Thought for Today + Why I Am a Lutheran

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

That is, if God is real, there is something irrational about thinking in terms of an entity that can be manipulated; if there is such a thing as truth, there is something ridiculous about defining it to suit ourselves. But we do this regularly. --Jill Carattini, Slice of Infinity

Why I am a Lutheran, Part II

5. We have the best hymns. Let me just name a few off the top of my head: "A Mighty Fortress," "Thy Strong Word," "Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying," "Salvation Unto Us Has Come," "O Sacred Head Now Wounded," "The Tree of Life" & on the list goes. Plus, need I remind you of the music director of St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Leipzig, a guy by the name of Johann Sebastian Bach? Yeah, we've got that music thing going for us.

6. We embrace Christian freedom. "For freedom Christ has set us free," Paul says in Galatians. "Therefore ... do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Gal. 5:1) Lutherans understand, on the one hand, that no amount of fastidious rule-keeping will make us right with God, but only the redemption won for us by Christ--therefore we can enjoy God's gifts with grateful hearts. On the other hand, we understand that this freedom is an opportunity "through love to serve one another" (Gal. 5:13). One can do no better than to quote the Reformer's [Martin Luther] paradoxical formulation in his "Treatise on Christian Freedom": "A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all."

7. We put Jesus front & center. Did I say that already? Well, it bears repeating. Like St. Paul before us, we cling solely to "Jesus Christ & Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2) as the source of our identity, our common mission--and our joy.

These are just a few of the reasons why I am joyfully Lutheran, & while there are certainly many more I could list, I could also have stopped with the first one. For as our Lord Himself said, "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, & that your joy may be full" (John 15:11). To be fully joyful, & "Joy:fully Lutheran," is simply & solely to be His. --"Seven Reasons to Be 'Joy:Fully Lutheran,'" by Ryan Tinetti, The Lutheran Witness, Aug. 2019