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Palm Sunday, March 25, 2018

Is the hour of temptation not bound to come? So is it not illegitimate to pray in this way? Ought we not rather to pray that in the hour of temptation, which is bound to come, strength may be given us to overcome our temptation? Such a thought claims to know more about temptation than Christ himself, and wants to be better than he who knew the hardest temptation. “Is temptation not bound to come?” Then why? Must God deliver up his own to Satan? Must he lead them to the abyss where they fall? Must God yield such power to Satan? Who are we to speak of temptation is being bound to come? Are we in God’s counsel? And if–in virtue of a divine bond which is incomprehensible to us–temptation is bound to come, then Christ, the most tempted of all, summons us pray against the divine bond–not to yield in stoic resignation to temptation, but to flee from that dark bond, in which God lets the devil do his will, and call to the open divine freedom in which God tramples the devil under foot. “Lead us not into temptation.”

-from Temptation, pg. 114

Saturday, March 24, 2018

Lead us not into temptation. Natural man and moral man cannot understand this prayer. Natural man wants to prove his strength in adventure, in struggle, in encounter with the enemy. That is life. “If you do not stake your life you will never win it.” Only the life which has run the risk of death is life which has been won. That is what natural man knows. Moral man also knows that his knowledge is true and convincing only when it is tried out and proved, he knows that the good can live only from evil, and that it would not be good but for evil. So moral man calls out evil, his daily prayer is–Lead me into temptation, that I may test out the power of the good in me.

If temptation were really what natural man and moral man understand by it, namely testing of their own strength–whether their vital or their moral or even their Christian strength–in resistance, on the enemy, then it is true that Christ’s prayer would be incomprehensible. For that life is won only from death and the good only from the evil is a piece of thoroughly worldly knowledge which is not strange to the Christian. But all this has nothing to do with the temptation of which Christ speaks. It simply does not touch the reality which is meant here. The temptation of which the whole Bible speaks does not have to do with the testing of our strength, for it is of the very essence of temptation in the Bible that all our strength–to our horror, and without our being able to do anything about it–is turned against us; really all our powers, including our good and pious powers (the strength of our faith), fall into the hands of the enemy power and are now led into the field against us. Before there can be any testing of our powers, we have been robbed of them. “My heart trembles, my strength has left me, and the light of my eyes have departed from me” (Psalm 38:10). This is the decisive fact in the temptation of the Christian, that he is abandoned, abandoned by all his powers–indeed, attacked by them–abandoned by all men, abandoned by God himself. His heart shakes, and has fallen into complete darkness. He himself is nothing. The enemy is everything. God has “taken his hand away from him” (Augsburg Confession, XIX). “He has left him for a little while” (Isaiah 54:7). The man is alone in his temptation. Nothing stands by him. For a little while the devil has room. How is the abandoned man to face the devil? How can he protect himself? It is the prince of this world who opposes him. The hour of the fall has come, the irrevocable, eternal fall: for who will free us again from the clutches of Satan?

-from Temptation, pgs. 111-112

Friday, March 23, 2018

It is not good when the Church is anxious to praise itself too readily for its humble state. Equally, it is not good for it to boast of its power and its influence too soon. It is only good when the Church humbly confesses its sins, allows itself to be forgiven and confesses its Lord. Daily must it receive the will of God from Christ anew. It receives it because of the presence of the incarnate, the humiliated and the exalted one. Daily, this Christ becomes a stumbling block to its own hopes and wishes. Daily, it stumbles at the words afresh, ‘You will all be offended because of me’ (Matthew 26:31). And daily it holds anew to the promise, ‘Blessed is he who is not offended in me’ (Matthew 11:6).

-from Christ the Center, pg. 113

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Christ the Word is truth. There is no truth apart from the Word and by the Word. Spirit is originally word and speech, not power, feeling or act. ‘In the beginning was the Word…and all things were made through the Word’ (John 1:1,3). Only as Word is the Spirit also power and act. God’s Word creates and destroys. ‘The Word of God is…sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing to the division’ (Hebrews 4:12). God’s Word carries the destroying lightning and the life-giving rain. As Word, it destroys and it creates the truth.

