I am fairly certain the lingering illness has transitioned into a sinus infection.  While I am not stuffed up, per se, for the past two days I have been bleeding when I blow my nose. Not in my nose...some place higher up.  [I stink at anatomy.]  My ears also hurt when I do and the throbbing pain lingers for a while.  I called Pastor's Lovely Bride, a nurse, to query this latest development and she suggested that I break down and visit the doctor's office since a sinus infection would need antibiotics to clear up.  I supposed she is right. I just took my temperature and it is back up to 102.2.

I held off blowing my nose the whole lessoning, because when I do it is a big mess and requires many a kleenex. 

~~~~
The time was worse and better than I anticipated, having to have a chaperon now.  Pastor brought the Lord's Supper, which very much surprised me since I hadn't begged for it beforehand.  In the liturgy for that, an abbreviated selection, Pastor included the Apostle's Creed.  I am fairly confident he did so because he remembered me asking him to include it in the abbreviated liturgy we used when he brought the Lord's Supper to me before a Wednesday evening bible study.  He also sang the Lord's Prayer, which I am fairly confident he did because I asked him to do so before.  In those small ways, I appreciate his efforts to serve as undershepherd to me.  As I have written before, I revel in confessing any of the three creeds with other Christians.  I dearly wish that he would sing the words of preparation of the bread and wine as he does in church, not because he does so in church, but because I truly enjoy the singing/chanting parts of the liturgy.  Doing so changes them in a way I cannot really explain. However, I have not asked him to sing/chant them because most of the time, I feel altogether too selfish as it is.  Pastor also sang Mark How the Lamb of God's Self-Offering to us.  I didn't even try to join him; I just do not understand that tune.  I savored the words though, especially the prayer of the third verse.

I will also say that while I was struggling before they arrived, just hearing the three psalms Pastor read and talking about them a bit, I was able to set aside my thoughts for a while.  How truly precious is the Living Word!

I asked Pastor to chose the psalms and found his choices interested.  It was, for me, quite a blessing that he ended with Psalm 67.  Sometimes, the best thing that you can do is pray the bits of the Psalter that are pure praise.  If you do, for a time at least, nothing else will matter save for the wonder of the Lord.


  God be gracious to us and bless us,
         And cause His face to shine upon us-- Selah.
  That Your way may be known on the earth,
         Your salvation among all nations.
  Let the peoples praise You, O God;
         Let all the peoples praise You.
  Let the nations be glad and sing for joy;
         For You will judge the peoples with uprightness
         And guide the nations on the earth. Selah.
  Let the peoples praise You, O God;
         Let all the peoples praise You.
  The earth has yielded its produce;
         God, our God, blesses us.
  God blesses us,
         That all the ends of the earth may fear Him.

As to the lessoning, I am left with more questions than answers primarily with nos. 93-98 (Part III, Large Catechism).  Pastor said he would look into them, but that means I have to wait for two weeks until my next joint session to learn those answers.  We are on the 5th petition of the Lord's Prayer, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  If you know me at all, you know I struggle with understanding forgiveness--I marvel at the whole I am forgiven now, this day, not just on the cross stuff, but I struggle with understanding forgiveness.  Sin?  Oh, have I got that down pat!

It was worse because I failed to keep a smile pasted on my face the whole time as the social contract demands.  It was worse because I had to pretend and know that if I do not make the time pleasing I will lose the chaperon and thus lose the lessoning in my home.

In my home, I can lay down and rest even as I am learning.  In my home, I can "come" in sweats, no makeup, and messy hair.  In my home, I do not have to worry where I sit or stand, how I look or talk...at least until I had to have a chaperon.

I was very tired by the time they came because I spent the morning desperately trying to clean up the house after being sick for so long.  The bird cage was a disaster, needing cleaning far before I grew ill.  And cleaning the bird cage requires cleaning the floor afterward, especially when the bottom is overflowing with food and millet waste.  I vacuumed and swept and dusted the main floor.  I cleaned the kitchen, emptying the sink, loading the dishwasher, and scrubbing the counter, sink, and stove top.  I took out the trash and changed the towel beneath the bird cage that catches the bird business from when they are on the external perches.  I cleaned both bathrooms in case they both needed them at the same time.  I cleaned the stairs.  And I picked up Kashi's toys since he LOVES to spread them all over the first floor.  I was shaking so much by the time I finished, I left the carrying down of the rocking chair from the study for Pastor to do when he arrived.  I am not sure what he thought about my leaving that work for him, but I wanted to still lie down on the couch, so I needed another chair.  Besides, the dining chairs are not that comfortable and my couch is really too small for two people to sit together unless they are family or very, very close friends.  I certainly couldn't envision Pastor and the chaperon sitting together on it if I took the green chair and reclined in it. 

Had it been just Pastor, I would not have lifted a finger for the lessoning.  He wouldn't have cared that my house was a war zone.  But the social contract demands that I do so for the chaperon.

I am very, very thankful she came.  She is very intelligent, a rather interesting person, and has been a Lutheran for a long while.  It just breaks my heart that for lessoning, too, I now have to walk on eggshells, working hard to hide who I am and struggle to figure out how to be socially acceptable.

I truly fail miserably at being a human being, at around others.

The highlight, of course, was the Lord's Supper.  The fragrance of the wine a heady wonder.  How is it so that the High Priest would come to me, such a miserable sinner, in His body and His blood this day?  Oh, Lord, how good and gracious you are!

I am torn between second best being having Pastor fill my house with the Living Word or his singing to me that oh-so-apt hymn or the prayer I chose for the end.  I found the latter on Pastor W's church website.  Since discovering it, I have prayed it myself several times, primarily because it is a revelation of who Christ is, a litany of sorts of the ways He comes to us.  But praying it with others, a corporate confession if you will, resonated more strongly within me. 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me a Sinner

Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal Word of the Father,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, the Word through whom all things were made,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, foretold by the prophets in signs and words,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, in the fullness of time conceived by the Holy Spirit,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Holy Virgin,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, hymned by the angels,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, adored by the shepherds,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, worshipped by the Magi,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, held by St. Simeon,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, praised by St. Anna,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, obedient to your parents,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to a sinner's baptism,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, fasting in the wilderness,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, driving out demons,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, cleansing the lepers,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, teaching the precepts of the kingdom,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, raising the dead,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, walking on water and changing water into wine,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, praised by the little children,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, riding into Your city as the sacrifice appointed,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, giving your body and blood to be eaten and drunk,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, praying in the garden,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, bound and mocked,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, stripped and beaten,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, innocently condemned to death,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, opening Your hands upon the cross to embrace the world,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, knowing the loneliness of our exile and our sin,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, trampling down death by death,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, pouring forth water and blood to save the world,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, sanctifying our graves by lying in a tomb,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, harrowing hell and releasing the prisoners,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, rising in victory over death and corruption,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, appearing to the disciples in the broken bread,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, ascending in triumph,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, High Priest who ever lives to intercede for us,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, coming on the clouds of glory to renew all things,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, dread Judge at the Last Day,
     have mercy on me, a sinner.
     Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Still fevered, congested, fatigued.  Sore throat has returned with a vengeance.

