Posted on by Kurt Bodling

faith on Good Friday

Note:
One of the mysteries of the Good Friday events is the apparent split among Jesus’s followers. Of the inner circle who had been following him, only his mother and John were present at the foot of the cross to witness his death, according to the Gospels. But Luke 23:49 also notes that “all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.” That makes it sound like the rest of the disciples were there, but back a ways; although I don’t believe Luke elsewhere uses the word acquaintances to describe the Twelve. Were the acquaintances people like Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, Nicodemus, Zacchaeus, and others whose names we never learn? Others weren’t present at all, probably for a variety of reasons.

Faith is a funny thing. On the first Good Friday the faithful were overcome with shock and mostly silent. After Pentecost the disciples were as bold as you you ask for. At the cross one of the thieves came to the faith; and a centurion, for goodness sake, apparently also comes to faith witnessing the way Jesus died. In the afternoon faith moves Joseph of Arimathea to go on record asking for the dead body to be released to his custody. How many other witnesses to these events also secretly came to faith that day?

I’m not exactly sure what Luther was getting at here by saying that faith can be granted in secret. Is it that we can’t always tell who has faith? Or that sometimes people who are not public members of the Church are in reality members of Christ? Is he speaking of ‘anonymous Christians’? Certainly, faith is not always practiced openly, but what he’s getting at here seems different. And today, at least, I’m connecting it with the eyewitnesses of the crucifixion, some of whom became secret believers that day.

Quote:
“What we said about suffering also applies here, namely, that sometimes faith is granted openly, sometimes in secret.”  (page 13)

Source: Luther, Martin. “A Meditation on Christ’s Passion” (1519) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

false confidence

Note:
Luther says that relying on external acts to gain forgiveness of sins is a false confidence. He isn’t saying that good works are bad or should be avoided. It’s the misplaced confidence and the belittling of Christ’s work that makes our works something to be disdained. Absent that attitude, the good works and penance would be welcomed.

Here at the climax of Holy Week especially, we dare not belittle Christ’s work on our behalves.

Quote:
“Beware, lest you do as those perverse people who torture their hearts with their sins and strive to do the impossible, namely, get rid of their sins by running from one good work or penance to another, or by working their way out of this by means of indulgences. Unfortunately such false confidence in penance and pilgrimages is widespread.”  (page 12)

Source: Luther, Martin. “A Meditation on Christ’s Passion” (1519) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

meditating on Jesus’s suffering

Note:
Luther here uses ‘contemplation’ and ‘meditation’ as synonyms. But the main point here is that meditation, by whatever name, is of more benefit to us than any amount of external works can be. Meditation changes our hearts. Even just 15 minutes of real meditation on Christ’s betrayal, arrest, trials, torture, crucifixion is way more beneficial than any spiritual disciplines, says Luther.

Quote:
“We say without hesitation that he who contemplates God’s sufferings for a day, an hour, yes, only a quarter of an hour, does better than to fast a whole year, pray a psalm a day, yes, better than to hear a hundred masses. This meditation changes a man’s being and, almost like baptism, gives him a new birth.”  (page 11)

Source: Luther, Martin. “A Meditation on Christ’s Passion” (1519) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

God inspires true meditation

Note:
As many of us continue to meditate on the events of the original Holy Week, it’s helpful to know that our meditations are not generated from within our own hearts (not if they are of any benefit to us). So if you’re just “not feeling it” it won’t help if you “make an effort” or “dig deep.”

Meditation that benefits us comes by way of an inspiration of God. Which is, by the way, good to remember the other 51 weeks of the year, too.

Quote:
“Unless God inspires our heart, it is impossible for us of ourselves to meditate thoroughly on Christ’s passion.”  (page 11)

Source: Luther, Martin. “A Meditation on Christ’s Passion” (1519) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

benefits of Christ’s suffering

Note:
Here Luther says that the main benefit to us of Christ’s passion is that we are crushed by the Law. Surprising? It comes down to understanding the fact that if I had not sinned then Christ would not have had to suffer and die. Each of us can truthfully say “I am personally responsible for Jesus’s death.” The grace only benefits me after that.

And, of course, no competent preacher or witness leaves hearers crushed by the Law. We must always, always make sure that the Gospel is then spoken clearly and completely.

