“Whatever He Says…”

Luther once said “Faith is confidence in God’s unseen, unfelt, untried goodness and mercy…”

As usual, having gotten this out of the Word, he’s right. We hedge our bets in the modern world. We’re willing to take a few things that we can’t see on faith—as long as we can feel in our hearts and bones that it’s true, as long as we can experience the truth of it in daily living, thereby gaining assurance we’ll have a nice return on our investment…

But we won’t usually go for the trifecta: trust God’s unseen, unfelt, and untried goodness and mercy. In other words, trust for no other reason than Christ’s say-so. We can do without seeing for a bit (sometimes) but we can’t do without feeling and empirical testing. Otherwise we just can’t “believe”.

You can see this in the bevy of sentimental hymns the 19^th and 20^th centuries (the “Modern Age”) produced. Take a popular song like “Amazing Grace” and analyze it theologically: “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me—I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see…” Here the hymn writer won’t take anything at all on faith. He’ll trust “amazing grace” only because it has a sweet sound, appeals to the ear, because it has been empirically tested: he was lost and now is found. Therefore, by good feeling and empirical proof, the writer has come to see these things must be so. That’s not faith in Christ! That’s pragmatism and sentimentalism. (C.F.W. Walther once boasted you would never find such hymns in a hymnal of our Synod! Shows how much he knew…)

I could list more examples, but you can do the test yourself. Find the texts in our hymnal that were written in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, and see if it isn’t so that the vast majority of them extol feelings of the heart, success in earthly life, and even plain sight instead of Christ’s unseen, unfelt, untried goodness and mercy. See how many of them even mention Christ at all (“Amazing Grace”, for example, never does). My sister and I did this test when we were in high school, when our minds wandered during the service—we found a few exceptions to the rule, but not many!

It’s probably risky to analyze theologically hymns many people like. Perhaps I’m in trouble already! But you know, we pick the hymns we do for a reason. I think it’s good, from time to time, to let you know the reason—a good hymn extols Christ crucified and thus inculcates true faith. That’s a real hymn. Sentimental hymns might make you feel good, but my calling isn’t to make you feel good; it’s to proclaim Christ my Master…

Not that a good hymn can’t do both—extol Christ and also speak to the depths of our hearts. Paul Gerhardt could do both. Take a hymn like “Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me” as a counter-example. Good 17^th century hymn, that one—a trifecta hymn—it extols trust in Christ’s unseen, unfelt, untried goodness and mercy just as Dr. Luther and the apostles commend. “Why should cross and trial grieve me?” Gerhardt asks, “Christ is near, with His cheer, never will He leave me. Who can rob me of the heaven—that God’s Son for me won when His life was given?”

What Gerhardt sees, feels, and experiences isn’t promising. His wife died early as did most of their children. He was unemployed for his “prime earning years”. And when he did get a call as a pastor, it was pretty tough going. Judged by what he could see, feel, and experience, Jesus let Paul Gerhardt down from start to finish. But Gerhardt didn’t rely on that stuff like sight, sense, and experience. He had God’s Word, His promise which was far better. So cross and trial would not daunt or grieve him. Because Christ is near, as near as His Gospel Word and Sacrament, with the cheer that no one and nothing can take from me the heaven Christ won when His life was given for us all on the cross.

There’s a hymn that extols confidence in Christ’s unseen, unfelt, untried goodness and mercy… It proclaims only Christ and Him Crucified as St. Paul did long before. It leaves you with nothing but Jesus and assures you that’s more than enough! It plants the cross deep in the heart and watches the loveliest flower grow from it—namely trust in Christ’s unseen, unfelt, untried goodness and mercy. It looks to the heaven Christ promises and longs for it just because Christ promises it. Now, that’s a hymn. And a real tune to go with. My advice—sing it till you have all the verses memorized. Myself, I rather like the old TLH translation best!

The Sadducees were modern people, born out of time. 20^th century people living in the 1^st century. People just like us. I’m sure their taste in hymnody ran very much to the modern (it’s well known they rejected the hymnbook of Israel, the Psalms as spurious). They came to Jesus with a trick question designed to make Him and the Bible look silly. They asked about the Law of Moses that a man marry and raise up offspring for a dead older brother. They wondered about a woman who outlived 7 husbands, one faithful brother after another, without offspring and asked “whose wife will she be in heaven?” with much laughter and snickering.

Jesus just calmly answers they have no idea what they are talking about. Earthly marriage doesn’t exist in heaven. There will be something far more splendid for us. And if they think (as they did) that this shows belief in the resurrection of the body is foolish, well they should know God is the God of the living, not the dead, and all the faithful live body and soul to and with Him. It was a clever answer. And they dared question Him no more.

But they didn’t receive what Jesus had to give. Because they would not trust the unseen, unfelt, untried mercy of Christ. They had to have something they could see and if not see, well then feel and experience as true. They were modern people through and through. Fortunately, any hymns they wrote are long forgotten.

But their spirit lives on. We have endless questions: what kind of bodies will we have in heaven? Will there still be male and female? Will there be ACC basketball? HD TV? And the implication is that if there isn’t, we might not want to go…

Sight, feelings, and proof, however, are not faith. They are not what Christ promises. What He promises is goodness that is unseen, unfelt, untried. He alone is the poster Boy for this Kingdom of His, and what we see of it on earth is cross, trial, and grief. Only the glimpse of the Resurrected Christ promises more. A promise we take on faith.

Finally, Christianity is a wild gamble. It’s betting everything—life, death, eternity on this crucified Christ Jesus. It’s putting all our chips on Him. Just because of His say-so. Just because there is something about Him, His Word, His Voice we can’t dismiss. A Mystery. But let others question and scoff. The unseen, unfelt, untried mercy of Christ will do for us…

Faith has no more questions to ask. Not because it doesn’t dare, but because it doesn’t care. Faith takes whatever Jesus gives and in that finds everything. His cross, His body, His blood, His forgiveness, will do for me. So I will make do without seeing, feeling, or experiencing glory. I will live and die by whatever Jesus says—even when He says His Cross is the only way to gain His unseen, unfelt, untried treasure. For this too is Christ’s gift—such faith—and it alone, like nothing else in all the world, silences anxious fears and questions, leaving only Peace, that passes all understanding, that guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.