Memorial Moment: My Creator

	Isaiah 40:27-31
Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God"? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (ESV)

My Creator

Martin Luther, Doctor and Confessor

18 February 2016

All we have is a gift from the God who is ever and always the Creator. Certainly, God is not only statically the One who long ago made the world, as though being Creator is a past-tense verb. He did not just wind up the world to leave it to its own devices. He does not only bring order out of the primordial soup once long ago. Not at all! Instead, He is intimately and passionately involved in creating all things even now.

Every person, every beating heart, is in His all-creating hands. Luther's explanation to the first article of the Creed in the Small Catechism exhibits this so beautifully when he repeats as a cantus firmus the words "me," "my," "mine," and so on: "He gives me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason, and all my senses." I am not just the result of natural and impersonal processes, I am His special creation.

He not only made me personally, but also gives me everything I have. Nothing I have is of my own creation, but is a gift from Him. This is why our use of what God has created is so enormously significant for us Christians. To abuse the world which God created for our use and stewardship is an enormous sin and affront to the ever-creating God. We ought to fall upon our faces in wonder and awe that God has seen to our every necessity by personally creating all that we need to support this body and life.

Martin Luther

"We also confess that God the Father has not only given us all that we have and see before our eyes, but He daily preserves and defends us against all evil and misfortune (Ps 5:11). He directs all sorts of danger and disaster away from us. We confess that He does all this out of pure love and goodness, without our merit, as a kind Father. He cares for us so that no evil falls upon us. But to speak more about this belongs in the other two parts of this article, where we say, 'Father Almighty.'

"Now, all that we have, and whatever else in heaven and on earth, is daily given, preserved, and kept for us by God. Therefore, it is clearly suggested and concluded that it is our duty to love, praise, and thank Him for these things without ceasing (1Thess 5:17-18). In short, we should serve Him with all these things, as He demands and has taught in the Ten Commandments.

"We could say much here, if we were to wander, but how few people believe this article. For we all pass over it, hear it, and say it. Yet we do not see or consider what the words teach us. For if we believe this teaching with the heart, we would also act according to it (Jam 2:14). We would not strut about proudly, act defiantly, and boast as though we had life, riches, power, honor, and such, of ourselves (Jam 4:13-16). We would not act as though others must fear and serve us, as is the practice of the wretched, perverse world. The world is drowned in blindness and abuses all the good things and God's gifts only for its own pride, greed, lust, and luxury. It never once thinks about God, so as to thank Him or acknowledge Him as Lord and Creator.

"This article ought to humble and terrify us all, if we believed it. For we sin daily (Heb 3:12-13) with eyes, ears, hands, body and soul, money and possessions, and with everything we have. This is especially true of those who fight against God's Word. Yet Christians have this advantage: they acknowledge that they are duty-bound to serve God for all these things and to be obedient to Him."

Martin Luther, Large Catechism, 2.19-22

Prayer

Lord God, You are Creator of all. Give me all that I need to support this body and life, that I might serve You by serving Your creation. Amen.

For infant Ella Price, who is struggling to breathe on her own, that the Lord Jesus, her good Shepherd, would give her the breath of life

For Luke George, as he continues to recover from leukemia, that the Lord would send him health and strength

For Pastor Ian Pacey of Memorial Lutheran Church, that he might be upheld in our most holy faith

Art: GRÜNEWALD, Matthias Isenheim Altarpiece (1515)