From Giertz…
Feed: Abide in My Word
Posted on: Saturday, November 06, 2010 6:44 AM
Author: noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas C. Messer, SSP)
Subject: Another Gem from Bo Giertz
| It is a great mistake to believe that the Lord's Supper is profaned by being celebrated often. If it were a mobilization of human feelings or a beautiful spectacle, then we had all reasons to rarely celebrate it, because all stirring up of human feelings and all spectacles are boring in the long fun. But Holy Communion is something completely different. It is God's dealing with the soul, something that we need continually and that will increasingly become a blessing to us the more often it happens. God's work never becomes boring, and His holiness does not decrease as the years pass by. No one doubts that we daily need to receive forgiveness of sin. Isn't it then also appropriate that we often receive this gift at the Lord's Table? Every Christian knows that we should be prepared to meet our Savior at any minute. Why wouldn't we want to meet Him then every Sunday at the altar? "Indeed, the very words as often as you do it imply that we should do it often," says Luther in the Large Catechism (V:61), "It is the highest wisdom to realize that this sacrament does not depend upon our worthiness. We are not baptized because we are worthy and holy, nor do we come to confession pure and without sin; on the contrary, we come as poor, miserable men, precisely because we are unworthy." There is a word that once was thrown into our Master's face as an invective, but it was remembered by His disciples as a word of honor. It should be widely announced when the Lord's Supper is celebrated. It is a promise and an invitation from God. I is recorded in Luke 15:2, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." ("Christ's Church," Bo Giertz, pp. 120-121) |
