A house of prayer for all the nations

José Miguel Albarran Pumar was baptized on on August 16, 2020, the 10th Sunday after Trinity. Since 2005, 23 people have been baptized at our mission. Of those baptized, 11 have received their first communion here.

The sermon text was Luke 19:41-48, which is St. Luke’s account of the cleaning of the Temple by Jesus. I noted that the Israelites in the Old Testament had a special place, a house for all the people to come together for worship, prayer and thanksgiving to the Lord. In the beginning that place was a tent, built in front of Mount Sinai under the direction of Moses. This tabernacle served the people on their pilgrimage in the desert. When the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, the tabernacle remained for many years in the city of Shiloh, then in Jerusalem. King Solomon replaced the tabernacle with the first temple of wood and stone a thousand years before Christ. At Epiphany Lutheran Mission, we worshipped first under a roofed patio, but now we have a beautiful chapel. Like the Temple of Jerusalem, this is a house of prayer for those of all nations who worship in Spirit and in truth. For us, the house of the Lord is wherever the Word is preached in its purity and the sacraments administered according to the Lord’s command. It is a special place because the Lord Himself has invited us to gather at an appointed place and time to receive His gifts (Hebrews 10:25). Our bodies also are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corintios 6:19). As our Lord cleared the moneylenders from the Temple, he cleanses our bodies and renews us in spirit through holy baptism. The church, both as the assembly of believers and place where believers assemble, belongs to Christ. He is the One who sustains it and has promised to keep it until His coming.

Distribution of food from LeadaChild

That same Sunday we distributed foodstuffs to 27 families, thanks to support from LeadaChild, a mission society based in Olathe, Kansas and dedicated to supporting Christian education around the world. We have received financial support from LeadaChild since 2006. In the past, we have distributed donations from LeadaChild as “scholarships” for students in our preschool and Luz Maria’s afterschool tutoring sessions. That is to say, as cash for the families to buy school supplies, clothing and food. This time around we purchased food

items in bulk, in order to get better value for our rapidly devaluing Venezuelan currency. Dividing the currency among the families would mean each household would get less than if we bought the food in one purchase. We were able to do this because of the automobile that we purchased with other donations this past year. Thanks to the car, we drove to the food distribution point and brought the food back to the mission.

On Saturday, August 8, we participated in a Zoom videoconference with Nury de Millian, LeadaChild director for Latin America. We listened to presentations on how to reopen Christian schools during the pandemic, testimony from a COVID-19 survivor, and advice from the Rev. Abdiel Orozco Aguirre, the pastor of Castillo Fuerte (Mighty Fortress) Lutheran Church in Guatemala City, Guatemala, and a immunohematologist.

LeadaChild was founded in 1968 as Children’s Christian Concern Society (CCCS) by Jim and Edie Jorns as agricultural missionaries to the Zacapa region of Guatemala. Their idea was to build a boarding house next to the new Lutheran school in Zacapa so that poor children would receive proper care while attending at the school. Jim and

Edie diligently gathered support from friends, family, and church members in their home state of Kansas. Throughout the years, CCCS grew to provide support to project sites in five world regions – Guatemala, Central America and Haiti, South America, West Africa, and Asia – and also supports an afterschool program in Bethlehem. The organization’s name was changed to LeadaChild in 2013.

I had heard of the Jorns’ mission work in the 1980s, when I was a member of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Topeka, Kansas, the congregation in which Edie was raised. Luz Maria and I were privileged to meet Jim and Edie in 2006. Last fall we met Dr. Philip J. Frusti, the current executive director of LeadaChild, in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Frusti, a Lutheran teacher and former school principal, graduated from Concordia University, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Pray for recovery

 

We praise the Lord that Yepci Santana, Luz Maria’s daughter, is recovering from COVID-19 in Lima, Peru. Other members of Luz Maria’s family, with who we have not had face-to-face contact are recovering as well. Also in Peru, Kalen Yolanda Incata Fernández, wife of Martin Osmel Soliz Bernal, a pastor with the LCMS Mission in Lima, was diagnosed with COVID-19 after giving birth to her first child. Also, we should remember Diana Malik, a Global Lutheran Outreach missionary, who has lost 11 members of her extended family to COVID-19 in Kazakhstan. Holy and mighty Lord, who has promised, “no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent” (Psalm 91:10), we beseech You to hear our cry for those who are suffering and dying under the visitation of COVID-19. Mercifully bless the means which are used to stay the spread of the pandemic, strengthen those who labor to heal and comfort the afflicted, support those who are in pain and distress, speedily restore those who have been brought low, and unto all who are beyond healing grant Your heavenly consolation and Your saving grace, through Jesus Christ, Your only Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen.

