The artist has given us a taste of what we desire, inspiring us to press on toward the goal, to go to church, to listen to God’s Word, to love our neighbor and not the things of this world. May the Lord preserve us steadfast in the true faith to life everlasting.
For several generations of English readers, Hamilton’s Mythology has proven helpful in both sorting the various stories into their proper places and order and also integrating them into the single story that many have known and loved in the West for centuries.
Come ye! Come ye! Come, all, / Who from so many falls into sin / Wounded, weak, and trembling stand, / We want to go to Jesus. / He heals all wounds.
As with nearly all the great Lutheran hymnists, Franck took up the pen in times of suffering and cross bearing.
That the ordinances which have been preserved in the Churches from old time until now, may not be lost in our days, and the trust which has been committed to us required at our hands; rouse yourselves, brethren, as being stewards of the mysteries of God, and seeing them now seized upon by others.
My conscience is at rest, and I rejoice / That through my shepherd speaks my Shepherd’s voice!
Even for experienced Christians, nothing gets lost easier than the simplest Catechism truths. Christian knowledge is no such thing, that a man can avail himself of it once for all and then never lose it.
We need to beware of picturing the area governed by God’s Left Hand as simply those wide tracts of space where the world ‘does its own thing’ as the Church looks unconcernedly on.
The ancient series of lessons and prayers referenced by the Book of Concord is the Church’s historic Lectionary, a series of appointed Bible readings (lections), psalm verses, and prayers to be used within the Divine Service for nearly every day of the Church Year.
Do not seek how he will live a long life here, but how he will live a boundless and endless life there. Give him the great things, not the little things.
