The sursum corde has undergone some discussion over the last decade. Our pastors call us to lift our hearts to the Lord in the liturgy of the Lord's Supper every Sunday and we lift them to the Lord. Some have taken this to be a legalistic remnant of the Roman Catholic canon of the mass, as though we lift our hearts to the Lord as a propitious offering to the Lord at the beginning of the mystery of the sacrament. The people who think this have demanded the excision from the liturgy of the sursum corde. When this discussion began I had a suspicion that this demand for excision was barking up the wrong tree. I suspected that if this part of the preface were so offensive against the evangelical faith of righteousness by the work of God in Christ, that Martin Luther, that careful reformer, would have had no problem making that excision himself. Yet the sursum corde has remained inviolate to this day, despite the recent calls for its demise.

Our hearts are not lifted to the Lord as offerings of propitiation. They are lifted up as vessels full of sin and depravity and in need of cleansing. We bring them to the Table for the cleansing that alone obtains there. We offer them, filled as they are with human filth, to be filled with good things by the Lord who sets the Table for sinners. This is not meritorious, because the shining merit is all on God's side. This humble offering is a sign of our Christian life, such lifting up continually happens over against God's mercy, seeking and imploring His grace.

"When we lift our eyes to the Scriptures, since it was through men the Scriptures were offered, we are lifting our eyes to the mountains, from whence shall come our help (Ps 121:1). However, since men wrote the Scriptures, they did not shine from themselves, but Christ was 'the true light, which enlightens everyone, [who] was coming into the world' (Jn 1:9). John the Baptist was also a mountain, who said, 'I am not the Christ' (Jn 1:30), so that no one, placing his hope in the mountain, should fall from Him who illuminates the mountain. He also confessed, saying, 'From his fullness we have all received' (Jn 1:16). So you ought to say, 'I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence comes my help' (Ps 121:1); so as not to ascribe to the mountains the help that comes to you; but continue and say, 'My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth' (Ps 121:2).

"May this be the result of my admonition, that you understand that in raising your hearts to the Scriptures (when the gospel was sounding forth, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' [Jn 1:1], and the rest that was read), you were lifting your eyes to the mountains. For unless the mountains said these things, you would not find out how to think of them at all. Therefore from the mountains came your help, that you even heard of these things; but you cannot yet understand what you have heard. Call for help from the Lord, who made heaven and earth; for the mountains were enabled only to speak and so not from themselves to enlighten us, because they themselves are also enlightened by hearing the word of God. Therefore John, who said these things, received them. John was the one who lay upon the Lord's breast (Jn 13:23), and from the Lord's breast drank in what he might give us to drink. But he gave us words to drink. Receive understanding from the source from which he drank who gave you to drink; so that you might lift your eyes to the mountains from whence comes your aid, so that from there you might receive, as it were, the cup, that is, the word, given you to drink. Yet, since your help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth, you fill your breast from the source from which John filled his. Therefore when you have said, 'My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth,' let him, then, fill who can. Let each one lift up his heart in the manner that seems fitting, and receive what is spoken.