I need help.

I need the people in my life to slap the cookie out of my hand and spill my drink, especially if the latter is juice at any other time than when I need to correct my blood sugar or it is serving as dessert.

I broke my fast tonight at the "feast" I brought to bible study.  Epiphany is a feast and I was actually going to be in church on a bonafide church holiday, so I brought coffee (ugh!), orange juice, and tasty pastries.

Pastor provided the Lord Supper for us because I accepted an ofter that I think was not quite still valid since I was in church on Sunday.  I was ignoring that point.  He provided the Lord's Supper and then I provided some refreshments for the bible study portion of our evening.

[3 questions.  I know you were wondering.  Just 3.  Less than 1/2 the page of the bible study book.] 

After the Lord's Supper, I finally broke my fast and chowed down with glee on...perhaps...two pastries and a glass of juice.  I know.  I know I cannot tolerate sugar on an empty stomach.  Still, it all tasted so good!  I should have bought my favorite salad to eat and joined in on the feast that way.

Thought I fought it tooth and nail, I threw up after I arrived back home.

I know...I trust...that Pastor tells me that once taken in, I still have the body and blood of Christ with me though the bread and wine may leave.  Still, it grieves me mightily to throw up the Lord's Supper.  And I have only myself to blame.

I need help.  I need help making good decisions.  I have no business, absolutely none eating sugar by itself, much less after fasting.  None.  I need help.

Bettina, bless her heart, is very good in this area and were she here I would have that help.  One of the things that has come to be in my life is that I cannot have my head below my heart.  I bend over and I will most likely keel over.  I bend over and disaster strikes.

When I drop something, to be safe, I should lay down on the floor and then reach out my arm to grasp it.  When I am not alone, I look very silly doing so.  But when I am with Becky all I have to do is either wait for her to pick it up or mention that I dropped something so that she can retrieve it for me.  If she sees me bend over, she admonishes me heartily.  Don't do that!

MS has also made me quite frail in the car.  No, I am not talking about the pain I have when sitting for a while.  I mean that MS has made my stomach very, very, very weak in the car.  I must look out the window most of the time to maintain a clean environment.  If I am in the car with Bettina and she needs something or the children ask for something and I turn around to address it, she admonishes me heartily.  Don't do that!

Bettina and her Lovely Groom G-Man do not mind that when I am with them I need to be in the front passanger seat.  Driving is best, but driving is taxing.  So, when I am with them, they always drive me about.  I do not feel as if I am making things more difficult for them or as if I am being selfish.  It is just where I need to be in a car.

Bettina does not mind retrieving things for me when the fall or even fetching something from the other room or across the room or at the end of the couch.  Never does she make me feels as if I am a bother or if I am being selfish and lazy for not bending over and picking up the thing myself   She understands that I need help.  She understands that it is difficult for me to ask for such. 

I need help. I need someone to do so whenever plates of goodies are before me and I am not alone.  I need someone to admonish me heartily:  Don't do that! 

That I did.  That I did.  Twice actually...if you count the cookie and the muffin top....

I need help.

~~~~
Being a Lutheran now, I get 12 days of Christmas (let's ignore for a moment I found it to be 12 days of more misery than joy) and planned to bring the gifts for my co-workers on the 12th day so that I could mark the day as one might the first.  When I mentioned my plan to one of my co-workers, Eastern Greek Orthodox, she suggested I wait one more day and bring them on what they see as the 13th day of Christmas.

So, I did.

Quite a sight I was arriving with my gift bags in tow.  With each person, other than the aforementioned person, I was able to explain why I waited and what this day means...the day the Son of Man was revealed as the Son of God.  I also told them that I waited because Christmas is about how Jesus came to us and, since He comes still, Christmas is really something we ought to celebrate every day, not just December 25th.  While I am sure my words were lost amongst the strangeness of my choice, I still savored the opportunity to speak them.

The one who suggested I wait until Epiphany was quite excited to receive her gift on this day even though doing so was her choice!

While I am not suggesting that each person in your family receive 12 gifts, I believe it would be most advantageous if you spread your opening of the gifts out amongst the 12 (13) days, even if it means not everyone opens a present every day.  Nor do the gifts need to be big things or even purchased things, coupons for labors of love are wonderful to give and receive.  Waiting is a good thing.  Taking your turn is a good thing.  Celebrating with others their good fortune is a good thing.  

Just imagine a 12-days-of-Christmas ceremony in which you spent time sing hymns, retelling the story of the birth of Christ, opening a gift or two, and closing in thanksgiving and prayer.  I am sure someone could come up with a better ceremony, but if you do so day after day for twelve days, you and yours will be grounded in the grace and mercy of Christmas, tasting its riches upon your tongue, savoring them as you would that great feast you had on day 1, even as you celebrate day 12.

~~~~
I sat next to Pastor in bible study.  He only set up one table, which was all that was necessary, but I would have preferred two tables so we were all not quite so close to each other.  I sat next to him for safety.

Sunday, in church, the fragrance of the wine from the Lord's Supper clung to my godmother as she returned to her seat beside me.  Given that she had had but a sip, I wonder if it was the Holy Spirit heightening my senses.  For I became quite distracted from the hymn by the sweet, heady fragrance of the wine.  It fomented my anticipation, and I wanted to call out to Pastor to hasten his way back to me in order that I, too, might have the Lord's Supper.  While I am sure he was speedy as could be proper since the service could not conclude until he was back up front, watching him walk to the pew were I sat resting in the corner was excruciating.  I was convinced the world had suddenly shifted to a slow-motion parallel reality.

In choosing safety, I was quite near the cup as it sat waiting for the time for Pastor to raise it to our lips.  From the moment he set it down, I could smell the wine.  I thought I longed for the Supper this afternoon following confession/absolution, but I truly did not.  For after mere moments, I was all ready to abandon the liturgy and get right to the blessing the Supper part (I am sure it is called something else).  Me!  I was completely ready to skip the Agnus Dei!

So, uhm, I tremble beneath his crucifix and the cup.  What next?

How often are we blessed with an immediate answer to prayer?  Not often in my experience.  But this morning God showed quite clearly that He heard my cry to Him just hours after I fell asleep in tears.  A phone call.  A possible writing job.  Someone who desperately needed to hear the very things that I am struggling to learn. 

Then....then...as the work day was drawing to a close, I ended up talking to a man who is another transplant from the South.  I suspect he is a Southern Baptist, but I invited him to church anyway.  Of course, the invitation was preceded by an hour's conversation on Confessional Lutheranism, the Book of Concord, praying the Psalter, the Liturgy, and pastoral care.  I think his family is hungry for the Word.  They would certainly get fed at St. Athanasius!

I was telling him about the sermons and offered to send a couple.  I think the vinedresser one and the one on how God drives the conversation of our lives would be good selections.  I need to get the audio files from Pastor, though.  Can you believe that I have not yet bugged him for all the audio files that he has before I started attending?

Just in case you are not quite convinced that God was showering me with His presence today, Pastor sent the hymns for Sunday a day early.  He usually sends them on Wednesday, so now I have a whole extra day to learn them, savor them, and reflect upon how they reinforce and extend the message of the scripture readings for Sunday.

The icing on the cake this day?  A co-worker bringing me a fork from McDonalds.  Yep, you read that right!  I cannot eat with metal utensils anymore because all I taste is the metal if I do.  Having to use plastic forks all the time, I have developed distinct preferences for which kind.  Strangely, the smaller ones are easier for me to use with the clumsiness in my hands.  McDonald's forks are the absolute best out there. I do not eat fast food much anymore, so I don't really have a chance to pick them up.  Unfortunately, after going through the dishwasher a few months, the plastic forks break, no matter the type.  So, I was currently out of any McDonald's ones.  Now I have a new one!

