A young woman started to come to one of my Bible classes as a guest. The woman, invited by members of the congregation, had been brought up in a Baptist church tradition. The class was on the Formula of Concord, going through one article of the Formula every week. Some of this material is quite challenging to the person who is coming into a Lutheran context with very little background in confessional theology. She was deeply interested, first, because of the depth of the theology. There was none of the "lite-ness" that she despised from her experience. But she had an "ah-ha experience" when we spent some time in Article 3 of the Formula of Concord: "The Righteousness of Faith Before God." She was flabbergasted that confessional Lutheran theology was so simple, that it taught that all our righteousness in the presence of God was through Christ and was conferred through faith. She asked, incredulous: "Do you mean that Christianity is that easy?" Yup.

After the class was over she stayed around to hear me repeat the gospel to her, just so she was sure that she hadn't heard incorrectly. "Is that really all there is to it?" "Yes." Then she did something I had never seen before (or never noticed). She laughed. At first, I thought she was laughing because she considered it ridiculous that Christ is all our righteousness. But then I realized that she was laughing out of sheer relief; the exquisite joy of a heart now freed from the burden of the fear of sin and death. I suppose (pace Benny Hinn) that this was truly "holy laughter." She told me about the "fire and brimstone" preaching with which she was familiar that hammered away at sin, always condemning and guaranteeing eternal damnation to sinners like her. This bright young woman knew that she did not measure up to the standard of the law and she despaired of ever being saved. She stopped going to church, recognizing church attendance as a waste of time, just as an aspiring prize fighter, who finds out that he is never going to win a bout, quits boxing because he tires of having his brains beaten out. This weary young woman retired from the ring in which God's law was killing her, or so she thought. All she knew of God was His unwavering standard to which she could not aspire. She despaired.