~~~~
Fainted today.  Twice.

~~~~
Tomorrow will be a day of pretending, of maintaining the social contract.  That I have to do so is breaking my heart.  A while ago, the one "place" I thought was safe is not.  Now this.

Still fevered, coughing, congested and tired.

Still home, but I worked today.  Actually, I worked 13 hours straight, with just a quick call about a check interspersed with many catching-up-after-letting-the-world-pass-me-by tasks.

I worked because I started a new design project, got feedback on it at 9:00, worked another hour or so, and then sent it to my Cousin D for ruthless examination and corrections.  Oh, how I was blessed by his eagle eye and keen composition sense!  What I turned in an hour after that is quite good...despite my dwindling ability to edit and proofread my own work.

Today, I had planned on going into work no matter how I felt because of how much I have missed, but my boss decided that my lingering germs should not come to the office.  So, I am allowed to work from home today and tomorrow.  That means instead of having six sick days between last week and this week, I will only have three, since I had a tremendously long day today and had a five hours more between Monday and Wednesday.  I am, however, sleeping in before I get back to the grindstone.  Tomorrow's tasks will be contacting those who signed up for entries on our new blog to start soliciting pieces, noodling questions for an educational project, and begin drafting a grant that is due in two weeks.  What took 13 hours today besides my new design project?  Primarily, reading and answering/filing 192 emails and database management for our eCommunications distribution list...and a dozen oh-since-you-are-working-from-home-here's-a-small-thing-you-can-do-for-me tasks.

The house is a wreck, laundry is piling up, the bird cage needs cleaning, Kashi needs walking, the kitchen is a disaster.  I think I shall collapse from catching-up on my home life if I ever manage to get well.  SIGH.

Actually, I have to be in the office Tuesday, so I have four more days to get over this virus.  Given how I feel, I am not altogether confident such will take place.


~~~~
If you look to the listings of Useful Blogs and Other Links, you will see that I added two more.  One that I would like to highlight is Holy Holy Hymnody.  This blog is actually not active right now, with the author finishing his last year of seminary and about to be a father for the first time  (if not already so blessed by  now), but I have truly savored reading through the old entries, learning bits of history, musical theory, and doctrine in the hymns he parses.

I wish I had the words for what Lutheran Hymnody has given me.  I do not.  Still, I try....

Many complain about the old, complex (complicated) German tunes.  I for one, failed rather miserably at learning them until Pastor started creating audio clips of him singing the hymns...all the verses!  I now have a collection of 81 hymns (and counting) that I can play whenever I would like, as often as I would like, filling my ears and my heart with the grace and mercy of God the Father, His Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, giver of faith and life.  So much scripture, so much doctrine permeates these hymns.  So much so that I oft miss the riches.

Such was the case with a hymn from last week. The tune was not one that I took to right away, whereas there were three others that I truly enjoyed, so I sort of set it aside.  To me, it sounds more like chanting than singing.  While I very much enjoy Pastor's chanting during the Divine Service, I do not particularly care for hymns like this one for I find no rhyme or reason--pardon the pun--in the tune.  I try to follow it and it sounds like musical gibberish, as if some child is pounding away on the keyboard.  And I feel very, very stupid trying to figure out how to sing the hymn and failing to do so even on the tenth time through.  When there are so many beautiful, stirring, poignant, and/or simple hymns I have learned, I find little reason to struggle through one like this.

Pastor asked me about it, but I brushed his question aside in favor of another topic.  Truly, I did not understand why he would ask.  Knowing he rarely points something out like that without a very good reason, I decided to sit down and work once more at learning this hymn.  Truly, I had not listened...

Mark How the Lamb of God's Self-Offering

Mark how the Lamb of God's self-offering 

Our human sinfulness takes on

In the birth waters of the Jordan

As Jesus is baptized by John.

Hear how the voice from heaven thunders,

"Lo, this is My beloved Son."

See how in dove-like form the Spirit

Descends on God's Anointed One.

From this assurance of God's favor

Jesus goes to the wilderness,

There to endure a time of testing

That readied Him to teach and bless.

So we, by water and the Spirit

Baptized into Christ's ministry,

Are often led to paths of service

Through mazes of adversity.

Grant us, O God, the strength and courage

To live the faith our lips declare;

Bless us in our baptismal calling;

Christ's royal priesthood help us share.

Turn us from every false allegiance,

That we may trust in Christ alone:

Raise up in us a chosen people

Transformed by love to be Your own.

                                        (LSB 600)

A Prayer!  It ends with a prayer!  And the words...do many of them not sound like much of what has crossed the pages here?  Oh, I should have listened!

Very much I wish I were musically inclined so that I could figure out if the complicated index that tells you if the hymn can be sung to another tune and then where that tune is.  I would like to be able to sing these words.  For I have come to see how hymnody is not merely singing.  No, it is singing and praising and giving thanks and praying to God, both as a member of His church and as His child.

For me, hymnody is a way to stand firm against the persistent whispers of satan, to remind myself what is true and pure and lovely.  It is light that I can shine against the darkness surrounding me.

For Bettina, hymnody is a way of saying, "I love you!" to me.  Though a Baptist, she is trying to learn some Lutheran hymns so that I will have someone to sing with, to praise with, to offer thanksgiving with, to pray with...so that I am not alone in my faith.  We'll finish a game of Scrabble and she'll tell me to wait one bit more, picking a hymn to sing with me.  The other day, she sang to me, serenaded me with Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, a hymn shared between our denominations.  I do not have an audio clip of this one.  Were I to have this in my collection, I guarantee it would be on repeat!

Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven, to earth come down;
Fix in us thy humble dwelling;
All thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus thou art all compassion,
Pure, unbounded love thou art;
Visit us with thy salvation;
Enter every trembling heart.

Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit
Into every troubled breast!
Let us all in thee inherit;
Let us find that second rest.
Take away our bent to sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.

Come, Almighty to deliver,
Let us all thy life receive;
Suddenly return and never,
Nevermore thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
Serve thee as thy hosts above,
Pray and praise thee without ceasing,
Glory in thy perfect love.

