Lessons, one learned and one lingering...

Amos has discovered how to make his plush toy squeak.  That is what he is doing in the blurred photo.  If you look hard, you get a peak of his bumblebee.  For over half an hour, he kept at it, wagging his tail quite vigorously each time the squeaker sounded.  I couldn't get him to hold still long enough to snap a decent photo.  He was more interested in his new skill than in my capturing evidence of it.

I have been thinking deeply about another lesson...only...really...it is a half lesson at best.

As a Protestant, you pray for your soul to be saved.  There is much emphasis on the soul in salvation.  Your body is something you have to whip into spiritual shape once you are saved, keep up the new temple of the Holy Spirit and all.  In response to something I said in confession, the pastor said that my sin had to do with that my body had been redeemed.  Of course, I could not ask him what he meant at all since he was finishing the liturgy and the service was about to start soon.


I mean, if a confessional Lutheran pastor says that this is what the pure doctrine teaches, then of course it does.  And I am sure there is good support for that.  What flitted through my mind at the time was if emphasis is on the soul and not the body, that might explain why much of the Protestant Church considers the Sacraments as mere ordinances done by man for God, as a way of expressing their love and devotion to Him rather than as a mean of grace in which He comes to us.  But...how is it that my body is redeemed as well as my soul?


For reasons better left unspoken, I have longed for the day when I die and can shed this body.  All that being raised from the dead in my head was my soul, that we would be this sort of non-corporeal shining light sort of thing, a bunch of saved souls mixed in with the angels.

I asked someone about this and could not quite follow all he said.  Some of the points he made were that Christ was raised bodily and took humanity to heaven with Him.  Humanity raised perfect...only He still bears His wounds.  That we, though perishable, will be imperishable.  That we will be like Him and He was raised with His body.  Confusing.

Pastor Esget has been on this campaign of sprinkling the term God-man in his parish, in sermons and bibles studies and even Greek class.  He practically chortled with glee when one of his parishioners used the term in one of the church's business meetings, telling us all about it during his next sermon.  Fully God and fully man.

Perhaps the skepticism, the disbelief, about Christ's true body and blood come to us upon corporate confession makes the emphasis on soul or the emphasis on soul makes the skepticism.  Is this the chicken or the egg? 

Someone once said that he believes the reason I hunger so much for the Lord's Supper, why it means more than even I understand or can put into words for you, is because I have been so wounded in body.  There is this strange sort of comfort in that to me, even if I merely glimpse what he truly means.  I do know that I cling to the bits in the Large Catechism where Luther writes so resolutely, yet so passionately about those who are struggling should be almost first at the rail, should not feel badly at all if they ended up dragging themselves to the Lord's Table.

For Christ Himself says, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." ...He means those who are weary and heavy-laden with their sins, with the fear of death, temptations of the flesh, and of the devil. If, therefore, you are heavy laden and feel your weakness, then go joyfully to this Sacrament [Lord's Supper] and receive refreshment, comfort, and strength. [BOC, LC, V, 71-73]

When given to me I readily take His very body and blood into my own, all my fears and despair and sorrow muted by the gift, by an undershepherd, knowing who I am, serving me such a wonder.  I am different...better...on days in which I have the Lord's Supper.  A solace and strength steal over me, sustain me, even if fleetingly so.  I believe that Christ does come to us, in body, to heal us, forgive us, strengthen us. I believe He is raised from the dead.

But this whole my-body-not-just-my-soul is redeemed is a puzzle.  31 years taught one way, nearly two years still not hearing this truth though so much else has been turned upside down, mere days of trying to absorb what it means, with a lifetime of feelings swirling around complicating the matter.

What sourced the emphasis on your soul being saved for Protestants, the body being just a shell, what makes you you is your heart and mind and soul, not the covering?  Why do Lutherans believe the body is redeemed?  What does the really mean?

