What God can teach us by the way He worked through Mary

The Rev. Dr. Scott Murray, author of Law, Life and the Living God: The Third Use of the Law in Modern American Lutheranism and pastor of Memorial Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas, is also the author of Memorial Moment, a daily e-mail devotional I highly recommend.

Today's offering:

15 August 2005

St. Mary, the Mother of Our Lord

The means of grace are not a Lutheran afterthought. Sometimes we think that when God acts in the world using sacramental means this is an embarrassing quirk rather than His normal way of acting. However, God always condescends to use means to deal with us humans. The world was created by the means of His speaking the life-giving, "Let there be...". Adam and Eve were made living souls when the triune God breathed into them the breath of life (Gen 2:7). God is using external means like speaking or breathing to give all of his gifts to creation.

We open a can of corn for dinner using the means of a can opener. It seems so mundane and yet you would have a hard time getting the corn out of the can without the opener. The can opener too is a gift from God. All of the good things in life, no matter how mundane they seem, are gifts from God and are his means of sending us all his blessings. No, the means of grace are not a crude Lutheran afterthought added to our sacramental practice, but they are the root of the way God always deals with us humans. Receiving His blessings through means as from Him shows who our God is, so that we do not confuse the created gifts with the Creator blessed forever.

"No one should expect to take or give anything except what God has commanded. Then it may be acknowledged as God's gift, and thanks may be rendered to Him for it, as [the first] commandment requires. For this reason also, the ways we receive good gifts through creatures are not to be rejected. Nor should we arrogantly seek other ways and means than what God has commanded. For that would not be receiving from God, but seeking for ourselves.

"Let everyone, then, see to it that he values [the first] commandment great and high above all things. Do not regard it as a joke! Ask and examine your heart diligently (2 Corinthians 13:5), and you will find out whether it clings to God alone are not. If you have a heart that can expect of Him nothing but what is good—especially in need and distress—and a heart that also renounces and forsakes everything that is not God, then you have the only true God. If, on the contrary, your heart clings to anything else from which it expects more good and help than from God, and if your heart does not take refuge in Him but flees from Him when in trouble, then you have an idol, another god" (Martin Luther, "The Large Catechism," Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions [CPH, 2005], 387).

Prayer: O Lord God, You have so ordered creation that all your blessings are granted to me through external means. Grant me faith that I might never despise these means, no matter how humble they may seem, but in them see only You and Your love for me. Amen.

You can receive Memorial Moments by contacting Pr. Murray at smurray@mlchouston.org