Brandon's Blog

Sorry I haven't been writing at all in the last couple of days, but I do have good reason! On Friday night, Lauren Michele Greer said that she would marry me. :)

I went to Pittsburgh on Friday (1-7) to visit Lauren and her family. I also planned on proposing to her on Saturday night after dinner. Then I was going to ask her while we were on top of Mount Washington, getting a panorama view of the city of her birth. But, I threw all that out and asked her Friday night while we were sitting in her living room. True, I was an impatient little devil, but it all went down in Brandon-style.

I am very excited as I begin this time in my life. My 'prometida' (I prefer the Spanish term instead of the French 'fiancee'-yes, I am against French :) is a wonderful girl. She is my age and is a voice major at IU. Her voice is beautiful, and she works very hard at singing well. Lauren is a stunningly beautiful young woman, with the beautiful brown hair that betrays her Italian heritage. She is intelligent, funny, and very caring. Children are a joy to Lauren, and she will be a wonderful mother. Most importantly, though, she loves Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures. She seeks to become more like Jesus every day, and she wants to live as God as commanded. Nor does she abandon the church local. Lauren regularly gives her energy to singing in the choir.

Somehow, this woman loves me. All praise be to God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! I am overjoyed that, be it God's will, we will be man and wife in several months. God's mercy and love in providing a man a prospective wife is very great!

I also gain a bigger family. Already I feel a part of her family, and I can't wait until I can become a permanent member of the Greer family. Larry, Mommy (her name is Michele, but I've decided to call her what her daughter does), and Michael are wonderful people and brothers in Christ as well.

So, thank the Lord with me and pray that the engagement goes well.

I wanted to respond to a comment from my last post. The pertinent part of the comment follows:

"What would happen if you remove the religious connotations and incentives, and did "good works" and "right actions" simply because they are the right things to be done.

Then, if you do a "wrong thing" you should appeal first to those wronged for forgiveness, before forgiving yourself.

It happens too that if someone should "wrong" you, then you should be forgiving in your turn.

But that sounds too much like religious teaching. No?

Now, in those terms how does one define "right" and "wrong"? Again very simple -

If an act is one that I would consider a "wrong" when it is done to me, then it must be "wrong" when inflicted upon any other person.

If an act is one that I would consider "right" when it is done to me, then it must be "right" when done to another person.

Are there shades of grey and "excuses"? Not, I think, if one is honest with oneself. "

The first line is the most interesting. To be truthful, men do not do something simply because it is the right thing to do. Always in the heart of man there resides evil. Jeremiah 17:9 states,
"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?" In other words, I can be sure that in most every decision a man makes from day to day, sin will be involved. That's because men are sinners. I mean that most mathematically. Man=sinner.

So, when you take away true goodness from men's hearts (as happened in the fall), the rest of my commentator's comments fall away. I won't forgive. I won't ask for forgiveness. I will not abide by my own moral code of the golden rule. I won't. Read world history to see this.

Moreover, to make that which is good "that which I would like done to me" and that which is bad "that which I would not like done to me" is completely hopeless outside Christ. Christ gave that command to the faithful, those who have the Holy Spirit of God within them, and they have a hard enough time doing it! To make good and bad so relativistic is dangerous.

My next couple of posts are bound to get me in trouble, but I'm blogging anyway...

Even though I am in a Reformed church, I must confess that Lutheran theology attracts me like a moth to the flame. First off, Martin Luther is a personal hero of mine. Second, the whole emphasis of Lutheran theology is on God, not us. God in the Word, in Baptism, in our vocations, and specific to this post, in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

The Lutheran doctrine of the Real Presence is quite misunderstood. I do not know why this is so because their catechism is quite clear.
Q.287 What does Christ give us in this sacrament?
A. "In this sacrament Christ gives us His own true body and blood for the forgiveness of sins."
Matt. 26:26,28 "This is My body.... This is My blood."
So, Christ's body and blood are really in the Sacrament, or as Luther famously put it, "in, with, and under the bread and the wine".

Now, I am not here to debate whether or not this doctrine is correct, and I am most certainly not saying I hold to it. But, let me explain why I think this doctrine makes a lot of sense to me.

At church on Sunday, we had a lesson in Sunday school on the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:23-35). The main focus of the lesson was that we were the ones who have been forgiven much. Our debt of "ten thousand talents", which we all have, has been erased completely. Gone! Our sin is taken away in Jesus' cross. This idea, then, should lead us to be forgiving to others as God would have us do. It is exactly at this point that the Real Presence seems attractive.

I have felt for a while that all the talk that evangelicals give about the seroiusness of our sins is all theoretical and abstract. The idea of our sins forgiven seems even more abstract to me. I know I am forgiven, but all this knowledge is in my brain. But when we start talking about the Real Presence, of Christ's body and blood in the Lord's Supper, then our sense of how bad sin is and how wonderful forgiveness is grow exponentially.

Think with me in an "inner monologue" of sorts...

"You are a sinner! You have lied, cheated, stolen, committed adultery, dishonored your parents and worshipped false idols. You constantly make a mockery of Christ and His gospel. Yet, worry not! For Christ is here, here in the bread and the wine, the common meal of Christians. He calls you to repent and then he tells you that your sins are forgiven. He is here. Really. He is here. You are really a sinner but you are really forgiven. See, He died for you, and even though you sin, He still loves you and calls you to a more fervent love of God and your neighbors. As Christ has done for you, go and do likewise."

The doctrine of the Real Presence really seems to give life to our sinner-ness and God's forgiveness. It adds so much, and I wonder, "Am I missing this?" For, there is nothing better to here at the end of a service, having known all your sins and known God's forgiveness and tasted the goodness of God, to hear from God, through the minister, "Go in peace."

God's forgiveness is then no longer abstract, but real, and I am again spurred on to good works by this forgiveness.

What are your thoughts?