Reveling in the Book of Concord: The Three Rs...

I have go-to Psalms.  I have Psalms that I know, if I go to them, I will find exactly the comfort I need for the distress of the moment, no matter the moment.  I have Psalms that I know, if I go to them, I will find exactly the comfort I need for the distress of a particular moment.  I am sure that you are not surprised, if you know me at all, that I have go-to BOC snippets.

I have places in the Christian Book of Concord that I know, if I go to them, I will find exactly the comfort I need for the distress of  the moment, no matter the moment.  I have places in the Christian Book of Concord that I know, if I go to them, I will find exactly the comfort I need for the distress of a particular moment.  Below is one of them:

Then nature and reason begin to add up our unworthiness in comparison with the great and precious good.  Then our good looks like a dark lantern in contrast with the bright sun or like filth in comparison with precious stones.  Because nature and reason see this, they refuse to approach [the Lord's Supper] and wait until they are prepared.  They wait so long that one week trails into another, and half the year into the other.  If you consider how good and pure you are and labor to have no hesitations, you would never approach.
~BOC, LC, V, 56-57

I have not used this one in the BOC Snippets blog yet.  In part, I have hesitated because I wonder if it would be of comfort to another person.  In part, I have wondered, with all the riches of our pure doctrine, if this is a bit that could wait for a while.  After all, where is the Gospel here?

However, I have not been able to stop thinking about this bit and a thought recently popped into my head.  Being an ex-educator, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that the Christian Book of Concord has its own set of Three Rs:  Reason, Reception, and Rest.

Reason
For me, I cannot think of a single instance where reason is noted as positive.  Instead, as in the passage quoted above, reason only leads us away from God, away from Christ.  We humans sure like to go our own way.  Reason started that.  Our foe's reason that entered through the mouth and stained our very soul.  Interesting, isn't it, that the cleansing of that stain comes also through our mouths?  We take in the the very being of Christ.  We become one with Him, in part now and in full later, leaving reason behind in the dust.

Luther and our Church fathers had no love for reason.  Not man's intellectual machinations, nor man's path to righteousness. Reason leads us astray.  Reason leads others astray.  Reason leaves us without certitude, without consolation, without comfort.

Reception
For me, I cannot think of a single instance where faith is spoken of as an action on our part apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.  I am surprised, sometimes, when it seems as if so many of my Lutheran brothers and sisters have skipped past the second article of the Augsburg Confession.  We  simply cannot, by ourselves, fear, love, and trust God.  We must receive the gift of faith first.

Further, it is that gift of faith, Christ's faith, that works righteousness within us. A while ago, I posted the graphic I created that showed there are no end runs around the cross, that the only way to the Father is through Jesus and the God deals with us through Jesus.  I have no simple graphic for this, but my first Lutheran lesson about the Holy Spirit (the evangelical world has an utter dearth when it comes to teaching about the Holy Spirit) was a simply litany:  The Father gave us Jesus and Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit takes us to Jesus and Jesus takes us to the Father.  No action on our part there.  It is all about the work that was done by and with and through the cross.  The work the Holy Spirit does now in our lives.  Simply put, everything about faith is about receiving.


Rest
Recently, I started noting how often the comfort and/or consolation of the Gospel is mentioned in the pure doctrine.  I noticed this because I also started noting how often our Church fathers wrote about the anxious and/or terrified soul.  Perhaps it is because I am one of them that such mentions leapt off the page at me.  When delving into those passages, what I learned from this is that the comfort of the Gospel is not an adjective or a noun, but a verb.


The sweet, sweet Gospel is a living, active Word of God.  The Gospel causes anxious souls to calm, soothes the terrified heart.  The Gospel brings consolation to anguish and despair.  The Gospel clarifies confusion.  The Gospel speaks certitude to doubt.  All action.  


With all of that work, what we are given to do is rest.  Rest in the certitude of the cross.  Rest in the comfort of the cross.  Rest in the consolation of the cross.  We are forgiven.  We are judged and found innocent.  We are washed clean.  We are loved.  We are the children of God.  We are heirs of Christ.  And our sin is covered.  All of it.  Daily and richly forgiven.


As I said, the ex-teacher in me spotted the three Rs.  That is because, I believe, the ex-literacy professor in me often savors and ponders the patterns and construction, the craftsmanship, that I find as I read the Christian Book of Concord.

As to the Gospel in the passage above?  God knows me.  God knows that I will doubt and despair. God knows that I will long to "do something" for my salvation or at least for my sanctification.  Gods knows I will try and fail.  God knows I will not try and still fail.  God knows.  He knows that my own reason will cause me to stumble and fall, to walk away, to stand against Him.  He knows.  He knows and He sent His son to save me anyway.  He knows and He gave me the Living Word and the pure doctrine to cut a swath through the folly and deception of my reason and provide wisdom.  He knows and He sent me the Holy Spirit to kindle and sustain faith, to bring me forgiveness and healing, to sanctify me.  He knows and He lets me know that He knows so that there ultimately is nothing to doubt and nothing to fear.  He knows and gives me peace.  The peace of Christ.  A cessation of the hostility my sin commits against God.  True peace.  Lasting peace.  Not as the world gives.  A veritable mystery so full of riches and wonder that the whole world cannot contain it.

Reason.  Reception.  Rest.

As for copious quotes demonstrating this pattern of the three Rs of the pure doctrine?  Well, I had been working at collecting them and then I had a wicked thought:  Someone who likes to woo others to the Christian Book of Concord, to show them that this is not merely a tool for pastors, but a resource and refuge for them, ought not to just post a slew of quotes for each of the Rs.  Nope, really, what someone like that should do is double-dog-dare others to look for them themselves.




Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!