I was looking for this Luther quote the other day and couldn’t find it. Entirely unrelated, I was just reading in The Lutheran Study Bible on Job 36 and Serendipity!

When sadness comes to you and threatens to gain the upper hand, then say: Come, I must play our Lord Christ a song on the organ (be it the Te Deum laudamus or the Benedictus); for Scripture teaches me that He loves to hear joyful song and stringed instruments. and strike the keys with a will, and sing out until the thoughts disappear, as David and Elisha did. If the devil returns and suggests cares or sad thoughts, then defend yourself with a will and say: Get out, devil, I must now sing and play to my Lord Christ.

Text: St. Luke 17:11-19

When St. Paul describes why God is full of wrath toward mankind, he gives this reason: “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” (Rom. 1.21). The failure of mankind to give thanks to the Creator is no mere breach of etiquette, no mere failure to send a cosmic thank-you note. At the heart of man’s ingratitude is hubris, the attempt to seize the things of God’s creation as though they belonged to us by right.

When our first father grasped what was not given to him, God evicted him from his home in Eden. Man became a wanderer, a sojourner. He became homeless, and the whole human race has been homeless ever since – a band of pilgrims.

A different kind of pilgrim is associated with Thanksgiving in the minds of many Americans. The 1621 harvest feast in Plymouth Colony was held by a group of English Christians known as Separatists; they had broken away from the Church of England, coming to America in search of a new home free from the authority of the Anglican church government.

But we Christians, we pilgrims, ought to identify more with the Ten Lepers in our Gospel reading than with the settlers in Massachusetts. Those lepers weren’t on their way to a new home; they had no home. Their disease excluded them from every community except among their own loathsome kind. There was no harvest festival for them. There seemed to be nothing at all to be thankful for.

A church near my home has this chastisement on their sign: COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, NOT YOUR PROBLEMS. About a mile and a half later, I pass another church with this sign: WE’RE TOO BLESSED TO BE DEPRESSED. Can you imagine if the Ten Lepers were wandering by and saw either of these signs? “Count your blessings, not your problems”? Sometimes the problems are so numerous that there seem to be no blessings to be found. Depression abounds. Could you fault the lepers if they said they were depressed? They’re dying. They’re alone. They’re afraid. They’re in pain.

To them, “Grin and bear it” is not good advice. “Whistle while you work” won’t cut it. They don’t need a change of attitude. They need salvation. They need the healing of their bodies. And they need the healing of their souls.

So, there’s only one thing to do: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” And Jesus, being God in the flesh, does what God does. He is merciful. “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” At last, they can go with the pilgrims to the Temple in Jerusalem, where God had made His residence on earth.

Pilgrimage to God’s home, the Temple, formed the structure of the Jewish year. The three great feasts of the Jews – Firstfruits, Pentecost, and Booths – were called “pilgrim feasts.” That’s why the Psalms say, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Whose heart is set on pilgrimage” (Ps. 84.5). To have your heart set on pilgrimage is to have your heart set on the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of man; the city of God, not the city of man.

The Psalms teach us to think of our homes as temporary shelters, a lodging place on our journey to the kingdom of God. Ps. 119 puts it this way: “Your statutes [O Lord] have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage” (v54). Our homes are pilgrim homes.

The most significant image of a pilgrim in the Bible is Abraham. Abraham and his wife Sarah were called to leave their native land, a place of idolatry, and journey to a new home – a place that they could only see by faith. Their pilgrimage is a picture of how we are to view our own lives, as the writer to the Hebrews describes:

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. (Heb. 11.13-16)

That heavenly country, that city, has God for her Maker and Architect. What’s the point? We should give thanks for clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land and animals, and everything we possess. They are all gifts from God, good gifts of His creation.

But we must rejoice in and give thanks for these things as pilgrims, not as permanent citizens. Take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, we have something far greater to give thanks for – the mercy of JESUS, the forgiveness of sins, the hope of the resurrection of the body.

That’s why one of the lepers turns around on his way to the Temple, God’s home. The one leper returns to Jesus because that is where home is. Where Jesus is, there is the true Temple, the place where God dwells in an earthly habitation. A pilgrim has not reached his home until he has come to Jesus.

In Jesus is the Thank Offering, which the Greek-speaking Jews called Eucharist. That same word – “Eucharist,” thank-offering – has been handed down to us as a term for our Lord’s Supper. Here, eating God’s sacrifice, we give our thanks for the one Gift that surpasses all others: the gift of God Himself.

