I'm teaching 3 bible study sessions coming up. Here are some assorted notes and source material on my work in progress.
My thesis: Ritual rooted in the Word is the answer to our emotional weariness.
The title is something like: Ritual and emotions: Oil and water or peas in a pod?
Objectives: After this lesson, the learners will be able to:
-Tell how emotion/experience/feelings are seen in scripture. And how ritual is seen.
-Identify Word-rooted ritual in their own worship/devotional lives.
-Apply ritual through praying the daily office and confession to receive comfort from the Gospel of Christ.
1: In regard to faith; emotions, feelings, and experience are not bad.
2: There is a proper order, faith, then emotion.
3: The Word produces emotion: It kills. It comforts.
4: Most awesomely, The Word produces faith through the Gospel of Christ.
5: Let’s get us some Word.
Fill in the blanks: (you don’t have to share with the group)
Today, I feel ___________
For me, I anticipate that this service will be _________
Normally, when I come to church, I feel ________
I have deliberately used “feel” words. “There is nothing wrong with feelings, emotions, and experience. In fact, the lack of any experience is in itself an experience. The lack of feeling is a feeling. The lack of emotion is an emotion.”
Share a few?
Imagine we had couple visit church,that no one knew. The service starts and during the singing of “This is the Feast,” they both raise their hands above their head and start swaying. Then during the sermon they both shout “Amen” at various points in the sermon.
During tea after they service, they come up to you and ask you “How can you stand being apart of such a dead church?” How would you respond?
Personally, I have tended to have a negative reaction to experience, emotion and feeling.
-Introduce self and my church experience. Mark’s gospel. Reaction to Christ. His works, His gospel. Focus not on us.
Ashtonished:
Mark 1: 22And they were astonished at his teaching
27And they were all amazed
Mark 2:12b they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!"
Mark 4: 41And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"
Lutherans, especially German Lutherans, don’t like the touchy feely stuff. Need a balance.
“The divorce between doctrine and piety, the mind and the heart, characteristic of both orthodox Reformation folk today on one side and pietists and charismatics on the other, is a course for disaster, not for either reformation or revival. (2)” - Dr. Michael Horton:
Let’s look at Christ.
2 natures – divine and HUMAN
he eats, he sleeps.
Gethsemene, weeping blood
Matthew 26:36-39
36 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray."
37And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed.
38Then He said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me."
39And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will."
John 12:27
27 "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.
-
emotions are ok.
Martin Luther writes, "We can mark our lack of faith by our lack of joy; for our joy must necessarily be as great as our faith." Again he writes, "You have as much laughter as you have faith."(5)
Feelings and emotions. while not the cause of our faith, are the expression of our faith.
Pendulum swing. Extremes. Beware.
Feelings and emotions are an effect and not a cause.
Martin Luther put it this way:
“We must not judge by what we feel or by what we see before us. The Word must be followed, and we must firmly hold that these truths are to be believed, not experienced; for to believe is not to experience. Not indeed that what we believe is never to be experienced but that faith is to precede experience. And the Word must be believed even when we feel and experience what differs entirely from the Word. (3)”
Think about this for a moment:
How do we carry on in the Christian life when “we feel and experience what differs entirely from the Word?”
Luther further writes, "Feeling must follow, but faith, apart from all feeling, must be there first.” (4)
-This is a leading question, but if faith, apart from all feeling, must be there first.’ How do we get that faith?
What is wrong with the following sentence?
"Rather than coming against a feel-good faith, we should clearly teach that true Christian feelings, emotions, and Holy Spirit experience are the product of sound theology."
Not theology, THE WORD! We are encountered by the Word.
SOLUTION
Romans 10:17 – "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."
“I still constantly find that when I am without the Word, Christ is gone, yes, and so are joy and the Spirit. But as soon as I look at a psalm or a passage of Scripture, it so shines and burns into my heart that I gain a different spirit and mind. Moreover, I know that everybody may daily experience this in his own life.” (6) Luther
The Word: Law and Gospel
Word law
Jer 23:29
29 "Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?"
Deut 32: 39
"'See now that I, even I, am he,
and there is no god beside me;
I kill and I make alive;
I wound and I heal;
and there is none that can deliver out of my hand."
1 Samuel 2:6
6 "The LORD kills and brings to life;
he brings down to Sheol and raises up."
Job 5:18
18"For he wounds, but he binds up;
he shatters, but his hands heal."
Hosea 6
1"Come, let us return to the LORD;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up."
Magesterial use of reason and ministerial use?
So, the answer:
Luther said, "Hear God’s Word often; do not go to bed, do not get up, without having spoken a beautiful passage two, three, or four of them to your heart." (7)
Ritual. Holy habits. Get the Word into you and the Word will kill you and make you alive. We need the gospel of Christ in our ears, in our minds, and on our lips. We have the present proclamation of the forgiveness of sin at our finger tips. Let's eat it up!
Make a list of routines that you have throughout the day: on board. – brush teeth, take shower. eat breakfast. Pray. Read the Word of God. Which is most important? Come on, folks.
The Word. It does things. It convicts us, it restores us. We are able to feed on the Word and the gospel of Christ's work on the cross refreshes us and brings us comfort in the midst of our daily grind.
End:
Pray Psalm 42.
Next time(s): Look at the small catechism in the Hymnal (pg 327). Daily Prayers. making the sign of cross. The Daily Hours. Daily lectionary (pg 299) Prayer in scripture. Plan out day. 30 minutes a day. Confession (pg254)
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