HYMN: Why Stand You, Lord, So Far Away

Psalm 10 feels a little bit heavier than the Psalms I’d worked on previously. A large part of that is that the adversary about whom David prays seems so powerful and almost cavalier in his cruelty. David goes on and on about how he’s boastful and cruel, mocking his prey and even God Himself. Almost the whole Psalm is about the foe. It seemed unbalanced to me, at least compared to other Psalms where David pleads for help from God to overcome an oppressor. Trying to shape his words into my own, with rhyme and meter, I struggled to match his feeling—not because I couldn’t relate, but precisely because I know the feeling all too well. The last year in particular, or 18 months to be more precise, it’s felt like I’ve been battered on all sides and sabotaged by people who sought my downfall, who delighted to attack, even threatening my family in their work to rob me of my livelihood and vocation. “Where have you been, God?” has passed my mind and my mouth more than once. I know the answer, but I’m still a sinner and don’t always appreciate it. 

Anyway, here is Psalm 10. (Yes, I know I skipped 9. I’m rebelling. *wink*) For now I’ve settled on the tune ST. LUKE, which is paired with “‘As Surely as I Live,’ God Said,” hymn 614 in Lutheran Service Book. 

Feedback is love. 

Why Stand You, Lord, So Far Away

Why stand You, Lord, so far away?

Why hide Your face when trouble nears?

The wicked treats the poor as prey

And revels in their anguished tears.

He boasts aloud of faithless greed.

He mocks my God with pagan pride.

He pays Your righteous Word no heed

And from Your judgments turns aside.

He prospers in His evil ways.

He sneers and mocks his enemy.

His haughty cry: "For all my days

I shall not face adversity."

His mouth is full of vile deceit.

He lurks and schemes, a deadly snare

To force the humble to his feet, 

For "God forgot. He gives no care."

Arise, O Lord! Lift up Your hand!

And set at naught Your foe defiled.

But make the helpless strong to stand.

Give ear to hear Your humble child.

The Lord is King through endless days.

Who trains His ear to hear our prayer.

Prepare our hearts to sing Your praise,

For by Your grace we need not fear.

LM (88 88)

ST. LUKE (LSB 614)

Psalm 10

Sermon for 11/1/26: The Feast of All Saints

CLICK HERE for the sermon audio.

Saints in Communion
Revelation 7:9-17

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

To be a saint is certainly to be blessed. The saints of Bible times were indeed blessed by God in their words and their actions, so that they could be a blessing to the Church and the world. But being blessed isn’t always what we would like to think it is. In the minds of many, the saints are surrounded always by holiness and peace. Religious art has probably contributed a lot to this unrealistic conception of the saints, frequently picturing them with halos. As beautiful as those paintings often are, they tend to give us a skewed vision of genuine saintliness.

Humanly speaking, being blessed isn’t always what it is cracked up to be. We feel blessed when our bellies are full after a good meal, but Jesus says it is blessed to hunger and thirst. Of course, Jesus is speaking of a hunger and thirst for righteousness, but still it is true that many of the saints of God have known severe poverty and need, like their Lord Jesus, who “had no place to lay His head.” We think of powerful people as being blessed, but Jesus declares that those who are meek, gentle, and humble are blessed. We think of a state of well-being and security to be a mark of blessing, but Jesus says that those who are persecuted and even hated for the sake of righteousness are blessed. Perhaps being a blessed saint requires some thought.

To understand the blessings of sainthood, we must consider first Who it is that makes someone a saint. Sainthood starts not with the saint himself or herself, but with God! The salvation of the Church is not in a saint, but in God! Power, glory, wisdom, honor, and might do not belong to the saint either; these are also in God. Likewise, the very blessing of being a saint is in God, and without Him there is nothing saintly in any of us! It is God who declares someone to be a saint. It is God alone who makes you, by faith in Jesus Christ, a holy saint!

But don’t saints do lots of saintly things? Indeed, they do! By their works, Scripture says, we know them to be saints. But the works of holy men and women do not merit them sainthood. That would have it all backwards. It’s not that saints act really holy, and then God responds by making them saints. It is God who chooses them to believe in Him, and through that faith He makes them holy, so that their actions will reflect who they are.