Someone told me that it wasn't important that I understand, that you can make a god out of understanding.  That I should not be so distressed over my confusion.  As an educator, I simply do not agree that it is not important.  I mean, belief is in things that are not seen.  I do get that.  But if it is not important to understand why did Luther create the Small and Large Catechisms?  If parts of my confession are wrong, ought I not understand why they are wrong?  Ought I not understand the differences in doctrine?

This is a big, big thing to me. Our bodies are redeemed...my body...is redeemed. What in the world does that mean?

A pastor whom I have been helping with communications work and sometimes exchange emails recently wrote:  There are many false teachings that you express in your writing that lead to a misunderstanding of faith.  That is a tough thing to read, yet I have been trying and trying and trying to say the same thing to my pastors.  A misunderstanding of faith seems so small for something that is so large in my heart and in my mind and in my life.  That misunderstanding is making it hard for me to hear and to receive the Gospel in the sermons I listen to all the time (or at least did until recently).

But where do I go for straightening out that misunderstanding?  Do you think I could shrink myself down small enough to pass for a child in a catechism class?  Silly me.  The law of physics cannot be broken.  I have tried very hard to teach myself, but the educator in me has stood outside those efforts and has come to the rather disturbing conclusion that my foundation is flawed, so all that good doctrine I have piled upon it is not properly supported.  There are things that I do know well, primarily because they were untaught before.  There are things I understand in part, knowing what is right and what is wrong, even if I find myself slipping back into the wrong in my thought patterns, in my behavioral choices.  There are things I have learned by rote, can parrot well, but do not understand them.  But there is much that is false that I do not even see, much less understand yet I know is there.

I have been encouraged to bring questions to adult bible study class, which being early morning is very hard for me to get to in the first place and I usually do not attend.  But, for a wall-flower, interrupting a set lesson with extraneous questions, many of which touch on the personal, try as I might to frame them objectively, is overwhelming and near impossible.  For an educator, interrupting a set lesson with extraneous questions is out of the question. At my last parish, there is no option for evening or weekend bible study like there are at my first parish.  I may be wrong, but there does not seem to be one here in my new home.  You may not remember those failed attempts at using "Ask the Pastor" as a means to get some questions answered, but there is not that sort of option either.

Just go to church; you'll learn. I have gone, when I have been well enough.  I have gone and the more I hear the more confused I have gotten, the more fearful I have become, the more despair has filled my life.  There just has to be something wrong with that.

I guess the bottom line is that I feel as if I have missed my chance to learn the basics, establish the foundation I need so that I can receive the Gospel rather than somehow, someway find an offense in it I do not even know I have.  Just as I have missed out on so very many other things that I cannot go back and experience now, I feel as I also missed out on the chance to understand the Gospel.  Sort of...life moves on and there's no catching up.

Way back in the dark ages, I had Pre-Algebra, Geometry, Algebra I, and then Algebra II before I took Elementary Analysis and Trigonometry.  The systematic teaching I had in the previous four classes made the last two classes possible.  In fact, that foundation made it possible for me to pass placement tests for all the math requirements for college, when I do not even care for mathematics.  What do you do when you find yourself in EA and Trig of the Gospel without the previous courses?

I could be mistaken in my understanding about this, but it is my understanding that a Lutheran pastor will not just baptize a child because someone wants it.  There has to be parents or caregivers who will commit to raising the child in the pure doctrine, committed to catechizing them.  Even in the churches that admit young children to the altar (something I believe is a very, very good thing), the children remain in instruction, both by their parents and by the pastor.

I do not wish that I had not been baptized or had not been given the freedom of the altar, but I do wish that I had not missed the opportunity to have the false teaching, the misunderstandings, straightened out.  A couple at my first parish told me their catechesis, done together as adults, was two years before they were admitted to the altar.  Having tasted the true body and blood of my savior, I couldn't fathom waiting.  I wish I had. Oh, how I wish I had.

But I am on the other side now.  It doesn't seem like there is any going back.  It seems all I am left with is to just sit and listen and try to somehow ignore the confusion and the despair, knowing...fearing...that the pastor's small statement is, in actuality, the proverbial tip of the iceberg that will be my undoing. 


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!