Perhaps this year your blessings have surpassed all your hopes and expectations. Give glory to God! But perhaps your problems have outnumbered your blessings. Perhaps you’ve been so depressed that you cannot see how you’ve been blessed. That’s okay. Really, it is. Only cling to this, and never let it go: God loves you more than you can comprehend, and has demonstrated His love for you in that, while you were still a sinner, Christ died for you. That is what we pilgrims are thankful for tonight, as we press on to the heavenly city whose Maker and Builder is God. +INJ+

LCMS World Relief/Human Care is publishing a book by Pr. Todd Peperkorn on depression. The book is entitled I Trust When Dark My Road. I just ordered a large quantity to give away to all the members of Immanuel; if you’d like to order your own physical copy, click here; the book will be available next month. Or, to download a PDF now, click here.

There is also a blog dealing with issues of depression and mental disorders by the same title: I Trust When Dark My Road – I highly recommend it.

UPDATE: I didn’t want to wait for the physical copy to arrive, and I’m not going to print the thing out. I saved it as a bookmark in Safari (my bookmarks sync with my iPhone), opened up the PDF on the iPhone, and voila! It’s fairly readable in landscape mode. I’d prefer an ebook where I can adjust the font size, but this will do.

Courier-Journal religion writer Peter Smith explores issues of church and depression raised in a recent issue of Christianity Today. He notes something that I believe to be true: pastors and churches are ignorant regarding clinical depression, which only ends up hurting the people we are called to help. Here’s a sample:

Probably the best part of the issue was what wasn’t included — medical-spiritual quackery that tragically misdiagnoses real suffering. Religious leaders do not have a good track record in this area. In a Baylor University survey of Christians who had been medically diagnosed with mental illnesses, one-third of them had been told by their pastors that their problem was spiritual, such as unconfessed sin or demonic possession.

You can read the whole piece here.

I believe the proper approach to Christians with clinical depression is to not view it as a purely physical OR a purely spiritual problem, but to ensure the person receives medical and spiritual care by doctors and pastors who aren’t working at cross-purposes from each other.

HT: Dark My Road

The Gospel reading is the historic one for this Sunday: Luke 2.41-52.

In today’s Gospel, Mary and Joseph take Jesus to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover. When the feast is over, Joseph and Mary begin the journey home, traveling with a large group of their relatives and friends. They imagine that Jesus is with them, probably running along the road with the other young boys while the adults talked about everything they had seen and done in the temple and throughout the great city.

But Jesus is not with them. He is lost. And that is the first application for us today. Sometimes we “lose” Jesus, too; i.e., sometimes we can experience a crisis of faith, where we stop looking to, trusting in, clinging on to the object of our faith – Jesus. Perhaps the most natural prayer for us to pray is in the words of the father with the possessed child: “Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief!” Being a disciple of Jesus doesn’t mean that we never struggle with unbelief, or have doubts. This life in the world and in our sinful flesh is full of challenges and temptations, times when we seem to be losing, or even feel as though we have lost Jesus. There are numerous reasons: we see sins and sinners in the church; we are drawn to this world’s allurements; we become lazy or apathetic; we endure loss of property, reputation, or health; we suffer damaged relationships, sometimes beyond repair. All of these situations can, if we let them, cause us to lose Jesus.

Dangerous also, and Christians are afraid to talk of it, is depression. Some people are prone to it because of body chemistry or temperament; others are driven to it by circumstances in their lives. Manifesting itself in rage, anxiety, or a persistent melancholy, some people feel they are drowning in emptiness. Hope seems blotted out, and faith’s object, Jesus, is obscured. What anxiety, fear, and panic must Mary and Joseph have known, when Jesus was, quite literally, lost from them?

Whether because of our own sins, or through suffering, or prideful apathy, we can lose Jesus. But there is a great lesson to be learned in today’s Gospel. When Mary and Joseph searched for Jesus, He was right where He belonged – in the House of His Father, discussing with the rabbis the Word of God. And that is where we will find Him too, where He has promised to be: in the house of God, the Church, where the Sacraments are given out, and in the Word of God, where He speaks to us.

All of this happens when Jesus is at the age of twelve, which tells us something important about who Jesus is. Last Sunday Immanuel observed the Epiphany, where Jesus was worshipped as God in the flesh by the wise men. Jesus, you see, is both true God, and also true Man. Now at the age of twelve, Jewish boys would particularly begin to leave the society of women and enter the society of man. The rabbis instructed Jewish fathers to be gentle with their boys until age twelve, and then begin to teach him the way of manly living, including strict discipline if necessary. Probably at this point, Joseph would have begun teaching his trade, carpentry, to Jesus. The twelve-year old Jesus was now being treated as a man, and thus went up with Joseph to Jerusalem for Passover.