So we are reminded that it is God Himself who makes people into saints. But how does He do that? Many foolishly think that the Lord does this by means of His Law, as though God commands good works from Christians, and by their obedience they become saints. That is simply not true! Your holiness as one of God’s saints does not come from what you do. It comes as a gift of God, not from His law—which He knows you cannot keep—but from His Gospel love in Jesus who suffered and died for you.

You are made saints by Your Savior’s death at the cross. There He became the unholiness of all your sins, received God’s wrath poured out upon His body nailed to the cross, and then died the death you so richly deserved. In this blessed exchange, He gives you the holiness of His own righteousness, given to you in your baptism. Whatever it was you were dressed in as you were brought to the font, you were given there the sparkling-bright robe of Christ’s righteousness, the same one the saints in heaven wear for eternity. And what Jesus received in this exchange was your “robe” of sin and shame, the robe that really should serve as your burial shroud.

And since that day, when you became a saint, you have been blessed to worship. But even in worship, the burden is not placed upon you. Yes, you pray and sing praise, give offerings, and bless your gracious God with thanksgiving. That is all true. But you worship in God. German Lutherans had a wonderful term for this: “Gottesdienst,” which is God’s service to you because you are His in Christ. In this Divine Service He brings you into Himself. The real presence of Jesus is not just in the Sacrament, but in the entire service. He is quite literally here at this moment, gathering you to Himself.

Your Savior, Jesus Christ, was promised as “the Word made flesh to dwell among us.” And He does this most intimately when He invites you to eat and drink of His holy body and blood in His holy Supper. The same Jesus who came in the flesh to die for your salvation is present for you here, making you holy by the forgiveness of sins and by giving His righteousness to you. He brings here His saving cross and all its benefits to you this day.

And what is more, in this Divine Service He brings you as close as you can come in this life to the faithful who have gone before you. As the Apostle’s Creed eloquently describes it, this is the “communion of saints.” The worship of heaven and earth is joined in one, and for a brief moment the veil that separates the Church in heaven from the Church on earth is pulled aside, revealing that our worship is indeed one and the same, for on both sides of eternity it is the worship of the same God and the same Lamb who gathers all of His sheep around His eternal throne. And so we rejoice and find our hope in those words: “Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising You and saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Sabbath; heaven and earth are full of Your glory.’” That is the song of the Church now; it will be our song forever as we commune with God and His saints forever. In the name of the Father and of the Son (†) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.

HYMN: I Put My Trust in You, O God

Another day, another substitute teaching opportunity, another text drafted. I ended up with two free periods today somehow, and that gave me the opportunity to do some writing. I have to say, the longer the Psalm, the more difficult I find it to make it metrical. 

This is Psalm 7, the one I skipped over on Tuesday. I've chosen the tune WAS MEIN GOTT WILL (Isorhythmic), which is used for "The Will of God Is Always Best" (hymn 758) in LSB, The rhyme scheme works best with the Isorhythmic tune. 

Feedback is love.

I Put My Trust in You, O God

1. I put my trust in You, O God.

Deliver me and save me.

Preserve me from the vicious rod

Of those who would enslave me.

They tear my flesh like lion's prey

And rend my very body.

For no one comes to save, they say,

In voices cruel and haughty.

2. Yet if I sin, O Lord my God,

If with my hands I blunder,

If I meet peace with flaming sword,

If I should idly plunder,

Then give my enemies delight

To chase and overtake me.

And let them conquer in the fight.

Let honor then forsake me.

3. Arise, O Lord, in righteous wrath.

Arise for my salvation.

Let all who walk the wicked path

Receive due condemnation.

My righteous God, my sure defense,

Arise, O Lord, and test me.

Your life, O Christ, without offense,

The gift by which You blessed me.

4. Bring all the wicked to an end

And lift the just with favor.

Our hearts and minds on You depend.

Lord, help us never waver.

Oh, judge me for integrity

And raise the humble, lowly.

The grace Your Spirit gives to me

Will save those You make holy.

5. Our God is just, the Judge unswayed.

The wicked face His fury.

Unless His mighty wrath is stayed,

He brings their death most surely.

He has made ready fiery darts,

His bow and sword preparing,

To pierce the false and evil hearts

With awesome wrath unsparing.

6. The wicked wallow in their sin,

Their grave a pit of anguish.

Lo, they will end as they begin.

In death the evil languish.