Finish, then, thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in thee;
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.
                                          (LSB 700)


What greater gift could you ask for than your friend singing these words to you, for you?


~~~~
Last night was a long, difficult night for I could not grow warm and the chills that wracked my body served only to accentuate the troubled thoughts I have from confession/absolution.  For the first time, I felt no peace afterward.  More so, I left more conflicted than before I started.

I piled several blankets on top of my arctic weight comforter.  I put on three layers of clothing.  I got up and scalded myself cherry tomato red in the shower.  I did exercises beneath the piles of coverings.  Nothing worked.  For over six hours, I shivered and trembled and cried in misery.

Several times I have tried to describe what this feels like and each time I believe I fail at even touching upon the sensation.  I am not merely chilled.  I am not speaking of goosebumps.  Waves of chills course up and down my body, deep within where no amount of hot water or electric blanket heat can touch.  The icy waves pile upon each other, one beginning after another and another so that there is no end, just unbelievable cold crashing against me.  They run beneath my skin; they fill the core of me.  There is no escape, no comfort, and seemingly no end.

After the first hour or so, when the shower only served to make me colder since I had to eventually leave the steamy bathroom lest I faint and make the frigid dash to my bed, I started thinking about the people of Haiti.  Each time my mind started turning back to confession or I started drowning in my own misery and fear, I forced myself to pray for them, to consider those lying trapped beneath the rubble, dying, wondering if anyone will come. My terror would end...did end.  For so many of them, they are still waiting.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

For me.  For them.  For us all.

Today in confession/absolution, there was no "offer of admonition and comfort from the Living Word" after my confession...just the stark reality of my sin and then pronouncement of forgiveness.  No blessing either.

Still fevered, congested, and very fatigued, but I have not been able to fall back asleep since Pastor left.  I know the important part of the liturgy is the absolution, but when you sit there and bare your heart and have no response, no comfort from the Word other than God loves you, it sure feels like a heap of condemnation. 

Especially when in one of the joint speaking parts of the liturgy, the words of Psalm 51: 10-12a, Pastor did not join me as he should have.  Why was he silent?  Does he think creating a clean heart in one such as I is near impossible because of what I confessed?  Does he not believe how mightily I struggle against my sin?  Does he think I dishonor God too much?

I am feeling very much like I should have kept my mouth shut.

Right now, I am trying to keep Psalm 103:12 in mind:

As far as the east is from the west,

    so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Lord I believe.  Help my unbelief!

Still fevered, coughing, achy, congested, and fatigued beyond all patience.

~~~~
I spent my awake hours trying to ponder how to answer Bettina's question regarding yesterday's post on the Holy Spirit.  She pointed out that while I covered how Lutherans believe the Holy Spirit come to us, I did not so much do the same for Protestants.

The early Protestants, such as those who followed Zwingli believed the Holy Spirit could come to us apart from Scripture.  Many, such as those who followed Calvin, believed He does not come to us in the Lord's Supper.  Those two points are major differences and are in conflict with the bible as Lutherans teach.

What I found interesting, or really more disheartening, was the fact that several hours of Googling did not really land me closer to being able to articulate what Protestants really believe.  Just like I struggled as a missionary searching amongst the libraries of all the missionary homes and the school and church.  So very little was written.

One contemporary Protestant scholar, a Presbyterian, noted that the Godhead had really been reduced to two Persons, so little is known or taught or even believed about the Holy Spirit.  His words:  we are very imprecise when we talk about the reality of the Holy Spirit and his function in the Christian equation.

I tried reading the confessions of Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists, but there are so very many versions and so very many differences, that I could not really ferret out the beliefs.  Though, I did note that Baptists do not believe in Sacraments, only ordinances.  If you doubt my search results, just click here and you will find a repository of 47 different confessions of the Baptist faith, as well as 17 catechisms.  [Oh, how thankful I am for the Book of Concord, both for its true and precise scriptural teaching and that it has stood in common confession for nearly 500 years!  A confession accessible to all.]

I think a large part also comes down to the Lutheran doctrine of Justification.  Object Grace is completely a work of God, not man.  Pastor once likened it to birth.  While we do interact and impact our life after we are born, we have absolutely no part in the birthing process.  It is something that happens to us, in the gift of life.

The Holy Spirit teaches, illumines, and enkindles our hearts so that we may understand, accept, cling to, and persevere in the Word of God.  He daily forgives us and sanctifies us.  These are not the work of a one-time conversion.  For we continue in our sin even as we have taken on the righteousness of God until the day we depart from this mortal coil.  He gives faith.  He sustains faith.  He increases faith.  He does so in the Word, the Sacraments, and Absolution.  Lord I believe!  Help my unbelief!

Another difference also seems to be in how the bible is viewed.  Many view it as merely a book, a text, written by God, but a thing nonetheless.  Lutherans believe and teach that the bible is the Living Word of God, powerful and active in our lives, made so by and through the Holy Spirit.  Hence, all those verses which council us to have the Word in our mouths, on our tongues, falling from our lips, and filling our ears so that it might work in us to our good and His perfect will.  Hence, all those times I have encouraged the same, why I crave being read to, why I cherish all the scripture audio clips Pastor sends to me, why he does so, why the Living Word permeates utterly the Liturgy, filling our ears from versicles to canticles, from readings to sermon, from prayers to creeds, from opening to closing hymns.

I found so many articles that were calls to teach about the Holy Spirit, some with the false doctrine of a second baptism of the Holy Spirit.  I found one book that two Baptist preachers were working on collecting ways the Holy Spirit was working in peoples' lives so that people could understand He is still at work, still relevant.  Such made me gasp, literally.  Of course He is still at work.  I am baptized!  I am forgiven!

SIGH.

The bottom line is that I have come to understand how very many Christians do not even know the particulars of their own confession of faith, much less what the bible actually teaches.  I admit that I was one of those people, even though I actually studied reformed theology and actually read Sunday School/bible study lessons ahead of time.  I knew what I had been taught, but much of that was based more on the human tradition, secular humanism, and pop psychology that has crept into contemporary theology rather than on the confession of my denomination.  I rather foolishly thought that denominational differences did not matter so much.  But when it comes to the work of faith, they does.  It is not my work.  It is the Work of God in giving His Son; it is the Work of Christ in giving His life; it is the Work of the Holy Spirit in giving faith.  Ours truly is a receptive spirituality.  And I, for one, am very, very thankful that my sinful self is not on the hook for making or keeping me holy.

