Hi there. 
Well, after my questions in the fall I wound up jumping in.
I decided to enroll in the Good News class the pastor offered. To officially declare my intents and learn from a live human being. I learned in the witness of God to me that answers were there. I had spent so much time studying the theology of the gospel and the law, I needed to have the Spirit catch up to what my mind was doing. The Lord was showing me things that were so obvious, but I had missed them for all these years.
A remarkable thing happened along the way. Id tried to reconcile the Body and Blood of Christ being the actual thing in the Sacrament of the Altar and always seemed to go back to the Reformed beliefs of it being representative. Questions on absolution, just what was happening up there while the Divine Service was going on. Id gotten to the point of understanding the liturgy and wasnt lost and confused. Most of it I knew by heart. Now, I was seeing and hearing and most importantly, understanding the service and felt such a deep need to know. Not just intellectually, I could reiterate the professions till kingdom come, but deep down inside me where that indefinable spirit resides.
A quick email response from the pastor gave me an open path to follow and I ran down it as fast as I could. It was like he pointed out a deep, clear spring and I hadnt had a drop of water in days. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, the shedding of His body and blood for me became crystal clear. I could look at what was before just a symbol and now see it as the True Body and Blood of my Savior. How many times had I wondered how that could be so? How often did I think I could reason it to make sense? None of my efforts brought it into focus. I think, in retrospect, it was a point of needing that gift that brought me to the knowledge. No matter how much I studied, it wasnt me that was gaining the insight, it was the Spirit talking to me and showing me how poverty stricken I truly am. Something I could never get out of a book or intellectual discourse.
I feel freed in a weird sort of way in this new knowledge. I think that the services will impart a new and more intimate understanding of His ultimate gift to us all. With this, how can so much of Christendom deny what He so freely gave? Denigrate it to the common elements of bread and wine and ask Jesus into our hearts; not have Him come to us and give, literally, of Himself to us. What Ive missed all these years is astounding.
Im still learning and growing. It is like a rose bud that Ive seen countless years on my rosebushes. A tiny hint of flower and color slowly opens to reveal hundreds of many-hued petals bursting in full bloom. The lilting melodies of Vivaldi and many rousing shouts of Handels Messiah interspersed with each other as the truth slowly unfolds before my eyes. There is no way to describe the joy that is felt when you realize what was done for all of us and especially me, a sinner who deserves death and damnation. A perfect human and a loving God who loved us all in such a way we will never comprehend, offered Himself up for all mankind. Perhaps it is the feeling of love emanating from Him I sense here. Whatever it is, this beauty holds no comparison to the reality of Jesus the Christ.
　
　
Well, after my questions in the fall I wound up jumping in.
I decided to enroll in the Good News class the pastor offered. To officially declare my intents and learn from a live human being. I learned in the witness of God to me that answers were there. I had spent so much time studying the theology of the gospel and the law, I needed to have the Spirit catch up to what my mind was doing. The Lord was showing me things that were so obvious, but I had missed them for all these years.
A remarkable thing happened along the way. Id tried to reconcile the Body and Blood of Christ being the actual thing in the Sacrament of the Altar and always seemed to go back to the Reformed beliefs of it being representative. Questions on absolution, just what was happening up there while the Divine Service was going on. Id gotten to the point of understanding the liturgy and wasnt lost and confused. Most of it I knew by heart. Now, I was seeing and hearing and most importantly, understanding the service and felt such a deep need to know. Not just intellectually, I could reiterate the professions till kingdom come, but deep down inside me where that indefinable spirit resides.
A quick email response from the pastor gave me an open path to follow and I ran down it as fast as I could. It was like he pointed out a deep, clear spring and I hadnt had a drop of water in days. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, the shedding of His body and blood for me became crystal clear. I could look at what was before just a symbol and now see it as the True Body and Blood of my Savior. How many times had I wondered how that could be so? How often did I think I could reason it to make sense? None of my efforts brought it into focus. I think, in retrospect, it was a point of needing that gift that brought me to the knowledge. No matter how much I studied, it wasnt me that was gaining the insight, it was the Spirit talking to me and showing me how poverty stricken I truly am. Something I could never get out of a book or intellectual discourse.
I feel freed in a weird sort of way in this new knowledge. I think that the services will impart a new and more intimate understanding of His ultimate gift to us all. With this, how can so much of Christendom deny what He so freely gave? Denigrate it to the common elements of bread and wine and ask Jesus into our hearts; not have Him come to us and give, literally, of Himself to us. What Ive missed all these years is astounding.
Im still learning and growing. It is like a rose bud that Ive seen countless years on my rosebushes. A tiny hint of flower and color slowly opens to reveal hundreds of many-hued petals bursting in full bloom. The lilting melodies of Vivaldi and many rousing shouts of Handels Messiah interspersed with each other as the truth slowly unfolds before my eyes. There is no way to describe the joy that is felt when you realize what was done for all of us and especially me, a sinner who deserves death and damnation. A perfect human and a loving God who loved us all in such a way we will never comprehend, offered Himself up for all mankind. Perhaps it is the feeling of love emanating from Him I sense here. Whatever it is, this beauty holds no comparison to the reality of Jesus the Christ.
　
　
