That's the question on everyone's mind when he comes into a Lutheran church for the first time. Rightly so. Here are some answers to different variations of that question, even if you're not asking it. More of these will be posted as they become available. If you have questions you'd like answered, feel free to ask. Email me at:pastor@hopelcms.com.
Do Christians still sin? Yes. Until you die or until Jesus returns, your life will never be sin-free. St. Paul describes this struggle: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:15, 18-19) Yet in the chapter just before this one, Paul had said, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” (Romans 6:6-7)
How can that be? On one hand, Paul says that Christians are set free from sin. On the other hand, he says they cannot stop sinning as long as they live. What’s the difference? Simple. Christians still sin, but they do not willfully seek sin out. They do not intentionally sin. Rather, by the power of the Holy Spirit, they wage war against the sinful passions that still reside within them. Paul is clear: the Christian hates sin and wants to do good.
The writer of Hebrews says, “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” (Hebrews 10:26) Those are strong words. But they’re the truth of Scripture. If we deliberately sin, we are unrepentant. If we deliberately sin, we are holding that sin outside of the forgiveness offered through Jesus’ death on the cross. Deliberate sin says to Jesus, “You can forgive my other sins, but I’m hanging on to this one.”
Luther writes in the Smallcald Articles, “When holy people—still having and feeling original sin and daily repenting and striving against it—happen to fall into manifest sins (as David did into adultery, murder, and blasphemy [2 Samuel 11]), then faith and the Holy Spirit have left them. The Holy Spirit does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand so it can be carried out, but represses and restrains it from doing what it wants [Psalm 51:11; Romans 6:14]. If sin does what it wants, the Holy Spirit and faith are not present. For St. John says, ‘No one born of God makes a practice of sinning…and he cannot keep on sinning’ [1 John 3:9]. And yet it is also true when St. John says, ‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’ [1:8].”
“For freedom Christ set us free; stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). Sin is slavery. If you submit to it, it is your master. “No man can serve two masters,” said Jesus. But because you have been set free from sin, it is no longer your master.
If you willfully, impenitently sin, repent. If someone you know willfully, impenitently sins, call him to repentance. This impenitence destroys faith and drives away the Holy Spirit.
But the grace you have received is bigger than any sin. Paul’s not joking when he says you have been set free from sin. Forgiveness from Jesus is more powerful that your inability to resist temptation.
God gives you strength for the battle, too. He has placed you into a relationship with Himself, joined you into the death and resurrection of Jesus, in the waters of Holy Baptism. You no longer belong to sin and the devil. You belong to God. He has sent ministers to you to speak the word of Holy Absolution. Jesus wanted you to hear his words “I forgive you” in the midst of your struggle against sin. So He gave these words to His ministers to speak to you. And He feeds you with His life-giving, sin-forgiving Body and Blood. This holy food is the “medicine of immortality,” the food that quickens you for the life-long battle against your sinful flesh.
The gifts from God are more than sufficient to keep you steadfast in the faith until death. In fact, only God’s grace can free you from sin. The Law only makes your sin worse (Romans 7:7-8: 5:20). Thanks be to God for His freely given grace.
From the Latin for “entrance,” the Introit is the “entering” part of the service. Originally, before there was a preparatory rite including corporate confession, the Introit was the first part of the Divine Service. The Introit occurs immediately after the confession of sins. It’s usually a psalm that we sing responsively and a theme verse (called an antiphon). It’s the first part of the Service of the Word, and you’ll find it on the insert that contains the Propers for the day.
The Introit is more than any symbolic entrance. It is the time when the pastor literally enters the chancel (the elevated place around the altar). He does this not as any privilege, but as the representative of the congregation.
There are two types of parts to the Divine Service. The Ordinaries (Gloria in Excelsis, Kyrie, Agnus Dei, etc.) are parts that stay the same from week to week. The Propers are parts that change each week (readings, collect, Introit, Proper Preface, etc.) The Propers change to reflect the theme of the day. The Introit is usually a psalm or other verses from Scripture sung antiphonally. That is, two choirs would sing back and forth to one another, or the cantor (or pastor) and congregation chant back and forth to one another. The verse repeated at the beginning and at the end of the Introit is the antiphon and usually summarizes the theme for the day.
Because the Introit was the first part of the service, the first words of the antiphon would be the first words those gathered for the service would hear. Sundays gradually developed nicknames from the first word or two of the antiphon of the Introit. So the first Sunday in Advent became known as Ad Te Levavi (“unto You I lift up…”) because the first words of the Introit in Latin were “Ad te levavi…” Why is a funeral Mass called a Requiem? Because the Introit begins, “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine” (“Rest eternal give to them, Lord”). The name for the first Sunday after Easter, Quasimodo Geniti, “As newborn babies,” emphasizes the power of Christ’s death and resurrection to give us new birth in the waters of Holy Baptism. (The Sunday, not the Hunchback, was first named Quasimodo. Victor Hugo’s character was given his name Quasimodo because he was found on the door step of the church on Quasimodo Geniti.)
From this very first part of the Service of the Word, the tone is set for the entire Sunday.
“Kyrie” is Greek for “Lord” and is the first word of the prayer Kyrie eleison (“Lord, have mercy”). The Canaanite woman who comes to Jesus to ask him to drive the demon out of her daughter prays, “Lord, have mercy on me” (Matthew 15:22). A man in the crowd around Jesus implores Him “Lord, have mercy on my son” (Matt. 17:15). Two blind men at the side of the road to Jericho also pray, “Lord have mercy on us” (Matt. 20:30). Ten lepers greet Jesus between Samaria and Galilee and pray, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (Luke 17:13).