Celebrating the Reformation amid chikungunya

On Sunday, Oct. 26, 2014, we celebrated Reformation Day together with members of Corpus Christi Lutheran Church in Barinas, in keeping with the liturgical custom of remembering Martin Luther´s posting of the 95 Theses on or the Sunday before October 31.

On that date in 1517, Luther got the Reformation ball rolling by nailing a copy of the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The paper challenged the validity of papal indulgences (letters of release from having to do penance for sins, including punishment in púrgatory), but beyond that, questioned the very concept of "doing penance", repentance as an outward, legalistic requirement to regain God's favor, rather than an inward transformation of heart and mind accomplished not by one's own works, but the action of the Holy Spirit. Even beyond that, Luther asked why the Pope, if indeed he had the power to impose penalties on people who had passed from this life, would not simply release all souls from purgatory out of Christian love.

Even that wasn't the end of it. Luther's theses by impĺication raised other issues. When asked by what authority he challenged the authority of the Roman church, Luther cited the Holy Scriptures as an authority greater than that of popes and councils. This led to one of the great rallying cries of the Reformation, "Sola Scriptura" (Scripture alone is the only infallible rule of faith). 

Our appointed epistle lesson, Romans 3:21-28, covers the other two, sola gratia ("For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;  Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus..." verses 23-24) and sola fide ("Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." verse 28). But also we find an emphasis on the power and certainty of God's abiding Word:  "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;  Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe..." verse 21-22.

This theme we find in the Old Testament lesson, 1 Samuel 3:19-21: "And all Israel from Dan even to Beer–sheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the LORD...for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the LORD." verse 20-21. And also in the Gospel, John 8:31-36: "If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed; And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." verses 31-32. The freedom spoken of here is not political liberty, as Jesus makes clear, but freedom from the condemnation of original and actual sin in the eyes of God.

The written Word is the testimony of the prophets and apostles, who were eyewitnesses to the mighty, revelatory acts of God within human history. But their writings are authoritative not only because of what they saw and heard for themselves of God's revelation, but because God the Holy Spirit revealed through them both God's Law and Gospel (2 Timothy 3:16; Romans 16:26; Ephesians 2:20; Ephesians 3:5; Hebrews 1:1-2; 2 Peter 3:2). The Holy Spirit not only spoke to the prophets and apostles hundreds of years ago, but continues to speak to us today through the Scriptures. It is through the Scriptures that we, who have not seen Christ in visible form, still come to know Him as Lord and Savior, and it is on the Scriptures that the authority of the Church and the validity of its sacraments are based. To the extent that the Reformation reaffirmed the authority, sufficiency and clarity of the Scriptures, it was a victory and evidence of the Holy Spirit continuing to guide the church into all truth.

Chikungunya arrives in La Caramuca

The chikungunya virus was discovered in 1952, following an outbreak on the Makonde Plateau, a border area between Mozambique and Tanzania. The name chikungunya is derived from a Makonde word that describes the stooped posture that results from the arthritic symptoms of the disease. Subsequent outbreaks of the mosquito-borne disease occurred in Africa, Asia and Europe at intervals of two to 20 years. In late 2013, the chikungunya virus was found for the first time in the Americas on islands in the Caribbean.  The first cases of chikungunya in Venezuela were reported on June 12, 2014. As of early October, 788 cases of chikungunya had been confirmed in Venezuela.

These are more than statistics to us now as three of Luz Maria's grandchildren have been diagnosed with the disease: Aaron and Oriana Montoya, and Jhoan Andrés Leal. Also we have heard that Graciela de Brito, a member of Corpus Christi Lutheran Church has been stricken.

The most common symptoms of chikungunya virus infection are fever and joint pain. Other symptoms may include headache, muscle pain, joint swelling, or rash. Chikungunya disease does not often result in death, but the symptoms can be severe and disabling. Most patients feel better within a week. In some people, the joint pain may persist for months. People at risk for more severe disease include newborns infected around the time of birth, older adults, and people with medical conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or heart disease.

There is no vaccine or treatment for chikungunya except for the use of painkillers like acetaminophen. Unfortunately, such common medications are in short supply here. On Friday, Oct. 24, when Luz Maria, her daughter, Charli, and I traveled to Barquisimeto, Venezuela's fourth-largest city, to receive our certificates for on-line teaching from Universidad Centrooccidente "Lisandro Alvarado", we looked for acetaminophen in five pharmacies, including a hospital pharmacy and could find none.

Venezuela also is faced with new outbreaks of dengue fever, and malaria. It is feared that with the shortages of foodstuffs and basic medicines, Venezuela will be particularly vulnerable to an outbreak of ebola.

Please pray for us as we confront this public health threat.

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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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God is not silent

Symbol of the Trinity in window of Roca de Eternidad Lutheran Church, Quebrada Seca, Monagas, Venezuela.

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On June 3, Trinity Sunday, we read responsively the Athanasian Creed. Normally we recite the Nicene Creed as a preparation for Holy Communion. The Apostle's Creed we confess during midweek services, memorize and study with explanations from Luther s Small Catechism in confirmation classes.

