FROM LUTHER’S PRAYERS: SEVENTH SUNDAY

O Father, it is indeed true that no one can be strong by his OF EASTER

own power (I Sam. 2:4). How can we stand before your
might if you do not yourself strengthen and comfort us?
Therefore, dear Father, embrace us, accomplish your will
in us, that we may be your kingdom to your praise and
glory. But, dear Father strengthen us in this life with
your holy word. Give us our daily bread. Establish in
our hearts your dear Son Jesus Christ, who is the true
bread of heaven. Sustained by him, we may gladly bear
and suffer the breaking and the dying of our own will and
the fulfilling of your will. Give grace to all Christendom.
Send us educated pastors and preachers who will not give
us the crumbs and chaff of foolish fables, but who will
teach us your holy Gospel and lead us to Jesus Christ.
Amen.

FROM LUTHER’S SMALL CATECHISM:

The Lord’s Prayer
Introduction:
Our Father in heaven.
What is this?
With these words God wants to attract us, so that we
believe he is truly our Father and we are truly his
children, in order that we may ask him boldly and with
complete confidence, just as loving children ask their
loving father.

Almighty and eternal God, your Son our Savior is

with you in eternal glory. Give us faith to see that,
true to his promise, he is among us still, and will
be with us to the end of time; who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and
forever.
GOSPEL: John 17: 20- 26
[Jesus prayed] “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also
on behalf of those who will believe in me through their
word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in
me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the
world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory
that you have given me I have given them, so that they
may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me,
that they may become completely one, so that the world
may know that you have sent me and have loved them
even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I desire that those
also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I
am, to see my glory, which you have given me because
you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25 Righteous Father, the world does not know you,
but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.
26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it
known, so that the love with which you have loved me
may be in them, and I in them.”
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN ?
Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be
with me where I am; that they behold my glory, which
thou hast given me. John xvii. 24
My dear Christians should not only be with Me,
but should receive a bright and clear view of My glory, as
He has said shortly before in other words: ‘The glory
which thou givest me I have given them.’ For now, on
earth, we know and hold it in faith, but we do not see it
except through a mirror and in a veiled Word, namely,
that we hear the preaching and understand it with our
hearts, that Christ is risen from the dead and ascended
into heaven where He is seated in the glory and Majesty
of the Father as the only mighty Lord over all creation.
But it is still a veiled knowledge, like a thick cloud over
the sun. For no man’s heart can hold it and no man’s
understanding can comprehend that the glory is so great,
especially as Christ now, in His Christians, appears so
different. But there, in the world to come, another light
will shine, so that we shall no longer hold it only in faith
and in the preaching and teaching of the Word, but we
shall see it all radiant before our eyes and shall look upon
it with unspeakable and eternal joy.
Exposition of John xvi-xx, 1528. W.A. 29. 194 f.
Taken from the book:
Day by Day We Magnify Thee by Martin Luther
Page 292