Archive for 2010

The Bermuda Triangle of Productivity

Posted on December 31st, 2010

One of the best decisions I made in the last 395 days was to quit Facebook and Twitter. You can read about my reasons here (summary: Lutherans have an astonishing capacity to put the worst construction on everything), but the far more important reason is what a great distraction it all is. I’m still in touch with the people that actually care about me. But that incessant stream of uselessness from so-called friends is gone, along with the harassment of frenemies. Also, I am no longer sharing all my personal data with Mark Zuckerberg. (When a product is free, YOU are the product – and you ARE being sold.) There are still plenty of distractions for me – but I was astonished to find…

Categories: Theology

Tagged:

Two great predictions for 2011

Posted on December 31st, 2010

From Joe Carter’s Predictions for 2011 at First Thoughts: —In England, celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible are delayed when it is discovered that no one in the country actually possesses a copy. —The Iraqi government will officially change the country’s name to Babylon just to freak out the pre-mill dispensational evangelicals.

Categories: Humor

Tagged: ,

Another entry in the “What were they thinking?” department

Posted on December 30th, 2010

Look at LSB 385, “From East to West,” appointed as the hymn of the day for the Second Sunday after Christmas. Now, look at TLH 104, “Now Praise We Christ, the Holy One.” Then, if you are able, look at the original Latin here. They changed the tune, ostensibly to the more familiar “Vom Himmel Hoch.” I prefer the Christum wir sollen loben schon, but that’s probably because I listen to that Praetorious “Lutheran Mass for Christmas Morning” CD obsessively. But the meter didn’t change, so they didn’t have to change translations. Which means, they chose to. Now look at the space at the bottom of LSB 385. Think there’s room for two more stanzas there? I do. So, why did they cut them?…

Categories: Theology

Tagged: , ,

No Communion in the hand!

Posted on December 29th, 2010

I really enjoy the “recommended items” feature in Google Reader. It shows me things I would have never found myself. For example, this papist site is rejoicing that at the Midnight Mass at St. Peter’s in Rome, communion was required to be received in the mouth, not in the hand. (There are always some radical papists at the March for Life in DC bent out of shape about this and a few other issues; I snapped the picture in this post there in 2009.) Can somebody explain to me why they take this so seriously? I honestly cannot understand why this is a major issue. From what little I’ve read on the subject, the earliest practice was to receive by hand, but when people…

Categories: Theology

Tagged: ,

Does Christmas help the economy?

Posted on December 29th, 2010

I have no training in economics, so I could be very wrong on this. But I find the argument that the Christmas shopping helps the economy to be suspect. Certainly stores profit from the additional sales. But many of these sales are made on credit. Particularly parents feel the need to “give Christmas” to an extent that they cannot afford. So they charge it. My thesis is simple: Christmas “helps” the stores (although having worked retail for a number of years, I know that the stores—and their stockholders—were already counting on those sales) and it helps the banks loaning the money, but it hurts the American consumer, who spends money he doesn’t have, going deeper into debt. Christmas is “good” for churches too –…

Categories: Miscellaneous

Tagged: ,

The Rod and Staff of Preaching

Posted on December 27th, 2010

Luther on Psalm 23: But with the words “Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me” the prophet wishes to say something special. It is as though he would say: “Moses is also a shepherd and also has a rod and a staff. But he does nothing with them but drive and plague and burden his sheep with an unbearable burden. (Acts 15:10; Is. 9:3.) Therefore he is a terrible, horrible shepherd, whom the sheep only fear and from whom they flee. But Thou, O Lord, dost not drive and frighten Thy sheep with Thy rod and Thy staff, nor dost Thou burden them, but dost only comfort them.” Therefore he is speaking here about the office of preaching in the New Testament, which…

Categories: Theology

Tagged: ,

Not only born but given

Posted on December 25th, 2010

Christ is not only born to us, but also given to us [Isa. 9:6]. Therefore, his resurrection and everything that he accomplished through it are mine. –Luther (AE 42:164)

Categories: Theology

Tagged: ,

Sermon at Christmas Midnight

Posted on December 25th, 2010

For this sermon, the first late-night Christmas Eve service here during my pastorate, I largely focused on the Old Testament for Christmas Midnight, Isaiah 9:2-7. “Is it true?” That’s the question Sir John Betjeman asks in his poem entitled simply “Christmas.” “Is it true?” That is the question each of us must answer. “And is it true? … The Maker of the stars and sea / Become a Child on earth for me?” It is an astonishing tale – that a young Hebrew girl would be visited by an angel; that the man betrothed to her would become convinced that she was, although pregnant, still a virgin; and that when the child is born, an angel would appear to shepherds to tell them a…

Categories: Sermons

Tagged: , ,

Sermon at Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols

Posted on December 24th, 2010

Part one of the Great Christmas Eve Service Time Experiment is concluded. We had more than I expected at 5pm Lessons and Carols; it will be interesting to see if anyone shows up for the 11pm “Midnight Mass.” Here’s my sermon for the Lessons and Carols service: In the beginning, God made the world, and He made it for man. God made man in order that He might have someone on whom to bestow His benefits. God made man to give gifts, presents, to man. But our first parents rejected God’s gifts. They sought instead to seize what God had not given. And so they died. Adam’s sin was ours, and we have added much thereto. Adam’s death was ours as well, and we…

Categories: Sermons

Tagged: