I just realized the Bard, the great poet, Bruce Springsteen’s initials are – BS…yes…I am a little slow. I was listening to Bruce (Mr. Springsteen to the rest of you) the other day as a spiritual meditative technique. Now don’t get all freaked out – the idea of meditation is essentially to clear your mind and listen for the voice of God and see what thoughts might come your way. Listening to Bruce may not have been the first choice for many but it seemed to work for me.
Here are my thoughts from those few moments. I was listening to Bruce’s song My Hometown (which is the theme for this website lately) and it occured to me that this song would make no one happy. The back story to the song is that Bruce wrote it in response to actual factory closings in his hometown. People were losing their jobs and having to move away.
Anyhow – as I was listening to the lyrics of the song I began to realize that this song would not cheer anyone up. If anything the song was likely responsible for making a lot of people feel worse about their situation. I began to wonder what the point of that would be. I know enough about Springsteen to realize he’s no fool when it comes to music. If he wanted to make a song to cheer people up he would have done that…so what was he up to with this one.
Maybe – the song was not written to make people feel better. Maybe the song was written to simply make people feel. Maybe the song was written to drive people away from apathy and indecision and simply feel something, anything.
Then it occured to me that perhaps the Bible is not very different in this regard. I often think as I read the Bible that this is a book that can’t possibly have been written to make people feel better. Oh – don’t get me wrong, the over-arching theme of redemption and salvation is the most powerfully motivating positive message I have ever heard. But it seems that in the details the intent does not seem to be to make people feel happy but to make them feel. The psalms alone are a manic ride from joy to depression to anger to vindictiveness and back to joy again. There is an emotional journey in the details.
So why do this? To move us out of apathy and listlessness? To awaken one who appears to be sleeping (or dead perhaps)? I’m sure there is a Lord’s Day response written down somewhere or a catechismic statement that properly responds to all this…but this is not really what I am looking for. If the intent of scripture is to awaken in us a yearning of some sort; a yearning for God and a response then I’m not so much interested in the written responses of others who were awakened by scripture (as valuable as they are) rather I am interested in my response. Have I been awakened? What does that mean to me?
Maybe I don’t always feel better when I read scripture but I do feel and I need to explore that more.
Harnessing Chaos 
Nope, the Bible definitely doesn\’t exist to be a pick-me-up, or anything resembling "your best life now." All human experience can be emotional, but I don\’t think the Bible was written for the purpose of helping us to emote better. It was written to kill us dead with the Law and to bring us to life in Christ.
I guess I think that the reason that we resonate with those biblical authors in all their emotional journeys is because they were on the same journey we are. They\’re people just like us. We don\’t hear their stories just because God sets out to emotionally manipulate us through neat stories, but because that is really, truly, factually how these people felt and spoke.
Just to sling in a bit of a "catechismic statement" (actually a confessional one), \’cause you mentioned it… our Confessions remind us of the point of hearing about the lives of the saints in Scripture who have gone before us. It\’s not to pray to them or to trust in their merits for us, but… "Our Confession approves honors to the saints. For here a threefold honor is to be approved. The first is thanksgiving. For we ought to give thanks to God because He has shown examples of mercy; because He has shown that He wishes to save men; because He has given teachers or other gifts to the Church. And these gifts, as they are the greatest, should be amplified, and the saints themselves should be praised, who have faithfully used these gifts, just as Christ praises faithful businessmen, Matt. 25, 21. 23. The second service is the strengthening of our faith; when we see the denial forgiven Peter, we also are encouraged to believe the more that grace truly superabounds over sin, Rom. 5, 20. The third honor is the imitation, first, of faith, then of the other virtues, which every one should imitate according to his calling." –Apology XXI:4-6
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I like the way you phrased that…"kill us dead with the law" – there\’s certainly something emotive going on in that I would think…and I would agree with you in the same sense I would call myself a Calvinist (3.5 out of five points)…somewhat but not really. Part of the struggle in the west (and increasingly everywhere) is that people don\’t seem to be able to even care about the law. The law may convict us but we don\’t feel it anymore for some reason and if we are to emulate Christ feeling matter.
I understand to the staunchly reformed it does not matter in the end whether we feel or not – God will as God wills. As you can see though, I am not staunchly reformed. I do appreciate the excerpt from the Augsberg Confession…one of my most treasured books is from an annoyingly reformed friend of mine – it is entitled Reformed Confessions Harmonized. (I realize that last sentance came close to me saying – "Hey, some of my best friends are reformed…"
In eternal dialogue – Pete.
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Reformed? Bah, I\’m not Reformed! ;o) (This is Kelly again BTW, still screwing up how to make my name display properly through this thing.)
I don\’t mean to say that emotions never matter. Feelings are part of human existence. On the other hand, God tells us what to believe, and he tells us what to do, but he doesn\’t tell us that we\’re supposed to feel a certain way toward him so that if we don\’t feel this way it means something is wrong with our faith. I think that would be a bit more mystic and/or revivalist-leaning.
Apathy is a very big problem in this part of the world. But "caring so that you actually do something" isn\’t synonymous with emotional feeling, either. Emotion-driven things can sometimes shake us out of our stupor; they can also desensitize us further, as was evidenced by the mass burn-out that revivalism caused. Reaching people with the Gospel is always definitely a challenge. There are a lot of hardened hearts. God\’s Holy Spirit working through his Word will be the only thing that breaks through, just as it was with us. :o)
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