But I will praise the righteous Lord

Who showers me with blessing.

Saints sing His praise with one accord,

His holy name addressing.

87 87D

WAS MEIN GOTT WILL (Isorhythmic) (LSB 758)

Psalm 7

HYMN: How Excellent Your Name, O Lord

I skipped Psalm 7 by accident, It's not that I necessarily have to go in order, especially since I've written other hymns based on later-numbered Psalms. But I do so like to do things in an orderly fashion, to impose some sort of control upon the chaos that seems to run roughshod on my life.

So I worked on a metrical text for Psalm 8. This reminds me of the day I baptized the twins. The pastor of the church we were attending thought it would be good for the congregation to use The Message for the psalmody/introit during worship. If you haven't heard of it, the Message is a paraphrase of the Bible assembled by Eugene Peterson. Peterson has done a lot of good; the Message is so awful that I believe it all but offsets the good Peterson has done. Psalm 8 begins with the grand claim, "O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens!” The Message treats God's name with entirely too much familiarity and much less majesty: "GOD, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name." I was and remain unimpressed. 

(I remember sitting in on a Bible study class where the pastor was translating on the fly from the Greek, and one of the attendees had the audacity to hold up her copy of the Message and tell the pastor, "That's not what the Bible says," as if her paraphrase of Scripture was more accurate andd desirable than the original language and a literal translation. But I digress.)

Here's my Psalm 8 text. I wrote it with the tune KOMMT HER ZU MIR in mind, which is the tune for "O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe" (LSB 666). But I also like the way it sounds with MERIBAH, the tune for "May We Thy Precepts, Lord, Fulfill" (LSB 698). 

As always, feedback is love. 

How Excellent Your Name, O Lord

1. How excellent Your name, O Lord,

By all in heav'n and earth adored.

Your glory overflows.

And mouths of nursing babes will raise

The bold confession of Your praise

To silence all Your foes.

2. On moon and stars I meditate

And think of all You did create:

The wonders of Your hands.

So what is man that You pay heed,

For he is only dust indeed;

Why meet his great demands?

3. Man's honor nears the angel host's,

And of Your mindfulness he boasts.

With glory he is crowned.

And mighty grace have You displayed.

You name him lord of all You made.

To him all things are bound.

∆ 4. How excellent Your name, O Lord,

By all in heav'n and earth adored.

The people whom You claim

Will praise the God of whom we boast,

O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

All glory to Your name.

886 886

KOMMT HER ZU MIR (LSB 666) or MERIBAH (LSB 698)

Psalm 8

HYMN: Lord Jesus, Son Who Sets Us Free

A blessed Festival of the Reformation to you and yours.

I had a rare Sunday off this morning, so there is no sermon to post today. However, while I was listening to Pastor Anderson at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, something he said sparked an idea for a hymn text. I'd written a text for the Reformation before, but it wasn't my best work, and I'd always hoped that something better would come to me eventually. Today it did.

Built mostly on John 8:31-36, which is the Gospel appointed for the Festival of the Reformation, and with a nod to the boasting mentioned in the Romans 3 reading for today, this is a hymn of praise to Christ, the Son who sets us free from our slavery to sin. The tune is ALL EHR UND LOB, which is the tune for the hymn "All Glory Be to God Alone (LSB 948). 

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, feedback is love.

Lord Jesus, Son Who Sets Us Free

1. Lord Jesus, Son who sets us free

From sin, our chains of slavery,

Who by His cross did overthrow

The devil, tyrant, evil foe:

To You, O Christ, for all our days

Be honor, glory, might, and praise. 

2. Lord, keep us steadfast in Your Word. 

Let not Your children fear the sword,

For Your disciples we would be

And know the truth that sets us free. 

For we, who once to sin were slaves,

Rejoice in Christ, the Son who saves.

3. Not by descent from Abraham,

But by Your blood, O Christ the Lamb,

Are we as God’s own children made,

And through that blood are unafraid

To name Your Father as our own

And boldly stand before the throne. 

∆ 4. In sparkling-bright baptismal dress,

With boldness grant that we confess

And boast alone in Jesus Christ,

Who for our sin was sacrificed. 

O Father, Son, and Spirit, One:

All thanks while endless ages run.

88 88 88

ALL EHR UND LOB (LSB 948)

Reformation; John 8:31-36