The point is, a twelve-year old boy begins to do his work. And at twelve, we see Jesus already apply Himself to His proper work – not only the things of His guardian-father, Mary’s husband Joseph, but especially the things of His heavenly Father. He says to Mary His mother, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Conceived without the aid of a man, in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary, God the Father is Jesus’ Father in a way different than God is our Father; Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God; God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God; begotten, not made; of one substance with the Father.

So now Jesus begins to apply Himself to the work that the Father has given Him to do, and He will keep on working until that work is perfected, when in Jerusalem several decades later, He will say, “It is finished.”

So in this Gospel we see that Jesus is manifested again as true God in the flesh, and we see Him already as a Boy applying Himself to His work on our behalf and on behalf of all humanity.

But we learn something else, too, by Jesus staying in the Temple instead of going with Joseph and Mary at first: If the situation presents itself where we have to make a choice between being obedient to parents or other earthly authorities, or being obedient to God, we must always be obedient to God first. So we will answer with Christ, “I must be about the business of my Father in heaven.”

The challenge of following through with that sometimes comes for us in dramatic moments of testing, but more often we are tempted by little compromises with the world, so that we don’t seem to be too weird, too out-of-step, too radical, too fundamental. But the Holy Spirit says to us something quite different: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” This world, or age, seeks to conform us to it, so that our beliefs and morals match what society expects. Thus we allow certain sins to be acceptable for us as Christians. That must not be! You cannot be a friend of God and a friend of the world. You cannot be a disciple of Jesus and a friend of this age. You cannot be led by the Spirit of God yet embrace the Zeitgeist.

So the Scripture says “that by testing you may discern what is the will of God.” What do we test; how do we test? By means of the Scriptures. The will of God is shown in the word of God. If something in your heart or mind conflicts with what the Word says – your heart and mind are wrong. On account of original sin, many of our impulses, thoughts, feelings, and inclinations are sinful. That is why St. Paul tells us to “be transformed by the renewal of [our] mind[s].”

The first aspect of that is humility. By nature we put ourselves first, and above others. The transformation that God wants for us includes not thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought; in other words, to think of ourselves lowly, to put others first, ahead of ourselves. This was always the attitude of Jesus; although He was God, and Lord of all, He became a servant of all, humbling Himself to the point of death.

Already we see that manifested today. Jesus “went down with [Joseph and Mary] and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them.” Jesus obeys the Fourth Commandment, even though for Him it is not necessary and did not apply. He obeyed that commandment and all the others perfectly, so that as the perfect man He could give His life for us imperfect men and women.

Now this “being subject” or “submitting” is to be part and parcel of who we are as Christians. The Scripture tells every one of us, “Submit to God” (James 4.7). Regarding the Government, the Word says,  “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake” (1 Pt. 2.13). To wives, the Spirit says,  “Wives … be submissive to your own husbands.” (1 Pt. 3.1). And again to everyone, it is written, “All of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble’” (1 Pt. 5.5b). Submission is thus the characteristic of the Christian.

How then should we live? We should live in submission as Jesus did. Not in order to be saved, for Jesus has accomplished this for us all in His perfect obedience. Yet being a disciple of Jesus means striving to grow in this submission and humility because we are in Christ, buried with Him in Baptism, in communion with Him in this Eucharist, conformed to Him by His Word and Spirit. And when we fail, as we do daily, we cry with today’s Psalm, “In Your righteousness deliver me!” (Introit). When Jesus tells His mother, “I must be about My Father’s business,” that is it: to deliver us in His righteousness.

Mark Hemingway, in Socialism in the Treasury Chest, observes that if you think the bailout is a good idea, “you may well be an idiot.” R.R. Reno is no idiot, even if he does support the bailout. He’s wrong, but nevertheless has some good things to say about greed over at First Things.

Matthew Harrison details C.F.W. Walther’s depression/breakdown here and here.

Speaking of depression, the poem “Teeth” might make you laugh. I did.

Obama supporters are voting early and often, in states where they may not have legal residency, and may do it again and again, while you fund it.

How did we get in this financial mess? Something about too many subprime loans? In 1994, Obama sued Citibank for not issuing enough of them. [HT: Cruising Down the Coast of the High Barbaree]

Benjamin Harju writes on Private Confession.

Paul McCain revisits the issue of sanctification and good works.

