The angels of Lent

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.

For the last three Sundays I have preached about angels. Not entirely by choice, for I follow the lectionary prescribed in the Spanish hymnal, Culto Cristiano, and the Gospel readings for first three Sundays in Lent all mention them, although not necessarily in a good way. Neither did I preach about them necessarily in a good way.

In fact, the Gospel text for the first Sunday in Lent is Matthew 4:1-11, St. Matthew's version of the temptation of Jesus by the Devil. "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.  And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” (English Standard Version). The mention of a 40-day fast sets the stage for Lent, which lasts 40 days (minus the six Sundays) from Ash Wednesday to Easter. So do the three references to angels in this passage. When the devil tempts Jesus to throw himself from the pinnacle of the Temple, he says ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and "On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone." Here the devil quotes Psalm 91: 11-12. (In Venezuela, it is a common belief that leaving a Bible on a table, open to Psalm 91, will prevent evil spirits from entering a house; This really is a superstitious violation of the commandment against taking God's name, or His Word, in vain) When Jesus has withstood all the temptations of the Devil, Matthew 4:11 says, "Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him." The third reference, of course, is to the devil himself, a fallen angel.

But I exercised a certain element of choice in that, for my sermon text for March 22, the first Sunday of Lent in 2015, I used as my sermon text the Old Testament lesson, Genesis 22:1-14. This is the story of how the Lord commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only legitmate son, Isaac, the bearer of God's promise in Genesis 15 that Abraham's own son would be his heir and that from this son would come descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky. Abraham was ready to obey this command, but at the last minute, "the Angel of the Lord" bade him stay his hand and sacrifice a ram that gotten caught in a nearby bush. This was my opportunity to point out that a son of Abraham was sacrificed to fulfill that promise in Genesis 22 that through the seed of Abraham all nations of the world would be blessed. This is the double meaning of the words, "God Himself will provide a lamb."

I also noted that this is one of those passages in the Old Testament in which "Angel of the Lord" is a phrase used to describe God Himself. In the New Testament and the Old Testament, two words are both translated as "angel", the word ἄγγελος in Greek and מַלְאָך in Hebrew. Both in their common sense mean "messenger".

In the book of Revelation, the letters to the seven church, dictated by the risen Christ to St. John, all begin with the formula, "Write to the angel of the church in..." In this case, the word ἄγγελος refers to a human being, specifically the pastor of the church. In his office as pastor, he was the messenger of God, who proclaimed the Gospel to his congregation.

A son of Abraham died on the cross.

There are a number of Old Testament that speak of "the" Angel of the Lord, rather than "an" angel. In all of these cases, the "angel" speaks with the authority of God Himself, rather than a representative of God, and afterward is identified as God by those who experienced the manifestation. "The Angel of the Lord" never appears in this way in any of the books of the New Testament (all of which were written after the birth of Christ), leading many to think that "the Angel of the Lord" was the God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, before His incarnation. This adds another dimension to the story of Abraham, Isaac, and the demand for a sacrifice of a son of Abraham.

Of course, I added that there are many passages in both the Old and New Testaments that speak of angels as created beings, more than human and yet less than divine. These are the beings that, as we confess in our liturgy, continually surround the throne of God, always ready to serve Him and sing His praises. Our worship is but an exercise to prepare us for the day when we will join that heavenly chorus. But we are not to worship or pray to these celestial beings, for they cannot do anything that God has not already ordained, or tell us anything that has not been revealed in the Holy Scriptures.

I expanded on this theme the following Sunday, when I did preach on the appointed Gospel reading, Matthew 15: 21-28. This is the story of how Jesus cast a demon out of the daughter of a Canaanite woman. There is more to this story than the story of an exorcism, but I made sure to mention that even as there are holy angels who live to serve God, there are the fallen angels who rebelled against their Creator. Even as the angels of God surround us and seek to protect us, the devil and his angels are always present and seek to first dominate, then destroy us. Stories like that in Matthew 15: 21-28 illustrate that demons are real and demonic possession is a possiblity.

Don't be touched by the wrong kind of angel.

In fact, the Bible tells us that all who have not received the new life in Christ are, to a greater or lesser degree, slaves to sin, and therefore to the devil. In holy baptism, that greatest rite of exorcism, we have the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and freedom from demonic oppression. Yet we must stay alert to the devil and his wiles and avoid anything that might open a door to demonic influence in our lives, such as any kind of involvement in the occult, even as a game. All who claim contact with "the spirit world" are either simple frauds or worse, in contact with unholy spirits. In any event, they should be avoided.

