# Der Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_Januar 1950_S1
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner

NEWSPAPER FOR EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CONGREGATIONS
IN GERMANY

"If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
John 8:31-32.

Number 1                    Frankfurt am Main, January 1950                    Volume 4

In the Name of Jesus!

To all our readers we wish God's grace and peace for the New Year, and we bring, as a greeting, the closing portion of a New Year's sermon on the Gospel of Luke 2:21 by Mag. Immanuel Gottlob Brastberger, who in A.D. 1764 went home to the Lord as superintendent and town pastor of Nürtingen.

What could I wish more heartily than that you should all taste and experience, in this year, the power and sweetness of the most precious name of Jesus — and that shall also be the substance of the heartfelt wish which, at the beginning of this New Year, I would gladly pour out over all of you before the face of God. For I know no other source of comfort, of grace, and of blessing than the precious name of Jesus alone.

Ah, that in this year Jesus might be highly praised not only in our land but throughout the whole earth — then swords would be sheathed and the shedding of blood would have to cease. Ah, that the most precious name of Jesus might be glorified, especially in the Zion of our Lutheran Church and in our beloved fatherland!

May the power of the most precious name of Jesus, and the blessing that lies within it, spread over all high and low councils, over all teachers who labor in churches and schools, over all those who hold rule, especially also over our worthy authorities, over all members of our congregations, over the whole citizenry. May the Lord Jesus become truly great and glorious among them in this year, so that his name may be praised in their homes, in their workshops, and on every occasion. May he cause men and women, young men and maidens, great and small, widows and orphans,

[Image: Luther preaching, surrounded by his congregation]
JESUS CHRIST YESTERDAY AND TODAY AND THE SAME FOREVER.
Heb. 13:8

The Word makes fine, gentle people and quiet, joyful hearts, who do not despair or grow impatient in times of fear.
Luther

rich and poor, to be awakened by the power of the Gospel, that they may begin to ask after Jesus, to seek Jesus, and to be blessed in fellowship with him. May he, as the good shepherd, go after the lost, that they be found; after the fainthearted (the despairing), that they be lifted up; after the weak, that they be strengthened; after the penitent, that they be pardoned; after the believers, that they be kept in grace. May he be your sun, your shield and defense, and grant us grace that on that day we may come, with a great host of redeemed souls, before his holy countenance and be saved.

So may the Father and the Son
bless you all together,
may God the Holy Spirit bless you,
to whom all the world gives honor.
Fear him above all else
and say from the heart: Amen.

Anno Domini 1950

We stand at the midpoint of the twentieth century. The older among us will still remember with what exhilaration and joyful expectation the new century was greeted fifty years ago. It was to become a century of progress in every field of human endeavor. Science, technology, and art celebrated unprecedented triumphs. They were to bring happiness and prosperity to mankind. The intoxicating idea of ever-advancing higher development held minds captive.

What is the yield of the first half of this celebrated century? Terrible wars with horrific acts of violence and immeasurable bloodshed, the collapse of states and peoples, many millions of homeless beggars, immense heaps of rubble, destroyed churches, hatred and mistrust between the nations. Ominous, threatening clouds also hang over the future of the world.

To many, a new, even more horrifying world war appears unavoidable. A famous physicist declared that with the atomic bombs already in existence, the whole civilization of the world could be destroyed. In western Germany, a rebuilding does indeed appear to be taking place through peaceful development. But if one comes to Berlin, one senses how the world powers stand threateningly opposed to one another, and how people are afraid of what may come.

In this world situation the Church goes her way in the confident assurance that the LORD Christ is with her every day until the end of the world. "Therefore we are not afraid." The Church of Christ knows: the LORD is coming soon, and she is at pains, in right faith and life, to please him and to redeem the time for his work.

Our dear Lutheran free churches, too, thus stand "between the times." They have

I.