The Liturgy is a precious, precious gift.  Absolutely.

Some time before the GREAT SNOW, I purchased Evening and Morning: the Music of Lutheran Prayer.  Simply put, this is the best $9.99 I have ever spent in my entire life.  SIGH.

I have spent the past five hours reveling in Matins, Vespers, Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and the Litany.  The Litany!  I have that chanted now!  I will admit that listening made me feel a bit lonely and I craved the opportunity to be with other brothers and sisters in Christ as I sung these music of these offices of prayer.  Still, it was simply glorious to have the Living Word poured over me as it rested on my tongue, fell from my lips.  The day after the night of the concert, Pastor came to my house and prayed Compline with me.  Having never encountered it, I missed much.  I would give most anything to have that opportunity again.

While I was reading and singing and listening, I kept thinking about my time with Walther yesterday and the moment of pure fellowship I found with Luther, a moment where I wept with Christ.  I also, too, kept thinking about the sermon outlines he used as examples of where Law and Gospel are not rightly divided by teaching in the wrong order.  Personally, I struggled a bit with a few of the outlines, even though I have found this book quite easy for me to read.  Such perfect sense, a fitting together of things that have been off set for years.

It is not so much that I did not understand them, but that I kept cataloging all the sermons I heard for years that fell into these outlines.  What truly disturbs me is that my own thought processes fall into them:

• First Subject:  The Way of Salvation.  It consists of 1) faith; 2) true repentance.  A perversion of this kind would constitute you genuine Antiomians and Herrnhuters.
• Second Subject:  Good Works.  We shall see 1) wherein they consist; 2) that they must be performed in faith.  In such an outline you would state what good works are without having spoken of faith.  A description of good works requires a statement that they are performed by believers.  Otherwise you would have to formulate your judgment on good works from Law.  But that is wrong:  for viewed in the light of the Law, any good work even of  Christian, no matter how good it may appear, is damnable in the sight of God.
• Third Subject:  Concerning Prayer.  1) True prayer is based on the certainty of our being heard; 20 true prayer consists in faith.  According to this outline the first part of your sermon would be entirely wrong.
• Fourth Subject:  Promises and Threatenings in the Word of God.  1) Promises; 2) threatenings.  When I hear these parts of the sermon announced, I say to myself:  First the preacher is going to comfort me; then he will proceed to throw rocks at me, causing me to forget everything that he said at the start.  No; first you must come down on your hearers with the Law and then bind up their wounds with the divine promises.  When a preacher concludes his sermons with threatenings, he has gone far towards making the sermon unproductive.
• Fifth Subject:  True Christianity.  It consists, 1) in Christian living; 2) in true faith; 3) in a blessed death.  This outline is simply horrible.
• Sixth Subject:  What must a person do to become assured of salvation?  1)  He must amend his life and become a different man; 2) he must repent of his sins; 3) he must also apprehend Christ by faith.  How is it possible to lead a better life when I have not yet reached that stage where I abhor sin and abominate a wicked life?  The worst part is Part 3, for there is nothing that gives me greater assurance of being saved than faith. (94-95)

I certainly heap many a threatenings upon myself...but you are not being a good enough witness for Christ Myrtle!  You are not trusting God enough.  I browbeat my own self over works or lack thereof, my own faith, or lack thereof.  I hold a measuring stick out against my faith and note how far down it's notched...forgetting even faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains.  Crap.

But I also have had the same handed to me again and again and again.  I bet if I pulled out the four binders I have upstairs of all my sermon and bible study notes, just about all of them would fall into one of these outlines, especially True Christianity.

And assurance of salvation?  Well, I am not sure if it would fall here or under True Christianity, but over and over and over again I heard that if I were struggling with sin it was because I was not trusting God enough in the matter.  If I just "let go and let God," all will be well.  It was never well.  Year after year passed by with the growing burden of that dirty little secret, that I knew how much of a sinner I was and, consequently, how little of a Christian I was.  Oh, I did many "good" things, but in my heart, I struggled with despair because I knew that I was also jealous and sad and frustrated and ill-tempered and all manner of unpleasant things toward others even if I kept such from my face or behavior.  I was the city of Venice!

I kept wondering why it was that I failed so miserably at making myself so Godly, so badly did I want to be a better Christian.  Fail enough and despair becomes a constant companion.  It was mine.  [Okay, sometimes still is...but we are ignoring that since I am baptized even if I fail to remember that enough!]

