Cling...

Because other folk posting in my Reveling in the Christian Book of Concord Facebook group was a rarity–something that made me feel incredibly lonely—I decided to close the group for I had wanted the group to be fellowship, not some sort of passage posting service for strangers.  But, as I started deleting the over 250 members, I thought about how three of my friends and a pastor I do not even know have commented about how much they liked having the snippets in their feed.  So, I turned the group secret, so random folk would stop asking me to join when they were not interested in participating in any sort of exchange about what they were reading or hearing or thinking about regarding the Confessions.  I kept my friends, the pastor, and someone I knew who does read in the Confessions and hoped might engage from time to time.

I still, primarily, have no fellowship in the group, no engagement of thought or other sharing what they are reading, hearing, or thinking about the Confessions.  However, I do know that those few in the group like to see the Confessions in their feed and what I post shows up in mine.  It is the latter that prompted me, since I am the owner of the group, to decide to post psalms in between BOC snippets. I do love having the psalter in my feed.

I do still have thoughts about the BOC passages, but I mostly do not write them in the post because it makes me feel rather lonely to be vulnerable in front of others and receive back silence.  Really, I feel the freak, thinking I must be the only person who revels in the Confessions, reading them daily and marking up her copy with highlights, underlining, and sticky notes with thoughts and questions.

Today, though, was one of those days I posted my thoughts as well as a snippet:

In the Creed we confess, "I believe...in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who...was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell." In this Confession, Christ's burial and descent to hell are distinguished as different articles. We simply believe that the entire person (God and man) descended into hell after the burial, conquered the devil, destroyed hell's power, and took from the devil all his might. We should not, however, trouble ourselves with high and difficult thoughts about how this happened. With our reason and our five senses this article can be understood as little as the preceding one about how Christ is place at the right hand of God's almighty power and majesty. We are simply to believe it and cling to the Word. So we hold to the substance and consolation that neither hell nor the devil can take captive or injure us and all who believe in Christ. ~BOC, FSD, IX, 1-3

I wrote a blog post about how the Gospel does the clinging, about how telling struggling and wounded folk to cling to the Gospel puts pressure on them to DO SOMETHING when the Gospel does the doing. I still believe that, obviously, since I am wont to stand on a small soap box about the power and efficacy and sufficiency of the Living Word and how folk seem to tend to not believe that in that they look for other words to offer in comfort. However, reading this, I started thinking about what is it that I cling to ... that I clutch wildly in the wilderness. Because, to be honest, I struggle with salvation. With what it means for me to believe and if I do ... if I can. I do find the second to last sentence interesting since believe and cling are separated and yet together.

I cling to the Psalter. Fiercely. Resolutely. Without a single doubt that it is the Word for me. I deeply hunger to hear, to have read to me, John 1:1-5, but I oft doubt it is a Word for me. Much of the Gospel I read wistfully rather than with a sense of ownership.

I also cling both fiercely and resolutely to bits of the BOC, chief amongst them LC, IV, 17 ("For it [the Word] has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do."). Even though it has been so long since I have had the Lord's Supper I cannot even remember, I also cling to LC, V, 55-74, what I believe is the most beautiful and loving writing in the BOC. I would add that the BOC is as dog-eared as the Psalter is, and I ramble around in it much the same way I do the Psalter.

I oft wonder if others, in reading passages like this, stop and consider what it is to which they cling ... especially when wandering about in their own wilderness.