LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 87

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

THE CONVENTION ESSAY 87

God’s Word, too, remains unchanged, nor will it ever
pass away. Neither have the Lutheran Confessions or
Luther’s doctrine disappeared. We still assert: “God’s
Word and Luther’s doctrine pure shall now and ever-
more endure.” It is here, and here alone, that The Lu-
theran Church — Missouri Synod has found its strength
and power in the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Modify and change elsewhere will allow the cross of
Christ with His words “Father, forgive” to remain cen-
tral in everything which is thought, said, or done!

Changes in language have also contributed to the
complexity in our struggle to reinterpret our mission.
The Missouri Synod had to make a transition from Ger-
man to English. What’s more, the “communication gap”
within the English language itself is also affecting us
theologically a second time. When, for example, the orig~
inal meaning of words is replaced with a different
meaning, communication problems arise. Readers make
the mistake of reading into words meaning based upon
their own personal experience and predilection. This
little poem illustrates how the meanings of words can
change:

Remember when hippy meant big in the hips,

And a trip involved travel in cars, planes and ships?

When pot was a vessel for cooking things in,

And hooked was what grandmother’s rugs may have

been? ...

When roll meant a bun, and rock was a stone,

And hang-up was something you did with a phone?

It’s groovy, man, groovy, but English it’s not.

Methinks that our language is going to pot.

[Parade Magazine, 14 November 1971, p. 12]

In view of the linguistic and sociological changes, the
basic question confronting the Missouri Synod, namely:
What is the Gospel message which we must bring to
our world? becomes much more complex. Answers
cover a broad field. On the one extreme there may be
those who feel the Gospel message must include 126
years of synodical history. On the other extreme, there
may be those who question or reject or ignore the theo-
logical statements of the past, who reject the Lutheran
Confessions as authoritative, and who even deny that
Christ is the only and exclusive way, truth, and life.
Carried far enough, what results is a theological vac-
uum: no past, no present, no responsibilities, no mes-
sage, no future, and no God. Ernest Hemingway in his
book A Clean Well Lighted Place has an old cafe-waiter
sitting quietly in the darkness of night reflecting on the
theological emptiness of our times. He then prays the
Lord’s Prayer thus:

Our nothing who art nothing, nothing be thy name; thy
nothing come; thy nothing be done on nothing as it is in
nothing; give us this nothing our daily nothings, as we
forgive those who nothing against us. And lead us into
nothing, but nothing us from nothing; for thine is the
nothing and the nothing and the nothing.

In view of this nothingness and frustration, a view
held by more than we are aware of, we must remind
ourselves again of what our Savior said just before His
ascension:

Go therefore and make all nations My disciples; baptize
men everywhere in the name of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all that
I have commanded you. [Matt. 28:19-20 NEB]

What are the problems we face in carrying out the
Savior’s Great Commission in 1973?

Church history through past centuries demonstrates
that in the very process of presenting the message of
forgiveness and in teaching everything He has com-
manded, that accommodation or resistance constantly
tends to modify the message and the command “to ob-
serve all things.” The result of such accommodation
may be that a non-Christian life-style is approved and
adopted, and the proclamation becomes a trumpet with
an uncertain sound.

Today our Synod of some three million members,
faced with new tensions in the world and involved in
renewed Biblical studies, finds it much more difficult
to engage in dialog and rapport than when it was small
and involved in close, intimate relations.

We are living in a world in which man has harnessed
hydrogen power and stands at the threshhold of manip-
ulating the evolutionary process through controlling
hormones and genes. Man has destroyed God’s creation
at a more feverish pace than ever before. Man has
flaunted God, and as a result and in spite of progress
there is more human suffering, hunger, and destruction
than ever thought possible. It is to this condition that
the church, as God’s voice, must aggressively multiply
its efforts to bring the Gospel and rescue a dying world.

Let us remind ourselves that there never has been
a period in the history of the church when the status
quo was maintained in the method of preaching Christ,
without regard to changes in circumstances. Change
changes everything. But the people of God are supplied
with the power of the Holy Spirit who continues to
motivate and challenge them, equipping them to meet
the new requirements. As heirs of our cumulative his-
tory, it is incumbent upon us that our heirs understand
their heritage, and to build confidently for the future,
in spite of complexities, confusion, chaos, and death.

Amidst our gnawing doubts, our agonizing fears
even of one another, our despair in defeat — or our re-
joicing in victory — there can be only one joy in victory
which is lasting and eternal, namely our faith in our
Lord Jesus Christ as the Victor for us. The victory
which has been gained in Him was not by a majority
vote, but on Calvary’s cross.

You and I need once more to step into the com-
pany of the disciples, because like Thomas we have
been away from them too long as we engaged in our
own saviorhood, with the blind pursuits of our own
personal and immediate goals, rather than those of the
suffering and resurrected Christ. I said we need to re-
turn to the company of the disciples and there, in spite
of our doubts and fears, confess with Thomas: “My
Lord and my God!”

We need to be led with St. Paul on the road to Da-
mascus. Perhaps at this convention we have our pockets
filled with the names and addresses of both our enemies
and our friends, as did St. Paul (Acts 9:1). But on the
road to Damascus a blinding light flashed around him
and he fell to the ground and heard that unforgettable
voice, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting Me?”