The nooner...SIGH.

A crappy beginning to my day and a rough afternoon, but can any day be a bad day when you have an opportunity to study God's Word?

Read aloud Psalm 26.  Hear it in your ears.  Taste it upon your tongue.  Feel it in your heart.   Turn it over in your mind.

    Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity,
         And I have trusted in the LORD without wavering.
    Examine me, O LORD, and try me;
         Test my mind and my heart.
    For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes,
         And I have walked in Your truth.
    I do not sit with deceitful men,
         Nor will I go with pretenders.
    I hate the assembly of evildoers,
         And I will not sit with the wicked.
    I shall wash my hands in innocence,
         And I will go about Your altar, O LORD,
    That I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving
         And declare all Your wonders.
    O LORD, I love the habitation of Your house
         And the place where Your glory dwells.
    Do not take my soul away along with sinners,
         Nor my life with men of bloodshed,
    In whose hands is a wicked scheme,
         And whose right hand is full of bribes.
    But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity;
         Redeem me, and be gracious to me.
    My foot stands on a level place;

         In the congregations I shall bless the LORD. 

When thinking about this Psalm, I wondered how it could be a prayer for us, for me.  In truth, when I pray the Psalter, it is one I absolutely did not understand.  I prayed it anyway, leaning on the fact that the Holy Spirit translates for me.  He carries the prayer of that psalm to our Father and, eventually, teaches those same words to me!  It is not my understanding that makes the prayers of the Psalter worthy to God; they are holy.  Instead, it is the act of praying them, of hearing, tasting, seeing, touching them as I do so.  The work is God's, remember?  Faith is His gift which I receive.  God gave us prayer for our benefit, not His.  He does not need them.  Instead, He gave them to us that we might be joined to Him.

Still, I did not understand the psalm.

At the nooner, Pastor usually begins by asking what are our initial impressions.  Today, he did not.

One of the MS problems that has grown stronger is that I can easily become confused in the moment.  My private term for it is losing anchor.  The easiest way I can explain it is that if I am expecting you not to be home and am prepared to leave a voice mail and then you pick up the phone, I can lose my anchor in the moment.  I am all ready to leave a message and often have great difficulty shifting gears.  Stumbling and bumbling about on the phone is one thing, doing so in a car, at work, in a store is a completely different animal.  Not a friendly one.

So, there Pastor was, starting right in on his instruction...until I blurted out for him to stop, pointing out he had not asked for our impressions.

You see, I rehearsed my impressions.  This the first bible study I have gone to in five weeks, I believe.  I was shaking like an aspen leaf in the wind.  Even though I prayed the Psalter Saturday night, I spent time this morning reading Psalm 26, thinking about that first question.  When he didn't ask it, I panicked.  I was so afraid of losing anchor, I practically hollered at him that he had skipped it.

When I first arrived, I had something to give to Pastor or his Lovely Bride to pass on to their First Daughter.  I was shaking so badly, I couldn't get it out of my bag at first and then I couldn't think of her name.  I stood there, saying, "This is for..."  Nope.  Nothing.  At that moment, I could not have spoken her name if my life depended on it.  Another MS thing.  When this happens, I usually try to give clues about the word for whomever I am talking with so they can just supply it for me.  But though I could think of them, I couldn't speak them.  Long curly hair.  Likes photography.  Eleven years old.  Lives with you.  I finally said, your second daughter, but that wasn't right.  She was their first!  Damn disease.

This is the first time I could think of  the verbal clues, but couldn't speak them.  In the moment that lasted a life time, a part of my mind stood off to the side watching me struggle, trying to figure out what was happening.  Was it because I was nervous and did not feel comfortable enough to give up trying to get at the word and attempt to provide the verbal clues?  Was this a new cognitive symptom?  Or was something else happening?

She finally filled in the name of person who was to receive the papers (a story) and time began again.

Even though I had brought my Dallas Cowboy stars and helmet to twit Pastor about the slaughter yesterday, I had lost heart.  Was very worried in fact.  So, when he skipped the beginning of what I had rehearsed, I practically demanded he not do so.

SIGH.

I heartily wished I had not come at that moment. 

We did not, unfortunately, move past the first verse once we started in on the lessoning for this Psalm.  I am afraid the reason for this lies completely at my feet.  Tell me, if you had one translation that had "vindicate" and another that had "judge" would you not pause?  Then, in that same verse, if you had one translation that had "lived a blameless life" and another had "walked in integrity" would you not truly wonder about the meaning of the verse and the veracity of the translations?  Vindicate and judge are not synonyms.  While I would think blameless has nothing to do with integrity, I found myself learning that integrity has many other uses than I had in my mind.  [Pastor's Lovely Bride is quite intelligent.  She does not pipe up much (most likely because she rarely gets a chance if I am there), but always, always she gives me pause and inspires much inspiration for her truly fine mind.]  Still, vindicate and judge?

One stinking verse.  The five weeks I missed, they got copious amounts of studying done.  Whole topics covered with many points each week.

My "initial impression" was wrong...NOT the translation issue, because that only arose when I heard the NIV read. But what I thought...how in the world could this be a prayer for me...was completely obliterated when Pastor began the study (before all the slicing and dicing of the first verse) with Luther's introduction to the psalm.

As he read, I watched the verses of the psalm I thought I had read tossed up in the air and fall back down into a pattern completely different than I had first seen.  It was a wonderful moment, a realignment that I cannot articulate as much as I just plain know, in part, why it was that Luther wrote what he wrote.

You have often heard that where God’s Word, the dear Gospel, is preached and proclaimed, the devil does not rest or take a holiday. He fights against it day and night. He resists it with might and main, with every craft and wile. He attacks it with force by murdering and slaughtering those who love the divine Word, plaguing them and scattering them, and then most shamefully abusing and reviling them. If this does not do it, he switches to the other tactic. He tries to do them harm with his clever tricks and evil wiles. For this he uses false teachers and his lying prophets, who destroy the Word of God under the guise of truth.

Such is the plight of the divine Word in the world, and it will not be any different. Hence anyone who wants to be a Christian should not be surprised if God’s Word must suffer persecution in the world, or if false doctrine, error, and heresy sneak in next to the divine Word. This is the way it has to be. If you see this going on, you should know that it is going rightly. The world supposes that everything will go to pieces, for here one falls and there another is lying on the ground. But those who have God’s Word on their side remain and are preserved, even though tyranny and persecution bring on the fall of many who have known God’s Word but who in time of persecution have stumbled and staggered. Still there are many more of those who yield to the other side. They are attacked by heresy and are snatched and seduced from the truth of the divine Word. We are experiencing this now in our time, too. We, too, have persecution and heresy, schisms, and sects that are against us, so that there are few who remain true to God’s Word.
  
All the Prophets have greatly complained about this, and this Psalm 26 is one of those complaints. It also teaches that in this case there is no other or better action than zealous prayer to God and earnest petition to Him to guard the pure teaching of His Word Himself. The psalm rightly portrays the Christian life, how it should be formed and how it pleases God. It complains about the false teachers and schismatics, and it prophesies that they will come to naught. I have often pointed this out in the psalms. They do not pray only against those who persecute and kill them with fire, sword, and water, but also against the schismatics. They seek God’s help to defend them, so that doctrine might be pure and remain so, and so that the divine Word might be purely preached. With the others one should be patient, even though their life is weak, so long as the standard and rule for ordering their life remains pure. Therefore we should speak just as the prophet David speaks here. He puts into our mouths the words we ought to pray against the false teachers. Would to God that we prayed them! 