Finally, on March 8, I preached on Luke 11: 14-28. This passage once again speaks of Jesus casting out a demon, but provides no description of the event. Rather, St. Luke deals with the people's reaction to it. There were those who said that Jesus cast out demons only by the power of the devil himself. But Jesus rebuked them, saying that they made this absurd accusation only because they could not explain away Jesus' power over unclean spirits, but did not want to recognize "the finger of God" in His work. The phrase "finger of God" appears in Exodus 8, when Pharaoh's court magicians admit that they no longer can imitate the signs and wonders that God worked through Moses. Even as the miracles of Moses were signs that God would liberate the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, the casting out of demons and other miracles of Jesus pointed to His ultimate victory over death, sin and the power of the devil.

So we may view Lent not only as a time of reflection and meditation on the sacrifice of Christ, but as our own time of trial. We will be tested by the evil angels, but, by God's grace, His holy angels will minister to us. Amen.

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Adapting to uncertainty

 How very quickly the "festival half" of 2013-2014 church year has passed for us, but especially the seasons of Lent and Easter. We observed Ash Wednesday amid political unrest that claimed  a number of lives, left many more people injured, and led to the suspension of traditional pre-Lenten festivities in many Venezuelan cities. Since then, annual inflation of Venezuela's currency has topped 60 percent, resulting in spiralling food prices. In the first quarter of 2014, inflation climbed by 10.1%, the highest jump in Venezuela's history for the first three months of the year since 1996. According to the newspaper, El Universal, spiraling inflation comes hand in hand with signals that the economy is heading towards recession, amidst a slowdown in manufacture, construction, trade, and stagnant oil production. Recession plus high inflation could mean a new increase in poverty, which in 2013 soared to 27.3%.

 Shortages of basic products, like milk, paper and medical supplies, have continued and extended into new categories. Venezuelans, who place a great deal of importance on personal grooming, have had to get used to scarcity of shampoo, cosmetics and deodorant. Coffin production has dropped between 20% and 30% this year for lack of materials, forcing funeral and burial delays. Power outages have continued as well. El Universal reported that on June 18, localities in the Venezuelan states of Anzoátegui, Sucre, Nueva Esparta, Aragua, Carabobo, Miranda, Vargas, Mérida, Zulia and Falcón all suffered power outages at the same time. Of course, these blackouts do not make national or international headlines if they are only on a local scale.

Here in La Caramuca, we experience power outages at least once or twice a week, usually lasting two to three hours. Last weekend we were without power for 12 hours. These lengthy blackouts result from the fact that workers for the state-owned electric utility receive less than 40% of the materials needed to fix generation and distribution facility breakdowns. These problems have led to continued protests, a shake-up in the federal goverment and, of course, increased uncertainty about the future for many Venezuelans.

We have adapted to this constantly changing situation as best we can, primarily by growing more and more of our own fruits and vegetables on our property. In keeping with the objectives of our mission, we have shared our produce with the neediest members of the surrounding community. We also have offered cooking classes to teach the preparation of nutritionally balanced meals in the most economical way possible.

 And we have continued to celebrate with joy the great festival days of Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. One Sunday we used white wine for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper because there was no red wine available.  I explained to our congregation that we would not change any aspect of the order of Holy Communion to suit our own whims, but the general scarcity of everything now included red wine and that Scripture only requires that  the visible element must be wine and not grape juice.  The color and other secondary attributes are not of the utmost importance. By God's grace, someone took my little speech to heart and through personal contacts located a place where we were able to buy a case of red wine.

Members of Corpus Christi Lutheran Church in Barinas joined us for our Easter Sunday service. The Corpus Christi congregation was planted years before our mission in La Caramuca, but has not had its own pastor for some time. We pray for them as Miguelángel Pérez, the presiding pastor of the western zone of the Lutheran Church of Venezuela, helps them in extending a call to a new pastor (in fact, Miguelángel and myself are the only ordained pastors of Lutheran Church of Venezuela in the western third of the country at this time).