The Gospel text was Matthew 28:18-20, “Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. Amen.”

So, as I tried to explain, how do we derive from this verse and others like it, three great creeds, all of which speak of the Holy Trinity, and its significance for the life and work of Jesus Christ, and the life and mission of the church? Why is each creed, which roughly follow each other in chronological order, longer and more complex than the last?

Because many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1) and their purpose is to sow confusion and error at first, and, if possible, silence teachers of the pure doctrine. So important is a proper understanding of the Trinity to Christian  faith that it has never ceased to be a target for those who would undermine that faith.

It is not that the Bible is not clear on this point. A plurality of persons in one Godhead is implied in the Old Testament (“The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:2), “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26) and made explicit in the New Testament.

• “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” ((Matthew 11:27)
• “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” John 6:44
• Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
• “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? “ (John 14:9-10)
• “No one can say  Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:3)

Nevertheless, false prophets always use the same strategy as the serpent did with Eve, and the Devil in his temptation of Jesus. “Has God really said....” “Is it not written....” Always a great show of Scriptural knowledge with the suggestion that the clear teaching of Scripture cannot be taken at face value.

English: Nicene Creed, P.Oxy.XVII 2067 Русский: Никейский символ, P.Oxy.XVII 2067 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So at least three times in antiquity, the church found it necessary to summarize and reaffirm what the Scriptures as a whole taught about the Trinity in a common confession of faith. In its earliest form the Apostle's Creed appeared in the late second century, the Nicene Creed in the fourth century and the Athanasian Creed in the late fifth century. As each generation of false teachers learned new word tricks, a more precise, less ambiguous restatement of the trinitarian faith was developed. But the price of precision often is a sacrifice of simplicity, so while a seven-year-old might able to memorize the Apostles Creed, probably not the Athanasian Creed. Yet the Athanasian Creed still is shorter and simpler than the many books that have been written on the subject of the Trinity.

This is so important because the Trinity is not some human conception of what God is like, but is how God has revealed Himself to us. The Christian faith is not primarily a collection of timeless truths that can be expressed in a variety of ways in different cultural settings. It is based on testimony of divine intervention in human history. The true God is not a hidden or silent God, but One who has spoken and acted, and made promises to those who believe in Him. And He has told us that we must think of Him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three distinct persons in one Godhead, for that is how we must understand how Jesus could be both true God and true man, thus winning for us salvation and eternal life.

Nor will it do, in the interest of political correctness, to substitue some formula like “Creator, Redeemer and Counselor” for “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” These title refer to the works of God, not the distinct persons of the Trinity. Often we think of the Father as being primarily involved in the work of creation, but so were the Son and the Spirit (John 1:1-5 and Genesis 1:2). Likewise, the Father and the Spirit had their parts to play  in the work of redemption, and the Father and the Son in the work of sanctification. But, above all, if we baptize in some other name (and it is singular in the original text) than Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are not administering the sacrament as the Lord commanded.

God is not silent – and neither are we. When we confess any one of the three great creeds, we respond to God s revelation of Himself in the words of Scripture by saying, “Yes, we understand and believe this.” We do this in the great company of all believers who have lived, are now living and will live. Amen.

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Of the Father's love begotten

 

Image via WikiPedia

Trinity Sunday and Father's Day fell on the same date this year (June 19), so there was an opportunity to talk about the person of God the Father and His relation to earthly fathers. That is, earthly fathers are mortal reflections of the our heavenly Father. As it is the divinely ordained role for earthly fathers to protect and provide for their children, God the Father provides and protects us in ways that no human father can. Thus in the prayer that our Lord Jesus taught us, we address God as "our Father" and petition Him for all our daily needs.

In the Large Catechism, Luther writes of the first article of the Apostle's Creed, "We also confess that God the Father has not only given us all that we have and see before our eyes, but daily preserves and defends us against all evil and misfortune, averts all sorts of danger and calamity; and that He does all this out of pure love and goodness, without our merit, as a benevolent Father, who cares for us that no evil befall us."

But the Father is only one of persons of the Trinity that we celebrate on Trinity Sunday, so after we recited the Athanasian Creed, I spoke of the relationship between the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit as well.

The Athanasian Creed has always been my favorite of the three great creeds, It has a poetic rhythm that the Apostle's and Nicene creeds lack, but it also is the longest and most complex of them. It is named after, and in times gone by, was attributed to Athanasius, the fourth-century bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, who was the great champion of trinitarian theology agains the heresy of Arianism. Much like the Jehovah's Witnesses of our time, Arius and his followers believed Jesus was the incarnation of a created being, superior to humans, but not equal in divinity to God the Father.

