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The habit of many Lutherans in praying “Come Lord Jesus, Be Our Guest” before meals is one of those things in this country that has just been done for so many years without thinking about what we are doing. Without getting too far into the Pietistic roots of “Come Lord Jesus,” the result has been that we have forgotten the more catholic prayer Luther gives us in the Small Catechism, which certainly comes from more ancient times in Church history. It starts with a quote from Psalm 145, and you can find it on pages 327–328 of your hymnals:
The eyes of all look to you, O Lord, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand, and you satisfy the desire of every living thing.
Lord God, heavenly Father, bless us and these your gifts which we receive from your bountiful goodness, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Here the Psalm and the prayer recognize God as our Lord and Father, who blesses us and gives us all things from His hand, the source of life and blessing. Here we pray as humble servants of our Lord, who receive God's blessings passively. This keeps us in our proper place, and keeps God as the only true God that He is — and so, we obey the first commandment. Repeating God's Word, and a prayer that conforms to God's Word, is the only certain way to not fall into breaking the first commandment.
Moses spends almost the entire book of Deuteronomy giving a detailed explanation of the Ten Commandments. It truly is the first chief part of the Small Catechism on steroids. What Luther boiled down in a few pages of prose, he boiled down from the first thirty chapters of Deuteronomy. This sermon is Moses' last duty before he dies, and the children of Israel will finally cross the Jordan into the Promised Land. Our text is part of a long explanation of the first commandment. In the end, God is quite clear that breaking any of the commandments boils down to idolatry of the self over God. The children of Israel spent forty years in the wilderness because they constantly put themselves and their desires above God. Moses himself would not be let into the Promised Land because he struck a second rock for water when God had not commanded it. God is teaching his people — the Israelites then and us today — that He alone is the source of all life and every blessing. Nothing — zero — we have in this life ever comes from anywhere or anyone else.
How does God teach us this? First by teaching us he is the source, the creator of all earthly blessings, and that He is the one who brings us to them (All Deuteronomy quotations are my translations of MT):
The Lord your God has brought you to the good land, a land of streams, waters of springs and deep fountains that flow out in the valley and on the hills, a land of wheat and barley and of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey. A land that is not with scarcity. You will eat bread in it; you will not lack anything in it …. And you will eat and be satisfied, and you will be blessed by the Lord your God because of the good land that he has given for you.(Deuteronomy 8:7–9a; 10)
Likewise, God is in all of the events in our lives, including the crosses we bear. All things come to us only on God's timing and according to His will:
And he [the Lord your God] humbled you and he caused you to be hungry(Deuteronomy 8:3)
…and you know with your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God is the one disciplining you, so you keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to go in His ways and to fear Him(Deuteronomy 8:5–6)
…the Lord your God led you 40 years in the wilderness in order to humble you, to test you, to know what is in your heart, if you will keep His commandments or if you will not.(Deuteronomy 8:2)
God is present in all things at all times. He is there in the times of happiness and times of distress. He is there when we are satisfied and when we are hungry. He is there in good health and in sickness, in life and in death. He is there when the roof is over our heads and when the tornado rips it away and leaves us bare to the elements. All things are brought to us as blessings to teach us to depend upon and trust God alone for our entire life and for all our needs. He alone gives it all, good or bad, for our benefit — “for you” as He constantly says in this text.