I shall not deign to try and "re-teach" on that first verse.  In truth, I still do not understand the use of vindicate.  Instead, I shall focus on this quote.

While he was reading, I was struck by the thought that Luther and his cohorts were embattled.  Such strong, passionate, fighting words permeate their writing.  Please do not misunderstand; they were not fighting against men.  No, they were fighting against false doctrine.  Fiercely they held to their beliefs and would allow no compromise.  Sort of like die hard Democrats or Republicans.  Neither one of those would ever join a party which combined bits and pieces of each one's beliefs.  What value would those beliefs then hold? 

A poor example, I'm sure.

Still, what I thought was that the need for clarification on doctrine in the church is dire once more.  And yet, even among some confessional Lutheran churches, you do not see Christians clinging fiercely to their beliefs.  Agree to disagree has become the mantra.  Tolerance the new tenant of faith.  The ideal of this being lauded in Christians and Muslims praying beside one another.  There is only One God and Allah is not He!  In the Old Testament, the Lord never once told His people to go out into the foreign cities and worship alongside those following Baal.  Oh, my goodness, how in the blooming world does a single Christian think that such an act today would be pleasing to God, would honor Him?

Many Lutherans do not regularly study the Book of Concord, or even read through it once.  Many Christians, no matter the denomination, do not regularly study the Bible.  Or pray.  They are content with those things happening to them on Sundays.  They do their faith on Sundays and perhaps bible study days and leave the rest of their living to the world's faith:  Peace at all costs.  Season over Savior.  Grays welcomed.  Black and White eschewed, condemned, mocked.

When I tried to express what I was thinking about how the Church, in America at least, does not act as if it is embattled, how Christians are not clinging fiercely to the Truth, Pastor pointed back to Luther's introduction and the fact that satan changes tactics.  He will always assail and assault; now he is doing so by apathy and acceptance, a siren call for making all things relative and thus nothing True.

Pastor's final comment on this topic was that men do not kill the church; false doctrine does.

Selah.

Read the psalm again.  Can you hear Christ praying it?  Could you pray it now?

    Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity,
         And I have trusted in the LORD without wavering.
    Examine me, O LORD, and try me;
         Test my mind and my heart.
    For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes,
         And I have walked in Your truth.
    I do not sit with deceitful men,
         Nor will I go with pretenders.
    I hate the assembly of evildoers,
         And I will not sit with the wicked.
    I shall wash my hands in innocence,
         And I will go about Your altar, O LORD,
    That I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving
         And declare all Your wonders.
    O LORD, I love the habitation of Your house
         And the place where Your glory dwells.
    Do not take my soul away along with sinners,
         Nor my life with men of bloodshed,
    In whose hands is a wicked scheme,
         And whose right hand is full of bribes.
    But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity;
         Redeem me, and be gracious to me.
    My foot stands on a level place;

