The bible I found myself reading is a Christmas gift from Pastor. I mentioned to him that I had received information on a place that restores books and I was going to see if I could get my bible rebound. It is in horrible shape, old and losing much of the spine. [We will not discuss the pages stained with Dr. Pepper.] I actually had, if you remember, purchased a new NASB bible. But after a short while--unfortunately not before hand--I discovered that the NASB had recently been updated, removing much of the language I love, such as the thees and the thous, the whilsts and the arts...and the doths.
Thou doth love me. You love me. Big difference to me!
I have hidden Thy Word in my heart that I might not sin against Thee. I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You. I prefer the former. The use of Thee and Thine and Thy for the Triune God instead of the pronoun you at times gives deference, shows reverence. They are sprinkled throughout the NASB, here and there, giving flavor and richness to the feast that is presented in Scripture.
To me, NASB is a perfect version, having much of the essence of the King James and retaining a more accurate translation in many instances than say, the modern language (dare I say dumbed-down language) of the NIV. I do not believe that giving in to the common vernacular is always the best course of action. So, the Updated NASB has slipped down a slope that made me quite sad. I searched quite hard to find a new non-updated NASB bible to replace mine, but failed to discover one.
When I mentioned the repair shop, he frowned in disappointment and queried had I then not opened his gift yet. Of course, as a Lutheran, I still have two days of Christmas to go after today. But, no, I had not. When I arrived back home after our lessoning (it was in his study), I stared at the box a long while before opening it. Did his question mean what I thought?
Pastor not only managed to find one, he also found the thin-line, reference edition that I very much prefer, with its lighter weight (MS weakened hands), center column cross references, concordance, maps, and the words of Christ in red letters. His note noted the slightly less than attractive color of the cover ("ugly") and a few imperfections on the page trimming, but it is still my beloved NASB. Scissors took care of the latter issue. The former, well, they don't make bibles in GREEN so any color would be slightly less attractive to me. My new bible is a dark shade of Pepto-Bismol pink.
[I will admit that it clashes horribly with all the burgundy books Concordia Publishing House is putting out these days. After all, my Treasury of Daily Prayer, Book of Concord, Lutheran Study Bible, Lutheran Service Book and Luther's Small Catechism (new gift from pastor) all match...As does, to a large extent, Stark's Prayer Book.]
I had a course of action lined out and yet found myself pulling at the ribbon to see where it lay: The Psalter.
Pastor had placed it there for me.
I started reading, Psalm 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.... And then laid it aside. I made a call to my godmother that was long overdue, an exchange Pastor had offered to help me with, but it is better that his schedule was too busy. It is better to be brave, for I lied to her by omission. And had really struggled because the reason I did was that I was trying not to hurt her. Lies are never justified.
When I finished with her, I was focused on one path when my eyes passed over that pink book and I found myself picking it up again. And I opened it. And I read. And I prayed.
I prayed through the Psalter, once more marveling at how intimate the Living Word is. How complete. How perfect!
God did not have His palmists mince words when He guided their pens. These prayers are filled with raw anguish, cries for help, calls for vengeance, marvel at His wonder, majesty, and creation, the passion of Christ to come, Law and Gospel, mercy, forgiveness, love, and the mysteries of God. The are the Holy Words of God. They are the lives of His people. They are the cry of my heart. Myrtle's...thousands of years after they were set down, they are written anew for me. For me.
So often I hear the Psalms are too hard to read, really just a bunch of poems and who read poetry after all. Granted, the Wednesday-nooner-turned Monday-nooner regularly demonstrates how dense and rich is the Psalter, full of references and symbols of our faith, but it is also clear and simple. It is the prayers of Christ. Being made one with Him, it is the prayers of all Christians. It is my prayers.
Oh, how I wished I had been shown this years ago....
I read from early evening until it was time to go to church and found myself in a pew without really understanding why. The things I have been struggling with are still there, actually getting out of the car took effort. Yet I will never again doubt, question, or wonder at why the services are called Divine.
God comes to us in His Word and Sacrament.
Pastor W recently wrote that Luther will wrap you up in Christ in more ways that you think possible. Pastor told me yesterday that, in a sense, Luther became a Lutheran because of his sin. Several times Pastor has mentioned how struggle is good, how Luther himself wrestled with his own sin, doubt, and faith. I wish I could read of this myself, but I have already written many times that throughout the Book of Concord I have found recognition of and comfort for the anguished soul. He uses words such as bewail, misery, and terror. These are not words, I believe, one would use unless he had experienced such condition. They are not technical or clinical words. They are not social contract words. They are intimate.
Despite what happened, despite what is bruited about to this day, Luther did not set out to create a new denomination, but rather to restore the faith of the apostles. For that reason, I personally think the label of reformer is not quite right. We should be talking about the Restoration, not the Reformation. As I have written before, his desire was to strip out the things of man that had crept in the things of God.
Original Sin. Justification. These are formal words. Big words. You could however exchange them with simple words: the first with unending sorrow and death and the second with eternal joy and life.
God came to Adam and Eve in the garden. He came to Abraham and Moses and Jeremiah and Jonah, to David and Daniel and Mary and Saul. The papacy sort of forgot that, inserting itself, its institution between God and man. Luther was restoring the teaching that God comes to us.
He comes and heals and gives life. He comes because we, in sin, cannot. We are still in sin, at once the saint and the sinner, until we die and rise in body as we have risen already in spirit with Christ in our baptism and faith.