The Missouri Synod establishes a new district around an SMP “pastor”.

On Ocho Stinko and changing names.

ONN reports on a sad case of abuse and neglect.

Here’s an interesting church marketing postcard. I’m curious what you think about it. Let us know in the comments.

If the last acceptable form of bigotry is anti-Catholicism, the second-last is anti-anti-depressants. I’ve observed faithful pastors tossing off one-liners about mega-church pastors being on Zoloft, and it needs to be said: Guys, it’s not funny.

Depression is a serious illness that affects both the mind and the body, and those who are afflicted with it often need medication. Sometimes it’s for a few months, but it may be for the rest of their lives. There is a serious stigma attached to the medications, though, that often worsens the problem and prevents people from seeking help. Is medication sometimes misused or unnecessary? Probably. But that doesn’t detract from the very real problems that people have, and the necessity of medication in some cases for people to get to the point that they can address the spiritual and psycho-social causes of their depression.

So pastors, please beware of mocking anti-depressant medications and those on them. You probably have people in your parish who are taking them, and people who should be. They need your help – private confession, spiritual counsel, friendly support – and they’re not going to think about talking to you if you appear to be the enemy.

Check out “I Trust When Dark My Road” for a confessional Lutheran pastor’s chronicle of his battle with depression. The fact that he felt he needed to write it anonymously says something very disturbing about the church today.

Did he get depressed, lying in the dirt? As people passed him by on the road, hurrying to meetings, walking or running for exercise, heading for the store to purchase a present, carrying a bag or basket to market to pick up food for the evening meal, did he get depressed? Perhaps a few people tossed a small coin to Lazarus, but doubtless more passed by with nothing. With guilt some would look away from him; but children drew a little closer to their mother’s skirts when they saw his hideous body, covered with sores, and the more callous adults would stare with revulsion and condescension. Did this make Lazarus sad?

Did he snarl with anger at the passers-by, so cold to his need? Was his heart filled with contempt for the Rich Man, whose table was loaded with a Thanksgiving Feast every day? Did he struggle with hatred towards the man who had so much yet gave him nothing? Or was he mostly just beaten down by despair, as year after year passed and his life grew more pathetic?

If Lazarus did despair, if he was depressed by his condition, is that wrong? Lazarus could not alter his condition. Today’s pop-sermons would tell Lazarus, “Have your best life now! Become a better you!” But I imagine those Christless sermons would only make him more despondent.

Lazarus is an extreme-but-accurate picture of man before God: a sick, dying, despised beggar. He owns nothing, he is going nowhere, he is in pain, and no one cares.

No one, that is, except the only One that matters. For God still cares. We could go further: God still loves. Even when a man is in the dirt. Especially when he is in the dark dungeon of despair, when he is suffering, hurting, sad, lonely, angry, confused, disconsolate. God loves that man. That man is us – collectively, as the human race, but also individually. You may be hurt by the sins you have committed, or the sins committed against you. Sometimes those two go together – we sin against those who have sinned against us, and the cycle continues, making enemies. Or you may be hurt by the burdens others place on you, the losses you have known leading to guilt, loneliness, and emptiness. Nameless fears trouble you, a dark road lies before you, and there seems no end in sight. In all of that, God is still love. God is love, meaning that will not change through good times and bad, through seasons of elation and depression, sickness and health; when your faith is strong, and when you are clinging to the last, nearly-broken thread, still God is love, still He loves you.

A seventeenth-century Christian named Georg Neumark was robbed of everything he had by highway bandits, making it impossible for him to enroll in the university to which he was traveling. He wandered from town to town, jobless, life becoming bleaker at each rejection. Later he wrote these words to people suffering:

God knows full well when times of gladness

Shall be the needful thing for thee.

When He has tried thy soul with sadness

And from all guile has found thee free,

He comes to thee all unaware

And makes thee own His loving care.     (LSB 750)

God gives times of gladness when it is good for you; and the times of sadness are for your benefit, too. Why? How? Because in those times especially, the LORD is purifying you from everything that does not cling to Him alone. But He never stops loving you. His love in this life is not chiefly shown in giving you a table full of rich foods, a body free from disease, a mind free from troubles. His love is demonstrated in that while we were yet sinners, He gave His Son Jesus for us; His love for you is shown in giving His Son a body made weak like yours. Do you have enemies, people turned against you? So did our Lord – it was His own familiar friend who betrayed Him. Do you have fears and anxieties? Our Lord sweat drops of blood before His arrest. Have your hopes grown dim, and do you feel all alone? Our Lord was left alone, crying out to the Father, “Why have You forsaken Me?” Nothing has come upon you that He has not known; nothing has burdened you that He has not likewise borne.