However, it is very doubtful that the creed as we know it was written by Athanasius. There are several reasons for this, but the most important is that the Athanasian Creed specifically addresses heresies that did not emerge until after Athanasius' death (although Arianism still was alive and well in the fifth century, when the creed probably was written).

The doctrine of the Trinity was attacked on several fronts by false teachers because of its importance to our understanding of the person and unique authority of Jesus Christ. We have the revelation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the New Testament (although there are hints of it in the Old Testament as well) so that we may understand how God could be walking around on earth incarnate as Jesus, while still maintaining order in the universe as the Creator of heaven and earth. Or how Jesus, as true God could take our place on the cross to pay for our sins, while as true man asking the Father, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?" Or how God the Holy Spirit can live and act in and through each of us while the Son is no longer with us in visible form.

The Holy Trinity is not a useful hypothesis, but divine revelation. We can understand what it is not, but not completely comprehend what it is As we read in our epistle for Trinity Sunday (Romans 11:33-36, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"

We can only know God from what He reveals to us about Himself. He has revealed something of Himself in His creation (thus, as Paul writes in Romans, none may plead complete ignorance of God and His Law), but most of what He has revealed about Himself was revealed first to the prophets of the Old Testament and later to the apostles of Christ. And the apostolic teaching is none may know the Father except through the Son and none may know the Son except through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, sent by both the Father and the Son.

There is a hymn written close to the time of Athanasius, that beautifully expresses the doctrine of the Trinity. The English version, "Of the Father's Love Begotten", is often sung at Christmastime. Unfortunately, we do not have a Spanish translation in the Spanish hymnal that we use in La Caramuca. This is quite ironic, because the author was what we would call a Spaniard today. His name was Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, and he was born in 348 A.D. in what is now northern Spain. He studied law, served as a judge and twice as governor of a province, and finally received high office in the court of the Emperor Theodosius. He retired from public life at age 57 to devote his time to writing Christian poetry.

"Of the Father's Love Begotten" is a translation of "Corde natus ex parentis", set to "Divinum Mysterium," a 12th Century plainsong (a single melodic line without harmony).

Of the Father's love begotten
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the Source, the Ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see
Evermore and evermore.

Oh, that birth forever blessed
When the Virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving,
Bare the Savior of our race,
And the Babe, the world's Redeemer,
First revealed His sacred face
Evermore and evermore.

O ye heights of heaven, adore Him;
Angel hosts, His praises sing;
Powers, dominions, bow before Him
And extol our God and King.
Let no tongue on earth be silent,
Every voice in concert ring
Evermore and evermore.

This is He whom Heaven-taught singers
Sang of old with one accord;
Whom the Scriptures of the prophets
Promised in their faithful word.
Now He shines, the Long-expected;
Let creation praise its Lord
Evermore and evermore.

Christ, to Thee, with God the Father,
And, O Holy Ghost, to Thee
Hymn and chant and high thanksgiving
And unending praises be,
Honor, glory, and dominion,
And eternal victory
Evermore and evermore.

New communion set in service

My mother gave us some money to buy a chalice and platen in membory of my father, who died in 2000. I had hoped to introduce the new chalice and platen on June 19, but the logistics of delivery did not allow me to do so until the following Sunday, June 26. Thanks, Mom, and thanks to former missionary Richard Schlak for bring the set to Caracas from the United States.

We also are grateful to the Crosswalk Sunday School of St. Michael's Lutheran Church, Bloomington, Minnesota, for a donation that allowed us to buy materials for the preschool and afternoon tutoring programs, as well as school uniforms for some of our older youth.

Sandro Perez, Jeison Arellano, Pedro Santana, Oriana Montoya.

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Six confirmed on Reformation Sunday 2010

Six young people were confirmed at our mission on Oct. 31, 2010. Here is the list of their names and confirmation verses:

• Jeison Manuel Arellano Farías, Philippians 4:7
• Jimmy Orlando Pérez Chinchilla, Joshua 1:9
• Angie Yoximar Pérez Chinchilla, John 10:27-28
• Yhonny Alexander Torres Ortega, Philippians 4:13
• Pedro José Santana Reimi, Psalm 50:15
• Karelis Santana Reimi, Psalm 51:10

This is the message that I had for them:

Today, Reformation Sunday, is a day of confession in two ways.

First, the confession of our sins. Every Sunday we begin the Divine Servie with the general confession of sins and receive absolution before the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. This is the day of first communion for six of you.

These six have been instructed according to the Small Catechism of Martin Luther, so they understand the importance of confession and repentance of all immorality and false belief before receiving the true body and true blood of Jesus Christ in, with, and under the bread and wine. Because he does not believe the words “given for you” or “shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” or doubts them, is not worthy, nor is ready to receive Christ's body and blood. As St. Paul says, “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Corinthians 11:28-29).

