One of the tools our Lord uses to guide and shape his people according to the truth of the gospel of his imprudent grace is called a “catechism.” With this tool we are taken by the hand and led to ask questions: some are questions that at different points in our life we ache to ask, some are questions that we would never ask left to ourselves. We are then guided to hear answers to those questions that arise from the truth of God’s imprudent grace poured out with abandon through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

One question that our life circumstances often press us to ask is:

Question: What is my only comfort, my only refuge, my only strength, my only hope in death — and even in the press of life, for that matter?

Answer provided to us in the Gospel: that I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto Jesus Christ; who, by his blood, has fully paid my debt and satisfied for all my arrogance, ignorance, foolishness, and rebellion, and has delivered me from the chains of guilt and shame by which the enemy has kept me bound; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not even a hair can fall from my head, securely and surely carrying me through the press of life and the darkness even of death into the presence of God the Father.

Instinctively, such an answer seems absurd and unreal. We ask, “Really? Even for me? Even in these circumstances?” Answer, “Yes, even you, even these circumstances.”

So, let us come and worship! Let us gather together with rejoicing! Let us love and sing and wonder, let us praise our Savior’s name! Let us join the chorus of saints around the world and those enthroned on high: here they trust and have trusted him before us, and now their praises fill the sky: “You have washed us with your blood! You, O Lamb, You alone are worthy, Lamb of God!”

Order of Worship for 01.25.09