Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

This Christ, bodily and, if you will, bloodily present in the Sacrament of the Altar, is not merely a human being. He is the human being, the model, the standard, the blueprint, the die that determines what authentic humanity is, from the first human being to the last. We human beings - all of us - have not only our salvation but our very humanity from Christ. He stands both as the initial and the ultimate man, the exemplar of human virtue in its most eminent perfection and the one whose irrefragable integrity stands as the judgment upon all our lapses from genuine humanity. And not the least aspect of this virtue is the unselfishness that He exhibits in the act that the Eucharist primarily makes present again, His sacrificial death on the cross for our benefit that is the climax and the epitome of His total redemptive work, His unswerving obedience to His heavenly Father, and of His generous readiness to accept at His enemies' hands the consequences of His radical goodness. - Arthur Carl Piepkorn, *The Church* p. 191