Faithful Hearing of God’s Word
Ash Wednesday 2018
February 14, 2018
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
As we begin the holy season of Lent, we are reminded of several things. First, that we are dust and to dust we shall return. The ash cross is just a reminder, though you live with reminders every day. Bodies grow old and tired. Minds dull. Evil rears its ugly head in our lives, in the lives of our family and our friends. And death. Death that comes too often, too early, too suddenly.
We are reminded that death is not the end, that death has been defeated. We know how our Lenten journey ends – with an empty tomb. We observe the season of Lent not for its own sake, but because it points us to Christ. Our faith, our devotion, is intensified this time of the year as we focus more clearly and specificially on Jesus Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins.
Knowing the end, knowing our end, shapes the way we live here and now as we wait for the Lord’s return. There are habits that mark how the Christian lives out his life as we wait for the Lord’s return. And that’s what we are going to be considering this year during Lent: godly habits and disciples of the Christian life.
And so tonight, as we hear the Word of God calling us to return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and aboudning in steadfast love, we need to remember that godly habits begin with hearing the Word, for faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ. We confess in the third article of the Creed that I cannot believe by own reason or strength. Notice the present tense. The Holy Spirit’s calling, gathering, enlightening , and sanctifying work must be ongoing in order for faith to continue to exist. The first habit of godliness is simply this: hearing God’s Word. The Word alone has the power to give and sustain the gift of faith in our lives. All godly habits start from the Word of God, have their source and sustainment of the Word of God, and their goal the Word of God.
That the Church proclaims the Word is a command from God, how she organizes it is not. What is read, the pattern of how and when to read various parts of Scripture, the songs, the prayers, and the like are left at the discretion of the Church. Historically, the Lutheran Church saw great benefit in continuing to use the pattern of reading the Word received from very early on in history. The church year, moving from the seasons of Christmas to Easter to Pentecost, centers on the main events of the life and teaching of Jesus.
The chief and primary emphasis and activity of every Christian is one thing: “to hold God’s Word sacred and gladly hear and learn it,” as Luther explains what the Third Commandment is all about. The highest work you can do during worship, the most important way that you can be involved is hearing the Word. To be blunt, to the hold the Word of God sacred means that at minumum you should be in Church on any given Sunday whenever you are physically able. This is not to fulfill some obligation as was thought in the middle ages and still promoted within Roman Catholicism today, and its not a pep rally like many in American Evangelicalism treat it, but it is the joy of being in the very presence of God with your brothers and sisters in Christ.
We need to treat it that way. We lament the that so many of our children wander away from the faith and from the body of Christ, but this starts at home. When mom and dad eagerly look forward to the day when they can gather with brothers and sisters in Christ to hear the Word of God, to receive His gifts and strength for the week, that will teach the children to do the same. If you treat going to Church like a chore and a burden, you will teach that going to Church is a chore and a burden. That’s why Luther says that we should fear and love God so we do not despise preaching and God’s Word. To despise does not mean to hate, it means to think little of, to regard something as unimportant or unworthy of your time and consideration. So you despise the preaching of God’s Word when you find that hearing God’s word is of less importance than something else. More often than not when people stop coming to church they also stop reading the Word at home, they stop praying. The loss of the Word of God results in the loss of faith in Christ.
Lastly, this isn’t a me and God thing. Hearing the Word of God is a communal activity. Our American culture has inodated us, all of us, to the idea that faith is a private matter, that is primarily a thing between myself and God. But the Church is not a me and God thing, it is an us and God thing. The Holy Spirit’s normal way of bringing people to faith is by means of the Church. He works through the Office of Ministry to proclaim the Word and administer the Sacraments. He brings hearers together to bind them to Jesus. I come to faith through God’s Word at work in the community of the Church. And this community meets together regularly to gather around the Word again to hear it read to them, preached to them, prayed, sacramentally given in the Lord’s Supper, and then sent out with the Word on in their hearts and on their lips.
This isn’t just limited to Sundays, to once a week. You should attend to God’s Word everyday. Church services, home devotions, songs and prayers. Use the Portals of Prayer, Lenten devotions, the Treasury of Daily Prayer. Don’t skip the Bible readings in these, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. The Word of the Lord endures forever.