Quote:
“We must give ourselves wholly to this matter, for the main benefit of Christ’s passion is that man sees into his own true self and that he be terrified and crushed by this. Unless we seek that knowledge, we do not derive much benefit from Christ’s passion.”  (page 10)

Source: Luther, Martin. “A Meditation on Christ’s Passion” (1519) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

God for ME (and for YOU)

Note:
This short line appears with the editor’s footnote that “Ever more pronounced from this point on is Luther’s emphasis on the pro me, pro nobis (“for me, for us”), reflecting the personal aspect of faith which Luther himself experienced and now expressed in all his writings.” His theology was not dry academic theology, in other words.

As we are here entering Holy Week, perhaps you can meditate a moment on how the events the first Palm Sunday through Easter happened for you.

Quote:
“Of what help is it to you that God is God, if he is not God to you?”  (page 8)

Source: Luther, Martin. “A Meditation on Christ’s Passion” (1519) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

what is the spiritual life about?

Note:
It’s never about what we do. It’s always about who we are, or actually about Who we are not.

Quote:
“Nourished by the Sacraments and formed by the prayer and teachings of the Church, we need seek nothing but the particular place willed for us by God within the Church. When we find that place, our life and prayer both at once become extremely simple.

“Then we discover what the spiritual life really is. It is not a matter of doing one good work rather than another, of living in one place rather than in another, of praying in one way rather than another.

“It is not a matter of any special psychological effect in our soul. It is the silence of our whole being in compunction and adoration before God, in the habitual realization that He is everything and we are nothing, that He is the Center to which all things tend and to Whom all our actions must be directed.”  (pp 45-46)

Source: Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1958. (pbk ed 1999).

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

writing, thinking, and contemplation

Note:
This author is a professor at Northeastern university. And he is definitely not writing here in a Christian or spiritual context. But I’m struck, as you probably are, how when he writes about the conditions he sets himself to improve his writing it sounds as if he is writing about conditions conducive to contemplation.

Quote:
“To avoid the easiest, most comfortable narrative of the moment, I have learned that writing … demands a special discipline.

“It requires clearing away competing noise, reserving time for deep reading and critical reflection, seeking solitude away from the constant churn of today’s argument-fueled culture.

“It requires a writer to quiet the mind, and to stop thinking about possible criticism or praise for what they write. ….

“The price of zipping around on the Web and social media is a loss in our depth of thinking, the essential trait of the intellectual and writer. …

“I choose to spend my days surrounded by the stillness of my office or within the sacred sanctuary of a library, no digital screen in sight, filling Moleskin notebooks with observations, engaged in the type of deep reading and immersion necessary to tie together insights and arguments into a fresh web of analysis.”

Source: ‘The Mindful Climate Change Writer’ by Matthew Nisbet, PhD viewed online at
https://medium.com/wealth-of-ideas/the-mindful-climate-change-writer-102ad432b283

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

thrilled at death

Note:
When death has lost its sting for us, we look differently at death. Christians, especially, should have a lighter-hearted view of death than many of us have. Sure, there’s sadness at the separation, but we know that the deceased is with God. With God! Isn’t that what all our religion and spirituality is all about?

And just for the record, I haven’t gotten “excited” at a funeral as Quenon professes he gets, but I do know the comfort there is in having full confidence in the resurrection. It’s helpful to know that for the recently-deceased “the real fun has just begun.”

Quote:
“This is partly why a strange exhilaration usually comes over me when somebody I have known well in the community dies. It feels like a cutting free and a circling around. The feeling comes strongly at the end of the funeral. After the final blessing, when the bier is lifted and carried toward the west door to the burial ground, I get excited like a boy getting out of school for the summer–a thrill that the training has ended and the real fun has just begun.” (p. 8)

Source: Quenon, Paul. In Praise of the Useless Life: a Monk’s Memoir. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2018.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

rightly knowing God

Note:
How do we really know God? Not through the Law (which holds us at arm’s length) but through the Gospel (which wraps us up in God’s loving arms).

Quote:
“We know God aright when we grasp him not in his might or wisdom (for then he proves terrifying), but in his kindness and love. Then faith and confidence are able to exist, and then man is truly born anew in God.”  (page 13)

Source: Luther, Martin. “A Meditation on Christ’s Passion” (1519) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.