“The Power of the Word” By Rev. Jennifer Christenson For Christus Lutheran Church, Greenville, Wis. Isaiah 55:10-11 Bible Sunday – September 15, 2013 Given that today is Bible-fest 2013, I decided to go off-lectionary (that is, the prescribed readings for the day) and chose instead a few verses that speak to us regarding God’s Word. During the children’s sermon we talked about God’s Word as something that can light the way for us. Now with our second reading we listen in as the prophet Isaiah speaks promise and hope to the people of Israel. Here God promises that God’s word does, indeed, have power. It has the power to transform, to give life, to give hope. This promise would have been especially meaningful to those who heard it first, who heard it directly from the prophet. For they were a people in exile, defeated and pretty sure there was nothing left to hope for and that God, rightfully, had turned away from them. Yet, here comes Isaiah, bearing God’s word and saying that no, the story of God and God’s people isn’t over yet, the final chapter has not yet been written. God’s Word is still active and alive. And those same words ring true for us even today. It can feel, in a society and world that seems to grow ever more secular with each passing day, like the power of God’s Word is diminishing. It can feel on a more personal level that the things we have done and left undone, our own failings, are a sign that God’s word is inching out of our lives too. And, when the messages, the words all around us tell us we need stuff to be worthwhile, we need to be popular, or pretty, or look a certain way, or have a certain job, or drive a certain vehicle, to matter…God’s Word, the one that tells us we are of infinite worth simply because we are God’s precious children, that word can all too easily fade into the background. Yet, here comes Isaiah, once again. The voice calling out to the exiles. The voice calling out to you and to me, to remind us that God’s word is as effective as the rain and snow in doing what it is meant to do. For when the rain falls, it falls, and it meets the ground, and it waters the earth, and the earth in turn gives life. So it is with God’s Word. Rain and snow are tangible things – we see rain, we feel it and Lord knows we get usually get enough snow around here to know that THAT’S something real. So it is with God’s Word. So too, the Word of God is real and tangible. It’s not just marks on a page in a dusty, old, irrelevant book. Rather, the Word of God is a living, powerful word that leaps off those pages into our mouths when we speak words of comfort and hope in Jesus’ name. And leaps off of the page into our hearts when those same words of comfort and hope are spoken to us. And leaps off of the page into our hands when we do God’s work in this world. When God’s Word is spoken, in any age, it does what God intended it to: gives life, gives hope, gives a future. So, as Isaiah did way back then to the disheartened people of Israel, speaking God’s word into their broken hearts and lives, let us do now in our own day and age. Let us speak that same powerful word of peace, of hope, of life, of justice. Let us speak that same powerful Word of the Lord, trusting as Isaiah did, that God will take care of the rest. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Amen “The Word Gives Hope” By Rev. Jennifer Christenson For Christus Lutheran Church, Greenville, Wis. Romans 15:4 Bible Sunday – September 15, 2013 Our third and final installment of scripture verses about scripture comes from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans. Here we learn that what has been written from ancient of days onward, the holy scriptures themselves, has been written for our instruction. On one level, I think this is something we have already suspected about scripture, about the Bible. It’s why we go to Sunday School, to Bible study, to worship. We go because we trust that there is a lot this holy book can teach us – about ourselves, about the world we live in, and about the God who created it all. What’s a little mind-boggling but also rather easy to miss, is the way Paul phrases this. “Whatever was written in former days was written for OUR instruction.” He’s implying, here to the Romans and presumably also to anyone who sees or hears his letter, that the holy scriptures were written, in a sense, with us, with you and me in mind. Meaning, scripture wasn’t written just for general instruction, but for our instruction as the children of God. For our instruction as people who hunger to learn, as people who get confused by what we read, as people who, in this ever-changing world, are looking for something, anything rock solid upon which to stand. Scripture was written for you…for me…for everyone. Better still, in the second half of this short little verse, Paul gives us the why of scripture. The Bible’s ultimate purpose is……….to give hope. To bring hope into a hopeless world; to bring hope into lives that feel hopeless too. Note, scripture isn’t written to be used solely as a book of rules, or a moral code, or a science textbook. The Bible was not breathed into life by the Holy Spirit for us to use as a weapon against people we don’t like. It was breathed into life by the Holy Spirit to give us hope. Godly hope. Hope in God. Hope that despite all of the seeming chaos and decay, our God, the God revealed to us in scripture, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of Sarah, Ruth and Esther; the God of Peter, James and Mary Magdalene; the God of you and me…our God, in Christ Jesus, reigns. Scripture was and is intended to create in us hope that, for all of our failings and wandering, for all of the ways we are unfaithful to God, God chooses, time and again, to remain faithful to us. Hope that in Christ, death has been overcome and our sin no longer has the last word over us. Hope that in the end, all things will be made right. Now does scripture, in seeking to produce this hope offer to us moral instruction, rules to live by, and such? It does, yet when read through the lens of hope, such instructions and commandments don’t look so much like bullwhips to keep us in line, as much as pictures of the world as God intends it and is constantly working for it to be. “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.” This Holy Book is a pretty amazing thing. That’s why we’re making such a big deal about giving all these Bibles to the young people of the congregation. And it’s why we hope and trust that their parents and godparents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and family friends will read it and learn from it and be given hope by it, right along with them. For this is truly a book of light, of purpose, and of hope. May we who read it, cherish it, learn it, memorize it, and most importantly share it – may we also by its mysteries be re-made into people of light and purpose, and bringers of the hope we know in Christ to the world. Amen
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 15:45:11 +0000
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