Every Divine Service Is Easter

March 30, 2024 by Christopher Esget in Theology

A gem from Luther:

We have Easter as often as we celebrate the Mass, preach, and administer the holy Sacrament. With us Christians every day is Easter, except that for ancient memory’s sake we observe a special Easter once a year. And that is not wrong but good and laudable, to observe the time when Christ died and rose again, even though our remembrance of His suffering and resurrection is not restricted to such a time but may be done on any day. As He says: “As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of Me” (1 Cor. 11:25).

LW 13, pp355–356

Tenth Sunday after Trinity 2022

September 06, 2022 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

Our church stands in the line of the church catholic of the West. As the power of the papacy became tyrannical and heretical, and scholastic theology drifted further and further from Holy Scripture, a reformation was necessary. The temple needed to be cleansed. We are heirs of that reformation.

One of the major issues needing reform in the sixteenth century was the idea that Mass—what we call Divine Service—was a sacrifice. Go to any local Roman church and you will hear the priest invite the people to pray “that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.” This idea—that the mass is our sacrifice to and for God—is the heart of why we still must remain separated from our friends in the Roman church….

Holy Spirit, Holy People

June 20, 2022 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

Dear Brothers and Sisters: In the Divine Service we have received from our fathers, just before communion the Celebrant holds up the Body and Blood of Jesus and says, “The peace of the Lord be with you always.” Then we sing to Christ the Lamb of God and approach.

In the earliest recorded Divine Service, at that spot, the pastor says, “May grace come and may this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If anyone is holy, let him approach; if anyone is not, let him repent” (Didache 10.6). “If anyone is holy, let him approach.” Who qualifies? Are you holy? …