I challenge you to delve into your own confession, to weigh it against the bible and against what is coming from your pulpit. Better yet...dive on into the Book of Concord.  You won't be disappointed!

~~~~
Pastor P posted a rather insightful observation on Jesus Christ in the church today.  May you thoughtfully consider his words....

Where are you, Jesus?

It is the question of the wounded woman carrying the loss of her husband or her child to the Sunday assembly of God's people. Where are you, Jesus? It is the question of the man who bears the burden of unemployment and a family counting on him and he does not know where to turn. Where are you, Jesus? It is the question of a child who watches a friend dabble in drugs or sex in search of meaning and purpose and love. Where are you, Jesus? It is the question of the world faced with injustice, violence upon the weak and vulnerable, and tyrants who prey upon those they are to care for. Where are you, Jesus? It is the question of the Church tempted to mirror in worship and parish life what they see on Oprah or the latest pop psychology or what people seem to want or desire from their lives. Where are you, Jesus?

Some find Jesus in truths as impersonal as the day is long even though they may be true. Some find Jesus in moralism or good behavior (that starts and usually ends with good intentions alone). Some find Jesus in rules to be followed or regulations to be obeyed. Some find Jesus in a Bible used more as a weapon than an instrument of grace. Some find Jesus in a warm feeling or a pleasant thought. Some find Jesus in a momentary distraction from an altogether sad or lonely or suffering filled life.

The Church is given one all important mission -- to point to where Jesus is in a world filled with people who do not know but who need Him desperately. This mission is lived out in the worship of the assembly, in the baptismal vocation of the people within the world, and in witness of His people. Our calling as the Church and as Pastors of the Church and as the people of the Church is to point to where Jesus is... except that we are not so sure, anymore. We have lost confidence in the old answers -- not because we have new or better answers but because we have grown weary of waiting upon the Lord and His timing, tired of His timetable not conforming to our needs, and tired of trying to explain why Jesus does not make it all better.

Where are you, Jesus? The answer to this question is not so difficult. Jesus is there in the Word -- working His will and purpose out through that Word. What is important to us is not simply whether or not His Word is true but whether or not it does what it promises. Something can be true and still be powerless. Jesus cannot. His truth is His power -- to enter our humanity with all of its darkness, distress, and death. His truth is His power -- to forgive the sins we cannot get rid of on our own. His truth is His power to address our mortal world with His immortality so that even today we glimpse in Him the eternity that awaits His consummation. His truth is His power to forgive what we have thought and said and done wrong - without condoning or explaining away our sin. His truth is His power made perfect in our weakness and sufficient for all this day's trouble. His truth is His power to restore our lost lives so that we may live out and live fully the new life that is His gift and blessing to once lost and condemned sinners. His truth is His power to answer death's reign with His reign, with the life that death cannot overcome that is our possession even while we are still on this side of glory.

To the folks on Sunday morning, to the Pastor who feels some anxiety over not seeing the hoped for results, to the sinner desiring forgiveness and the aimless wanderer looking for purpose and a home... to all of them, Jesus is here... in the water that kills us to make us alive again... in the living voice of the Gospel that personalizes absolution to confront our sin... in the bread and wine become His Body and Blood that we eat and drink satisfied and content.

I say to the Evangelicals who talk about Scripture as if it were a dead book, Christ is alive! He works His life through His Word. His Spirit is attached to His Word so that our hearts may hear and respond with faith. Christ is in the Word of the Gospel -- the Word that has the power to keep its promises and do what it says.

I say to the Protestants who talk about Sacraments as if they were terrible duty to be kept, Christ is here in the water of baptism... in the bread and wine that is His Body given and His Blood outpoured.

I say to the Roman Catholics content to watch or to return Christ to the Father as the Church's offering, Christ is His own gift and that gift comes through earthly elements set apart for His heavenly glory. He gives Himself to us not to be an object to be admired but as the food that has the power to do what it says, to feed us till we want no more.

I say to the Lutherans afraid to admit they are Lutheran -- Christ is here among us with His grace, delivering His gifts to His people in the water, bread, wine, and voice that bears His name. Teach and preach this powerful presence to your people.

Where are you, Jesus? Here... in the splash of the water... in the taste of the bread and wine... in the touch of absolution.., in the fellowship of those who bear His name and believe in Him... in the places where He said He would be... He is no figment of our imagination -- He is the imagination of the Father come down to fill our minds and hearts, to teach us to believe, and to lead us to live out what we believe...

Where are you, Jesus? That is what people come every week to ask me. At the very least I owe them an answer and as a Lutheran I owe them an answer rooted not in my own thoughts or feelings but in God's own disclosure. Jesus is here... in the voice that says "I forgive you all your sins in the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit." These are not perfunctory words but powerful ones that set free the bound and release from the guilty their heavy burden. Jesus is here... in the water that once claimed you for Himself and still holds you by connecting you to His own death and enveloping you in His life until the you, you once were, that you is dead and gone and God has revealed a new you. This is not symbolic water but healing water that lives up to its promise and accomplishes what it signifies. Jesus is here... in the bread and cup set apart for His purpose, according to His Word, as He has promised, to deliver to us heaven's bread, the bread of life and the cup of salvation that is His body -- the same one incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin, suffered and died on the cross, risen and ascended in glory... and the cup of His blood once pulsing through His veins and spilled at His circumcision and poured out upon the cross... yes it is a mystery and all we can say is to echo the words of Blessed Mary "how can this be..." and humble ourselves before this mystery as did she "Let it be to me according to His Word.."

Until this is the focus of worship, until the locus of Christ is where He has attached Himself to deliver to us the wonderful fruits of His life, death, and resurrection, Christ will always be an image without a connection to our reality, distant from our suffering, missing in our troubles, and ultimately powerless except to tell us to hang in there... Until we rediscover this vibrant and vital awareness of His presence in His gifts, our people will struggle alone, without joy to carry them through or grace equal to their trials or power sufficient to keep them steadfast and immovable... and, without purpose and identity as God's people within His kingdom who live out Christ's reign within a world awaiting its consummation and fulfillment...

Apparently, I am good for nothing but sleeping on the couch and making pitiful phone calls when I awake.  Taking Tylenol non-stop along with two types of cold medicine, I still am coughing, congested, achy, and  running a fever.  I certainly do not remember the last time I felt so crappy.  And I am being very, very, very childish for I am rather concerned at how fatigued I am.  Wet noodle to the nth degree.  SIGH.

Kashi doesn't not understand why I am not playing with him or taking him on his walks.

The bright spot of my day was that Pastor Skyped me from bible study so that I could participate a bit.  I wanted to ask a few more questions near the end, but he was racing through the last verses (my notes stink at that point), so I hope I can remember to bring it up next time.  It has to do with another common reference I find amongst the psalms with regard to where the psalmist stands...or his footing.  Perhaps I will work on framing the questions before next week by trying to write about them here....later, when I am not so tired!