So we join with those who confessed the divinity of Jesus by praying the Kyrie: “Lord have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy.”
Before Latin, the first Christians spoke Greek. This was the language used by Christians for their worship service for the first 300 years of the Church (Maschke, 123). The Kyrie is the only part of the service that retains its Greek title, which reminds us that the liturgy has been handed down to us through the entire history of the Church.
The Kyrie is more than a prayer for forgiveness. It’s a prayer that, having forgiven us our sins, the Lord would continue to be merciful in providing for all our needs of body and soul, in times of need or trouble.
We can have confidence that the Lord will hear and answer our prayer for mercy. In fact, showing mercy is one of the Lord’s defining characteristics. All throughout the Old Testament, the Lord is described as “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 86:15, Exodus 34:6. Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, et al.). Showing mercy is what God delights to do.
So the Kyrie is our prayer as the Lord gathers us in His Divine Service. It’s also our prayer throughout life. It’s our prayer to a God who makes himself known by showing mercy, chiefly by sending His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for sinners, and also by providing us with everything we need “to support this body and life.”
When Charlotte the spider greets Wilbur the pig in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, she announces, “Greetings and salutations!” And every attentive junior high grammar student knows that a properly formatted letter begins with a salutation. But in the Divine Service, the Salutation is more than just a casual greeting.
The Salutation, which occurs a few times during the service, is the blessing “The Lord be with you,” followed by the response, “And with thy spirit.” The first time this occurs is immediately before the Collect. It also is the first part of the Preface and preceded the Benedicamus and Benediction at the conclusion of the service.
The greeting “The Lord be with you” is a common blessing in Scripture (Exodus 10:10, 1 Samuel 20:13, Ruth 2:4, Luke 1:28, 2 Thessalonians 3:16). In the Divine Service, it identifies those gathered as the Lord’s guests. It’s not just a greeting, and it’s more than a wish. Like other words the pastor speaks on the Lord’s behalf, the Salutation does what it says: the Lord is with you.
The response of the congregation, “And with thy spirit,” is also significant. It’s often called “The Little Ordination.” These words recall the blessing Jesus gave to His apostles when he greeted them in the upper room after His resurrection: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22) With this blessing, Jesus commissioned His apostles to forgive sins or withhold forgiveness, to be the ones to stand in His place as His first pastors. When pastors are ordained, they receive the same Holy Spirit to do the work Jesus left ministers to do. (“And also with you” was an attempt by the Roman Catholic Church during the liturgical reforms of Vatican II to make the language of the liturgy more up-to-date. Changing the “And with thy spirit” to the colloquial “And also with you,” though, makes it nothing more than the banal “You, too, pastor.”)
So the response “And with thy spirit” is a reaffirmation of the pastor’s ordination. The congregation is saying, “The Lord’s Spirit continue to be with your spirit as you do what He has given you to do.” This response happens before significant events in the Divine Service. Before the pastor prays the Collect, the prayer of the day, on behalf of all the congregation, they affirm his role as their representative to the Lord: “And with thy spirit.” Before He consecrates the bread and wine to be the Body and Blood of Jesus, they again affirm the Lord’s call for the pastor to be His representative to the congregation: “And with thy spirit.” And before the pastor speaks the blessing the Lord gave the Aaron and the priests to speak to His people, the congregation affirms: “And with thy spirit.”
The interchange of the salutation focuses our attention on the Lord’s gifts which follow.
“Let us pray” is both invitation and command. Having been reconciled to God the Father through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, Christians are those who may call upon the Creator of all things in prayer. Asking if Christians have to pray is like asking if humans have to breathe. Of course they do. It’s how they live! But prayer is not a requirement as much as it is a gift.
So this prayer toward the beginning of the service is the Lord’s gift to His gathered guests to use to approach Him. The Collect (pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, COLL-ect) collects the prayers of the people and presents them in a short prayer that also captures the theme of the Sunday or Feast day.
Collects, like readings, Introits, and hymns, are part of the “Propers.” The Propers are those parts of the service proper to each day. As such, they change from week to week. Most of the Collects are old prayers that have been handed down through may generations. They do not belong exclusively to us, but they belong to the whole Church, members living and dead from all ages.
Collects have a particular, five-part format. Address, Rationale, Petition, Benefit, Doxology. The Address calls upon God, naming the person of the Trinity to whom the petition is particularly addressed (“Merciful and eternal God”). The rationale recalls God’s work in the past or one of His promises as the basis for making today’s petition (“Your holy apostles Peter and Paul received grace and strength to lay down their lives for the sake of Your Son”). The petition is the request of the prayer (“Strengthen us by Your Holy Spirit”). The petition is followed by the benefit: what good will come of God granting this petition? (“That we may confess Your truth and at all times be ready to lay down our lives for Him who laid down His life for us”) The Collect concludes with a Trinitarian doxology, praise to the Triune God (“even Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever”).
After the Collect, the Church gives her voice to say “Yes, this is our prayer” when She responds with “Amen.” Amen is the word of faith, the word which received from the Lord all He has promised to give, the word which trusts that He provides everything to support our body and life.