         In the congregations I shall bless the LORD. 

~~~~
What is love?


Bettina not answering the phone when she suspects I might be expecting her answering machine.  Choosing instead to simply call me back after I have finished leaving a message is a blessing and mercy to me.


What do I crave?


For people to never stop teaching me, but please, please stop correcting me when they understand my meaning even though I speak things wrongly.  Pointing out what has just occurred will not correct or even help the problem and only serves to dishearten me...and frighten me.  

What terrifies me more?

I sent an email the other day in which, while re-reading it in the reply, I discovered it had several word order switches and letter switches...so much so I was horrified.  And terrified. What I have struggled with my speech is now cropping up in my writing.

I stayed up all night praying the Psalter, after a confusing day and a couple of truly difficult weeks.  One decision was firm in my mind, but the call of the Word is so very strong.

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.

I have had many bitter truths come home to roost of late, chief among them is that while Lutheran doctrine is still truly different, Lutheran churches are not.  They are still bound by the necessity to conform to the norm and to not violate the social contract.  Woe to those who do, especially with the pastor.

Another is the inescapable fact that I loathe Christmas and I am struggling to live with that truth.  I do not care what anyone says, Christmas is not about Christ.  At many churches, during special services,  for a brief span of time, it is about Christ.  Lutheran liturgy, if followed, assures this because it does not really have a place for special dramatic and choral performances that make the service more about the season than the Savior.  I am confident that other churches, other denominations, also fix their eye on the Author and Perfecter of our faith during their services.  But many do not.  And for most people I know, pretty much all people I know, outside of Church, Christmas is about the season.  It is about presents and cards and food and parties and family.

I loved Advent, having never known what it was, I loved it and eagerly await its arrival again, eleven long months from now.  I loved the very idea of waiting on Christ and, in doing so, reflecting upon all the ways He comes to us.  In fact, although Advent is over and a while has passed since my selfish request to have others write me more verses to the hymn, I just received another one from the woman who once memorized scripture with me:

Jesus comes in Word and water,

Saving Grace poured out on us,

Sins forgiven life eternal,

Gifts no other font can give.

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Life-giving water rich in Grace.

The idea, the concept, that Lutherans celebrate Christmas not for one day but for 12 was intriguing to me.  Twelve days to celebrate the Savior not the blasted season!  But here, on day eight, I have failed miserably at doing so.

All around me is the season and it is a season that has no place for me.  Personally, I believe it is a season that has no place for Christ either, but I am sure many would argue with me.

However, I read in slight horror and overwhelming sadness an article in the newsletter of our synod district that took the things of the season and showed how they were actually reminders about Christ.  I am sorry, but I cannot believe the use of holly at Christmas really serves as a reminder of the prick of the crown of thorns upon Christ's head.  Holly has been used by Druids and others for far different purposes for thousands of years.  Why not focus on the things of Christmas themselves:  the angel's message, the nativity, the actual birth...?

In fact, I read through nineteen issues of the newsletter searching for something that taught, that illuminated the bible or Lutheran doctrine.  But that's not really the purpose, I suppose, of those newsletters.  There were many articles about planned giving--so many I grew a bit disgusted.  There were many articles about works other churches were doing, which did make me wish our church did some of those outreach activities so I could be involved more like I was back in high school, college, and up until I started teaching college myself.  But the emphasis on the works made me uncomfortable.  I kept reading through the thing thinking that if Luther were to write a newsletter to all the churches in his "district," even keeping in newsy bits for "connectedness" it would be far, far, far different from what I read....and the two Christmas pieces would not be about the season but the Savior.

But the world has chosen the season, even the church.  And I don't fit in the season.  And I hate how I fail miserably at remembering that I am a cherished child of Christ when it seems the whole world has somewhere to go, a place to belong, a welcome sure and certain.

Last night, I went to Vespers.  Sort of.  It was at Pastor's house and was quite crowded.  With the rain and cold and the fact that it was New Year's Eve, I had hoped that few would come so it wouldn't be crowded even though I truly and earnestly also wanted the whole church to be there, to be among, as someone wrote recently, those who share the blood of Christ.  I chose a seat in the corner of the couch, but it was a mistake.  At the last moment, a strange man arrived and took a seat in the chair that was at my knees.  I was hemmed in by men and started to struggle the moment he sat down.  But that was also the moment that Pastor got around to starting the service.  I lasted through the first hymn, opening versicles, and reading of the Psalms before I jumped up and fled to the basement.

For a while, I sat on the bottom of the stairs and let the next hymn wash over me as I felt so stupid for coming and so ashamed of my weakness that is greater than my desire to be in "church," but when I lifted my eyes to search for a better place to sit, I spotted three crosses on the wall, two of them crucifixes.  One of them was/is exactly what I have been searching for online for the past few months.  It is a simple cross, plain in all respects, two tones of metal, with a well-defined body of Christ.  That's a poor description, but since crucifixes have never been part of my life, I really have no better words.

Looking up it, Christ called to me and I started weeping, weeping for what He has done for me and for what I fail to do for Him.  Never before have I wanted anything as much as I want that crucifix.  Yes, that actually means I am breaking the ninth commandment and would willing break the seventh commandment if it were not so truly horrible to steal from a pastor.  I do not even recognize myself.  But never have I longed for something as I do that crucifix.

I wanted a flat-screen television for three years, truly longed for one.  I thought about them, researched them, and priced them.  Far too much time was spent on this desire.  And I really cannot believe that I have one, although a year has passed.  It is easier to see and, most importantly, did make my rather small living space much larger even though the screen size is 8 inches larger that my previous television.  That desire, though, pales in comparison with this crucifix.

My friend Bettina has this green knife that I would also willingly steal from her but for the fact that I care for her dearly.  It is green.  But it is not just any green knife.  It is a Santoku knife.  This is a type of knife I discovered that I can use far better with my MS clumsy hands after many years of cutting myself whenever I tried to use knives.  I have one.  It is part of the Henkels knife set that I have worked on building for years.  So I do not need hers.  Yes, it is green!  And it is a bit smaller, which would be easier for me to hold.  But I do not need it.  Still, I crave it so.  That desire, though, pales in comparison with this crucifix.

Why a crucifix?  I don't even understand it myself, as I have written before. I am not a fan of icons.  In truth, I have eschewed them mightily.  I have always disliked crucifixes because I thought, I felt, there was something fundamentally wrong about having Christ on the cross.  He is risen, after all.  He is risen indeed!

But I think it goes back to that essential difference between Lutheranism and Protestantism.  It is not that Lutherans despise the empty cross.  Not at all.  In fact, they celebrate Easter for 50 days, not a mere 24 hours!  But Lutherans do not have the act of the cross, the forgiveness of sins, set so squarely in the past.  It is present.  It is here and now. It is in the holy waters of baptism.  It is in the absolution given each divine service and each private confession.  And it is in the true body and blood of Christ given for us, shed for us....at least for those who are privileged to worship in a church which confesses such and who are given such.

When I have looked online, over and over again, I have not found a crucifix that seemed right, that fit what I desired.  The one hanging in his hallway is exactly what I have been searching for, plain and simple.

I stared at it until I calmed down enough to forget how I felt upstairs and spotted a chair in a room to the right.  I could still hear the service, thankfully.  During the sermon, I kept craning my neck to look a the crucifix again.  Pastor was talking about how Christ's circumcision and naming, on the eighth day, could be viewed as a down payment of sorts on the promise God gave to Adam and Eve before sending them from the garden.  One would come who would forever crush satan, breaking his hold on us, making death a joyful deliverance.  It was the first shedding of His precious blood, done willingly, for He willingly became frail human flesh that we might no longer bear the inequity of our sins.