By confession, we also mean public confession of the faith. In today's text (John 8:31-36), our Lord tells us, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The freedom Christ speaks of is freedom from sin. The truth of Christ, that is to say, His sacrifice on the cross, frees us from slavery to sin and Satan. Christ paid the price for the sins of the whole world on the cross, and so we are justified by faith in Him, and not by our own works. However, to remain true disciples of Christ, we must abide in His Word.

In holy baptism we received the complete assurance of eternal life in Christ and began the life of faith, we were born again of the Holy Spirit. Baptism was our first confession of faith by the work of the Holy Spirit. As it says in Mark 16:16, “He who believes and is baptized, will be saved; but he does not believe, will be condemned.” In baptism we receive the gift of saving faith.

But, it is possible to lose the benefits of baptism, if we do not abide in the Word of God. We have this Word in the Holy Scriptures, the source and rule of our faith. The Scriptures, written by the apostles and the prophets, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, tell us all that we need to know for our salvation. In the Bible, God speaks to every one of us.

But abiding in the Word is not just a matter of listening, reading and reflecting inwardly. The Word at times demands a verbal response.

For it also is the work of the Holy Spirit when we say “I believe” in the Word of God. As St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:3, “No one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.”

Also, when Simon Peter said, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God,” our Lord replied, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah; for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father, Who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17).

On the day of their wedding, a bride and groom promise each other to love and live together until death. But, for them to fulfill this commitment, it will be necessary, at times, to reaffirm these vows in the years to come, in times of joy or grief. What do you think, should it be sufficient for a man and wife to say to each other, “I love you” on their wedding day and never again? For a man to kiss his wife on the wedding day and never again? Of course not!

In the same way, the promise of salvation and faith that we receive in baptism is for always. But a times we must reaffirm our trust in the Word of God, not just to reinforce our own faith, but to testify of Christ's truth to the world.

That is why on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany, calling the church back to the basic truths of the Holy Scriptures: justification by faith alone, salvation by grace alone and the Scriptures as the only infallible rule of faith. Later, Luther, a simple German monk, stood before Charles V, in his day emperor of all Europe and as King of Spain, ruler of the Spanish colonies in the New World, including Venezuela, and representatives of the Roman church and the empire and confessed this faith.

Karelis, Pedro, Jeison, Yhonny, Angie, Jimmy.

They said to him, “Recant the teachings of justification by faith alone, salvation by grace alone and the Scriptures as the only rule of faith under pain of death.” And Luther replied, "Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicteyd each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen."

In your confirmation today, six of you will publicly confess the faith in which you were baptized. Let us thank God that we live in a country where there is freedom of conscience, so that you do not confess under pain of death at this very moment. However, as you have abided in the Word of God until this moment, you must testify to its truth with your lips. Also, today we remember Luther and others who risked their lives for the pure doctrine of the Bible and express our solidarity with believers in countries where Christians are persecuted.

May God bless you richly on this Reformation Day, and this day of your first communion. Amen.

Anyi Vanesa baptized

Anyi Vanesa Garrido Santana was baptized Saturday, June 19, 2010, on her brother José Ignacio's second birthday.

Over the years I had assisted in the baptisms of children and adults, but this was the first time that I said the words of baptismal regeneration, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" and applied the water. It was a most moving moment, as I had explained to all involved that in her baptism, God Himself called Anyi by name and adopted her as His child through faith in Jesus Christ.

To me it was a marvelous thing how the appointed lessons in the one-year lectionary for June highlighted this event. On June 6, I preached on Luke 16:19-31, the parable of Lazarus the beggar at the rich man's gate. In truth, we do not deserve anything good from God. In His eyes, we are all dirty, disgusting beggars like Lazarus in our Lord's parable. We are sinners who deserve eternal punishment in hell. By nature, we are enemies and rebels against God. However, as the epistle for that day (1 John 4:16-21) said, God is love and in His love sent His only Son to be the Savior of the world. Christ suffered and died on the cross, so that we might have the promise of eternal life with God. Therefore, we will have no fear on Judgment Day, for we will be saved by grace.

On June 13, I preached on Luke 14:15-24, the parable of the great banquet, symbolizing the invitation to eternal life, which begins not in the remote future, as the Pharisee believed, but right now as we are born again of water and the Spirit. That is why Jesus emphasized the immediacy and urgency of the Gospel.

The text for June 20, Luke 15:11-32, the parable of the prodigal son, was most appropriate both for the baptism of Anyi and for Father's Day, for it spoke of a father's unmerited love for his sons and his desire to save the one that was lost.

Dr.David P. Scaer, chairman of the systematic theology department at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, calls "(the) popular slogan "Word and sacrament," a phrase so much a part of Lutheran theology that it enjoys a stellar ranking of the second magnitude,slightly below the three solas" (faith alone, grace alone, Scripture alone). My years of observation and study in Venezuela have confirmed the truth of this for me, especially if you tack another word, "ministry", onto "Word and sacrament." Nowadays, "ministry" is loosely used to mean almost any kind of good work, but the one true ministry of the church is the public preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments.

