Monday of this week (the 21st of September) was the Feast of St. Matthew, the Apostle & Evangelist, and it called to mind one of my favorite “new” LSB hymns, “The Gifts Christ Freely Gives” (LSB 602), by one of my very dear fathers in Christ, the Reverend Kantor Richard Resch. I thought of that fine hymn in connection with St. Matthew because it confesses and gives thanks for the various Gifts of the Gospel which our Lord in His mercy bestows through the Office of the Holy Apostolic Ministry: the reading and preaching of the Holy Scriptures, and the grace and mercies of Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Holy Communion, the sacred means whereby the Holy Spirit is poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, and by which the same Spirit obtains and strengthens justifying faith in Christ within our hearts and minds, our souls and bodies, where and when it pleases our God and Father in heaven.
Beyond those Gifts of the Gospel – or, rather, in intimate connection with the Ministry of those Gifts – I also got to thinking about the way St. Paul describes and talks about “the gifts Christ freely gives” in his Epistle to the Church at Ephesus (4:7-13). In other places, to be sure, the Apostle indicates various gifts of the Spirit in the life of the Church (Romans 12:6-8; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; and Galatians 5:22-23), such as we might describe as talents and abilities, aptitudes and attitudes, and works of loving service among Christian brothers and sisters. But in Ephesians 4, St. Paul identifies the gifts that the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ has given to His Church on earth, not with abstract abilities, but with those men whom He has called and ordained to particular offices of service, specifically, Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, and Pastors & Teachers of the faith (see also 1 Corinthians 12:28). This understanding dovetails closely with the Apostle’s train of thought in Romans 10, wherein he connects the necessary preaching of the Gospel with the preachers who are called and sent to preach the Word of Christ (Romans 10:14-17). The same idea is likewise implicit in Kantor Resch’s hymn, as each of the means of grace is given by the Lord, not abstractly, but through the preaching and administration of called and ordained servants of Christ.
To be sure, Kantor Resch himself is among those gifts that our dear Lord Jesus has given to His Church on earth – and so is St. Matthew, the Apostle & Evangelist – along with all the other Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, and Preachers who have gone before us in the faith, as well as those who serve the Church on earth in these grey and latter days. None of us who are pastors now would be who or what we are, if not for those pastors who preached the Word of Christ Jesus to us, who baptized, catechized, absolved, and communed us in His Name and stead. They were His good and gracious gifts to us and to others in their time; and for those who still serve, as also for those who now rest from their labors, it is meet and right that we should give thanks for them, and for all the gifts the Lord has given through them by grace.
By the same token, it is to be rightly understood that we who are called, ordained, and sent as ministers of the Word of Christ are among the gifts He freely gives to His Church on earth. That is not a point for which any of us can take any credit, nor for which we should proudly exalt ourselves. None of us has anything which we have not received as a gracious gift of God, without any merit or worthiness in us, but solely by His mercy. But understanding that you are given by Christ Jesus as a gift to His people is, first of all, a true encouragement in your labors under the Cross. As you are called and sent by the Lord with His Word and His works, you may be sure and certain that He is with you in this Holy Ministry, and that He is accomplishing His purposes through you to the glory of His Name and for the good of His own dear lambs and sheep. Along with that encouragement, you are also reminded that you serve the Office, not for your own profit or praise, but as a gift given for the blessing and benefit of the Church, the Body and Bride of Christ Jesus. As you are not your own but the Lord’s, so are you given by the Lord to others.
It should also be said, by extension and analogy, that husbands and wives are given by the Lord as gifts to each other; fathers and mothers are given as gifts to their children; school teachers are given as gifts to their students; and every Christian disciple of Christ Jesus is given as His gift to his or her neighbors, within his or her own proper calling and stations in life. In each and every case, in all of our vocations, we receive the gifts Christ freely gives with thanksgiving, and we rejoice to be His gifts to others in turn.