It is playing games to ask whether God is able to reveal himself in any other way than through the Word. Of course God has the freedom to reveal himself in other ways than we know. But God has revealed himself in the Word. He has bound himself to the Word that he might speak to men. He does not alter this Word.

-from Christ the Center, pg. 49

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

There are many helps for special difficulties that each one may use. Read the same passage again and again, write down your thoughts, learn the verse by heart (indeed, you will memorize any text that has been thoroughly meditated upon). But in all this we soon learn to recognize the danger of fleeing once again from meditation to Bible scholarship or the like. Behind all our uncertainties and needs stands our great need to pray; for all too long many of us have known this need without finding any help or direction. The only help is to faithfully and patiently begin again our earliest exercises of prayer and meditation. We will be further helped by the knowledge that other brothers are also meditating, that at all times the entire holy church in heaven and on earth prays with us. That is a comfort to us in the weakness of our own prayers. And if we really do not know what we ought to pray and completely lose heart about it, we still know that the Holy Spirit prays for us with “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26).

We dare not allow ourselves to cease from this daily engagement with the Scripture, and we must begin it right away if it is not now our practice. For in doing so we have eternal life.

-from Meditating on the Word, pg. 27

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Whoever seriously undertakes the daily practice of meditation will soon discover great difficulties. Meditation and prayer must be practiced earnestly and for a long time. So the first rule is not to become impatient with yourself. Do not become confused and upset because of your distractedness. Just sit down again everyday and wait very patiently. If your thoughts keep wandering, there is no need for you to hold onto them compulsively. There is nothing wrong with letting them roam where they will; but then incorporate in your prayers the place or person to which they have gone. So you will find your way back to your text, and the minutes spent in such diversions will not be lost and will no longer be any cause for worry.

-from Meditating on the Word, pgs. 26-27

Monday, March 19, 2018

We begin our meditations with the prayer for the Holy Spirit, asking for proper concentration for ourselves and for all who we know are also meditating. Then we turn to the text. At the close of the meditation we want to be truly able to say a prayer of thanksgiving from a heart that is full.

-from Meditating on the Word, pg. 25

Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 18, 2018

If during meditation our thoughts move to persons who are near to us or to those we are concerned about, then let them linger there. That is a good time to pray for them. Do not pray in general, then, but in particular for the people who are on your mind. Let the Word of Scripture tell you what you ought to pray for them. As a help, we may write down the names of the people we want to remember every day. Our intercessions require their appointed time, too, if we are to be serious about them. Pay attention, though, that our intercessions do not become another means of taking flight from the most important thing: prayer for our own soul’s salvation.

-from Meditating on the Word, pg. 25

Saturday, March 17, 2018

There is free meditation and meditation that is bound to Scripture. We advise the latter for the sake of the certainty of our prayers and the discipline of our thoughts. Furthermore, the knowledge of our fellowship with others who are meditating on the same text will make us love such meditation more.

In the same way that the word of a person who is dear to us follows us throughout the day, so the Word of Scripture should resonate and work within us ceaselessly. Just as you would not dissect and analyze the word spoken by someone dear to you, but would accept it just as it was said, so you should accept the Word of Scripture and ponder it in your heart as Mary did. That is all. That is meditation. Do not look for new thoughts and interconnections in the text as you would in a sermon! Do not ask how you should tell it to others, but ask what it tells you! Then ponder this Word in your heart at length, until it is entirely within you and has taken possession of you.

-from Meditating on the Word, pgs. 24-25

Friday, March 16, 2018

We meditate because we need help against ungodly haste and unrest. Only from the peace of God’s Word can there flow the proper, devoted service of each day. We want in any case to rise up from our meditation in a different state from when we sat down. We want to meet Christ in his Word. We turn to the text in our desire to hear what it is that he wants to give us and teach us today through his Word. Meet him first in the day, before you meet other people. Every morning lay upon him everything that preoccupies you and weighs you down, before new burdens are laid upon you. Ask yourself what still hinders you from following him completely and let him take charge of that, before new hindrances are placed in your way. His fellowship, his help, his guidance for the day through his Word–that is the goal. Thus you will begin the day freshly strengthened in your faith.

-from Meditating on the Word, pgs. 23-24