I’ve been bad…I haven’t been keeping up with the Treasury of Daily Prayer like I should have been.  I have to say that I really enjoy the Writings for each day.  Here are two writings from Martin Luther that should remain at the forefront of our minds.  The first writing is about baptism and the value and importance and meaning of it.  The second writing is about the office of holy ministry, something very important, as I am one who holds that office.  Enjoy these snippets from Luther.

Wednesday After Easter

For just as the truth of this divine promise, once pronounced over us, continues until death, so our faith in it ought never to cease, but to be nourished and strengthened until death by the continual remembrance of this promise made to us in baptism.  Therefore, when we rise from our sins or repent, we are merely returning to the power and the faith of baptism from which we fell, and finding our way back to the promise then made to us, which we deserted when we sinned.  For the truth of the promise once made remains steadfast, always ready to receive us back with open arms when we return….

It will therefore be no small gain to a penitent to remember above all his baptism, and, confidently calling to mind the divine promise which he has forsaken, acknowledge that promise before his Lord, rejoicing that he is still within the fortress of salvation because he has been baptized, and abhorring his wicked ingratitude in falling away from its faith and truth.  His heart will find wonderful comfort and will be encouraged to hope for mercy when he consideres that the promise which God made to him, which cannot possibly lie, is still unbroken and unchanged, and indeed, cannot be changed by sins, as Paul says (II Tim. 2[:13]): “If we are faithless, he remains faithful–for he cannot deny himself.”  This truth of God, I say, will sustain him, so that if all else should fail, this truth, if he believes in it, will not fail him.  In it the penitent has a shield against all assaults of the scornful enemy, an answer to the sins that disturb his conscience, an antidote for the dread of death and judgment, and a comfort in every temptation–namely, this one truth–when he says: “God is faithful in his promises [Heb. 10:23; 11:11], and I received his sign in baptism.  If God is for me, who is against me?” [Rom. 8:31].¹

Thursday After Easter

This ministry [that is, the Word of God, Baptism, and Holy Communion] will endure and is not to be replaced by any other.  But the incumbents of this ministry do not remain; they die.  This necessitates an ever-new supply of preachers, which calls for the employment of certain means.  [This ministry] came directly from Christ; but later Christ departed from this earth.  Now a new way of sending was instituted, which works through man but is not of man.  We were sent according to this method; according to it, we elect and send others, and we install them in their ministry to preach and to administer the Sacraments.  This type of sending is also of God and commanded by God.  Even though God resorts to our aid and to human agency, it is He Himself who sends laboreres into His vineyard.

There everyone [who preaches] must realize that he has been sent.  That is, he must know that he has been called; he dare not venture to sneak into the office furtively and without authorization.  It must be done in the open.  The sending is done through man, for example, when a city, a prince, or a congregation calls someone into office.  But at the same time this person is sent by God.²

1) Writing from Martin Luther, “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” pp. 59-60 in vol. 36 of Luther’s Works, American Edition
2) Writing from Martin Luther’s sermons on the Gospel of St. John, p. 482 in vol. 22 of Luther’s Works