 In my Ascension Sunday sermon, I emphasized that the Ascension of Christ is linked with the mission of the church, which is this: To prepare people for the second coming of Christ, when He will come in glory to judge all nations. How do we do this? By proclaiming the gospel, to call people to repentance and salvation before the second coming of Christ. We could not do this without the Ascension of Christ, because with all authority in heaven and earth, He sent the church the Holy Spirit to help proclaim the gospel everywhere. Like the angels, this same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven said, will come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven. Clouds hid Christ, and Christ in the clouds revealed. Among his Ascension in the clouds and his return in the clouds is the time to proclaim the gospel, to repent for his glory in Christ as Lord and Savior. But the apostles had a question for Christ before His Ascension. "Lord, will you restore the kingdom to Israel at this time?"

The apostles, like many people at that time thought of the Messiah, the promised Savior of Israel as a political hero, who would defeat the Romans and restore the kingdom of Israel to the glory of the days of David and Solomon. But Christ was not this type of Salvador. He was much more. He won spiritual freedom for the whole world, not just independence for one single country. So Jesus' answer was as follows: "It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father hath put in His own power; But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. "

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A Light to shine on all nations

Simeon's song of praise. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to the historic one-year lectionary, the Song of Simeon is to be read as part of the Gospel lesson (Luke 2:22-32) for February 2. This is the celebration of the presentation of our Lord in the Temple. The reading is meant to bring to a close the Epiphany season in anticipation of Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent (February 13 this year),

Verses 22-26 say this: “And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord; (As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;)  And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons. And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ.”

All of this was 40 days after Jesus' birth, in accordance with the Old Testament law set forth in the book of Leviticus, chapter 12 (Luke notes that Joseph and Mary took the option available to parents who could not afford a young lamb for sacrifice, another indication that this was a family of modest means). The second day of February is the 40th day after Christmas, thus is the date for remembering this episode in the life of Christ.

Upon entering the Temple, Simeon saw the baby Jesus, took him in his arms and prayed the prayer that has become known as the Song of Simeon:

Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word:

For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation,

Which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people;

A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.

Of course, here we sing a version of the Song of Simeon every Sunday after the sacrament of the altar. This is known as the Nunc Dimittis (Latin for “Now you dismiss...”).We have another reason to remember especially Luke 2:32, the verse that epitomizes the Epiphany theme of Christ as the Light of the world. On Transfiguration Sunday, January 20, 2013, our little flock decided to name itself Epiphany Lutheran Mission of La Caramuca.

Here is the original Greek text: φως εις αποκαλυψιν εθνων και δοξαν λαου σου ισραηλ

Transliterating the Greek into the English alphabet, we get “phos eis apokalypsin ethnon kai doxan laou sou Israél.”

For a major portion of my life I recited this as part of the Nunc Dimittis in good King James English: “A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” That still resonates for me although, nowadays “lighten” is no longer used very often in the sense of “enlighten” or  “illuminate.” Rather more in the sense of “make less heavy,” as in, “Here, let me lighten your load.”

The Reina-Valera Bible's Spanish translation renders it thus: “Luz para revelación a los gentiles, y gloria de tu pueblo Israel.” Of course, “revelación” is “revelation” in English. In the English-speaking world, the last book of the Bible is called “Revelation” or “Revelations” or sometimes “the Apocalypse of St. John.” In Spanish it is “Apocalipsis.” The original word is ἀποκάλυψις,or “apokalupsis.”

People frequently use the word “apocalypse” as a synonym for the end of the world, because they are dimly aware that the last book of the Bible talks about the end of the world. There is even a genre of science fiction movie called “post-apocalyptic” (about people who survive the end of the world, at least as we know it). Think “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.” However, people who use the word, “apocalypse”, in this way, usually do not understand what “Apocalipsis” says about the end of the world, or that it does not deal only with the end of the world. The three main points of the book may be summarized in this way:

1. Even as each of us are appointed to live on this earth for a certain amount of time, the earth itself will one day meet its end. But if we have faith in Christ, it should not matter to us whether we face the hour of our own death or the final day of the entire world. We have the promise of eternal life with Christ regardless.
2. No matter what trials and tribulations we face in this life, even if it seems all is falling into chaos around us, God is in charge and His will shall prevail. Even as His angels guard and protect us until whatever purpose that God has for our lives has been fulfilled, His will keeps the earth spinning in its orbit, with the sun shining and the rain falling on the just and unjust alike, until the appointed hour of Christ's return.
3. Those who refuse baptismal grace will find themselves without excuse or further opportunity to repent before the victorious Christ enthroned in judgment. Fair warning has been given.