Afterward, there was the rescheduled open house.  The announcement had said it would be a night of games and food and such, but the game part wasn't really happening.  A year ago last fall, I ventured to the Ocktober fest celebration the church had, even though I was not going to church, because it was advertised as a game gathering as well.

I love games.  This is thoroughly documented here and is the second best part about Bettina, that she plays all manner of games with me for hours on end when she can.

Last year, I went to that fest ostensibly because I wanted to give the children staying with me for the weekend a place to play with other children.  But I stupidly went with a bag full of a games.  No one was playing any games and having them with me was like a science nerd walking into a room full of football players and cheerleaders.  GET OUT!  YOU DON'T BELONG HERE.

Last night, I had brought games with me, stupidly believing it would be a game night, stupidly thinking I could be social across a board or a pile of dominoes or a stack of cards.

Pastor checked on me after the service and said he would come back if I did not come up soon.  He never returned.  I was freezing in the basement, but was reluctant to leave because then I could not look upon the crucifix anymore.  I stayed even though I could no longer feel my toes.  I only left when my legs began to tighten, remembering the cramps from when I caroled.  Upstairs, no one was playing games.  I failed to get the one person I thought might play a game interested in doing so.  And I was most certainly rude to the one person who tried talk with me but I did not know why she would have after a choice she had recently made and found no words upon my lips.  I was not long upstairs and wished the whole time the crucifix was magically transported to the wall where my things were since they were tucked in the corner of the room.  After steeling my nerve enough to traverse the room, I grabbed my bag of games and my keys and fled. 

I have been up all night, thinking about that Promise and the broken promises of late that bother me, thinking about my failures and my sin, thinking about how that email haunts me, and thinking about that crucifix.  I Googled for a few hours when I came home trying to think of search terms that might land me one.  But I am sure that it is a crucifix handed down in his family or from his childhood or some other long since defunct source.  I have not found one online like it.

Funny, just yesterday morning, Pastor W posted yet another photo of his new alter crucifix and I puzzled at his love for the thing, the utter longing to gaze upon it he has.  A few hours later, there I was struck by the same.

What is mercy?  A pastor singing a hymn upon request, no questions asked.

I wanted the bible last night, longed for it, ached for it in a way I have not known before.  The asthma attack frightened me in that the smallest of moments that set it off, as has happened so frequently of late.  I suspect this is because I have been so tired that I am forgetting my night time medicine.  Still...

Struggling to breathe is frightening.  I feel as if I should be used to it.  But I am not.  And each time being alone makes it worse.  There is no comfort in the ER.  Once I get hooked up to the solumedrol IV and the nebulizer, I am left alone.  Old hat.  Routine.  Old hat is that I am alone, that I do not have anyone with whom to share the burden, to ask me how I am, to hold my hand, to murmur that it will soon be better, to ask me how I am doing later.  Even here when I blog that I am in the ER, no one ever asks how I am afterward.  Unless I am having an attack in front of someone, it is as if having asthma doesn't matter.

The last few months, I have taken my bible with me, but I rushed out of the house without it.  I wanted to read the Word, to hear it.  I even asked for a chaplin, sure he would laugh at a request to read, but none was available.

Sitting there, waiting for the treatments to end and enough time to pass so that I could leave, I kept thinking about this hymn that Pastor sent a few weeks ago.  Part of it is based on Romans 8:38, a favorite passage of mine.  But most of it is hard to sing, so much the fraud I feel doing so.  I long to have those words fall from my lips in truth, but I struggle far, far more than what is spoken in that hymn.

As with my other ER trips, I raced home and changed clothes and then headed to the office to pretend that I am perfectly fine.  Nothing less is acceptable.

But, on the way,  I called Pastor and asked if he would sing to me the hymn:

Through Jesus' Blood and Merit

Through Jesus' blood and merit

I am at peace with God.

What, then, can daunt my spirit,

However dark my road?

My courage shall not fail me,

For God is on my side;

Though hell itself assail me,

Its rage I may deride.

There's nothing that can sever

From this great love of God,

No want, no pain whatever,

No famine, peril, flood.

Though thousand foes surround me,

For slaughter mark His sheep,

They never shall confound me,

The vict'ry I shall reap.

For neither life's temptation

Nor death's most trying hour

Nor angels of high station

Nor any other pow'r

Nor things that now are present

Nor things that are to come

Nor height, however pleasant, 

Nor darkest depths of gloom

Nor any creature ever 

Shall from the love of God

This ransomed sinner sever;

For in my Savior's blood

This love has its foundation;

God hears my faithful prayer

And long before creation 

Named me His child and heir.

(LSB 746)

I went to the Lessons and Carols service tonight, but sat in the back stairwell.  I had no business singing, but I did, not caring that I was disturbing the group from another church that had gathered in the basement to have some sort of service that consisted primarily of long ululations in growing intensity.  Hearing so much Scripture read aloud, hearing the story of Christ from Old Testament to New, was so very comforting.  No matter the cold, no matter that I was in my sweats crouched behind a door with my ear pressed against it so that I did not miss any words...the Word of Christ in Isaiah...the Word of Christ in Luke...words of peace....

Suddenly, singing "peace on earth," its meaning shifted for me.  The peace I have with God is not a feeling.  Okay, so that sounds stupidly obvious.  To me, it has not been.  For I have not been feeling peaceful, therefore how could I have peace with God?  The peace I have with God is not a feeling.  The peace I have with God was bought with the blood of Christ, with Him serving as a propitiation for my inequity, taking my just reward of eternal death upon His shoulders.  Without that, I am an enemy of God.  For I am, as is all mankind, a sinner.  No, the peace I have with God is certainly not a feeling.  It is, strangely enough, the peace won on the battlefield.

Peace:  an agreement or treaty between warring or antagonistic nations, groups, etc., to end hostilities and abstain from further fighting or antagonism.

The peace I have with God is a reconciliation, one made as I was joined with Christ in His death and resurrection.  Because Christ won the peace, not I, it is an agreement that cannot be broken by any man, by any created thing under the heavens or on the earth.  The peace I have with God is not a feeling, is not based on my own abilities or acumen, and is eternal.

Lord, I believe!  Help my unbelief!


What is mercy?  A pastor unexpectedly sending me the audio file of the Christmas sermon from a year ago that God used to set me on the path to His pure Truth found in the Lutheran confessions.

Tarry not, Lord Jesus.  Oh, please, tarry not!

Spent my lunch hour at work hiding in my car with tears splashing down my face, wanting desperately something that isn't for me, wanting it to be offered even though I couldn't bring myself to ask.

Spending the evening in ER doing the same.  Tears and asthma don't mix well.

Wishing I had the Word with me.

I think I finally understand something last night and then this morning I find an email that not only did not answer my question about baptism per se, but also showed me that I know nothing.

I am truly discouraged.

Thank you, Bettina, for helping me forget how much pain I am in right now from three days of shoveling snow.  Thank you, Pizza Man and Vee, for singing and praying when I have not the heart.

I personally believe it ought to be illegal for a man to pull his car into a spot that a woman has spent the better part of a day clearing out!  Actually, the spot, directly across from the front of my car, is in a no-parking zone, so he is parked illegally, but I doubt the police would do anything with snow EVERYWHERE just now.

Because my house is at the top of an intersection T, I will have to turn my car around on the ice/snow mix in order to get onto the street leading out of my neighborhood.  Knowing that turning on ice/snow is much, much harder than driving straight, I was trying to clear enough of the street (yes, the snow plow is still ignoring my street and turning just in front of my house) so that the turn maneuver would be gentle and, therefore, have a greater opportunity for success.  Seriously, I have cleared out more snow than you would even believe possible.

Dig until I start shaking.  Come inside and nap.  Wake and read the bible some.  Go outside and dig some more.  All day I do this and then this man just pulled into that slot shortly after dark.  ARGH!  Fortunately, the office will be closed tomorrow, so I have another day to continue digging myself out.  [Is it cynical of me that I fully expect the snow plow to never get around to clearing the rest of my street?]

I honestly did not know it is possible to be in this much pain from shoveling snow....