For now, I thought I would try to articulate what I learned about the Holy Spirit, but I am, in fact, rather chicken to do so.  I still need to study more and ask more questions....

However, here goes nothing:

The Holy Spirit is not One about whom I've had many sermons or Sunday School lesson or bible study topic.  When I was a missionary, one of the subjects I ended up teaching was seventh and eighth grade bible class.  I had no curriculum, so I rather blithely decided to teach the Trinity.  Ambitious, I know.  However, things went fairly well until we got to the Holy Spirit.  I knew little.  The resources I had been using mentioned little.  In Protestantism, the role of the Holy Spirit is sort of relegated to being likened to a dove.  I am fairly certain I heard Him taught as our Helper, but helping how? 

So, John 16:8-11:

And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me, and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer behold Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

The work of the Holy Spirit is thus, to show us our Sin, to reveal Jesus as the Son of God, and to proclaim His work on the cross.  No small role, eh?  He brings us to the Truth...the truth about ourselves, the truth about Christ, and the truth about His work on the cross.

To help me better understand, Pastor had another one of his drawings for me, which I turned into a graphic so that I could post it here.  In short, the Father sends us the Son, who sends us the Holy Spirit, who takes us to the Son, who takes us to the Father.  That was perfectly clear, right?

As I have written before, it all comes down to original sin.  You either believe it or not.  If you do, then you must believe in Objective Grace, for being in sin prevents us, on our own, to fear God, to love Him, and to trust Him. Faith, then, is a gift in and of itself, its beginning and its increase.  Thus, praying for faith is actually praying for the Holy Spirit to work in our lives, to teach us, to reveal the Word to us, to help us in our every need.

One of my favorite verse snippets is in Acts 17:28:  for in Him we live and move and have our very being.  For me, that sums things up nicely.  Without Christ, we are dead.   Plain and simple.  Yet understanding the magnitude of this can take a lifetime.  And, as I know full well, the devil will spend that lifetime setting obstacle after obstacle in your path as you do so.  Thus, Christ sends a Helper, that we, even in our sin, even in a sinful world, may walk in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior.

Pastor also had a very interesting lesson on why we do not see the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit that the apostles bestowed this day.

We read together Acts 8:4-15, where Philip was teaching the Samaritans.  He had those extraordinary gifts and used them as he taught them.  The Samaritans believed and they were baptized.  Then Peter and John came and lay hands upon them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit.  The Samaritans couldn't believe without faith, without the Holy Spirit working in their lives, so their baptism was real.  What Peter and John did was to bring the visible signs of the Holy Spirit so that people might know the Holy Spirit was working in their lives.  Those visible signs were important among the Gentiles, signs to show that Christ had come for all men, not just the children of Israel.

If you notice, Philip was given those extraordinary gifts but could not give them himself.  Pastor believes that on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came and rested upon them, the "them" was not the 120 gathered but the twelve, bestowing upon them those extraordinary gifts and the ability to give them to others, so that the visible testimony might be evident as the church was being established.  Those signs were evidence of the apostles' authority. Thus, as the apostles died, the ability to give the gifts died with them; then as the first generation of the church died out, those extraordinary gifts died out altogether.  They were no longer needed as the church had been established among all men. The writings of the early church fathers point to this

An interesting note Pastor added was that the Greek of the New Testament, a common sort of Greek, Koine, also died out around that time, with classical Greek becoming the vernacular.

The speaking in tongues was not the gibberish that some speak today, claiming they are speaking in tongues, but rather the Holy Spirit giving the teachers the tongue of the people gathered, each heard in his own language so that language was no barrier to the Truth. 

Finally, we also talked about the main difference between Protestants and Lutherans was how the Holy Spirit comes to us.  Lutherans believe that the means by which the Holy Spirit comes to us are those outlined in the bible as promises of where He will be:  in baptism and the body and blood of Jesus Christ (the Lord's Supper) and the Living Word.  Translation:  He comes to us in Word and Sacrament.

Hmm...did you follow all that?

Time for another nap....

I have gone from having annoying sneezes to feeling like death warmed over.

This morning I dragged myself to church, but on the way home, I started having this out-of-body experience from the cold medicine I took and had much difficulty staying on the road.  Once home, I slept.  Then Bettina woke me up for Scrabble. I lost.  Then I napped.  I tried to watch some football, but fell asleep again.  Getting up to take Kashi out is horribly difficult.

Like a frightened two-year-old, I kept asking Bettina if I should be feeling this horrible.  It has been a long, long time since I have been really ill.  Drowning in fatigue, I called my Writing Student and asked if she would fetch me some Dr. Pepper and lemon.  I am convinced that it will make me better.

Of course, she also bought me some stuff for salad and some veggies and some soup.  Once here, she prepared one of the cans of soup:  organic black bean soup with carrots and corn.  Oh, my, tasty.  I feel myself getting better already.

Well, actually, I am so tired from eating that I need to take another nap.

Before I do, I wanted to add the sermon from last week.  Somehow, I have spent all this time thinking about it and yet failed to pass its blessing on to those who read here.  In short, there are two thoughts that have been lingering:  a) the light of Christ shone on Herod and b) the wise men could have gone straight to Bethlehem, but God sent them first to Herod.

Even knowing what he did, what he would do, God loved Him enough to send His son to die for Herod.  God desires all men be saved....what does that mean to me?

The Gospel of the sermon?  That Epiphany is for me.  Now, this day, and always....


Jesu Juva

“A Word to Make Wise”
Text: Matthew 2:1-12; Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12

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

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Thus spoke the prophet Isaiah, and thus did the Wise Men. They arose and went to see the Light of the world that had come to them and was revealed to them.

We do not know much about them, those Wise Men. How many there really were, whether they came from Arabia or Persia or farther East, whether they were sorcerers or astrologers or kings or priests. Many speculate on these things and get hung up on them. But of these things we are not told, perhaps because none of that really matters. What matters is our Lord’s epiphany – that in this child, God wants to be found and known and worshipped. By shepherds, by Wise Men, by all. And so He leads us not to Heaven to find Him, but to Bethlehem.

And so the Word of God came to the Wise Men, so that when they saw the star, they knew it was His star. They followed it to find the new King, leaving home and country, perhaps traveling hundreds of miles among strangers and strange lands. When they got to Jerusalem, the capital city, where kings should be, and their King was not there, the Word of God came to them again and directed them to Bethlehem - and there they find their King. In an unkingly town, in an unkingly house, in unkingly poverty, they find Him. Certainly not what they expected. But taking their reason and wisdom captive to the Word of God, they fall down and worship Him, and willingly sacrifice gold, treasure, honor, and all they have.

And so they are truly wise Men, for this is true wisdom: to believe the Word of God and worship Him.

But God desires this not only for the Wise Men but, as St. Paul tells us, this is for all people. To bring to light for everyone the unsearchable riches of Christ. And this we see in the Epiphany story as well. For notice to how many people the Word of God came; to how many people God revealed His Son, that they too might arise, shine and worship Him.

