A Potent Priesthood

Believers are given to state clearly and unequivocally the same things they have received through the Word.

Abiding in Christ Jesus they speak as the oracles of God: confessing Who Jesus is, namely our High Priest, our Atoning Sacrifice, crucified and risen from the dead, living to all eternity that He might bring all people to Himself, having made pardon for our transgressions, having won us over while we were yet dead in trespasses, calling us through the Gospel, declaring aloud by the Holy Spirit His works on our behalf, applying His merits and righteousness to us, raising us up from our filth, washing us in Holy Baptism, feeding us with His very body and blood, and carrying us over the Jordan of the grave into the promised land where there are many perfect abodes.

And this, beloved in the LORD, is a pinpoint target for the forces of darkness. From these words will arise both fear and attack on the part of the enemy. Yet from these will those who were once dead in trespasses and sin receive life, comfort, and pure joy.

"I shall not then," he says, "depart to prepare mansions for you. There are already enough there. There is no need to make new homes for my creation. But I go to prepare a place for you because of the sin that has mastery over you in order that those of you who are on the earth will be able to be mingled with the holy angels. Otherwise, the holy multitude of those above would never mingle with those [below] who were so defiled. But now, when I shall have accomplished the work of uniting the world below with that above — giving you a way of access to the city on high as well — I will return again at the time of regeneration and 'receive you with myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.'"

-Cyril of Alexandria

+ + +

Why Wait?

Waiting to baptize a child until the child understands baptism is like waiting to feed a child until the child understands food, only worse.

Baptism is not simple water only, but water comprehended in God's command and connected with His word, so that it offers more than significance (yet signifies things of extreme import).

Holy Baptism delivers substance, namely, the merits of Christ's atoning sacrifice and resurrection for the sin of all flesh, so that those who are baptized are also joined to Christ. This is no more a thing to held up for prior understanding than are being created and being born in the first place.

Baptism is a constant washing, accompanied by constant teaching, discipline, and confession throughout a life of labor peppered with assaults of every kind, including the assaults of those who would make salvation dependent upon yourself, your reason, your feelings, and your understanding.

You are a creature under the hand of a Creator Who works according to His own Word and ways. Nothing can change that.

Remain within the waters in which He placed you, for they are life-giving waters of salvation.

+ + +

Not So Easy

Jesus is in the mode of the prophets, and the prophets are never ones to soft-pedal, compromise, or be vague. Any analysis of Jesus’ true message (not the selective and filtered modern version) shows that He makes expansive, uncompromising demands on any who would be His disciples.

You must repent and believe His Gospel. You must clearly accept that He is the only Light, the only Truth, and the only Son of the Father. You are to love no one and nothing more than you love Him. This includes your very family as well as the things most essential to your physical survival, such as career and livelihood. If you do not do this, then you are not worthy of Him.

You must take up our cross daily. You must be willing to suffer even unto death for Him and what He teaches. It is not enough to love your neighbor; you must love your enemy. It is not enough to avoid adultery; you must have a comprehensive sexual purity that excludes all forms of sexual activity outside of biblical marriage, even impure thoughts. You must forgive others who have hurt you or else the Father will not forgive you.

Time and time again, Jesus warns of Hell and the necessity to be sober and serious about judgment. Jesus is not some angry preacher. Jesus, who loves you to the point of shedding His blood for you, warns that many will be unable and unwilling to enter Heaven on its terms; few will take the narrow road of the cross. Not all who say, “Lord! Lord!” will enter heaven, but only those who do the will of the Father. Many will hear from Him, “I know you not. I know not from whence you come. Depart from me.”

There is no compromise, no third way. You cannot serve two masters, God and mammon. A friend of the world is an enemy to God. “No one who sets his hand to the plow and keeps looking back is fit for the reign of God. To your excuses and pleas for time in “getting your act together,” He says, “Let the dead bury their dead, but you go and proclaim the Kingdom!”

There is little we can call gentle or soft in the mainstream of Jesus’ preaching. Though He invites you as a disciple to know Him as the True Shepherd, the True Lover of Your Soul, who gives you the true Bread for which you hunger and lasting water to quench your thirst, He wants you carrying your cross, not reclining on your couch. Jesus heals many, but He insists on faith being operative prior to performing miracles.

Jesus’ plan for you involves a deep paradox; He challenges your every expectation. He does not apologize for offending your notions. He declares that if anyone is ashamed of Him and His teachings, then He will be ashamed of that person on the Day of Judgment. There is to be no compromise with the wisdom of the world.

All of this, though recorded clearly and consistently in the biblical record, is conveniently forgotten by the world. Most modern people prefer nuance and/or euphemisms; they prefer a suggestive and inviting tone. But Jesus, like the prophets of the day, combines a searing judgment on worldly ways with an uncompromising insistence that you choose sides.

Thanks be to God, dear Christian, that He chose you and appointed you, even baptized you and feeds you with His very body and blood, that you should bear much fruit. He has gone before you with His cross and baptized you into it, so that His yoke is easy, and His burden is light indeed.

-Adapted from Msgr. Charles Pope, with addition of last paragraph.

+ + +

A Potent Vessel of Clay

For a faithful Pastor to go into the world and preach the Gospel is an answer to all seven petitions of the Our Father, all in one, small, frail, yet ever-so-potent vessel.

Hallowed be Thy Name: A faithful Pastor teaches "all things whatsoever I have commanded" in truth and purity and thus brings the forgiveness of sins to poor sinners through the living Christ, keeping us mindful of the sure and certain testimonies proclaimed from Above from the beginning of time to the end of time. Unless God places and calls men in the world to teach these things rightly we would all be lost forever.

Thy Kingdom Come: A faithful Pastor - a man speaking the Word - is the precise means whereby all that pertains to the Kingdom of Heaven is made known to sinful human flesh; washing, feeding, absolving, with real forgiveness, for he is Christ's very own mouthpiece in a given place and time. The Kingdom of Heaven does not come without faithful Pastors.

Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven: Those who hear and believe the Gospel as preached by a faithful Pastor are completely changed from the inside out, bearing fruits while hidden under the cross, crucifying in themselves by the grace of God in Christ those urges from which they have been rescued - the urges that would damn and kill us forever.

Give us this day our daily bread: A faithful Pastor admonishes us to receive with thanksgiving all the gifts and vocations God the Father in Christ Jesus has bestowed upon us as we labor in this short vale of sweat and tears. To the extent we are encouraged in this and more, daily bread indeed flows forth abundantly, yet would do so even without our prayer.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us: The forgiveness of sins is chiefly what a faithful Pastor is all about, for he preaches Christ crucified not as a spectacle or point of philosophical contention, but as Our True Substitute who, because He lives and has proven a perfect sacrifice for our wholly scurrilous nature, has made all things new.

Lead us not into temptation: The faithful Pastor leads the flock to quiet waters to still the soul, showing us in splendid specificity what is right and what is wrong, not only so that we clearly understand our need for a Savior, but so that we know how to serve our neighbor in joy and carry on with full enjoyment of what is good, right, and beautiful in this world.

But deliver us from evil: From Holy Baptism, to the Lord's Supper, to Holy Absolution, and all that pertains to participating in the Body of Christ, the faithful Pastor is ultimately God's chosen instrument in bringing poor sinners out of the sure and certain prospect of damnation into holy perfection through the merits of God's own dear Son.

The grace of God is such that He answers before we even ask. Yet He has taught us to pray this way, and look how He answers! Yes.
+ + +