LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1971, Page 94

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94 EVENING DEVOTIONS

to us, then we forget that those men were the church,
handpicked by Jesus to be the church, and we are al-
ready on the way to forsaking and denying because
we are insisting in advance: “Lord though all men
should deny You, even the Twelve, I will in no wise
deny You!”

This is why it is always so basic to what we are as
church, and to what we hold as our faith and knowledge
of Jesus as church, that we hear ourselves questioned
of the very Lord whom we confess: “Wil] you also go
away?” Only so will we always see ourselves aright
in the moment in which we are, the NOW in which
we are called to be church. And only then will] we be

alone are eternal life, and we will have no other being
except in the faith and knowledge of Jesus as the Holy
One of God, sent to God to be our Savior and our Lord,
even our All in all. Only so are we the church in the
Moment, each moment, from moment to moment.

“Will you also 80 away?” Are we the church in this
moment? Will we be church in the moment when it
becomes tomorrow? Will we be church in the moment
that will be eternity? Only if Jesus is our Lord alone
in the moment so that we have nowhere else to go.
Only if the moment is that relationship with Jesus
Christ wherein His words are our eternal life, and we
believe and know and confess Him alone as the Holy
One of God. Amen,

il
Marrrew 16:13-18

In the Name of Jesus

If we still know ourselves at all at the close of an-
other tiring day, all but drained even of the possibility
of giving anything our concentrated attention anymore,
all but exhausted in spirit and mind and body under
the barrage of words which almost batter us into that
insensibility in which we virtually hear nothing be-
cause it just is not possible for us to listen, then we
will be wise with the wisdom that comes from above
if we see ourselves gathered about Him who invites us
again as He did at the beginning with: “Come unto Me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest!”

After all, our talking and thinking and planning and
resolving had to do with Him, or we were not met as
disciples who learn of Him whose yoke is easy and
whose burden is light, and we are not gathered as those
who walk in the steps of Him who called us and em-
powered us by His call to follow Him. Doubtless we for-
got that more than once, in our thoughts that were more
our own than His and in our words that expressed
more of ourselves than of Him. We even quarreled and
bickered with each other, but only because we let Jesus
get too far ahead of us as we lagged behind, more intent

on our own purposes and expressions than we were on
staying close to Him and gearing into His Purposes and
expressing His will. Nor were we altogether free from
those arguments and counterarguments by which we
were really attempting to elevate ourselves among those
who are the greatest in the kingdom of God. And if

neither will we be able to hear His Word of forgiveness
as He tells us: “Even as the Son of Man came not to
be served, but to Serve and give His life a ransom for
many!” To this day, coming to Jesus means leaving

not even with the manner of our being in His presence,
It’s almost as if He Says to us: “Al] right, you were out
there in the world of work and effort and lively give
and take all day!” And if we harbor some sort of no-
tion that we were not, simply because we were met as
a synod, then we still have little knowledge of our-
selves and even less of what it is that constitutes the
world as world. Then, of course, there really is no rea-
son why we should hear Jesus invite us with: “Come
unto Me!” We are not the lost whom Jesus came to find.
We are not the sinners who are disciples only because
they live in the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ,
whom they follow as Savior and Lord. “Yes, Lord, we
were out there in the world all day, reverted all too
easily to being part and parcel of that world, acting and
reacting only too frequently out of the wisdom of the
world! That’s why we’ve come back, Lord, because You
have called us again by Your Word. In it we heard Your
Voice again as the One who knows us, and so we would
have the day end in Your company, in following You.
Now, Lord, what will You have us to do?”

“Well, before we g0 any further, who do men say
I am out there in that world where you were so heavily
engaged all day?” And if we get the full impact of
that, it surely ought to shake us up more than a little.
As a bare minimum, the world in which we were active
all day, was the religious world in which we concerned
ourselves with God and the things of God, even with
getting God’s love out into the world that He so loved
as to give His only-begoiten Son. But that’s just what
our Lord knows, knows it a great deal better than we
do, knows it as well as He knew the setting in which
He asked the question originally at Caesarea Philippi.
The whole environmental world of the Twelve was the
religious world, the world of the church of that day,
the world that was circumscribed by the Law of God
and circumcision and descent from Abraham and cor.
tect worship in the temple and the proper understand..

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INN Ree te On

SONAR eye

Mes AN