First there was King Herod. You may not know much about King Herod, but he was not really a nice guy. He had his favorite wife and his son both executed because he thought they had designs on his throne. After the Wise Men came and went without telling him where Jesus was, he issued orders to kill all the babies in the region in his effort to get rid of this newborn King. And then just a couple of years later, when Herod was sick and knew he was going to die, his deepest regret was not his murderous ways, but that no one would mourn for him. (And he was probably right!) So he had his sister call all the Jews of high standing together into the arena and placed guards around the place with orders that when he was dead, everyone inside was to be killed. That way he could insure there would be plenty of mourning in Jerusalem at the time of his death.

Yet the light of God’s Word arose and shone on King Herod. The Wise Men came and preached to him. The chief priests and scribes preached to him. Think about it: God could have gotten the Wise Men to Bethlehem and by-passed King Herod in this story altogether – but He didn’t. Yes, the love of God in His Son is for you too, Herod. As evil as you are. Do not love your throne more than the King; do not love the darkness more than the light. Arise, shine, for your light has come!

And then there were the chief priests and the scribes. They were the smart guys, the doctors, experts in the Holy Scriptures. When Herod asked them, they knew exactly where this Christ, this King, was to be born. They knew the prophecies and promises. They knew more than the Wise Men did. Yes, the light of God’s Word arose and shone on them – but they did not go. Why? Why did they not go out to see the star that was there for all to see? Were they not interested? Or did they have no room for God’s epiphany to them?

O chief priests and scribes, do not love your theologizing and scholarship more than the King; do not love your comfort and position more than the light. Arise, shine, for your light has come!

And then there was all Jerusalem, also. Yes, upon them too the light of God’s Word arose and shone, for we are told, they were troubled at the news. Troubled, no doubt, for there was no telling how King Herod would respond and what he would do! But the star and the Word were there for them too.

O Jerusalem, do not love your life more than the King; do not fear men more than God; do not love the safety and security of the world more than the light. Arise, shine, for your light has come!

And then last (but by no means least!) the love of God in His Son is for you too. For upon you the light of God’s Word has arisen and shined, that you too might believe and worship Him.

Yes, Epiphany is for you. You who are no better than King Herod. For though you have not murdered anyone with the sword, have you not murdered with the anger and resentment of your heart? Are you not also filled with self-importance, desiring people to serve you and mourn for you? Do you not also seek to keep your position in this world and life instead of humbling yourself and serving others? And do you not love the darkness that hides your sin rather than confessing it and seeking forgiveness?

Yes, Epiphany is for you, who are like the chief priests and scribes. For you know your Scriptures, knowing more than the Wise Men did. But do you too have no room for God’s epiphany in your life? Is the Word of God for you something learned but not lived? Are you satisfied and complacent with your Christian life? Do you not also love your knowledge of Christ without serving the Christ in your neighbor?

And yes, Epiphany is for you modern day citizens of Jerusalem. Does what the coming of this King mean for your life trouble you? Do not you also fear men more than God? Do you not also love your life more than your King, and the safety and security of the world more than the light?

And Epiphany is for you, for the light of God’s Word continues to arise and shine upon you. God could have by-passed you or given up on you – but He didn’t. His love in His Son is for you. For He has come not for the righteous, but for sinners. And so He has preached His Word to you, through Wise Men, apostles, prophets, pastors, family, and friends. He has shone His light and showered His blessings upon you. That you might repent and turn from your sinful ways. That you arise and shine in the light of a new life. That you come and find Him where He wants to be found; His epiphany here to you in water and words and bread and wine. Do not be offended by the unkingly place, or the unkingly garb, or the unkingly life He has called you to, but taking your reason and wisdom captive to the Word of God, fall down and worship Him, willingly sacrificing gold and treasure and honor and all that you have . . . for He has given you all that He has.

For this is true wisdom – to believe the Christ in the manger, the Christ on the cross, the Christ risen from the dead. To believe that God has come in the flesh to take your sin and evil upon Himself and take it to the cross, in order to redeem you from all sin and death. To believe that in Him you have the forgiveness of all your sin and have been given a new life to live – set free from the old ways and wisdom of this world, to a new life in Christ, your Saviour. A life in His ways and wisdom.

And not only to believe, but worship Him. Not by trying to climb to Heaven, but by going to the Bethlehem of His Church. To His epiphany here, where He has promised to be for you. For the highest worship of God is to come to Him and receive the gifts He comes and brings. The gift of Holy Baptism and the new life He gives in those waters. The gift of Holy Gospel and the new life He gives in those words. And the gift of Holy Communion and the new life He gives in His body and blood. And having received Hs faith, His forgiveness, His life and salvation in these gifts, to then give our gifts to Him by giving them to Him in our neighbor. For it is not in gold, frankincense and myrrh that our God is well pleased, but in our lives of good works and service, of forgiveness and love. And to be not offended at the Christ in the unkingly rags, the unkingly places, and the unkingly lives of our neighbors, but to willingly sacrifice all that we have for them. That through us, the Word of God and His forgiveness and love arise and shine on them.

And then it will be said that there are not only Wise Men in the east, but also in the west, in your homes and mine.
Wise men not according to the wisdom of this age, but wise with the wisdom of God in Christ Jesus.
Wise men upon whom the light of God’s Word has arisen and shined.
Wise men who have come to worship Him.

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

Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord.  Amen.

My lessoning today was virtual, in that we used Skype for the first time.  I will admit that I was not altogether enthusiastic about this, but, as Bettina pointed out, virtual lessoning is better than no lessoning.  However, the time turned out much better than I anticipated.  Yep, I was wrong!  Granted, there was no blessing, but still...I savored my lesson!

Pastor read three psalms, not one, and we sang three hymns together.  He even gave me a bonus in a preview of a hymn he is writing for Lent!

The first bit we did was for him to answer a question I had from Psalms.  Many times I read of God shattering the doors of bronze, most particularly in Psalm 107:16.  What are doors of bronze?

Well, the explanation went something along the lines of how most cities they went up against in battle were walled cities.  The strongest part of their defense could have been great big doors of bronze.  Simply put, God is stronger than the greatest strength of man.  Blast!  Boom!  Those "impenetrable" doors are shattered.  Our greatest adversaries are but twisted, broken metal before God.

We then moved back to the Holy Spirit.  This was the last bit of teaching before I gained the alter, but I find that I cannot re-tell it as well as I could wish, give a defense of my faith so to speak.  I understand the Holy Spirit's role in giving us faith, but not so clearly as to have the words fall easily from my tongue.

The wonderful part was that he came at it from a completely different direction than the first time, painting a larger picture for me that clearly sets the difference between how early Protestants, at least, and Lutherans differ as to the role of the Holy Spirit.  Once again, I find myself resonating with the Lutheran teaching.

Read through John 16:5-15 and ponder a bit on the Holy Spirit.
Then read John 14:25-26 and ponder more.
Then read John 14:16-17 and ponder even more.

Backwards I know, those verses, but sometimes starting with the big picture and then falling back to the simple promise makes those promises greater, more magnificent.

Now read Acts 8:4-17.  Why could it be that Peter and John came? And what could this have to do with the "gifts of the Holy Spirit," such as speaking in tongues?

I shall answer, hopefully clearly, after you have had a chance to meditate on these passages for a while!
 
