09 Advent-first Sunday

FROM LUTHER’S PRAYERS: Help us to remain so steadfast that your coming kingdom will include and complete your kingdom begun here. Lead us out qf this sinful and dangerous life. Help us to hate this life and to long for the life that is to come. Enable us not to dread death but to welcome it. Release us from the love and attachments of this life, so that your kingdom may be totally completed in us. Amen.

FIRST SUNDAY OF

FROM LUTHER’S SMALL CATECHISM: The Apostles’ Creed: The First Article: On Creation I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. What is this? I believe that God has created me together with all creatures. God has given me and still preserves my body and soul: eyes, ears, and all limbs and senses; reason and all mental faculties. In addition, God daily and abundantly provides shoes and clothing, food and drink, house and home, spouse and children, fields, livestock, and all property – along with all the necessities and nourishment for this body and life. God protects me against all danger and shields and preserves me from all evil. God does all this out of pure, fatherly, and divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness of mine at all! For all of this I owe it to God to thank and praise, serve and obey him. This is most certainly true.

Stir up your power, O Lord and come, Protect us by your strength and save us from the threatening dangers of our sins, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

GOSPEL: Luke 21:25-36 [Jesus said:] “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 26 People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 Then they will see the ‘Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” 29 Then he told them a parable, “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; 30 as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. 31 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 34 “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, 35 like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN ? HE COMETH AT THE JUDGEMENT DAY Sunday Luke xxi. 25-36 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice if the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. 1 Thessalonians iv. 16. When such a voice and the last trump of God resound, the sun and the moon and all the creatures will cry: ‘Strike them dead, dear Lord, strike them dead!’ There are the godless who know Thee not, and the false confessors who obey not the word of Christ; they have all blasphemed Thy Bane; on earth they have persecuted Thy saints and have killed then, Strike them dead, it is high time. Make an end of the woe and wickedness! For there will be a terrible and unheard of tempest, the like of which has never been since the beginning of the world, and all creatures will run wild with fear because the end is upon them. The thunders which occur now are but a prelude of that last thunder which will make the whole world pass away, whereat all creatures shall cry: ‘Yea and Amen!’ For that will be the true war and battle which Christ in His glory will wage against all the devils in hell and all the godless on earth, the battle in which He will dash in pieces with lightening and with thunder all His adversaries. Then will be fulfilled the word which He spake: ‘And he gave him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of man’ (John v. 27). Sermon from the yea, 1545.

W.A. 49. 740.

Taken from the book: Day by Day We Magnify Thee Page 8

by Martin Luther