# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1859_S56
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

56                                                    On Passion Sermons.

an anonymous writer of these times ¹): "In presenting the divine
utterances, take diligent care in what order they teach us to place the
Son and the Holy Spirit. For it befits the children of the Church not to
measure divine things according to human thoughts and conclusions, but to
interpret the sayings according to the will and meaning of the doctrine of
the Spirit."

(To be continued.)

———

(Submitted by Pastor Keyl.)
On Passion Sermons.

The Passion history has already been publicly sung during Holy Week since
the second century, and read aloud from the fourth century onward, for
which purpose, as well as for preaching upon it, the entire season of
Passiontide was later appointed — an example our Lutheran Church, too,
has followed from the beginning. We can now do nothing better than to
follow in these footsteps, especially since we possess the excellent
harmony compiled from all four evangelists that Dr. Bugenhagen, at Dr.
Luther's urging, prepared for use in the churches. To preach on this
harmony in sequence is far more advisable than to choose texts from one or
another evangelist, or such passages as treat of the benefit of Christ's
suffering and death, because the chief purpose of Passion sermons is to
read the whole Passion history, with all its particulars, to the
congregations every year and to expound it as fully as possible — which
is all the more necessary since many hearers have previously heard little
or nothing, or at any rate no proper exposition, of this important part of
Holy Scripture.

In order to get through the entire Passion history, one should begin, as
the Pomeranian Church Order recommends, already on Septuagesima Sunday, or
at least at Estomihi, and continue with it in the afternoon and weekday
services up to Good Friday, so that one comfortably concludes with
Christ's suffering in Gethsemane and with his burial; on the institution
of the Holy Supper one should preach on Maundy Thursday.

As to the arrangement of Passion sermons, I know, from eighteen years of
experience, no better counsel to give than the one I have given regarding
the Gospel and catechism sermons: namely, that in the first year only a
summary exposition of each individual section of the Passion history
should be given, and in the following years one part should alternately
be treated more fully while the other parts are treated more briefly,
whereupon this method is begun again from the start. In this there are
three great advantages: all the main points are preached every year, all
the particulars are gradually and fully expounded, and preacher and
hearers alike grow ever wiser in knowledge and experience.

1) in Expositione fidei, quae JUSTINI MARTYRIS Operibus iungi solet, pag.
374. 375.