~~~~
I found this quote on another blog's comment section.  Remember what I wrote about how the Reformation ought really to be called the Restoration?  Well, I find this articulates the reasoning behind such, although a bit differently.

It is not we who call ourselves Lutherans. Rather, our adversaries call us that. We allow this to the extent that this title is an indication of the consensus that our churches have with the orthodox and catholic doctrine that Luther set forth from Holy Writ. Therefore we allow ourselves to be named after Luther, not as the inventor of a new faith but as the asserter of the old faith and the cleanser of the church from the stains of Papist dogmas. Consequently, we also do not reject the names “Christian” and “catholic,” nor do we render ourselves unworthy of them by the approval of any heretical dogma, as did the Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians, etc. Rather, we are called “Christians” from Christ as the only Author and Teacher of our faith. We are called “catholics” from our consensus with the catholic faith. We are called “Lutherans” from Luther as the asserter and defender of that faith, but especially as the reformer whom God raised up.

—Johann Gerhard, On the Church (Theological Commonplace XXV), § 156.

~~~~
I still need help.  Don't do that!

Pastor invited me come over to his abode to watch the first half of the Cowboys-Eagles game (oh, my 'Boys did me proud) when I lamented that I wished I did not have to watch the game alone.  But he said I had to come early enough to play a game with his Lovely Bride and his Eldest Daughter.  I thought the game was at 7:00, so I was sure that it would not be too much past their household bedtime (8:30-9:00) for me to be there.  Alas, I was wrong.  It was nearly 10:00 PM when I left.

Anyhow, I sort of finagled a dinner invitation out of it and his Lovely Bride prepared a rather sumptuous, moist, tender pork roast for our consumption.  I do not know her well, but I do so like what I know of her.  When I asked what one of the two salad dressing options tasted like, she promptly handed over a piece of lettuce dripping with the dressing so that I might taste without having to commit my salad to the dressing!  What kindness!

I also was quite brazen and asked if they had grape jelly for his Lovely Bride had also prepared fresh bread.  Oh, how I enjoy butter and grape jelly on a roll or slice of bread at the end of a feast.  I had two.  And a cookie.  And I was soon quite ill.

I consider the fact that I did not puke in the Pastor's bathroom a minor miracle and great accomplishment on my part.  Unfortunately, I did moan and groan and castigate myself rather heartily for quite a while as I fought to keep my "dessert" down where it belonged.

Oh, I need help.  

I truly need help.  Pastor looked at the ingredients label and discovered the grape jelly/preserves had 10 grams of sugar per tablespoon.  It would be a generous estimate to say I only had three tablespoons between my two slices of bread; I fear it may have been four.

Sugar on top of carbohydrates followed by another sugar/carbohydrates combination.

Oh, I need help!  Don't do that, Myrtle!