In an article published in the January-April edition of Concordia Theological Quarterly, Dr. Scaer explains that although baptism is in itself a one-time act, "The continued effective force of baptism becomes visible and audible in the assembly of the worshipping Christian congregation. The believers assemble as the baptized, and the rite of baptism is repeated and reflected in the church's liturgy. The triune invocation derives its authority from the One who instituted baptism, and again the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost becomes the possession of the baptized. Sins are confessed as a repetition of the denouncing of Satan's kingdom and are forgiven again in the name of the Triune God to whom the believer belongs by baptism. The faith's requirements are repeated in the credal recitation. True worship of the church is the commemoration of baptism."

Dr. Scaer continues to say that, "Preaching should not be viewed as a separate function but rather it represents to the believer that same Christ in whose death and life he
shared through baptism. Preaching directs unbelievers to baptism to find Christ and believers back to baptism to reestablish their faith in Him. The organic unity between baptism and preaching must be preserved." In the Great Commission, the command to "teach them all the things that I have commanded you" does not precede, but follows the command to baptize and make disciples of all nations (implying that it is the sacrament of baptism that makes disciples).



Since in baptism we receive the gift of new life in Christ, once and for always, it does not make sense that this sacrament should be denied to infants. However, since the command to teach follows the command to baptize, the church, the community of believers, has the responsibility for the continued instruction in the faith of those who have been baptized.

There is a custom in Venezuela, and I have witnessed this myself, called "postura de agua." In many parts of Venezuela today as in times gone by, the Catholic priest will visit a village once a year to celebrate Mass and perform marriages and baptisms. However, many people grew impatient with waiting for the priest to show up either to formalize sexual unions or perform baptisms. So the concept of "postura de agua" arose. The man of the house does an abbreviated version of the baptismal rite and immediately after splashing water on the baby "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost," they immediately - and I mean immediately roll out the beer and finger-food for a big party. There is no sense of the beginning of a new life in Christ and the need to continue nurturing the child in faith and prayer. However, it is not the ritual itself or the phonetic formula, "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost" that gives baptism its power, but the Holy Spirit acting through the Word (the proclamation of forgiveness of sins in Christ) and the water (as the visible element of the sacrament), creating faith in the baptized and strengthening the faith already inspired in those who bring the child forward for adoption in the family of God, that is, the church.

Change can be painless

We have changed our hour of Sunday service from 4 p.m. to 10 a.m. Originally it was set at 4 in the afternoon because I had the responsibility of assisting with the morning service at Corpus Christi Lutheran Church in Barinas. Now I do not have that duty and we long have a problem with the later hour. That is, at 4 p.m. the tropical sun is situated at just the right angle to shine under the roof of our covered patio. No one wanted to sit in the direct sunlight (you wouldn't, either). We tried various means of providing shade, but nothing really worked. So we changed the hour to 10 in the morning and no one seems to mind at all.


History of La Caramuca

On June 16, 2010, the preschool children had the privilege of hearing Lorenzo Medina talk about the history of La Caramuca. Mr. Medina was president of the town council from 1982 to 1992. While the city of Barinas is more than 400 years old, La Caramuca emerged as a community in 1948. The first deeds to the land were written in the late 1800s, but until the 1940s the entire area was the private property of one or two families. From 1948 to 1974 there were only 16 houses in La Caramuca, now home to around 5,000 people. Mr. Medina also spoke of various local legends and landmarks, including la Casa de las Piedras (House of Stone), a geological oddity that I have not seen, but would like to.

Feliz Navidad 2009

A most blessed season a greetings from all of us. We celebrated our first Christmas Eve service in La Caramuca on Thursday, December 24, 2009. It was a communion service followed by a Christmas dinner for about 30 children, youth and adults.

In fact, it was our first midweek service of any kind. It is no mean feat to get people in Venezuela to gather on Sunday morning, never mind during the week. And, as I have said before, church attendance is particularly low during the Christmas and Easter holidays, as nearly everyone heads to the beach or the mountains, or stays home to party. So we thank God for the good response this year.

The Christmas dinner was traditionally Venezuelan: hallacas, pan de jamon and potato salad. Hallacas are like Mexican tamales, but instead of being wrapped in corn husks, they are wrapped and cooked in smoked banana leaves. The ingredients include at least three types of meat. It is the custom to go door to door and present bags of hallacas to your friends and family as a Christmas gift. Hallacas require a vast amount of work to prepare, which seems to be the whole point. Luz Maria and her daughters spent the two days before Christmas Eve cooking hallacas.

Venezuelans consider hallacas more essential to Christmas than anything else and are quite puzzled when you tell them the main dish for Christmas dinner in the United States might be ham, turkey, roast beef or whatever.