The anguish Luther knew, I think, is the anguish that I have been battling. The overwhelming weight of sin...its filth and wretchedness, a fetid, noisome miasma that permeates our very being. No matter how good, how kind, how loving one tries to be, we will always fail in some way. Sometimes we fail again and again and again at the same thing. But even if we are moral and upright, gentle and compassionate...somehow...for our whole lives we would still bear the inequity of Adam.
Then there is the awful fact that we live in a fallen world. The way of God has become obscured behind the veil of the way of man. So much so that we do not even see it. We do not see works as works. And it is easier to believe the ways of man, when they are all about you, before you, and behind you...even when you recognize them as lies or perhaps only know their failure.
I have not asked Pastor, yet, what he meant when he said that the bible is not an instruction book. But I wonder if his answer would be that an instruction book implies if you follow all the bits and pieces of it, or even some of it, you will gain something. Given that the only thing to gain in the bible is eternal life then it cannot be an instruction book. No amount of instructions can be followed by man to gain such. Is it not ironic that the most precious thing in the universe is a free gift?
The papacy was saying believe and do this and that...or woe unto you. Luther and his fellow believers cried foul. They cried because they knew the fallacy of doing this or that. Doing this or that simply does not work. Adam and Eve walked with God and it wasn't enough. The fathers of our faith spoke with God and it wasn't enough. Moses did as well. The disciples lived and ate and slept with God, along with way seeing miracles and hearing Truth, and it was not enough. Paul met Christ in the middle of the road. Yet Paul tells us that he often did the things he did not want to do and did not do the things he wanted to do. No amount of human desire or determination or effort will ever be sufficient unto death.
The marvel of all that is that God used them anyway. He used...and uses...broken, sinful, weak people to proclaim His glory and spread the message of His salvation. The world, our fallen world, just doesn't understand this. And man, in his stupidity, keeps trying to make the way of God more like the way of man...to improve it, to make it fit with the times.
The wonder, the marvel of the Book of Concord is that these men of faith came together, common in the belief that the bible is true and inerrant, and agreed as to its teaching, so as each point supports the other and the Triune God and the gifts of Christ are completely and absolutely central to this teaching. Five hundred years later, the teaching is still pure, still free of the ways of man. If only it is followed!
Alas, I have access to this, I understand if but dimly, and still I insert the ways of man into my faith.
I struggle. Even in darkness, however, the light shines. I feel as if my fingertips are slipping off the edge of the cliff and He grasps my wrists. No, Myrtle, He has built a platform beneath your feet.
Lord I believe! Help my unbelief!
~~~~
What is mercy?
- A unexpected three-page letter in the mail full of news and humor, including a new Aggie joke, to tell me I was remembered.
- An unexpected email from a church elder's wife revealing her own struggles with Christmas not even knowing of mine.
- An unexpected email from a woman from church thanking me for all she has learned of Lutheranism from even one such as I...with a reminder that I am beginning a new year, for the first time, as a Lutheran.
- An obstacle to lessoning erased almost as quickly as it arose.
- Confession/absolution, the Lord's Supper, a psalm reading, liturgy, a sermon reading, and a blessing in a lessoning when time for such was not really available.
- A sermon on the wounds of Christ, illuminating both the wonder and rightness that He be known by His scars and the refuge that we can take in His wounds. Our wounds hurt, cripple, and kill. His wounds salve, heal, and bring new life.
- Being able to be completely honest with someone, to bare my wounds and reveal my brokenness, to speak of despair and wretchedness without censure, judgment, or condemnation...even if doing so is fraught with missteps on one side and fear and doubt on the other.
- The gift of a new bible.
- An email with a prayer, one of my heart written for me so that I might cry out to my Savior.
- The Divine Service.
- The shy greetings of Pizza Man's cherubs.
- My godmother offering her baby to hold and then sitting beside me in silence as long as I need to her to wait for me to lay aside my struggle.
- A reminder that the light of Christ shone on one even such as Herod, because He came for all men and desires for all to be saved. A reminder that Herod's sin is no greater than mine. Mine is no greater than his. Both are covered by the Cross.
- The Lord's Supper again!
- The gentle welcome of these strange Lutherans.
- Genuine gratefulness for my sending out a Christmas card (one I created and wrote the message) that was about the Savior and not the Season from a dear and wise elderly couple in our church.
- A psalm reading, a hymn singing, and a blessing.
- Unexpectedly being walked to my car.
- An afternoon of laughter despite a night of tears.
Most all of this in just forty-eight hours. Yes, you do know mercy, Myrtle. Get behind me satan that I might open my blooming eyes!
I am beginning to wonder...if the at least part of the true answer to that question is simply this: the gift of the Word. From whence all things spring forth. Apart from which nothing matters. Mercy is that I, Myrtle, have this gift.
~~~~
What is love?
Bettina Skyping me so that I could watch my beloved Cowboys smash those egotistical Eagles up and down the field...tying up both her computer and her television for over three hours. She cares not for football. What a gift!
You might bellow a great guffaw of disbelief at this, but I think I almost enjoyed reading four books aloud, singing one song, hearing one song, and hearing one bible verse to, with, and from her daughter as much as I did the Cowboys game. There is grace and mercy and peace to be found in spending time with a child, even over the Internet. Children often remind you of the wonder of God and our need for forgiveness.
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