A few weeks back, I think it was because I was so much in the car, I listened to the Bible being read out loud in the car. I hadn’t ever done this before. As someone who reads the Bible ‘for a living’ both quietly and out loud I am familiar over many decades with how I think it should be read so that it is clearly understood; where there should be emphasis, pauses, even a slight change of tone. The lector is not to read dramatically – the focus is not on the reader – but the reading is not to be bland either that lessens the hearer’s understanding. Rather the reading should simply be a voice (not necessarily in a wilderness) making words audible and understandable as they powerfully interact with those who hear. So I have been surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed hearing the Bible in the car and now sometimes on my walks. It’s not as if I don’t know what’s happening next but I’ve enjoyed the experience of hearing it as if for the first time. I hadn’t expected this surprise and enjoyment at all.

We are made of flesh and blood. We are physical beings that require nutrients and shelter. And yet it is our faculty of speech – meaningful syllables and sounds – by which we communicate that give us meaning and purpose, stories and song. Since we have a God who speaks, this is the image of God by which we have a relationship with him and with each other – and with ourselves. We are word beings – hearing and speaking.

Even the world knows the power of words – often to bind, mould, shape, control – but knowledge and beauty which can so enrich us also often have words accompanying them. We know from personal experience that words can create and destroy relationships.

So it is with a deep appreciation and awe of words themselves that Christians also interact with the Word and words of God because hidden beyond our senses, our flesh and blood, God relates and communicates with us personally. Just as people can hear the same person – politician, family member, employer, or employee – say the same words but hear them differently – understand them differently – get a different meaning from those words – so similarly people can hear God’s Word differently. Lutherans will frame the messages each person hears as Law or Gospel – we notice what we are noticing in the words! – as God’s personal message to us now. Should we hear the same Word of God over days or weeks or months or years, yes, we might remember what we noticed last time but there is a very good chance we’ll hear / notice something else that we hadn’t ‘heard’ before. (Of course we’ve heard it before but it is now we are noticing it.) This is the work of the Holy Spirit – a dynamic powerful work – bringing God’s Word to us personally so we can grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And because of this relationship with Jesus which he has brought about and because Jesus points us the God the Father, and together Father and Son send the Holy Spirit so this Triune God who speaks together are communicating with us collectively and individually so that we can live ‘life in all its fulness’ in this world here and now. Often people ‘hear me’ communicate these words and they ‘translate’ them into God will give us everything we want to make our version of living the best – so health, happiness, wealth, and success – and we’ll all be living a full and active life until we’re over 100 and then we’ll die peacefully in our sleep! Not so! We live in our time and place with all the troubles of this world which we cause – we do, the world is the mess it is in because of us – and yes, we should work to ameliorate the messes around us – but we live not just with the world’s words and whoever shouts the loudest or threatens us the most or panders to us the best – but the disciples of Jesus always listen to the still small voice of God – his Word – because he gives us ultimate truth, an ultimate way of living, and an ultimate life (now and forever). Listen to God’s Word – there is always a message FOR YOU.

GS