This past Sunday we had the formal reception of the congregation into The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, the dedication of a church, and the installation of the pastor. Quite a few clergy came from various congregations in Iowa District East, along with some members of other congregations in IDE. The main service was the Service of the Word from Divine Service Setting 3 (bonus points if you know the page number), interspersed with the other rites. President Brian Saunders extended the right hand of fellowship to the chairman of St. Silas, Mr. Kristian Fosse, publicly recognizing that St. Silas is a congregation of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Rev. Dean Rothchild, assistant to the president of IDE, blessed the doors, building, and baptismal font. Rev. Victor Young, chair of the IDE mission board, blessed the lectern, pulpit, and altar.
President Brian Saunders preached the sermon on Acts 20:17-31, highlighting the relationship between articles IV, V, and VII of the Augsburg Confession.
President Saunders then oversaw the installation.
After the installation I tended the altar to which I am called, leading the congregation in the Prayer of the Church and concluding with the Benediction. We then took a picture of the clergy and sang the closing hymn.
The hymns told the story of the day. Opening we had 901, Open Now Thy Gates of Beauty:
Open now thy gates of beauty;
Zion, let me enter there,
Where my soul in joyful duty
Waits for Him who answers prayer.
Oh, how blessed is this place,
Filled with solace, light, and grace!
Gracious God, I come before Thee;
Come Thou also unto me.
Where we find Thee and adore Thee,
There a heav'n on earth must be.
To my heart, O enter Thou;
Let it be Thy temple now!
Speak, O God, and I will hear Thee;
Let Thy will be done indeed.
May I undisturbed draw near Thee
While Thou dost Thy people feed.
Here of life the fountain flows;
Here is balm for all our woes.
Lutheran Service Book, Hymn 901, stanzas 1, 2, 5
That hymn speaks well about the significance of the building: it is Mount Zion, where the Lord sits enthroned (Psalm 9:11), it is a heaven on earth because Christ comes to us there, it is the place of the living water. Our psalm was Psalm 48, which spoke constantly of Zion: "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King."
The Hymn of the Day was 644, The Church's One Foundation:
The Church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ, her Lord;
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heav'n He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.
Lutheran Service Book, 644, stanza 1
We hear that the Church is only the Church because of Christ's saving work. Without Christ, the Church is nothing. Without Christ there is no Church to speak of. But with him the Church is - is his bride, is his body, is his saving ark in a world that is perishing. The pastors nicely emphasized the centrality of Jesus in the Scripture passages they shared during the installation. Jesus is the sine qua non, the "without which not," the one who makes things be and saves his people from their sins.
The closing hymn was of particular comfort to the congregation of St. Silas as a mission congregation, 921, On What Has Now Been Sown:
On what has now been sown
Thy blessing, Lord, bestow;
The pow'r is Thine alone
To make it sprout and grow.
Do Thou in grace the harvest raise,
And Thou alone shalt have the praise!
To Thee our wants are known,
From Thee are all our pow'rs;
Accept what is Thine own
And pardon what is ours.
Our praises, Lord, and prayers receive,
And to Thy Word a blessing give.
O grant that each of us,
Now met before Thee here,
May meet together thus
When Thou and Thine appear
And follow Thee to heav'n, our home.
E'en so, amen, Lord Jesus, come!
Lutheran Service Book, 921
As a congregation we do not rely on ourselves to give growth to the Church, but Christ is the one who builds and grows his Church, adding to her and multiplying her, as is clear everywhere in Scripture, from Peter's confession in Matthew 16 when Jesus promises, "I will build my Church," to Paul's agricultural analogy in 1 Corinthians 3 where he emphasizes our "grower God," to the book of Acts where the word "gather" is always passive tense, meaning the Lord gathers, and the Lord is always the subject of the verbs "add" and "multiply."
And so the emphasis of the entire dedication and installation service was the means of grace: the Gospel being preached in its purity and the holy sacraments being administered according to the Gospel (to borrow some language from Article VII of the Augsburg Confession). There is a place in North Liberty to which people can point and say, "Christ saves there." There is a man in that place to which people can point and say, "He stands here in the stead of Christ to administer the means through which Christ gives us grace." All of this means that Christ is present bodily in North Liberty to call people to repentance, to warn, to rebuke, to comfort, to evangelize, and to save.
"Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress" (Psalm 46:2-7).
In Christ
Pastor Andrew Richard
St. Silas Lutheran Church
www.stsilaslutheran.org
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