Pan de jamon is bread with slices of ham baked in. This you can purchase from the bakery. The potato salad is jus potato salad.



St. Nicholas visits our preschool

We closed the preschool for the three-week holiday break on December 12 with a Christmas party for the children, their teachers and parents. San Nicolas (also known as Papa Noel or even Santa Claus) made a special appearance. If you follow the church calendar, you may recall Sunday, December 6, was the day of commemoration for Nicholas of Myra, the fourth-century bishop who provided the historical template for all the variations of the gift-giving elf king.

Recently it was reported that Dr. Caroline Wilkinson of England's Manchester University, using measurements of the bishop's skull (which still exists) and modern computer technology, reconstructed the face of St. Nicholas. The result is quite similar to traditional portraits of St. Nicholas, except for one thing: He had a badly broken nose, similar that of a boxer or hockey player. This might be considered consistent with the story that Nicholas got involved in fisticuffs with the arch-heretic Arius at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., a fight that had to be broken up by fellow bishops.

Jesus and John the Baptist

However, since the beginning of the Advent season, we have spoken more of John the Baptist and his relation to Jesus, both at Sunday service and in the midweek Bible lesson in the preschool. The story of how Mary visited her relative, Elizabeth, after the archangel Gabriel had announced the impending birth of Jesus (Luke 1:39-45) provided the opportunity to talk about when human life begins. The passage in Luke says that in his mother's womb, John leaped for joy at the sound of Mary's voice, because even unborn John was a prophet and knew that Mary was, as both his mother, Elizabeth and the angel had said, "blessed among women" and would give birth to the promised Messiah. This passage is one of many in the Bible which asserts that human life begins in the womb and that, therefore, those who say abortion does not constitute the taking of a human life are wrong.

We also talked of how John the Baptist, with his call to repentance, was, as Luther wrote, the consummate preacher of the Law, which convicts people of sin. But Jesus, was in His Person the living Gospel itself, Who through his life, death and resurrection made possible reconciliation between a just and holy God, and sinful human beings. But the relationship between Jesus and John illustrates that Law and Gospel are inseparable. They were friends and relatives, and both were sent by God. The archangel Gabriel announced both their births and both births were miraculous; Jesus was born to a virgin and John to a woman past childbearing years. Jesus said of John, "Among those born of women, there has arisen none greater than John the Baptist" (Matthew 11:2-10) and in Matthew 17:10-13 that John fulfilled the prophecy that Elijah would return before the Messiah came. John said of Jesus that he, John, was not worthy to untie Jesus' shoelaces and "Behold, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:27-30).

Finally we talked of the difference between John's baptism and the baptism of Jesus. The baptism of John was an exterior ritual that expressed an interior state (repentance), which is how some people think of Christian baptism today. But, as John himself said, the baptism of Christ is quite different. It is truly baptism with water and the Holy Spirit, in which we receive the forgiveness of sins, the adoption as children of God and the righteousness of Christ. The promise of baptism does not depend on our own will, understanding or state of mind, and in that we take comfort in times of doubt.

Our Spanish hymnal, Culto Cristiano, contains a version of the Matins service with the Benedictus or Song of Zechariah (the words are based on Luke 1:68-79, the priest Zechariah's song of thanksgiving upon the birth of his son, John the Baptist). Sadly we have not had much opportunity to use the Matins service here, and I am not sure if I can recall the music well enough to sing the Spanish version of the Benedictus. But it always was, along with the Te Deum Laudamus, my favorite part of Matins.

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Let us praise the Lord, the God of Israel,
For He has come and redeemed His people.
He has raised up a mighty Saviour for us
From the house of His servant David,
As He promised long ago
Through His holy prophets,
That He would save us from our enemies,
From the power of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our ancestors,
And to remember His holy covenant,
The oath which he swore to our father Abraham,
To rescue us from the power of our enemies,
So that we might worship the Lord without fear,
Holy and righteous in His sight
All the days of our lives.
And you, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High,
For you will go before the Lord to prepare His way,
To give the knowledge of salvation to His people
By the forgiveness .of their sins.
Through the tender mercy of our God,
The day of salvation will dawn on us from heaven,
To shine on those who live in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.


Speaking of light in the darkness

Thanks to generous donations from supporters in the United States, we have purchased a gasoline-powered generator. Several weeks ago Luz Maria went out to get an estimate on the price of a generator and found a wide array of models of different sizes and prices. When we returned to the shop where she found the best deal, there were only two models left in stock. Clearly other people had the same idea that we did. We continue to experience almost daily power outages of several hours duration.

There remains one obstacle to putting the generator in place; another of our mysterious shortages of materials, this time of cement. We do not want to run the generator in our living quarters, neither do we want it stolen, so we must build an outdoor enclosure. And that will have to wait until we can get cement.

