During this season of Lent we will meditate on Chapter 53 of the Book of Isaiah. Chapter 53 of Isaiah is about the Person and Work of Christ to save us from our sins and give life eternal. It is a vivid description of Christ’s Passion in order to effect our salvation.
Luther writes:
Here we begin chapter 53. Until now you have heard Christ’s kingdom depicted in the cross and that it is carried forward by faith and the Word alone. Yet that leading of faith, the Word, and the cross is not without deliverance and protection. In this chapter the prophet speaks primarily of the Head of the Kingdom as he treats of the person of the King and the manner of His deliverance. This is the foremost passage on the suffering and resurrection of Christ, and there is hardly another like it. Therefore we must memorize this passage ... . This King will be glorious, but after His death. This indicates that this King is different from an ordinary one, since He will begin His reign after death.
" You see, therefore, that what we call the mass is a promise of the forgiveness of sins made to us by God, and such a promise as has been confirmed by the death of the Son of God. For the only differences between a promise and a testament is that the testament involves the death of the one who makes it. A testator is a promiser who is about to die, while a promiser (if I may put it thus) is a testator who is not about to die. This testament of Christ is foreshadowed in all the promises of God from the beginning of the world; indeed, whatever value those ancient promises possessed was altogether derived from this new promise that was to come in Christ. Hence the words ‘compact,’ ‘covenant,’ and ‘testament of the Lord’ occur so frequently in the Scriptures. These words signified that God would one day die. ‘For where there is a testament, the death of the testator must of necessity occur’ (Heb. 9[:16]). Now God made a testament, therefore, it was necessary that he should die. But God could not die unless he became man. Thus the incarnation and the death of Christ are both comprehended most concisely in this one word, 'testament.'" Martin Luther, Luther's Works, Vol. 36: 38, underscore added.
Ash Wednesday
Vespers I
Vespers II
Vespers III
Vespers IV
Holy Week:
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday
|
|
|