So, I thought I would put the whole section of Luther that drew in my breath with recognition.  I have said over and over that I find in Luther, in the Large Catechism, a soul that knows anguish and despair.  He speaks of such unflinchingly and includes those walking wounded in the brother and sisterhood just as much as those who walk in the perfect peace of Christ.  Here, in the pages of Walther, I heard in Luther's own words that I was right.  A suffering soul recognizes another.  Would that I can learn what he has to teach with regard to the sweet, sweet Gospel and the forgiveness and freedom therein...daily...for me....

In his Commentary on Genesis (chap. 21, 12.16) Luther writes (St. L. Ed. I, 1427ff.):  "It is indeed correct to say that people must be raised up and comforted.  But an additional statement must be made, showing who the people are that are o be comforted, namely, those who, like Ishmael and his mother, have been thrust out of their home and fatherland, who are nearly famished with hunger and thirst in the desert, who groan and cry to the Lord, and are on the brink of despair.  Such people are proper hearers of the Gospel."  Hagar and Ishmael had to be brought into misery before they could be freed from their pride.

Man is by nature a conceited being.  He says:  "What wrong have I done?  I have committed neither manslaughter, nor adultery, nor fornication, nor larceny."  Wrapped in these miserable rags of his civil righteousness he purposes to make his stand before God.  That spirit of pride in himself must be cast out.  That requires an application of the hammer of the Law which will crush the stony heart.

Luther continues:  "Therefore the Antinomians deserve to be hated by everybody, spite of the fat that they cite us as an example in order to defend their teaching."  The Antinomians  pointed to the fact that Luther himself at first had preached nothing but comfort.  They claimed that he had now departed from his former teaching and had become a legalist.  That, they said, explained his opposition to them.  But they misjudged Luther.  When he began his public activity, he did not have to instruct the people at great length in the Law.  The people were so crushed that hardly one among them dared to believe that he was in a state of grace with God.  For in their best efforts at preaching the Roman priests preached the Law, placing alongside of the divine Law the laws of the Church and the statues of former councils, theologians, and Popes.  When Luther came forward, he had passed through the agony that harassed the people; he knew that no more effectual help could be provided for the people in their misery than the preaching of the Gospel.  That was the reason why the entire Christian Church in those days experienced a sensation as if dew from heaven or life-giving spring showers were being poured out upon them.

Accordingly, Luther proceeds:  "They cite us as an example  to defend their teaching, while the reason why we had to start our teaching with the doctrine of divine grace is as plain as daylight.  They accursed Pope had utterly crushed the poor consciences of men with his human ordinances.  He had taken away all proper means for bringing aid and comfort to hearts in misery and despondency and rescuing them from despair.  What else could we have done at that time?"  If Luther had smitten these miserable people still more, he would have been the meanest kind of torturer.

But conditions have changed.  In those days people treated the Law of God and were in anguish of hell; now their slogan is:  "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we are dead, and death ends us all."  Those who do not take this extreme position imagine that matters will not be as bad as they are pictured.  To such people you must preach the Law, or you will accomplish nothing.

Luther continues:  "However, I know, too, that those who are surfeited, ease-loving, and overfed must be addressed in a different strain.  We were all like castaways in those days and grievously tormented.  The water in the jug was gone that is, there was nothing to comfort men with.  Like Ishmael, we all lay dying under a shrub.  The kind of teachers we needed were such as made us behold the grace of God and taught us how to find refreshment.  

The Antinomians insist that the preaching of repentance must being with the doctrine of grace.  I have not followed that method.  For I knew that Ishmael must first be cast out and made despondent before he can hear the comforting words of the Angel.  Accordingly, I have followed the rule not to minister comfort to any person except to those who have become contrite and are sorrowing because of their sin, —those who have despaired of self-help, whom the Law has terrified like a leviathan that has pounded upon them and almost perplexed them.  For these are the people for whom sake Christ came into the world, and He will not have a smoking flax to be quenched.  Is. 43,2. That is why He is calling:  'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden.'   (97-98)

So, from yesterday, you got the bit about agony and finding Gospel-laden teaching like dew from heaven, the bit about being a grievously tormented castaway in need of teachers who help us behold the grace of God and teach us to find refreshment in Him.  Today, add those who have despaired of self-help, whom the Law has terrified like a leviathan that has pounded upon them.  Myrtle words if there ever were.  Five steps to holiness.  Six ways to a closer relationship with God.  Bah!  I failed them all!

But until I read this, I never saw that the whole invitation from Christ to all those who are heavy laden could include those who were heavy laden beneath the Law, beneath the weight of the reality of their sin, beneath their failure to make themselves more godly, to enlarge their faith.  Pretty stupid, eh?

Oh, how that verse has taken on new meaning!  How, Lord Jesus, do I come to You, find refreshment in You?

Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!