Bittersweet sound of the bell

Sometimes our mission receives gifts from people in Venezuela. Last year a woman sewed uniform pants for all of our preschool children (ordinarily the families must buy the required clothing). We also have received as donations, one six-stringed and three four-stringed guitars (we're still looking for someone with the skill, patience and dedication to teach our young people how to play them) .

Now we have been given a bell to signal the start of our services. Once, a long time ago, it was a schoolhouse bell. I actually can hold it in my hand, but its chime is strong and clear. We used the bell for the first time October 30, to begin our Reformation Sunday worship.

;The sound of the bell is bittersweet for me. It takes me back through the years to the church where I was confirmed, Immanuel Lutheran Church of Plymouth, Nebraska. Immanuel's bell was bigger; when it was my turn to ring the bell, I would have to pull down on the rope with all my strength. Then the rope would pull me off the ground as the bell rang.


Once I climbed up into the steeple to take a look at that old bell. I remember the steeple well, too. We lived in the parsonage next to the church, and late at night you could hear the steeple creaking in the wind. But, like the bell, that was a comforting sound. The steeple had withstood the storms of the prairie for 70 years, and I thought it would do so for at least 70 more.

The sad part is that, like many Midwestern rural congregations, Immanuel closed its doors in the 1980s. All that is left is the graveyard, with the old church bell set in a monument in front the gate. It still stands, as it were, as a sentinel over the tombs of the people it once called to worship. One can only hope that on that great and final day of the Lord, when the dead will be raised, that old bell will ring once more.

Built on the Rock the Church doth stand,
Even when steeples are falling;
Crumbled have spires in every land,
Bells still are chiming and calling,
Calling the young and old to rest,
But above all the soul distrest,
Longing for rest everlasting.

Hymn #467
The Lutheran Hymnal
Text: Eph. 2: 19-22
Author: Nicolai F.S. Grundtvig, 1837
Translated by: Carl Doving, 1909, alt.
Titled: "Kirken den er et gammelt Hus"
Composer: Ludvig M. Lindeman, 1871
Tune: "Kirken den er et"

Losing more than a companion

It has been nearly a month since our dog, Peluso, died. (“Peluso” is the masculine form of “pelusa”, which means “fuzz” or “hairball”.) He had lived with us since 2005. We think he died of a heart attack, since the one thing that terrified him was thunder and lightning and we found him without a mark the morning after a tremendous thunderstorm. Peluso was more than a companion, he was our watchdog. Every night he would patrol our property. The wall that we have built keeps humans and animals from casually strolling on and off the grounds, but a determined and able-bodied man can scale the wall, especially under cover of darkness. I believe that thanks to Peluso, we have been spared the losses due to theft that have plagued our community as the crime rate has spiraled. In the past few months, two large public preschools on the other side of town from us have been robbed of all their computer equipment. So has La Caramuca's elementary school.

Sure enough, late one night last week, someone stole the electric pump that we had installed to provide water for our new public restroom facility. Now we will have to replace the pump and beef up the security on the outbuilding we built to house the pump. We also are looking for a new dog, but for some reason watchdogs are in short supply right now.

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Stations of the Cross

Although we have a small group of people that have been baptized and confirmed as Lutherans, our mission actually serves a somewhat wider community. Because there are so few schools with any kind of Christian orientation here, some of the people who send their children to our preschool are devout Roman Catholics or Pentecostalists. The father of one of our little girls is the pastor of a Pentecostalist church, while two of our preschool teachers are Catholic (ideally, all of our teachers would be Lutheran, but Venezuelan law dictates that the preschool have a certain number of state-certified teachers and there are not that many state-certified Lutheran teachers here).

Of course we do not demand that faithful members of other churches join ours in order to send their children to our preschool. Attendance at our Sunday services is alway be invitation. Therefore, we strive to maintain a solidly Lutheran position in doctrine and practice while respecting the beliefs of those who subscribe to other confessions.

