PRAYER FROM LUTHER’S PRAYERS: FIFTH SUNDAY

Prayer relies on the promise. OF EASTER

O God, Creator of heaven and earth. You have sent your only
Son Jesus Christ into the world. For me he was crucified,
died, and was buried, and rose again on the third day. He
ascended to heaven that he should sit at your right hand to
rule all things. He sent his Spirit that we should await his
coming to judge both the living and the dead. With the Spirit
we should come to the eternal kingdom. It is our heritage
which you will give us through him. For this reason, O Lord
God, you have instituted and given us Baptism and the
Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ your Son. For us
you have united Christ with these Sacraments. In them you
reveal yourself and command us to receive you. Cornered by
Satan, we are grievously tormented by sin and constantly
surrounded by death. Dear Son of God, Jesus Christ, you
came to earth to destroy the work of the devil. You have
brought life and immorality into the open. Give us again your
work, for it is righteous and gives life. Help us to survive the
attacks of the devil, by which he would throw us from life into
death. O Christ, you have conquered the devil. Help me also
to defeat him. Do not leave me. Amen.

FROM LUTHER’S SMALL CATECHISM:

The Lord’s Prayer - The First Petition
Hallowed be your name.
What is this?
It is true that God’s name is holy in itself, but we ask in this
prayer that it may also become holy in and among us.
How does this come about? O God, form the minds of your faithful people into a single
Whenever the Word of God is taught clearly and purely and will. Make us love what you command and desire what you
we, as God’s children, also live holy lives according to it. To promise, that, amid all the changes of this world, our hearts
this end help us, dear Father in heaven! However, whoever may be fixed where true joy is found; through your Son,
teaches and lives otherwise than the Word of God teaches, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the
dishonors God’s name among us. Preserve us from this, Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
heavenly Father!
GOSPEL: John 15:1-8 WHAT DOES THIS MEAN ?
(Jesus said :) “I am the true vine, and my Father is the Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear
vinegrower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye,
fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it except ye abide in me.
bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the John xv.4.
word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me as I abide in
Whoever wants to be a Christian must be born, and
you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it
grow out of the vine which is Christ.
abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
When I am baptized or converted through the Gospel,
5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in
the Holy Ghost is present and takes me like a piece of clay,
me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me
and makes me into a new creature, who now receives a new
you can do nothing. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is
mind, heart, and thoughts, namely, a right knowledge of God
thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are
and a heartfelt trust in His grace. In short, the innermost
gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in
being of my heart is made new and changed, that I become a
me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish,
new branch planted into the vine which is Christ and growing
and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this,
out of Him. For my holiness, righteousness, and purity do
that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
not grow from myself, nor do they rest upon myself, but are
in Christ alone and come from Him, into whom I am rooted
through faith, as the sap passes into the grapes, and I have
been made like Him, that He and I are now of one nature and
substance, and through Him I bear fruit, which is not mine
but the vine’s. Thus Christ and the Christian become one
loaf and one body, and Christians bear the proper fruit, not
Adam’s, and not their own, but Christ’s.

Exposition of John xiv and xv. W.A 45. 667.

Taken from the book:

Day by Day We Magnify Thee
by Martin Luther
page 330