Was Lazarus depressed? Probably. Was he angry, resentful, bitter, driven to sin in his condition? Doubtless any man in such a situation would struggle in these ways, as any one of us would, as we all do amidst our various burdens and crosses. But the name Lazarus means “God is my help,” and He is your help too. He helps you with the deep help you truly need: Beginning with your baptism, you have received what Olsen received today: the Holy Spirit, the candle that shines in the darkness, the one light that shines on this life’s dark road.

And in Baptism, God the Father becomes your Father, a true Rich Man quite different from the rich man in today’s Gospel reading: He gives us beggars bread of heaven and wine of gladness from His table, in the living body and cleansing blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the help we need, joy for the despairing, healing for the sick, communion for the lonely, love for those sinned against, forgiveness for sinners.

Now then: has God made you rich in this world’s things? Then do not withhold them from those in need. For “this commandment we have from Him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” Has God given you money? Give it to the poor. Has God given you time? Give it to those who need comfort, or a friend. Has God given you talents and skills? Give to those who need help. “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” None of this is done to be saved, for indeed, by no deeds of ours can we gain salvation. But by our deeds we can begin to show to others the love that God has for us all.

Weep today, and repent, you rich men: and make yourselves beggars before God. Listen to Moses and the Prophets, and look to Jesus alone as your treasure.

Rejoice today, and be glad, you Lazaruses: For God is your help, Jesus has gone into the gutter with you. With your hunger He was made hungry, because of your sorrow He wept, with your sins He was made to be sin – and now to you, poor man, blind woman, hungry man, hurting woman, sinful child, He has given you forgiveness, clothing, sight, a resurrected body, a clean conscience, love, a sun that never sets. God is love, in Jesus He has loved you completely; His love never fails, and He will not leave you in the gutter but will bring you to Himself for endless comfort.

Several years ago, friend and former parishioner Bob Waters gently cautioned me about something I said about depression in a sermon. I have not stopped thinking about what he said, and the issue in general.

I have come to very much agree with him. Telling a person suffering from depression to “cheer up” – or worse, telling him that he is sinning – is like telling a homeless person, “Get a job.” An awful lot of factors have led the person to that point, and hurting people need help, not rebuke.

So, what does depression say about one’s faith? The way it is sometimes presented (even, I fear, in some of my former sermons), depression indicates a lack of faith. This makes it difficult for a Christian suffering with mental illness to seek the needed help (which ought to include proper pastoral care). Waters wrote about what a seminary professor taught him:

He emphasized that it is essential in dealing with depression that it not be treated as a moral issue. One does not help a person deal with hopelessness by telling them that it’s a moral failure, for the same reason why one doesn’t preach the Law to a person who has already been crushed by it.

In depression, one is called to cry Kyrie eleison! Could a season of sadness be sent, or simply allowed, by God to chasten and purify His child? That’s the way LSB 750 (“If Thou But Trust in God to Guide Thee”) seems to read; here’s stanza 4:

I’ve been thinking about this particularly in light of tomorrow’s Gospel, Lazarus and Dives (Luke 16.19-31). Was Lazarus depressed? Did he struggle with anxiety and despair while lying in the dirt, dogs licking his sores? (Yes, I realize it’s [probably] a parable.) As the story is painted, the answer must be “yes.” Who wouldn’t? In this story is hope for those afflicted with depression, anxiety, despair, or simply physical suffering: Deus caritas est, and His deliverance is coming. The road is dark, the gravel stabs at the ribs, hope seems gone – but God has demonstrated His love for us in the death of Jesus. He is coming, and will “make thee own His loving care.” 

Somewhere Luther said that the antidote to depression is singing Psalms and hymns. He is completely right. I know of no better preacher of Christ to those in sorrow than Paul Gerhardt, and Lutheran Service Book is rich with his hymnody. I especially love the four additional stanzas we get in “If God Himself Be for Me” (LW 407; LSB 724).

It appears that LSB follows ELHB for many of the stanzas, and it seems an improvement.

Here is LW’s stanza 6:

Compare with LSB’s stanza 10:

By making the subjects of the clauses more prominent (“My heart”; “I”; “My soul”), the singer is better prepared to confess what has driven away his sadness: “Jesus Christ, my King.” In either translation, I am grateful to God through His servant Paul Gerhardt for this beautiful hymn.