The preschool will be closed for Holy Week, therefore we are using this week to teach the preschool children that Holy Week means something other than vacation time. One of our teachers, Yosaira, had approached me with her huge family Bible. It was a "Catholic" Bible, including the "deuterocanonical" books in its Old Testament and some beautiful color-plate illustrations of the traditional Stations of the Cross. Yosaira thought perhaps we could scan the illustrations and use them to teach the children about the events of Good Friday.

The Stations of the Cross were first mentioned in writings from the fifth and sixth centuries as a series of numbered stops for pilgrims to meditate and pray while retracing the Via Dolorosa, or Christ's path from the Garden of Gethsemane to Golgotha, in Jerusalem. Supposedly these were places where Jesus paused on His way to the Cross, except for the last four which involve Him actually being nailed to the cross, dying, and being taken down and laid in the tomb. Eventually a list of 14 "stations" became the accepted norm and every year to this day hundreds of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem follow this pattern in following the Via Dolorosa.

Somewhat later, since relatively few people had the time or money to travel to Jerusalem, it became a devotional practice to recreate the path to the Cross with paintings or crosses along a circumscribed route in a church or elsewhere. For example, in Colonia Tovar, a German-Catholic enclave in the mountains north of Caracas, the main street of the town is marked with crosses representing the Stations of the Cross as it winds down to its end at St. Martin of Tours Church.

The imagery of the Stations of the Cross have provided inspiration for Christian art for centuries. Not only paintings and sculpture, but also Christian theater, as the European "Passion Play" tradition incorporates dramatizations of the various stations. This includes Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ," which is essentially a Passion Play on film (see postscript on Passion Plays).

However, there is a problem with the traditional Stations of the Cross: Not all of them are really part of any of the New Testament narratives. The traditional 14 Stations of the Cross are as follows:

1. Jesus is condemned to death
2. Jesus is given his cross
3. Jesus falls the first time
4. Jesus meets His mother
5. Simon of Cyrene carries the cross
6. St. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
7. Jesus falls the second time
8. Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem
9. Jesus falls the third time
10. Jesus is stripped of His garments
11. Jesus is nailed to the cross
12. Jesus dies on the cross
13. Jesus' body is removed from the cross
14. Jesus is laid in the tomb and covered in incense

Only eight of these stations have clear Scriptural foundation. Numbers 3, 4, 6, 7 and 9 do not and the traditional representation of Jesus' body being placed in His mother's arms as it is lowered from the cross in number 13 is an embellishment of the New Testament story. The Roman Catholic Church today recognizes this and, as I pointed out to Yosaira, in 1991 Pope John Paul II approved an alternative form of the Stations of the Cross that is completely consistent with the Scriptures. This form also was approved by Benedict XVI in 2007. This is the new pattern:

1. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
2. Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested
3. Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin
4. Jesus is denied by Peter
5. Jesus is judged by Pilate
6. Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns
7. Jesus takes up His cross
8. Jesus is helped by Simon to carry His cross
9. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
10. Jesus is crucified
11. Jesus promises His kingdom to the repentant thief
12. Jesus entrusts Mary and John to each other
13. Jesus dies on the cross
14. Jesus is laid in the tomb
15. Jesus rises from the dead on the third day

I told Yosaira I would have no problem with using this form of the Stations of the Cross. We used most of the pictures from her Bible and I filled in the gaps with graphics from the Wisconsin Synod Web site.

