246. Wednesday after Trinity Sunday.
Lord, turn our thoughts
heavenward. Amen.
1 Peter 1, 3-6. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now, for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.
❦
All the faithful are the regenerated children of God, and have an everlasting inheritance awaiting them. We are strangers on earth, and we hasten heavenward.
A journey art thou, human life; thou art not the true life! Thou art alluring and seductive; and few are they that know thee. The majority of men trust in thee, instead of unmasking thee; they regard thee as their life, and thou dost rob them of the true life. Woe is me, wretched man that I am, if I do not see that life is eternal! Fly away, then, thou fleeting life; and we will flee from thee, ere thou dost flee from us! They that love thee are led astray, and they that believe in thee are deceived; but they that hate thee are rich, and they that escape from thee are saved. Let us, then, not follow after the fleeting pleasures of this life; for if we do, we rejoice that the day of despair is coming; we eat, that we may have eternal hunger; and we drink, that we may thirst forevermore! Our pilgrimage is laborious; but as pilgrims we hasten homeward to find rest in our fatherland. Let us run, that we may reach our home! Let our love, our longing, the desire of our heart, be directed upward! Our fatherland is heaven, where our Father dwells. Let our watchword be: “Vita — via!” (Life is a journey). May our souls be filled with thoughts and shapes of heaven! Let not our hearts cling to the gilded filth of this earth, to the dust under our feet. Let us sing with all our might: “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalm 42, 2). “I have a desire to depart, and be with Christ.” (Philippians 1, 23). Let us tread all sloth under foot, rid ourselves of all lukewarmness, and strive only to please him in whose presence we walk, and to come with an undefiled conscience out of our exile into the eternal and blessed home of our heavenly Father, from the visible to the invisible, from sorrow to joy, from that which passes away to that which endures forever, from that which is of earth to that which is of heaven, from the regions of death to the land of the living, where we shall see the King, our Lord Jesus Christ, face to face in his glory.
— St. Columban
The inheritance is safely reserved in heaven; and through faith we are kept secure in every danger. Note what the Spirit of God says in our text: The inheritance is “reserved,” and we are “kept.” Can you doubt that your inheritance is safe? And shall not our hope be sure and immovable, when we are kept by the power of God through faith? The one who keeps us is God, who also has sealed us, and given us the Spirit as a pledge. Our trials last but a little while. We hurry onward, and are rapidly approaching the goal!
“My Jesus, kindle, I pray thee, thy light in my lamp, that I may see the holy of holies into which thou hast entered, thou great high priest of the good things of eternity. O, that I might there see thee forever, desire thee, wait upon thee! Grant that we may love thee only, love thee with our whole heart, desire none but thee, have thee alone in our thoughts day and night. Occupy our whole heart with thy love; let us be wholly thine; let our spirit and mind and body be thy habitation, that thou, eternal love, mayest be the one object of our devotion. Nay, according to the measure of thy grace, fulfill in us also thy word, that ‘many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.’” Amen.*
Now let all the heavens adore thee,
And men and angels sing before thee,
With harp and cymbal’s clearest tone;
Of one pearl each shining portal,
Where we are with the choir immortal
Of angels round thy dazzling throne.
No eye hath seen such sight,
No ear heard such delight,
Hallelujah!
We raise the song,
We swell the throng,
To praise thee ages all along. [alt. trans., TLH 609; LSB 516]
* Here the head of the family says a short morning or evening prayer in his own words, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Benediction. This is to be done every day. If the stanzas are not sung, they may be read in their proper place before the impromptu petition and the Lord’s Prayer.