All of these things are done “in order to make known to you that not by bread alone shall man live, but rather by all things that are proceeding from the mouth of the Lord shall man live.” (Deuteronomy 8:3b) Luther explains that we are “to learn to trust in God for some other reason than that [we] have enough, are satisfied, and [our] belly is well provided for. Trust based on that is not a trust in God but rather in wealth and gifts that have been received. Because of such trust [we] forget both true trust and the Word of God, and never learn to have faith in God when [we] are in want.” (Luther's Works, vol. 9)
So many people think that life is what they make of it. Many think that God is just sitting over on the bookcase, like some magical charm, waiting for you to invite Him in when you need His help or blessing. The “Come Lord Jesus” prayer sort of says that you invite Him to be your guest, when you are in fact always His guest! Many think that they cause their own dearth of blessings when difficulties arise, thinking perhaps it is punishment for their sinful actions. Many think that they have to pull themselves out of their problems and somehow they have the ability to make things right on their own. Many today believe that God gives them a certain amount of blessing, and then leaves them to make the most of it — and the better they do at that, the more blessings God will bestow on them later — the more obedient to God they are, the more blessings they will get in the future. That is the false prosperity gospel one hears out of the heretical televangelists and the false mega–church preachers out there today.
Whatever the case, it is a dependence and trust in the level of material blessing one has, it is a faith that says I must be doing it right or wrong based on whether or not my perceived, felt needs are being met. We even experience it here in the Church. This or that congregation is growing rapidly, they must be doing the right thing, this or that one is declining, having troubles, so they must be doing something wrong. God never guarantees such a thing in His Word. In all of these cases, the Word of God has lost its centrality and its position of highest importance in our lives. God's Word is the source of every blessing, it is every blessing. Man does not live by bread, by shiny cars, by new homes, by high church attendance, by new church buildings, not even by higher offering plate collections. He lives solely by every Word that is proceeding from the mouth of the Lord.
Tomorrow, at your tables full of turkey and dressing and all the trimmings, will you be thankful just for what you see and taste, only that your belly has been filled, only that your loved ones are together in the same room? Will you say as the Israelites did, “My strength and might, my hand has gotten for me this wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17)? Will you “truly forget the Lord your God, and go after other gods and serve them and bow down for them” (Deuteronomy 8:19a)? Will you look only to your own accomplishments, to your own successes, or even to your own failures in life? Will you only look to yourself? If so, God has a simple warning for us: “Like the nations that the Lord is causing to be destroyed from your presence, so you will be destroyed because you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 8:20)
But with the preaching of the Law, God is always quick to remind His children of the salvation history which He has provided for them, as He does here in Deuteronomy 8:
And you shall remember the entire way that the Lord your God led you these 40 years in the wilderness (v. 2a)…your clothing did not wear out from upon you and your foot did not swell these 40 years (v. 4)…lest your heart will be puffed up and you will forget the Lord your God, the one who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery, the one who led you in the great wilderness, from the terrifying fiery serpents and scorpions and the parched ground that is without water, the one who brought out for you water from the flint rock, the one who fed you manna in the wilderness that your fathers did not know in order to humble you and test you, to do real good for you in your future.(vs. 14–16)
By teaching us through His Holy Word our salvation history, God is teaching us what to truly be thankful for. Without His divine intervention in this world, we would remain nothing but condemned creatures, lost in the wilderness of sin, destined to return to the dust from which we came. We would be at the mercy of sin, death, and the power of the devil in all things. Life as we know it on earth would be wiped out. But more importantly, no one would be reconciled to God and no one would be sanctified unto eternal life. Without His grace and mercy, the true promised land of heaven would be closed to us. For us, the true children of God in these latter days, as He brought water from the rock for Israel, God brings out streams of living water from His blessed Son's side. It washes us and quenches our thirst in every way. He leads us in this dark wilderness away from the fiery death of hell, away from the fiery serpent that tempts us to look to ourselves for all things, and to the Promised Land of forgiveness and salvation in the life giving cross of His Son. He does it all for you and for me.
Respond to God's manifold blessings with true thanks and praise. Respond with loving service to God and neighbor. Remember and give thanks that the only source of our life and every blessing is the very Word made flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ. Join the Church of all times by reciting this Psalm and prayer:
O Give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, and his mercy endures forever. He who gives food to all flesh, for his mercy endures forever. He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry. His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor His pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love.
We thank you, Lord God, heavenly Father, for all your benefits, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen
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