There is another problem with the Roman Catholic interpretation of the Stations of the Cross and that is this form of devotion still is considered an "act of reparation" or, in essence, a meritorious work.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Reparation

"Reparation is a theological concept closely connected with those of atonement and satisfaction, and thus belonging to some of the deepest mysteries of the Christian Faith. It is the teaching of that Faith that man is a creature who has fallen from an original state of justice in which he was created, and that through the Incarnation, Passion, and Death of the Son of God, he has been redeemed and restored again in a certain degree to the original condition. Although God might have condoned men's offences gratuitously if He had chosen to do so, yet in His Providence He did not do this; He judged it better to demand satisfaction for the injuries which man had done Him. It is better for man's education that wrong doing on his part should entail the necessity of making satisfaction. This satisfaction was made adequately to God by the Sufferings, Passion, and Death of Jesus Christ, made Man for us. By voluntary submission to His Passion and Death on the Cross, Jesus Christ atoned for our disobedience and sin. He thus made reparation to the offended majesty of God for the outrages which the Creator so constantly suffers at the hands of His creatures. We are restored to grace through the merits of Christ's Death, and that grace enables us to add our prayers, labours, and trials to those of Our Lord "and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ" (Colossians 1:24). We can thus make some sort of reparation to the justice of God for our own offences against Him, and by virtue of the Communion of the Saints, the oneness and solidarity of the mystical Body of Christ, we can also make satisfaction and reparation for the sins of others."

Certainly Colossians 1:24 read in context does not support the above assertions. Paul writes in Colossians of the redemptive work of Christ as being sufficient to atone for all the sins of all men. In verse 24, he says that he is able to endure "the sufferings of Christ", that is, the difficulties that he, as a preacher of the Word, experiences above and beyond the normal problems of life for the sake of Christ, as being something that will benefit Christ's body, the Church. If he, Paul, is able to endure these sufferings, then perhaps the Church will be spared some suffering for the sake of Christ. But as in baptism Christians share in the resurrection of Christ, they also will share some of the same sufferings as Christ (persecution and rejection by the world). In no sense, however, do our sufferings add anything, or need to add anything, to the price Christ paid for our sins on the cross.

I addressed this issue in an introductory talk to parents and children on Monday and again in my presentation of the pictures on Wednesday, saying that our worship and praise during Holy Week were not required of us to earn His love and favor, but rather were our response to what Jesus did for us on the cross. Through His suffering and death on the cross He paid the full price for our sins and that therefore we are justified before God through faith in Him, not through any of our works. Therefore, the Stations of the Cross ares simply a tool for us to remember and appreciate Christ's sacrifice for us.

No preschool next week, but our Holy Week schedule includes services on Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.


Postscript on Passion Plays

When Luz Maria and I visited my family in South Dakota in 2006, we stopped at the Spearfish Amphitheater in Spearfish, S.D., which for nearly 70 years was the main venue for the Black Hills Passion Play. The Black Hills Passion Play was presented on a 350-foot outdoor stage with seating for 6,000 people. Performances were Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays during the summer months.

In 1932 a troupe of Passion Players from Lünen, Germany, where a Passion Play had been presented since 1242, began touring the United States. One of them was Josef Meier,
a seventh-generation Passion Player. Their script was in German, which meant their engagements were limited to theaters and churches frequented by German-speaking immigrants. Because of political and economic conditions in Germany, Meier decided to stay in the United States. He had the script translated into English, hired American actors to replace the German cast, and while touring various towns, began looking for a permanent home for his Passion Play.

Spearfish was chosen in part because of the site's excellent natural acoustics. The amphitheater was built in 1939. During its heyday, the Black Hills Passion Play company not only made special appearances throughout the United States and Canada, but in 1953 established a winter home in Lake Wales, Florida, where the play was presented until 1998.

There were no performances scheduled for the winter of 2006, but Luz Maria and I were given a personal tour of the Black Hills Passion Play Museum by Guido Della Vecchia, husband of Johanna Meier, Josef's daughter. Guido spoke Italian while Luz Maria spoke Spanish, and they were able to communicate to a limited extent.

So I was saddened to learn that the Black Hills Passion Play gave its final performance in 2008. For me, the Passion Play was always part of the Black Hills, just like Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse monument and the Needles. I understand the museum is still open.

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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.

Image via Wikipedia

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.

Image via Wikipedia

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..."