~~~~
Bettina called just as I was leaving Pastor's and stayed on the phone with me until the end of the game!  Such blessing God bestowed on me today.  Both sets of company were Eagles' fans, yet both allowed my rather obnoxious fan self to not be alone during the game. How sweet and thoughtful and rather selfless...

~~~~
Uhm...well...I would HIGHLY recommend that you not remove your contacts directly following the application of Vick's vapor rub...at least not without scrubbing your fingers with much soap.  Vick's applied to the eyeball is an altogether unpleasant experience!

I spent some time with Luther today...in some of writings on Psalms....

While I enjoyed much of what I read, though I did not understand most of it truly, I keep thinking about two bits in the introduction:

You have come, fathers and excellent men and brothers, with magnanimous and benevolent spirit, I see, to honor the opening and beginning of the study of this illustrious prophet, David. Perhaps I myself should not have failed in the duty to bestow this honor; in fact, I should have taken the lead with some prefatory remarks, obviously complimentary ones, to sing the praises of this outstanding prophet. He is certainly in every way wonderful and most excellent and most worthy of genuine praise. But it seemed more useful to me to omit this, lest I might seem to promise something splendid or lest someone might think there is something in me beyond what he sees. I am certainly aware of how this burden presses down on my shoulders, a burden with which I have wrestled in vain for some time. Compelled at last by my instructions, I give in to it. I confess frankly that even to the present day I do not understand many psalms and, unless the Lord enlightens me through your help, as I trust He will, I shall not be able to interpret them.

[(Luther's Works 10), S. 10:8]

He does not understand many of the psalms! What a remarkable statement, he who championed praying the Psalter and the father of Lutheranism. If he didn't understand them what hope have I?

In truth, I did not, however, find discouragement within this statement.  I know he was strong in his convictions, but he was also humble in his scholarship, knowing it was by God's mercy and grace that he learned what he learned through the Holy Spirit.  If he continued to study his whole life, ought not I?

The next bit cracked me up when he kept writing what he was NOT going to write about David.

...I shall not recite the glow of his reign and the brilliant military campaigns he waged in his youth, nor the uncommon humility, marvelous patience, and intense piety of him who was the first king and lion of the tribe of Judah, since, as he says, his soul does not want to make its boast in these matters, but in the Lord (cf. Ps. 34:2). I also omit that he is the illustrious root, the holy seed, the source of blessing, the stem of Jesse, the seed-grain from which the Savior of the world has sprung. These things are so very great that they could fill and adorn not one but a thousand discourses. 

But...oh...the wonder of what comes next!


For our theme let us hear only what he himself says concerning himself in 2 Sam. 23:1–4: “The man to whom it was appointed concerning the Christ of the God of Jacob, the excellent psalmist of Israel said: ‘The Spirit of the Lord has spoken by me, and His word by my tongue. The God of Israel spoke to me, the Strong One of Israel spoke, the Ruler of men, the just Ruler in the fear of God, as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, shines in the morning without clouds, and as the grass springs out of the earth after the rain.’ ” 

It would give me a great deal of pleasure to speak at length on this most beautiful and, so to say, most theological text, but now I want to be brief.  However, I implore you by God, whence comes such great presumption and unique boasting beyond all prophets, and the same often repeated, that the Lord spoke by him, that by His tongue came the latter’s speech, “to whom it was appointed concerning the Christ of the God of Jacob, the excellent psalmist of Israel”? 

Other prophets used the expression “The word of the Lord came to me.” This one, however, does not say, “The word of the Lord came to me,” but he says, in a new manner of speaking, “His word was spoken by me.” With this expression he indicates some extremely intimate and friendly kind of inspiration. Other prophets confess that they spoke, but this one declares that in a unique way it was not he who spoke but the Spirit who spoke through him. Although the Spirit spoke by all the prophets, as we sing, it is not stated thus regarding any of them. [paragraph breaks mine]

[(Luther's Works 10), S. 10:9]

But what I have been thinking about is the last piece of this, His word was spoken by me...that the Holy Spirit was speaking, singing, through David.  Even then the Holy Spirit was lifting our prayers before God!

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 

~ Romans 8:26-27

Extremely intimate...Yes, I find the Psalter tremendously intimate.  The words are for me.  The prayers are for me, even when I do quite not understand how this can be so or struggle with praying them.  They are for me.  Breathed by the Spirit...then, now, and always.

Such is the mercy of God to give this blessing to a poor, miserable sinner as am I.

Bad day.  Washington Gas has given notice of cutting off my gas for not responding to a service notice I never received.  Sound familiar?  Paycheck was wrong.  Short.  Mortgage payment already being pulled from my account.  Struggling.  Bad day.

Someone else was having a bad day, so I introduced her to Psalm 77: 

  My voice rises to God, and I will cry aloud;
         My voice rises to God, and He will hear me.
  In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord;
         In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness;
         My soul refused to be comforted.
  When I remember God, then I am disturbed;
         When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint. Selah.
  You have held my eyelids open;
         I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
  I have considered the days of old,
         The years of long ago.
  I will remember my song in the night;
         I will meditate with my heart,
         And my spirit ponders:
  Will the Lord reject forever?
         And will He never be favorable again?
  Has His lovingkindness ceased forever?
         Has His promise come to an end forever?
  Has God forgotten to be gracious,
         Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion? Selah.
   Then I said, "It is my grief,
         That the right hand of the Most High has changed."
   I shall remember the deeds of the LORD;
         Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.
   I will meditate on all Your work
         And muse on Your deeds.
   Your way, O God, is holy;
         What god is great like our God?
   You are the God who works wonders;
         You have made known Your strength among the peoples.
   You have by Your power redeemed Your people,
         The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.
   The waters saw You, O God;
         The waters saw You, they were in anguish;
         The deeps also trembled.
   The clouds poured out water;
         The skies gave forth a sound;
         Your arrows flashed here and there.
   The sound of Your thunder was in the whirlwind;
         The lightnings lit up the world;
         The earth trembled and shook.
   Your way was in the sea
         And Your paths in the mighty waters,
         And Your footprints may not be known.
   You led Your people like a flock
         By the hand of Moses and Aaron.

She didn't even recognize it as from the bible but it was perfect for her, for this moment in her life.  I told her I would teach her to pray the Psalter.  Bonhoeffer's treastise on Psalms is already on its way to her house!

Perhaps it was fitting that I fought it out with the website at work to make a slew of changes.  DreamWeaver and I have a love/hate relationship.  It loves to vex me.  I hate to open the program.

Wavering between fatigue and frustration, I called Pastor.  He was not there, but I poured out the things with which I had been hit anyway.  Tonight,  I caught up with him and he offered solutions and comfort and a hymn.  He sang a hymn I have been wanting to learn:

Entrust Your Days and Burdens

Entrust your days and burdens

To God's most loving hand;

He cares for you while ruling

The sky, the sea, the land.

For He who guides the tempests

Along their thund'rous ways

Will find for you a pathway

And guide you all your days.

Rely on God your Savior

And find your life secure.

Make His work your foundation

That your work may endure.

No anxious thought, no worry

No self tormenting care

Can win your Father's favor;

His heart is moved by prayer.

Take heart, have hope, my spirit,

And do not be dismayed;

God helps in every trial

And makes you unafraid.

Await His time with patience

Through darkest hours of night

Until the sun you hoped for

Delights your eager sight.

Leave all to His direction;

His wisdom rules for you

In ways to rouse your wonder

At all His love can do.

Soon He, his promise keeping, 

With wonder working pow'rs

Will banish from your spirit

What gave you troubled hours.

O blessed heir of heaven,

You'll hear the song resound

Of endless jubilation

When you with life are crowned.

In your right hand your maker

Will place the victor's palm

And you will thank Him gladly

With heaven's joyful psalm.

Our hands and feet, Lord strengthen;

With joy our spirits bless

Until we see the ending

Of all our life's distress.

And so throughout our lifetime

Keep us within Your care

And at our end then bring us

To heav'n to praise You there.

                            (LSB 754)

At first I hesitated when he offered to sing this one because he said that he would be singing it to another tune.  Apparently the tune is a difficult one, even for a life-long Lutheran.  I should have trusted him.  I hemmed and hawed a bit, but ultimately encouraged him to stick with his first choice.  The tune he chose is one of my favorites!  It goes with The Bridegroom Soon Will Call Us (514)

I admitted to Pastor that I sometimes read the hymnal like a book and have poured over all the hymns labeled Hope and Comfort.  A Myrtle section to be sure.

What I savor about this hymn is that it teaches me, reminding me of how much God cares for us and how He does not expect us to do anything but rest in Him.  After such a gift, the author bestows further riches by leaving me with a prayer in the last verse.  A prayer!

When the audio clip arrived in my inbox, Pastor also sent me the Lord's Prayer as it is sung in the Divine Service Three Liturgy.  Another prayer!

So much have I learned about the Lord's Prayer.  So much and I have not scratched the surface.

Every other Saturday, I am having another woman from church join me in my lessoning.  I offered for us to start again at the beginning of Part III of the Book of Concord.  I have been waiting so impatiently to get to the fifth petition and a few later ones, but the offer was genuine.  Her choice, instead, was to accept my offer to do recordings for the introduction and the first four petitions, along with my commentaries, so that she could catch up.  There was the possibility that she might start this Saturday rather than next, so I spent Tuesday evening doing the 11 recordings (my commentary on the second petition was horrible so I made a recording of Pastor's In Touch eNewletter that covered Thy kingdom come).

Doing so was great for me to have such rich teaching all together in one sitting.  Ah, there is good stuff in Part III.  Well, there is good stuff all over, but do you ever really think about what you are praying in the Lord's Prayer?  Really think about it?

As Pastor was singing (yes, I asked him to sing it rather than read it) the Lord's Prayer in the mini-Divine service we had before bible study last night so I could have the Lord's Supper, I wanted him to stop and slow down.  As much as the fragrance of the wine was calling me, I wanted him to stop and wait, to allow the lessons racing through my mind to fill my prayer.

Pastor has told me that Luther would spend several hours praying the Lord's Prayer.  Petition by petition, he would reflect on their meaning and pray for the people in his life and the world around him according to each petition.  When he told me this, I admit I thought, what a nice idea...but how would you do that with the Lord's Prayer?  I had read through Part III several times, but I had missed most of it, thinking more about the distress I have felt about prayer than what was filling my ears.

Were I to comment on that fact, Pastor would tell me it wasn't time for me to understand.  I would barely hide rolling my eyes at him in response.  Maybe I did need to discover the joy, the utter balm that is praying the Psalter before I could understand what I was reading.  But I do know now, at least in part, why Luther would do so.  He would not be racing through its recitation.  He would not be even reciting it.  No, Luther would be praying each word...because he understands that each word is for us, not because they are the perfect words to pray about God, but that they are the perfect words to pray about ourselves.

SIGH.

Anyway, there was not one audio file in my inbox, but two.  Shall I admit how often I have played both tonight or just let you guess?

While listening to Pastor sing the Lord's Prayer, hitting pause as often as I hit repeat, I started thinking about the reading from the Treasury of Daily Prayer from January 5th that is from a church father:

How mighty is the grace of water, in the sight of God and His Christ, for the confirmation of Baptism!  Never is Christ without water:  He who is Himself baptized in water (Matthew 3:13-17); inaugurates in water the first display of His power when invited to the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11); in His preaching He invites the thirsty to His own eternal water (John 7:37-38; John 4:6ff); He approves, among the works of charity, the cup of water offered to a poor child (Matthew 10:42); He gathered His strength at a well (John 4:6); walks over the water (Matthew 14:22ff); calms the waves (Mark 4:39); and serves His disciples with washing by water (John 13:5).  Even His Passion bears witness to the power of Baptism's waters, for while He was being handed over tot he cross, water intervened and was a witness against Pilate's hands (Matthew 27:24).  And when He is wounded, after His death, water bursts forth from His side that had been pierced with the soldier's lance (John 19:34)!

~Tertullian

Wow!  I had never thought much about all that water, though I think that this list should include John 4:13-19 about the water that truly quenches our thirst:

Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." 

How I savor the moments when the readings give me pause, trouble my waters!

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.