Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve discussed the Lutheran sacraments, namely Baptism and Holy Communion. For Lutherans, these are not symbolic gestures, but ways that God has chosen to distribute the grace that is ours through Christ. Baptism adopts us into His family. Communion is the way He feeds…
Lutherans are inveterate paedobaptists. Okay, that’s a mouthful. Basically, it means we baptize babies. Always have and, so far as I can tell, we always will. And here’s the reason why: as we’ve seen over the past several weeks, we have a slightly different understanding of how a Christian comes…
Last week, I talked about the Lutheran definition of a sacrament. Just so we’re all on the same page, the “recipe” is as follows: God says “Do this.” God says, “In doing this, you will receive forgiveness.” We use a physical object (or element) in connection with this action or…
If you come from a more liturgical church, then yesterday was known as The Baptism of the Lord, a day when we remember that Jesus came to the Jordan River to be baptized by His cousin, John. This one event is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, and the stories…
Okay, before I tell this story, I need to start with this caveat: Everything I’m about to tell you is absolutely true. It may sound ridiculous, but I promise, I am not making any of this up. So this past Sunday, we had a double baptism at my congregation, two…