Lutheran Ping!
Be rooted in Christ!
Posted on 09/09/2015 6:50:40 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel
LCMS President Harrison encourages Lutherans to ‘kneel before the Crucified One’ “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:16).
Last month, thousands of people gathered at Planned Parenthood locations across the United States. Together, they participated in a National Day of Protest, speaking out against the murder of tiny babies still within their mothers’ wombs. It is our hope that the media and the government took notice, and that they will begin a rigorous and honest look at the horrors that occur each day at Planned Parenthood and, one day soon, put an end to abortion altogether.
While many of you may have participated in that event, we also invite all members of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod to take part in a Day of Remembrance on Sept. 12 — not just at Planned Parenthood locations, but at your churches, outside your schools, in your homes and by the gravesides of children who have been aborted. Why pray? Why take time to remember? Because our Lord has promised us that He hears and answers prayers! When we pray for the protection of these little children, when we ask Him to send comfort and peace to mothers whose choice to abort their children haunts them, when we tell Him of our desire to care for moms and babies in our midst, and when we beg Him to help us speak for life, He hears.
And He does not let our prayers go unanswered. What the world — and places like Planned Parenthood — intends for evil, God works for good. And He is still at work even now, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting our sins against us as He made Him who had no sin to be sin for us. We remember and pray because we are forgiven. The outcome is already certain.
Through the wood of the cross, joy has come into the world! Death has been put to death, and Satan’s evil work against the smallest of children will only continue for a time.
That’s why we pray: Because Christ is risen, and not just for us but for all people. That’s what we tell those who stop outside our churches and ask what we’re doing, who yell as we pray outside Planned Parenthood clinics, who are curious about why we care. We pray because as the Church, our “message is a call to be reconciled with God,” as the sainted Lutheran pastor Hermann Sasse reminds us. We “have no other Gospel than the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins. … What [Jesus] alone and no other person brought, and still brings, is … forgiveness.”
The days are indeed busy; your various vocations fill your time, as they should! But pausing to remember the deaths of these babies, to pray for those who are plagued by guilt over the deaths of their children, to come alongside women in crisis pregnancies is worth it because each one of them is of worth to Christ. His forgiveness and His love are worth it! Reminding the world of the One who died and rose for 10-week-old babies even as He died and rose for 10-year-olds and 100-year-olds is worth it.
On Sept. 12, please join us in a Day of Remembrance. Let us together kneel before the Crucified One who yet lives, who is working all things — even death and suffering and hardship — for good. He causes us to pray and — wonder of wonders! — has seen fit to remember us day in and day out, no matter who we are or what we’ve done.
We have provided A Vigil of Repentance in Remembrance of the Victims of Abortion and A Sermon in Memory of the Victims of Abortion for your use should you find them helpful when organizing a prayer vigil at your congregation or school.
Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison
President, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
P.S. While we expect more information regarding Planned Parenthood to be released, we as the Church will simultaneously put forth a concerted effort to share good news that upholds life, telling the stories of our Recognized Service Organizations, congregations and individual members who are working — in big ways and small — to care for the unborn and their mothers. Please visit lcms.org and the LCMS Facebook page routinely to learn more.
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Resources • LCMS Video: “It Is Time to End Abortion” • LCMS Life Ministry • A Sermon in Memory of the Victims of Abortion • A Vigil of Repentance in Remembrance of the Victims of Abortion • National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children on Sept. 12
Ping this one “forward”, please.
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MO synod ping! Thanks Mr Yokel.
Be rooted in Christ!
Thank you for posting this. Stay in the front of the battle.
On Sept. 14th, the Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross, ALL Orthodox Christians who follow the New Calendar will prostrate before the Cross!!!!
Lutherans (especially in the Missouri Synod) are welcome to join us:
http://higherthings.org/myht/articles/catechesis/holycross
Except in the Antiochian Archdiocese where many of us will do so on Sunday; his Eminence JOSEPH recognizing that only a handful of the faithful might be able to attend a Liturgy on Monday
We’re going to have Matins for the Cross on Sunday after coffee hour, and Divine Liturgy on Monday morning.
In our OCA parishes, it is usually the Priest who moves feasts, not Bishops or Archbishops. I don’t think that I remember seeing any translation of Feasts in the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Translating the Feast of the Cross to Sunday can raise havoc as to when to fast. Having Matins on Sunday potentially can as well, but I’m planning to fast from midnight to sundown (except for Communion) on Monday anyway. (I’m self-employed, which helps.)
I remember several sticky Old vs. New Calendar situations with the Feast of the Cross in recent years—we Serbian Orthodox (and Russian Orthodox) dual-parish folks in the OCA are the only ones who have such issues. These issues must be handled with Grace, and with the advice of our Priests.
The AOA does not dictate that the Feast be moved; it merely gives Priests the discretion to do so.
The normal pattern for weekday feasts in the AOA is to have Vespers followed by Divine Liturgy on the day preceding. That works out fine if the Feast falls on a Tuesday through Saturday; but Monday Feasts are problematic. Yes, the Feast is a different liturgy and a different liturgical day than Sunday; but there could nevertheless be confusion in the minds of some of why the “one liturgy, one altar, one day” rule has been seemingly violated.
So the solution to the “Monday problem” has been to allow parishes the option of melding the Feast with the Sunday liturgy. We did that twice earlier this year with the Presentation of the Lord and with Saints Peter and Paul.
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