The Greek word, apokalupsis, actually means “an unveiling”, as in “to uncover” or “to lay bare.” In New T.estament language, it means a. a disclosure of truth, or instruction concerning divine things before unknown, especially those relating to the Christian salvation, given to the soul by God Himself, especially through the operation of the Holy Spirit. There are only 18 occurrences of this word, in various forms, in the New Testament. Because it implies that which was hidden has been made visible to all the phrase in Luke 2:32 may be rendered, “a light to lighten the Gentiles,” “a light to appear to the Gentiles” or “a light for revelation to the Gentiles.”

The word, ἔθνος or “ethnos” is the Greek root word from which we derive “ethnic” or “ethnicity” (“etnía or “étnico” in Spanish). It often used in the New Testament to mean people of non-Jewish background, even non-Jewish Christians (Romans 11:13, 15:27 16:4 and Galatians 2:12), but sometimes in reference to the Jewish people themselves (Luke 7:5, 23:2; John 11:48, 50-53, 18.35; Acts 10:22 and 24:2). It also is translated as “the nations” or “all nations” (Matthew 24:9, 14, 25:32, 28:19; Mark 11:17, 13:10; and Luke 12:30).

On the other hand, λαός or “laos”, is the word from which we derive “laity” or “laypeople” (“laicos” in Spanish). It means “people”, but generally is used in the Bible to mean “the people of God”. In the Septuagint (first Greek translation of the Old Testament) and at times in the New Testament it refers to Jews (Matthew 4:23, 13:15; Mark 7:6, Luke 2:10 and John 11.50) and also to the church, the community of believers in Christ, both Jews and Gentiles (Hebrews 4:9, Revelation 18:4). Sometimes, but rarely, it means simply "the people" or "the crowds."

Like apocalypse, the word, “epiphany”, these days is often misused. To many people it has come to mean simply a moment of clarity. Some even speak of a “love epiphany,” when someone realizes he/she has romantic feelings for.someone else.

But for us, Epiphany is that moment when the light of God's love break through the world's darkness in the form of Christ, and especially when that light was first revealed to “the nations” with the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem. Our Lord's missionary charge to His church, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations....” (Matthew 28:19) is foreshadowed in the words of Simeon, “A light for revelation to all nations.”

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Oriana's confirmation

We began the Sunday service by singing “Castillo Fuerte” (“A Mighty Fortress”). Then I explained why I was wearing a red stole and pectoral cross, and why the altar paraments were red.

First, because the Holy Spirit appeared as fire on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:3), and also the Scriptures say, “he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire” (Mateo 3:11, Luke 3:16); and “our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). So the color of fire symbolizes the force and energy of the Holy Spirit, active among us through the preaching of the pure Word and the administration of the sacraments as our Lord commanded. Since no one can confess Jesus as Lord except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3), on Reformation Sunday we recognize the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in the public confession of the blessed Martin Luther, who stood before the powers of the world and declared his consciences was captive to the Word of God. Thus began the Reformation, which we accept as proof that the Spirit still guides the Church and keeps it in the true doctrine, not by new revelation, but rather by reaffirmation of the faith once delivered to the saints.

Second, red is the color of blood. For us especially, it symbolizes the blood of the holy martyrs, those who confessed Christ at the cost of their own lives. While God does not lay this destiny on all of us, He does demand that all of us offer ourselves as living sacrifices. That is to say, we are to be in every aspect of our lives, witnesses to Christ. The word “martyr” means “witness”, and so, with the martyrs as our examples, we understand every act of public confession to imply the promise that we formally make in the rite of confirmation, to remain faithful to the teachings of Christ to the point of death.

I preached on the appointed Old Testament lesson, 1 Samuel 3:19-21), explaining that in the context of this chapter, Samuel was a small boy, dedicated by his parents to the service of the Lord's temple in Shiloh where he lived and worked as the servant of the high priest, Eli. But Eli and his sons, the priests of Israel, were worldly and corrupt, and there were no true men of God to preach the Word of God to the people, and the people lost sight of God's will and drifted into unbelief.

But the Lord called audibly to Samuel while he slept, and the boy, thinking it was the high priest calling him, interrupted his master's sleep. Understandably irritated, Eli said that he had no called and told the boy to go back to bed. This happened three more times before Eli figured out that perhaps something unusual was taking place, and told Samuel the next time to answer the voice directly and immediately. This Samuel did, and received the first prophetic message that he was to deliver in the name of the Lord: To pronounce a judgment of death against Eli and his sons.