~~~~
You know what the best part of tomorrow will be?  I will be able to do the morning prayer service because I can go back to sleep afterward!

~~~~
I read more of Kleinig late last night that has been spinning about my head today, especially since listening to the sermon from our Snow Matins service on the Web.  A service with a sermon I waited all day to receive by email and have listened to thrice since receiving it.

In Galatians, St. Paul uses a startling phrase that is obscured by most modern translations.  He asks his readers if they received the Spirit by "hearing with faith" (Galatians 3:2,5).  Obviously, he expects them to agree with him that this is so.  He implies that they have not just received the Spirit by believing the Gospel; they have also received the gift of hearing through their faith in the Gospel.  With faith comes a new way of hearing:  the ability to hear the voice of God.  Hearing comes through faith, just as faith comes through hearing (Romans 10:17). (128)

Over and over and over again.  The importance of hearing is utterly ubiquitous these days!  I cannot turn my eyes in any direction in the Scriptures without encountering how we should be speaking and listening to the Living Word.  I cannot read a blog or book without underscoring the same.  And, as a result, I have become exceedingly greedy about being read to, but I also read the bible aloud at the drop of a hat.  I read it to myself.  I read it to others.  If someone is struggling with something, I immediately offer to read it to him/her.  Here Paul seems to clarify for me why it is important to hear...that by hearing, we not only receive faith, as in become a Christian, but that our on-going spirituality of reception means that in hearing we continue to receive the gift of faith, the gift of the Truth of God, the gift of forgiveness, the gift of mercy.  

His Word opens our eyes to see what God the Father gives us in Jesus.  His Word opens our ears to hear the voice of God the Father.  Thus we have everything that the people of God in the Old Testament ever desired.  We have the journey through life on earth.  He--and all that He has--is ours through faith in Him and His Word.  He may be hidden as to receive and enjoy if we have eyes to see and ears to hear and if we exercise our faith by using our eyes and ears to welcome Him and His gifts. (129)

Oh, my...what an incredible statement.  We have everything that the people of the God in the Old Testament ever desired.  Oh, my....

Reading this, I was immediately struck by how very ungrateful I am at times, ignoring what God has given me because I am too busy grousing about what I think I need.  I already have everything...what more could I possibly want?

I wanted to understand mercy.  I blogged about it, prayed about it, bugged Pastor about it.  I wanted to see it, feel it, touch it, taste it...not knowing that I already have.

What is mercy?

Jesus Christ! Pastor answered.  He sang it, whispered it, danced it.

What is mercy?

Jesus Christ!  In Him, we live and move and have our very being.  In the Son of God, we live and move and have our very being.  In the perfect Son of Man, we live and move and have our very being.  We who are sinners.  We who were clothed in death, now bear eternal life because in Christ we live and move and have our very being.  We deserve nothing, yet He gives us everything.

What is mercy?

In Holy Baptism...no matter that I cannot remember that moment...it was mercy poured on my forehead.  I saw the water.  I felt the water.  In the Lord's Supper, it is mercy I consume.  I taste it each time, taking in myself the greatest act of mercy the universe will ever know...an act given for me, shed for me.   I see mercy each time I caste my eyes upon the Living Word, even before meaning coalesces from the black marks blazoned across the pages.  I hold it in my hand, I see before me mercy in Truth that I can study and take in each day of my life, words written for me, given to me.

What is mercy?

I, the beggar, the poor miserable wretched sinner, brought before the throne of God and welcomed into His kingdom as His precious child.

What is mercy?

The same God patiently waiting for me to understand this all....  I believe, Lord!  Help my unbelief!

Jesu Juva

“God’s Mercy in the Flesh”
Text: Luke 1:39-56 (Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

There are many, many things associated with Christmas, and the Christmas story is filled with many dearly loved and well-known events: the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary; Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth; the journey of the family to Bethlehem; the birth of Jesus and the manger; the shepherds; the star and the wise men. But today, we hear of another thing that God wants associated with the Christmas story: His mercy. For in Mary’s song, called the Magnificat, we heard these words in response to the events that were happening: “His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.” His mercy. Not for some, but for all. From generation to generation, down through the ages. From the beginning of time to the end of time, our God is a merciful God.

For in the beginning, in mercy, God created the heavens and the earth.
In mercy, He carefully planned creation and gave it to our first parents.
In mercy, He then came to them after they fell into sin and death.
In mercy, He promised to rescue them and send a Saviour.
And then His mercy continued.

In mercy, He saved Noah and his family through the flood.
In mercy, He called Abraham and made him the father of many nations.
In mercy, He stayed Abraham’s hand as it held the knife above his son.
In mercy, He rescued His people from Egypt.
In mercy, He brought them through the Red Sea and kept them in the wilderness.
In mercy, He settled them into their Promised Land.
But His mercy was not done.

In mercy, He gave His people the Tabernacle and the Temple, that He might dwell with them.
In mercy, He sent prophets to call His people to repentance.
In mercy, He fought for them against their enemies.
In mercy, He let them be defeated by their enemies when they turned from Him, and in mercy, He restored them when they repented.
In His mercy He was always working, for them, in them, and through them.

And all this, and much more, because the apex of His mercy was coming. When, in mercy, He sent the angel Gabriel to a young virgin in Nazareth named Mary, and through His Word and Spirit, His Son, the Saviour of the world, was conceived in her. This was the apex of His mercy, because all God’s mercy finds in its heart, its center, its meaning, in Jesus. All God’s mercy flows to Jesus and from Jesus. God’s mercy is never an arbitrary, disconnected, free-floating thing - it is always His mercy for us in Jesus. For His mercy is not just to do for us a thing here or a thing there, a favor here or a favor there - but to do for us what we need the most: save us from our sin. For that is our greatest need.
Because of sin we have a present but no future.
Because of sin, we have life that leads to death.
Because of sin, we deserve nothing good from God, only His wrath, displeasure, and condemnation.
And so though you may be something or someone in the eyes of the world, we are all beggars before God.

But dear Christian, that is a good thing, for then Christmas is for you; the Son of God is for you; His forgiveness is for you; His mercy is for you.
If you do not see yourself as a beggar, then you cry out not for mercy, but for what you deserve, what you have earned; you cry out for your rights and for respect.
But beggars do no such thing.
Beggars simply cry out from their nothingness: Lord, have mercy.
And our Lord has mercy.
The mercy we see in the manger.
The mercy we see in the Jordan.
The mercy we see on the cross.
For in those places we see the Son of God for us, having mercy. The Son of God joining Himself to us, taking our sin, and providing for us the gift of forgiveness and life. For always our Lord is merciful. From generation to generation, down through the ages. From the beginning of time to the end of time.

The problem is that we don’t always believe that.
When problems and difficulties arise in our lives,
    when hurts and pains seem to overwhelm,
    when it seems as if help is so very far away and there is no hope,
    we think God is not saving us, but punishing us, hurting us,
        withholding from us, turning away from us.
That God is not for me at all.
But it is not so. It is true, as Mary spoke, that God “scatters the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones . . . and the rich he has sent away empty.” And maybe He has done these things to you - scattered you, brought you down, emptied you. But why?
Because He is merciful. So that of humble estate, He may exalt you - not with a worldly exaltation, but with a true and everlasting exaltation.
That hungry, He may fill you with good things - not with the things of this world that we think we want, but with His truly good things.
And that a poor beggar, you come to His table - a table set for beggars.
For all is done in mercy, to have mercy.
That He not just be a God, but your God, your Saviour.

That is what Mary believed, and relied on, because God showing mercy in this way was going to mean much difficulty for her! But as Elizabeth said, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

And blessed are you too, who believe what is spoken to you from the Lord.
Who believe not what you know in your mind or feel in your heart, but who believe the Word of the Lord.
Who trust not in what is seen, but what is unseen.
Who rely not on yourself and what you can do, but on the mercy of the Lord.
The mercy of the Lord who chose too little Bethlehem for the birthplace of his Son,
    who chose too old Elizabeth to bear His forerunner,
    who chose a lowly virgin to provide the human nature of his Son,
    and who has now chosen you to be His son, His daughter.
To come to you and dwell in you, that you may dwell in Him.

And so for you, in mercy, the Son of God comes in the flesh.
For you, in mercy, He lives and does the will of His Father perfectly.
For you, in mercy, He offers up His flesh and blood on the cross as the sacrifice for your sin.
And now for you He comes, in mercy,
    to give His body and blood into your mouth for the forgiveness of your sin;
    to give you His Spirit to sanctify you;
    to give you faith to trust in Him.
That you too may magnify the Lord, and leap in the womb of your mother, the Church.
For as only beggars cry out to God for mercy, so too only beggars praise God for his mercy.
His mercy, which isn’t always easy, but always good.
His mercy, which is His never-dying commitment to you.
His mercy, which provides for all your needs and especially your greatest need.
His mercy, which gives freely, with no merit or worthiness in you.

And so again this Advent season, His greeting has reached your ears and brought you good tidings of great joy which shall be for all people - that unto you God is merciful. For unto you is born a Saviour, Christ the Lord. Or as Mary went on to say, “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” For God does not forget His promises or His people. He does not forget you. He remembers His baptismal promise to you, and helps you, His servant, in remembrance of His mercy.

That’s what Christmas is about, for that’s what Jesus is about.
The mercy of God in the flesh.
The mercy of God, for you.

In the Name of the Father and of the (+) Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

If you look really, really closely, those little nubs on the hood of my car are my windshield wipers that I left standing up last night so they would not freeze to the windshield.  If you look at the lower left hand corner, you will also get a good sense of how high the snow is in my front yard.  Yes, winter arrived at my home today!

I shoveled snow six times before finally calling a halt.  Right now, the snow is light and much more easy to handle for someone who is weak.  Once the sun comes out tomorrow, the snow will grow heavy as it starts to melt a bit and become crusty on top and be altogether far more difficult in removal.  So,  I thought I would start now in the hopes that I might possibly have my car dug out by Monday, when I am quite sure my office will be open.  I have a path on the back deck to the steps and down them and have all of my sidewalk (front and by the street) cleared.  I also cleared a path around the car of one shovel width and then about three feet fore and aft.

Now, clearing my car out will be tricky because the way the snow plows usually turn onto the street running in front of my house leaves a very fat triangle of piled high snow.  Also, any clearing out I do now might just provide an attractive spot for the plowman to put street snow.  Still, given that the snow I did manage to clear out is already piled high in the bit of grass between the sidewalk and street, I am not really sure where what I still need to clear out will go.

I confess that it was too taxing to do the path about the car.  As I was finishing, I realized I was in trouble.  I fell four times between the car and the front steps and then crashed on the floor in the house.  I did not even have the strength to drag myself onto the green chair or the couch.  After a couple of hours, I fell asleep for two more.  When I awoke, I could at least move.  So, not only am I not sure where all the snow will go, I am not sure exactly how I will be able to clear out the street enough to actually get the car out. 

When I was trapped on the floor, I pulled the computer off the TV tray (thankfully catching it) and set it to play all 61 hymn files I have from Pastor.  Such riches!  Truly!  For a while, I wept over having them, having them in that moment.  I couldn't hold the hymnal to follow along, but I did sing the bits here and there that I remembered.

