LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 71

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SOME GLIMPSES INTO MISSOURI’S 125 YEARS
(The Convention Essay)

I

On to New Orleans

IN THE NAME OF Gop THE FaTHER, Gop THE Son, AND Gop
tHe Hoty Spirit. AMEN.

The three million members of The Lutheran Church
— Missouri Synod are assembled here in New Orleans
through you! We also remember at this 125th anniver-
sary convention all who have held membership in the
Synod during these years and who are now in the very
presence of the Lord whom they served and worshiped,
and in whom they died. We have an awesome responsi-
bility which requires not only making wise and con-
structive decisions in the fear of God, but also taking an
appreciative and reverent look at what God has given
us and what He has worked through the four genera-
tions in the church body of which you and I are
members.

When the invitation was extended to me to deliver
these essays, I protested long and loud. I applied to
myself the words of the prophet Moses:

O Lord, I have never been a man of ready speech, never
in my life, not even now that Thou hast spoken to me;
I am slow and hesitant of speech. (Ex. 4:10 NEB)

My assignment poses special difficulties because my
presentations are to combine the devotional with the
historical. To adequately discuss 126 years of synodical
history within 100 minutes is obviously impossible. We

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a

Dr. August Suelflow, Essayist

il

73

can actually devote only about 45 seconds to each year
of grace. What, then, is required is an attempt to pre-
sent a judicious selection of our history as objectively
as possible.

It is my prayer that these brief historical vignettes
may be helpful in developing an even greater and
deeper love for the church which you now represent,
and that above all, we may together “rejoice in mercy”
in our gracious Lord. If this can be achieved, this
historical overview will have been worth the effort.

Unfortunately, both our society and the church are
only now emerging from a loss of the historical sense
and sensitivity. Today we can detect a nostalgia for the
past, for the good old days, especially among the
younger generation. The music, clothing styles, and
other customs of past generations or eras are popular
again, all in efforts to recapture and relive the past.

But we need a rear-view mirror of our past history.
Bildad encouraged Job, and he encourages us:

Inquire now of older generations and consider the ex-

perience of their fathers; for we ourselves are of yester-

day and are transient; our days on earth are a shadow.

Will not they speak to you and teach you and pour out

the wisdom of their hearts? (Job 8:8-10 NEB)

The Old Testament church amply demonstrates that
a nation may lose it moorings, and after being tossed
hither and yon, may experience an almost cataclysmic
renewal.

George Santayana reminds us: “Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

We have not studied the history of our church dur-
ing the past several decades as we ought. Undoubtedly,
much of this was due to our transition from German to
English with the result that a vast treasure of historical
and theological literature became unavailable to the
present generation because it was not translated into
English. Although we are grateful for the renewed in-
terest in historical research during the past decade or
two, a close examination will indicate that such studies
too often are not based on the original German docu-
ments but on more recent English accounts. This lack
can lead to distortions or superficiality.

In this assignment we want to look reverently at
glimpses of our past. While there may be a lot of excite-
ment in debunking or in providing a postmortem on a
cadaver in an antiseptic laboratory, we want rather to
look at the children of God who preceded us in our
Synod, review the environment in which they worked,
see the Lord whom they proclaimed and the power of
the Spirit which touched them.

Our job is not to walk about in a cemetery and to
glorify the beautiful work a grandfather or grand-
mother did, or even to admire the tombstones that have
been placed by previous generations, but rather, to
walk through the pages of the past in order to renew