With these words, Simeon commits himself, body, soul, and all things, into the hands of the Lord. He can depart, that is, die, in peace because he holds in his hands the one who has the power over death, namely, Jesus. This babe of Bethlehem is the savior of mankind, a light for the Gentiles and the glory of Israel. With this simple song, faith triumphs over fear and life conquers death.
On Jordan’s banks the baptist cries, “Behold, the Lamb of God [Latin: Agnus Dei] who takes away the sins of the world!” This he says while beholding, not a lamb, but a man— the man Jesus, the Son of God and Christ of the world. As such we understand that this is a deeply theological statement, a confession of the promise of God. In order to understand this promise of the New Testament we must return to the giving of the promise in the Old Testament. This return takes us all the way back to the book of Genesis, to the patriarch of faith, Abraham.
The Lord’s Prayer or “Our Father” (Latin: Pater noster; German: Vater unser) has always enjoyed a unique pride of place because, as we say in the liturgy, it is the prayer our Lord has taught us. Where other portions of the service come from the lips of angels, this prayer comes from the lips of Jesus himself (Mt 6:9-13; Lk 11:2-4). As such, it is the most sublime of all prayers a Christian will ever utter and we are truly blessed and privileged to speak it.
In the time of the Old Testament, this canticle functioned to announce the presence of God who was seated on his throne. In the time of the New Testament, this canticle functions much the same way, however, God’s location is not restricted to his Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kgs 8:10-11), enthroned upon the Cherubim of the Ark of the Covenant (Isa 37:16), but rather he is present and enthroned on Christian altars around the world. There the Lamb who was slain and yet lives reigns from his throne (Rev 5:6). There, around the altar, the “liturgists” of God (Heb 1:7), the “angels and archangels”, cherubim and seraphim, are present and sing with us, blessing and praising God.
The essence of their claim is that far from abolishing the Supper, the Supper is observed more frequently and with higher reverence among the churches of the Augsburg Confession than among the Papal churches. The chief way that the Lutheran churches demonstrated and exercised themselves in this “highest reverence” was by thoroughly instructing the faithful in what the Supper was, why it was instituted, and who received it worthily.
Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the sermon of Christ Jesus as St. Paul says. In the Divine Service up to this point, the Christian has heard the sermon of Christ read in the daily lessons, sung in the psalmody and hymnody, and preached in the pastor’s sermon. Through this bodily and external word, the Holy Spirit works justifying faith which clings to the Gospel of Christ crucified and raised for the ungodly. Much like the natural pattern of breathing in and breathing out, the Holy Spirit inspires the supernatural pattern of faith and prayer. The Spirit breathes into us his word, life, and faith, and we breathe out words of thanksgiving, prayer, and praise. Thus, the church of Christ as the congregation of believers is at its core a praying church. A church without prayer is like a body without breath.
From these passages we can deduce that preaching comes both by the example and mandate of Christ to his chosen apostles, that it is a proclamation of God’s two words of command and promise or Law and Gospel, for the purpose of working repentance and faith. As a proclamation of the word of God, it carries the full power of the very word of God which is living and active (Hb 4:12), which creates out of nothing (Ps 33:6, 9), which kills, brings low, and humbles (1 Sm 1:6-8), which quickens, exalts, and glorifies (Rm 4:17; 8:30), which instructs, encourages, and gives hope (Rm 15:3), which reproves, corrects, and trains in righteousness (2 Tm 3:16), and which finally saves (1 Pt 1:23)
Following the reading of the Lessons, what typically follows is the congregation joining together to confess their common Christian faith using the words of one of the three ecumenical creeds, namely, the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creed. These are called “ecumenical” because they are used by all those in the “oikumene”, that is, the “household” of faith. While the use of these creeds is an historic practice of the church, confessing the faith is not merely a matter of tradition. It comes from Christ himself.
Similar to the Introit and Offertory, the Gradual supplies another use of psalmody within the Divine Service. Unlike the Introit and the Offertory, however, the Gradual does not merely function as travelling music to cover the movement or preparation of the presiding minister. The psalmody of the Gradual is intended to biblically complement the Lesson that it accompanies, expressing similar language and themes, and thus functions much like a Lesson. It keys the audience into the grammar of the psalter and thus also how the church has historically prayed and sung the theological content of the Lessons at hand.