Nevertheless we thank the donors for this Christmas present.

Luz Maria receives her education degree

Luz Maria received her "licenciatura" in elementary education on June 3, 2009.

In Venezuela's educational system, there are nine grades of elementary school. Then you go to the equivalent of high school, except that in only two years you receive the title of "bachiller". This is what in English we would call a "bachelor's degree", except that it is really the equivalent of a high school diploma. You need your bachiller before you can enroll in a university. But instead of four years of undergraduate coursework, you have to take six years worth of university courses before you get the licenciatura.

As alternatives to public and private universities, there also are vocational-technical colleges that offer "technical" degrees, but these do not count toward the licenciatura. The title of licenciatura is necessary if you want to be a doctor, lawyer or some other type of professional.

After you get your licenciatura, you may, much like in the United States, earn a master's degree after two more years of postgraduate study and, two years after that, a doctorate.

Luz Maria earned her licienciatura by taking continuing education courses from la Universidad Nacional Experimental de los Llanos "Ezequiel Zamora". This translates roughly as "Ezequiel Zamora National Research University of the
Plains". It's a mouthful in either Spanish or English, so the university is commonly known by its acronym, UNELLEZ. It's pronounced "oo-nay-zhays", except the way people say it here it sounds like one syllable.

UNELLEZ is much like the "land-grant" universities of the United States, in that it was established as a combination of an agricultural research station and a teacher's college. In fact, the UNELLEZ motto is "La universidad que siembra" or "The university that plants". They mean this both in an agricultural sense and in the sense of teachers sowing the seeds of knowledge. It's as good a university motto as any, I suppose.

Most of Luz Maria's fellow graduates also received their degrees in education, but there was a smaller group that received licenciaturas in animal science.

UNELLEZ is located on the road from La Caramucas to Barinas. On our way into town we first pass the military base, then the prosperous suburb of Alto Barinas (where you find the big, North American-style shopping malls) and finally, on the outskirts of the city itself, the entrance to the UNELLEZ campus. This is a circle with a fountain in the center and surrounded by food stands and street vendors' kiosks.

UNELLEZ owns a large tract of land in La Caramuca, just a few blocks from us. Rumor has it that one day the university will develop this property into a branch campus. The resulting influx of jobs and people would have a great impact on the community and on our mission.

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By the way, Ezequiel Zamora was a hero of Venezuela's Guerra Federal, a five-year-long civil war in the mid-19th Century. Zamora was born in 1817, in the midst of Venezuela's War of Independence from Spain. As a grown man, he became a champion of the Federalist cause. The Federalists envisioned Venezuela as a constitutional republic with a strong central government, similar to the United States. This plan was opposed by the powerful land-owning class that wanted to keep Venezuela a feudal aristocracy (but without having to pay taxes to the King of Spain).

On December 10, 1859, as a general in the federal army, Zamora led his troops to a sweeping victory in the Battle of Santa Ines, which took place only 36 kilometers (22 miles) southeast of the city of Barinas. This was one of three critical battles which led to a Federalist victory in 1863. However, Zamora was killed in 1860, less than year following the Battle of Santa Ines.

Trinity Sunday and the Athanasian Creed

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June 7, 2009, was Trinity Sunday and I took advantage of the opportunity to introduce our flock to the Athanasian Creed. They know the Apostle's and Nicene creeds. I reminded the members of our new confirmation class that the Apostle's Creed, which we will study in depth, is the shortest and simplest of the three great creeds. The Nicene Creed is a little longer and more involved,
but the Athanasian Creed is undoubtedly the longest and most complex.

Despite its length, the Athanasian Creed was always a favorite of mine. Because the congregation only recited it publicly once a year, on Trinity Sunday, I was sure that made it a very special creed. Later, as an adult, I realized that nobody was clamoring to recite the Athanasian Creed more than once a year because of its length and the use of words that you never hear in everyday conversation, like "uncreated" and "co-eternal".

Nevertheless, I hope to introduce the custom of publicly reciting the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday in La Caramuca. This year I just read it as part of the sermon, after a brief discussion of the sermon text, Matthew 28: 18-20, as one of the key passages that provide the foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity and of the life of Athanasius of Alexandria, the brilliant and courageous fourth-century theologian who defended the Trinitarian doctrine against the Arian heretics.

Without getting into the intricacies of the Arian controversy, I explained that in Athanasius' day, just like today, there are people who think that it should be enough to say there is one God and leave it at that. As Athanasius maintained, however, the Scriptures do teach the doctrine of the Trinity and without a proper understanding of the Trinity is essential to understanding the person and work of Jesus Christ. And apart from know Christ as He reveals Himself in the Scriptures (rather than some wish-fulfillment portrait of what you think Christ should be), there is no hope of salvation.

Which is, of course, why Jesus commanded His disciples, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all the things that I have commanded you..."