In between the shoveling and before and after the wet noodle episode, I read and sang hymns and studied.  Before I get to Kleinig, I thought I would share what I read and sang.  On Pastor S's website, he posted what he would be doing for Lessons and Carols.  Now I know what a carol is, but I do not know to what he is referring as lessons.  But all the online confessional pastors I read are having such a service, as is my church.  I'd ask Pastor, but right now he has at least a half dozen question emails from my sitting in his inbox, so I am reluctant to add one more.  Several people refer to Kings College when mentioning a Lessons and Carol service, but that doesn't really illuminate things for me.  But in any case, Pastor S posted the following, so I spent some time reading all the "lessons" and trying to sing the carols.  Of course, I really do not know many of them, so I substituted some of Pastor's hymns for the ones I don't know.  I chose ones I have yet to learn as fillers.

The Nativity of Our Lord
Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols

Office Hymn
Silent night, holy night (LSB 363)

First Lesson
Genesis 3:8–15 (The promised Seed shall bruise the serpent’s head)

First Carol
Savior of the nations, come (LSB 332)

Second Lesson
Genesis 22:15–18 (The Lord’s gracious promise to Abraham)

Second Carol
Creator of the stars of night (LSB 351)

Third Lesson
Isaiah 7:10–15 (The Virgin shall conceive and bear Emmanuel)

Third Carol
O Jesus so sweet, O Jesus so mild (LSB 546)

Fourth Lesson
St. Luke 1:26–38 (The Annunciation unto the Virgin St. Mary)

Fourth Carol
The angel Gabriel from heaven came (LSB 356)

Fifth Lesson
Isaiah 60:1–6 (The Glory of the Lord has risen upon you)

Fifth Carol
Come, your hearts and voices raising (LSB 375)

Sixth Lesson
Isaiah 62:10–12 (The Lord comes with salvation for you)

Sixth Carol
Lo, how a rose e’er blooming (LSB 359)

Seventh Lesson
St. Matthew 1:18–25 (The Birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior)

Seventh Carol
Away in a manger (LSB 364/365)

Eighth Lesson
1 John 4:7–16 (Let us love one another, for love is from God)

Eighth Carol
Once in royal David’s city (LSB 376)

Ninth Lesson
St. John 1:1–14 (The Word became Flesh and dwells among us)

Ninth Carol
Hark! The herald angels sing (LSB 380)

Processional Out / Hymn of Departure
Joy to the world (LSB 387)

Can you imagine a service filled with so much of the Living Word being poured out over you?  Oh, my, would that I could be there!

Kleinig...

The Lord God has give me

     the tongue of those who are taught,

that I may know how to sustain with a word 

     him who is weary.

Morning by morning He awakes;

     He awakens my ear

     to hear as those who are taught.

The Lord God has opened my ear,

     and I was not rebellious;

     I turned not backward.

I gave my back to those who strike,

     and my cheeks to those who pull out the bear;

I hid not my face

     from disgrace and spitting.

But the Lord God helps me;

     therefore I have not been disgraced;

therefore I have set my face like a flint,

     and I know that I shall not be put to shame.

     He who vindicates me is near.

Who will contend with me?

     Let us stand up together.

Who is my adversary?

     Let him come near to me.

Behold, the Lord God helps me;

     who will declare me guilty?

Behold, all of them wear out like a garment;

     the mouth will eat them up.

                            ~Isaiah 50:4-9

Our basic spiritual problem is that we have bad hearing.  It is as if our ears are blocked with wax.  God speaks to us constantly, but we can't hear Him.  At best, we hear Him faintly and in a distorted way.  But the man who speaks here in this prophecy was a good listener, a master of meditation, because God had "opened" his ears so that he could hear God's voice clearly.  Every morning, before he got up out of bed, God awakened his ear, his sense of hearing, so that he could hear the voice of God throughout the day, like a whispered conversation.  Since God taught him daily in the school of life, he was able to sustain other weary people with the Word of God.  His ears had been opened in a strange way.  The more the man was ridiculed and abused by his enemies, the more he relied on God for his survival and eventual vindication.  And the more he relied on God in the darkness of persecution and rejection, the more clearly he heard the voice of God who justified and upheld him.  His faith in God and the persecution that came from his faith in God opened his ears to the voice of God.

In this passage, which is the third of the Servant Songs found in Isaiah, we see much more than just the portrait of an ideal sage, a perfect prophet, or a good spiritual director; we have a sketch of Jesus Christ, the Servant of God.  He is the perfect listener to God the Father.  As our heavenly leader, Jesus is not only the master of meditation but also the best teacher of it.  So He teaches us what He has learned; He joins us with Himself so that He can lead us on the way that He has gone. Just as He opened the ears of the deaf people that were brought to Him in His earthly ministry, He also has opened our ears so that we, like Him, can hear the voice of His heavenly Father.  The Father's plan is to use Him to awaken each of us morning by morning, so that we receive His Word each day. (125-127)

I found this bit of Kleinig both encouraging and chastising.  We studied the Servant songs in Pastor's Isaiah bible study a few years ago, but I did not "hear" as I did today.  I did not see that God gave me this portion of His Word for me.

The more the man was ridiculed and abused by his enemies, the more he relied on God for his survival and eventual vindication.  And the more he relied on God in the darkness of persecution and rejection, the more clearly he heard the voice of God who justified and upheld him. 

The trials I face at work are opportunity...for faith...for learning...for ministry.  The pain and weakness I face in my body were born by Him on the cross, leaving me not alone as I walk that path.  The darkness I face in my life is not dark to Him...and therefore not dark to me....

So He teaches us what He has learned; He joins us with Himself so that He can lead us on the way that He has gone.


Lord Jesus, come quickly!  But until You come unstop my ears and help me quit Sinai. Bring me to the magnificent, sustaining gift of Your body and blood that I may be joined with You....

Tonight, Pastor's Lovely Bride played a few times the measures from Jesus Came, the Heavens Adoring that were giving me trouble, so I can now sing the hymn through...authorized verses and the new ones!  I am still hoping Pizza Man, Vee, and Bettina write theirs.  Today, another woman from church said she would write one if Pastor would ensure it was spiritually sound.  I laughed at the very idea she would need such help.  And yet ten years a Lutheran she still respects the works danger of her Protestant past and was not joking in the least.

His bride also played and sang two verses of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel with me even though her youngest daughter was long over due to bed.  Little Cindy Lu Hoo has always turned away from me whenever I tried to greet her, but spending time with her sister after work to show her features of her new camera seemed to have convinced Cindy Lu I might not be such a bad person.  So, she let me read her three books before I left!

On the way home, I stopped by Pizza Man's house because he picked up two net bags of Babybel cheese for me at Costco.  His Lovely Bride Vee, upon hearing me bemoan the fact that I did not realize the arctic weather coming down upon us and so did not get some milk since I am running quite low, promptly offered one of the two gallons she bought.  Knowing that she was not able to find the organic milk she prefers for her two cherubs, I felt less qualms about accepting her generosity.  What an amazing woman she is!

I also stole a few moments to curl up on the couch with her cherubs long enough to read them each a book.  I miss being with children, having them about my life as I did when I was younger and always the one to call when babysitting was needed.  Most often, I did not charge because I struggled with knowing that Christ certainly never would have done so.  I had the time; why shouldn't I help out the parents of my church?  But it has been years and years since I have truly had a steady diet of reading and singing and playing with children save for Bettina's wee ones.  Getting to do so in two homes this evening was very special for me.

No Walther or Kleinig once I finally made it home, just the Book of Concord and the Psalter.  You see, I came across a post about Baptism that has thrown me for a loop, so I read that section of the Large Catechism in the Book of Concord, four times in a row.  I simply cannot see the point, a basis for the stance.  I read it over and over in search of something to support or disprove how I feel about baptism, my understanding.  However,  I confess the fourth read was primarily the call of Luther and Lutheran academics.

Praying the Psalter, reading aloud 14 psalms--one after another--creates such a wonderful sense of rightness, of mercy, of love.

You know, I've told Pastor 3 times now that Song of Solomon cannot be about Christ, for I have had countless Sunday school lessons on this part of of the bible--all were on putting sex where it belongs (marriage) and staying pure as singles.  I've told him this, but have not really given him an opportunity to answers.  Pastor did make two declarations that have given me pause:  1) the entire bible is about Jesus, not just certain parts and 2) the bible is not an instruction book.  Chew on the latter for a while...

You know what was the best part of my evening...even more so than getting such a brief moment of hymn joy?  Little Cindy Lu had this pocket nativity, made of felt, which she handed to me and asked me to "do it" as the next book.  I was perplexed and told her I needed her to do it for me.  She then told me the story of the birth of Christ using the small figures from the pouch.  At four, she knows that the story begins with the angel telling Mary not to be afraid.  At four, she knows they traveled to Bethlehem and stayed in a stable.  At four, she knows the angels proclaimed His birth to the wise men who searched far and wide for the Messiah.  At four!  It was an utter privilege, laced with pure joy, to listen to her tell me the story of my Savior's birth.

I learned today someone is hurt by what I wrote about her on my blog, quite angry, too.  I am sorry she is hurt.

Very few people know who I am or, for that matter, who are the people mentioned here.  Several years ago, I switched to initials and now nicknames because I cannot keep initials straight when my godparents are both J's, as is Pizza Man and my friend in Ohio and half a dozen other people I am forgetting at this moment.  The domain ownership information is not public.  None of that really matters.

This is my blog, my journal, my thoughts and feelings.  And, as Pastor is teaching me, there is nothing wrong with my feelings.  Today we talked a bit about the men from yesterday afternoon and he gave me more words...good words.  [Alas, I had not my notebook with me at the time.]  He told me that what welled up within me in that moment was not wrong, nor, he supposed, something that might change any time soon, if ever in certain circumstances.  There is nothing wrong with that.  What can change is how I handle such feelings...respond to them...my actions that follow them.  Wanting to scoff at such an idea, I clung to his hope instead.  We can work on that, Myrtle.

Funny, the person who is hurt is not the one I have been avoiding in the hopes of how I feel around her will not hurt her.

One question that was asked was how I can say she is not a Christian.  True, no one can know if for sure with regard to another person, but being a Christian is not someone who lives a moral life or has even been baptized or goes to church now and again or every Sunday.  Being a Christian has to do with belief and faith in Jesus Christ.  Period.  Without that belief there is no salvation.  One is simply not a Christian.  For have I not written enough of late that we are not participants in our own salvation?  It is a gift that we receive from the Holy Spirit.  If we are clothed with Christ, however, there will be an outpouring of works.  Perhaps, though, not what the world would most likely ascribe as great and godly works.

"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.  All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

"Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.' 

"Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 'When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You? 

"The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.' 

"Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.' 

"Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?' 

 "Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." 

~Matthew 25: 31-46

In any case, I say that if someone does not live by faith, does not proclaim Christ as Savior, does not cherish the Word of God, does not acknowledge themselves as a sinner, does not seek forgiveness...well, what claim of Christian could there be?  What puzzles me is her anger and hurt over acknowledging this.

She also believes I am lying.  But, sadly, I am not.  For one, appearance does matter to her and my inability to measure up in this area has been a judgment against me for years.  I have watched her judge others.  I often wonder what she says about me to others when I hear her picking on others with me.  It is truly hurtful.   A few years ago, she had lunch with my boss.  Afterward, my boss shook her head in disbelief over the meal.  My boss told me it was evident, with regard to her grandsons, that she cared more for their convenience or lack there of in the stories she related to my boss.  My boss asked me if she even loved them.  I am not the only one who has experienced her criticism.  It is how she is, or rather how she has chosen to become.  She did, however, grow up with criticism in her ears by a mother who failed to pour love over her. 

I write for me.  I write to make sense of my life.  I write because that is what I do, who I am.  Were I a cave woman, I think you would find my scratchings all over the walls of my home.  What I write is my experience, my feelings.  They are what they are. 

This day, both were not what I was expecting.

