Read the Large Catechism with me.
Ten-minute studies on short readings from the Large Catechism.
Let's do this.
Click on the link below and read the short assigned reading. Then, if you have time, check out what I have to say about it. If not, no problem. Just soak up the goodness of the LC.
The Sacrament of the Altar, Part 2: Click here and read 20-32.
The basics:
- In this section we learn what we should seek and obtain in the Lord's Supper - chiefly what the Lord says This is My body and blood, given and shed for you, for the remission of sins.
- This sacrament is a food of souls, which nourishes and strengthens the new man. In Baptism we are first born anew and in the Lord's Supper we are fed.
- This is given so that faith may refresh and strengthen itself so it does not fall back into battle, but become ever stronger. The new life must be so regulated that it continually progresses, but it must suffer much opposition.
- The devil is relentless in his attacks on our new man. In the Sacrament of the Altar we are given new power and refreshment when our heart feels this burden becoming too heavy.
- We all find ourselves crying, "How can bread and wine forgive sins or strengthen faith?" Even though we know that we do not say this of the bread and wine, but because this bread and wine is the body and blood of Christ, and has the words of Christ attached to it.
- The body of Christ can never be an unfruitful, vain thing, that effects or profits nothing. Yet, even though the treasure is great in itself, it must be comprehended in the Word and administered to us. If it is not comprehended or administered, we should never be able to know or seek it.
- If the bread and wine in the Sacrament were not the body and blood of Christ, we would not be able to receive the forgiveness of sins through it.
- We cannot allow Christ's true body and blood to be torn from the Sacrament when we know that these are the very words which we hear everywhere in the Gospel. We cannot say that these particular words in the Sacrament are of no use, because it would be like daring to say that the entire Gospel or Word of God is of no use.
My thoughts today:
Go ahead and read that last bullet point in the basics section again. Really, it is right up there...
This simple paraphrase/quote could really help us out in every discussion of heresies in the church. My husband has started doing weekly blogs over at Rightly Divided: Daily Bible Meditation [go ahead and check it out...all the pastors write really great daily meditations].
In a total teaser for this coming Friday's post, he was talking to me about 1 Corinthians 5, especially, "Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?"
I couldn't help but see a great connection when I read this section. The context being that Paul was referring to even a small sin or heresy filling the entire person or church with sin and heresy.
Mostly because there are no small sins or heresy.
There are just sins and heresy.
When we rip the body and blood of Christ away from the Lord's Supper, we choose to take God's Word and make it mean something else. We can't figure out how bread and wine can be body and blood, and so we just say "is" isn't "is." And we all do this. Luther himself stated, "But here our wise spirits contort themselves with their great art and wisdom, crying out and bawling: How can bread and wine forgive sins or strengthen faith?"
We have been doing it since the devil first spoke to Eve in the garden.
"Did God really say?"
Well, actually He really DID say, "This is My body and blood, given and shed for you, for the remission of sins."
And if we allow ourselves to just go along with the little leaven that says "is" isn't "is," then what else can we question with the devil's, "Did God really say?"
A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
SO.....
"Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
1 Corinthians 5:7-8