Of course, Samuel was afraid to do this, but since he realized he could not change the Word of the Lord and dare not disobey God's command, he did so anyway. Eli did not punish the boy, but, because of the remnant of faith left in his heart, recognized God s judgment as just and accepted it. The Lord continued to bless Samuel and as he mature, made him into a mighty and faithful prophet.

The application for us today is that as Christ has won for us salvation and eternal life through His death and resurrection, we must live by this truth and confess it publicly, even if it does not win us any popularity contests and even it means risking the loss of our lives. For we must love and obey God rather than men. “Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: But he that denies me before men shall be denied before the angels of God” (Lucas 12:8-9).

This story of the boy Samuel was especially appropriate as the sermon text, because following the sermon, Luz Maria's granddaughter, Oriana Montoya, came forward for confirmation. At nine years of age, she is the youngest person who has been confirmed as a member of our mission congregation.

Oriana was born and baptized a few months before I arrived in Venezuela in 2003. I suppose that I can say that I have known her all of her life, and that she cannot remember a time when I was not a part of her life and her grandmother's life.

There was no rite of confirmation apart from the sacrament of baptism in the early church. Unlike baptism, confession and absolution of sins, and the sacrament of the altar, “confirmation” was not instituted or commanded by Christ. It emerged as a separate ceremony and eventually was declared a “sacrament” in itself by the western Latin-speaking Church. In Eastern Orthodox churches to this day, both infant children and adult converts are baptized, anointed with the laying on of hands (“chrismation”), and communed on the same occasion, in unbroken succession.

The Lutheran Reformers decided to retain the rite of confirmation, while denying that it was a divinely appointed means of grace, and against infant communion. This is because while the Scriptures place no reservations on who may receive the blessings of baptism, there are stern warnings against receiving the sacrament of the Lord's Supper “unworthily.” In order to participate in the sacrament of the altar, one must be able to examine his or her conscience and repent of sin (1 Corinthians 11:28), and discern the presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament (1 Corinthians 10:16; 1 Corinthians 11:29). The Reformers accept the western tradition of age 7 as the minimum age at which this level of understanding was possible, and 16th Century Lutheran church orders specify ages 7 to 12 as the optimum range for preparing children for first communion.

Later, in the 17th Century, under the growing influences of Calvinism and rationalism, the typical age of Lutheran confirmation was raised to 14 to 16 years, as confirmation came to be viewed more as a rite of passage into adulthood and the “completion” of a process begun with baptism.

Theologically speaking, however, baptism is the point of entry into the communion of the saints, and it isin baptism that one is covered with the righteousness of Christ, adopted as a child of God and receives the full promise of eternal life. There is no need to “complete” this process. On the other hand, it always has been the Lutheran understanding that catechesis, or instruction in the faith, is something that is a necessary part of sanctification (the Holy Spirit's work of molding us into the people God wants us to be), a process which is not complete until death. Therefore, catechesis should not stop at age 9, 12 or 16, but rather continue throughout adult life.

Therefore, having instructed and examined Oriana, and knowing of her desire to receive first communion with all of her friends and family as witnesses, I welcomed her into communicant membership in our mission.

As we prayed for Oriana and all those who had been baptized and confirmed at La Caramuca Lutheran Mission, I thought of another girl that I had known from birth through confirmation: my niece, Ashley Baltazar. I had stood up as a sponsor at her baptism, but at that moment I was particularly reminded of her confirmation at Zion Lutheran Church in Matteson, Illinois.

It was a congregation of mixed ethnic background in a similarly mixed community, and Ashley was confirmed along with young people of Caucasian, African and Latin American ancestry. Since Ashley's father, Mark, comes from a family that is Portuguese, Irish and Filipino, but mostly Filipino, the confirmation dinner consisted of traditional Filipino food. For me, mixed with the joy of Ashley's confirmation was a vision of what could be, a foreshadowing of Revelation 7, with a great multitude of all nations, all tribes and all races gathered around the throne of the Lamb. And it got me to thinking about the overseas mission field.

So at that moment I prayed for Oriana, for Ashley and for all who had made their vows of faith, that the Lord might keep them always in the true faith, strengthen them and call them back if they might stray. Amen.

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