~~~~
Even though Advent is his busiest season, even though it is his birthday, even though he had met with me just yesterday, Pastor spent an hour talking with me about the angry phone call and the emails and the men.  I am not sure if he noticed, but it was the first time, when talking with him in...uhm...distress...I did not say I cannot do this; I cannot fail again.  Some of what he said made sense.  Some gave me a hope I could finally understand.  But mostly I thought about a question he did not answer (mostly likely because he missed it amongst my 1,001 other questions).  Is it wrong to be shoving Scripture  and hymnody into my head as fast and as much as possible?  Am I misusing the Living Word that way?

I was thinking about this as I finished reading Walther's Eighth Evening Lecture and a few bits leapt off the page at me:

Someone who is in anguish and distress will come to you.  In every instance the cause of such anguish of soul will be that the Law has taken effect in your parishioner, and it does not occur to him that he can be saved by the Gospel.  He does not think of that while he wails:  "Alas!  I am a poor sinner; I am worthy of damnation," etc.  To such a person you must say:  "You are indeed a lost and condemned creature.  But the passage of Scripture which has told you that is Law.  There is, however, another teaching in Scripture.  The Law has done its work in you; by the Law is to come the knowledge of sin.  You must now quit Sinai and go to Golgotha.  See yonder your Savior, bleeding and dying for you!" (63)

Gee, Pastor, you need to tell me to quit Sinai!

The Formula of Concord, in the Epitome (Mueller, p. 533; Triglot Concordia, p. 801), says:  "We believe, teach, and confess that the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is to be maintained in the Church with great diligence as an especially brilliant light, by which, according to the admonition of St. Paul, the Word of God is rightly divided."  This is repeated in the Declaration of Article V (Mueller, p. 633; Trioglot Condordia, p. 951) as follows:  "As the distinction between Law and the Gospel is a special brilliant light, which serves to the end that God's Word may be rightly divided and the Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles may be properly explained and understood, we must guard it with especial care in order that these two doctrines may not be mingled with one another or a Law be made out the Gospel, whereby the merit of Christ is obscured and troubled consciences are robbed of their comfort which they otherwise have in the holy Gospel when it is preached genuinely and in its purity, and by which they can support themselves in their most grievous trials against the terrors of the Law."  If these two doctrines are not kept separate, the merit of Christ is obscured; for when I am afraid of the threatening of the Law, I have forgotten Christ, who says to me:  "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.  All ye that labor and are heavy laden, do but come, and you shall find rest unto your souls." (64)

Do but come.  Advent.  Jesus comes to us!  He calls us to come to Him!

Selah.

Is it wrong that I relish, savor, each time Walther and Luther mention the terrors of the Law for how less lonely that makes me feel?  The merit of Christ is obscured...troubled consciences are robbed of their comfort.  Oh, how I understand this!

He later writes:  However, the preacher must also be careful not to say that the Law has been abolished; for that is not true.  The Law remains in force; it is not abrogated. (65)

I believe this is important to remember because while Christ did fulfill the Law, He did not abolish it.  I think that in being taught that He fulfilled it, I have mistakenly learned that it was abolished.  So in coming face to face with the most excellent instruction of Luther in the Large Catechism, I am overwhelmed by the Law, by how it shines a fierce light on the hidden darkness of my heart, exposing all my sin. I cannot bear it.

The devil may whisper all manner of insinuations to him, but he will say to him:  "Your charges against me are quite correct; but I have another doctrine, which tells me something altogether different.  I am glad the Law has put me in such a woeful plight; for now I can relish the Gospel all the more." (65)

Get behind me satan!  I do not have to bear it!

In reading and thinking and thinking and reading, I have begun to wonder if shoving Scripture in my head is exactly what I should be doing because it is the Word which will have its way in me, work in me, not I.  I just need to give it time.  I wonder if I hear enough of forgiveness, of the Gospel, if I am filled with its light and sweetness, eventually that is where my mind will go first...instead of the Law.