that I have done, he groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown! And love beyond degree!
3. Well might the sun in darkness hide, and shut its glories in,
when God, the mighty maker, died for his own creature's sin.
4. Thus might I hide my blushing face while his dear cross appears;
dissolve my heart in thankfulness, and melt mine eyes to tears.
5. But drops of tears can ne'er repay the debt of love I owe.
Here, Lord, I give myself away; 'tis all that I can do.

As well as;

O Dearest Jesus, What Law Have You Broken by Johann Heermann
1.O dearest Jesus, what law have you broken
That such sharp sentence should on you be spoken?
Of what great crime have you to make confession,
What dark transgression?
2.They crown your head with thorns, they smite, they scourge you;
With cruel mockings to the cross they urge you;
The give you gall to drink, they still decry you;
They crucify you.
3.What is the source of all your mortal anguish?
It is my sins for which you, Lord, must languish;
Yes, all the wrath, the woe that you inherit,
This I do merit.
4.How strange is this great paradox to ponder:
The shepherd dies for sheep who love to wander;
The master pays the debt his servants owe him,
Who would not know him.
5.The sinless Son of God must die in sadness;
The sinful child of man may live in gladness;
We forfeited our lives yet are acquitted;
God is committed!
6.O wondrous love, whose depth no heart has sounded,
That brought you here, by foes and thieves surrounded,
Conquer my heart, make love its sole endeavor
Henceforth forever!
7.When, dearest Jesus, at your throne in heaven
To me the crown of joy at last is given,
Where sweetest hymns your saints forever raise you,
I too shall praise you!

Like a Windsor saucepan, Lenten hymnody reduces our songs to rich and bold confessions of the faithful elect. Through these sung confessions we journey through the pericopes of Scripture with our Lord to the blessed cross on Golgotha. Through the Lenten hymnody we sing joyfully and repeat back to the Lord the very words inspired by the Holy Spirit in God’s word.

Is it any wonder why Lent is one of my favorite times of the year?

Ash Wednesday!

From dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent for the Church. I'm looking forward to going to church tonight to receive the imposition of ashes. The ashes are supposed to come from the burning of last year's palm crosses. As my pastor or vicar makes the sign of the cross on the forehead he reminds us of our mortality by announcing "From dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return".

For more on this historical Church event, be sure to visit Aardvark Alley as Orycteropus Afer explains it all much better than I ever could in this great post.