Cyberstones-A Lutheran Blog

Comments...

• Feb 09, 2008 08:27:42 Re: Ashes to Ashes, We all Fall Down - Julie
  The marking of the Christian at the Ash Wed. service is always something that is meaningful to me. And to see those ashes on Ollie Braaten--ouch! That hurts! But, what your post left out (and is in another post) is the Gospel from your sermon--that Jesus has taken away our "dustiness." And in Him we live!
• Feb 07, 2008 18:49:26 Re: Ashes to Ashes, We all Fall Down - Helen

  Quote:

  Remember now...
  
  Not only do we return to dust, but that dust is raised again!
  
  Rest well.

  That comforting e-mail from my Pastor was, as it was intended to be,
  the final one I read last night.
  
  My oldest son, gone from me now nearly five years, is safe with His Lord.
  Helen
  
  I hope the thought helps you, too, when you think about the children.
• Feb 07, 2008 17:37:00 Re: Ashes to Ashes, We all Fall Down - Paul A. Siems
  Pr. Petersen,
  
  Perhaps a brief reminder of whose words these are that you speak as a shepherd of souls would help you to move beyond your emotional diminishment of the office of the keys.
  
  Gen 3:17-20
  And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
  
  First the Lord God tells the serpent that he and his head are defeated and that what was imagined as a victory against God’s plan of Life has been undone even from eternity. The Lord God promises the victory of the Seed of the Woman over the head (Satan) of the serpent. By the way, by replacing Adam with Satan as its head, the serpent was already cursed.
  
  Then, the Lord God turns to the woman to promise her that she will not be able to forget her need for the salvation that her Seed shall win for her and for all women. The Lord God promised that she and all women would experience a blessing of special trials in their womanhood, to remind them that they are not over the men and should not forget God’s good and gracious will for the family, by which all life is given and restored.
  
  To Adam the Lord God promises that the very ground from which he is created shall be cursed for the sake of all of mankind, so that no one will be able to ignore the death that God warned against. The Lord God promised that the death that Adam chose for mankind would be undone through physical death. Rather than being like the fallen angels, with no hope of dying and being set free from the flesh, Adam and all of mankind would die physically so that they would also be raised again, so that those who experience the first resurrection by faith, shall never die again but shall be raised to life everlasting.
  
  Adam, having heard this wonderful pronouncement of the ashes turned with the joy of the Gospel to give an new name of restoration to the one that he earlier named Woman (of Man). He named the Woman, Eve or Life.
  
  The pronouncement of the Ashes is the promise of the repentance that is worked through burial with Christ into His death. The return to Ashes is the ultimate call to repentance, by which life is restored.
  
  The next time that you baptize a baby and mark that baby with the sign of the cross, remember that the water and ashes are the promise of the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Ghost. Rejoice for this baby has died to the world in order to live in Christ.
  
  So, if this baby should die shortly after being baptized, you may rejoice to have been called to be God’s administrator of the call to remember ashes and dust, which by the cross have been redeemed unto the resurrection unto life.
  
  The burial of a baby who has been baptized into Christ Jesus is cause for rejoicing. When parents bring their babies to you to be marked with ashes, your tears should be tears of everlasting joy, for they have brought their babies to be blessed by Jesus unto everlasting life.
  • Feb 07, 2008 19:54:26 Re: Ashes to Ashes, We all Fall Down - Pr. H. R. Curtis
    Mr. Siems,
    
    No doubt you've got a lot right in there. God redeems us and we all rise in the end. And that is very good news.
    
    But this:
    "The burial of a baby who has been baptized into Christ Jesus is cause for rejoicing."
    
    Well, that is just silly and hurtful to anyone who has actually had to bury a baby. I think I know what you are trying to say: that child rests with Christ and will rise again and that is a cause to rejoice. But the actual burying of the child is not a matter of rejoicing. It's a matter for mourning and weeping. It's evil. Death is bad. It is our last enemy to be defeated.
    
    Tears, wailing, sorrow, and mourning: that's what to do at a funeral. Gladness may return in the morning - and will certainly return in The Morning: but don't make it sound like you're a bad Christian if you are angry, hurt, and deeply sorrowful at the burying of your child. A theologian of the cross calls a thing what it is: and funerals are funerals, not celebrations of life of whatever Polly Anna would call them.
    
    +HRC
    • Feb 07, 2008 23:16:19 Re: Ashes to Ashes, We all Fall Down - Paul A. Siems
      Dear Pr. Curtis,
      
      You had no way of knowing from my post, but my title is Pastor and I HAVE buried babies.
      
      On one occasion I was a hospital chaplain and had the great priviledge to minister to a couple whose baby was dying of liver failure. They had been waiting for months for a liver, but each time one became available, her infections made the operation impossible. I had the joy of baptizing the baby. I also stood beside the parents as they held their little girl and watched her take her last breath and then turn the various shades of death.
      
      Then I visted with the parents and the other two little siblings in their home in inner Detroit. I was privileged to share the Gospel and explain things to these little ones as well.
      
      When we baptized the little baby, four sets of grandparents were present because of the divorces and marriages of the grandparents, and much strife and tension was addressed before I baptized the little baby. They all heard the Gospel and received its healing.
      
      At the funeral, tears were certainly shed, but nevertheless, it was a day of great rejoicing for the sweet child of God now at rest with Jesus and for all who received reconciliation with God and with one another through this very blessed death. All rejoiced, truly rejoiced, even through the tears, to know the everlasting safety of the baby (and ourselves).
      
      According to the Lord Jesus and his apostles, we don't merely rise in the end, but we rise in our baptism to the new life that never ends. Moreover, Jesus reminded those who challenged Him that God is the God of the living, not of the dead. Christian funerals ARE celebrations of life, for Jesus is the way, the truth, and the Life.
      
      When Christians weep at the burial of a believer, they weep primarily for their own sense of temporal loss. Yet the rejoicing of the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven rings through as does the funeral sermon and the Creed and the liturgy and hymns, so that the temporal loss cannot prevail.
      
      When I buried that sweet little baby girl, I cried, too. I cried for the parents, for the family, and for myself. But the children present did not cry, even though they knew fully what was happening. They knew that their sister and cousin was safe, and they had a grand time.
      
      To speak of being angry at the death of a child is not the theology of the cross but the theology of glory that fails a person in the time of grief. The theology of the cross always gives hope and joy, especially in the times of deepest suffering and horrific trials and gut wrenching sorrow.
      
      Most importantly, in response to your challenge, I was not addressing a layperson but a servant of the Word who said that on account of his own emotional responses he even considered inventing a lie so as to avoid having to fulfill the office of the keys regarding little babies. My point was to remind him of the joy of this office and the reason for that joy. It is my hope that if he continues the traditon of ashes that he will henceforth do so with rejoicing, especially for the little ones brought forward in faith by their parents.
      
      The peace of God in Christ Jesus be yours.
• Feb 07, 2008 17:07:37 Re: Ashes to Ashes, We all Fall Down - The Rev. BT Ball
  Yes, to mark the babies is something, especially when one of them is your own 7 week old child. My 2 year old asked one of the members who declined to receive ashes, "Where is your cross?" That was something too.
• Feb 07, 2008 15:23:40 Re: Ashes to Ashes, We all Fall Down - Anastasia Theodoridis
  So, so hard to comprehend, to take to heart, that every single one of us, even the healthiest, the happiest, the youngest, is walking around with a (short!) expiration date.