Verbum Domini
Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in words. I mean if you ever drive down 1960, there’s signs and advertisements and words words words. Some describe it as if you’re driving through a dictionary. Not only that, but now we have these little devices in our pockets or bags that send us notifications with more words every 5 seconds. And after a while, these words begin to lose its value. The words begin to lose its power. It becomes to be “just more words”.
It’s not surprising then, that (if you’re like me) when you come into the Church and the readings are read, it’s easy for the readings to turn out to be “just more words’ that are bombarding us. And because it’s “just more words,” we drown it out.
Pop quiz.... who wrote the first reading this Sunday? Even better, who was the priest in the first reading? If you’re like me, you might have already forgotten. Let me tell you, if I had not read this reading before hand, if I had not meditated on the readings for this Sunday, I really would have a difficult time remembering. You see, if we don’t stop and take the time to prepare and listen, we can miss the power of the Word of God.
Stop and think about the power of words for a second. Words are a fascinating and powerful thing... I mean we are able to communicate using words. What do I do when I communicate?
1) I conceive in my mind and object or idea
2) I Refer to it by use of language (a word)
3) with my breath I speak that word
4) you hear it
5) and the concept of the object or idea is transferred from my mind to yours.
All the while, I don’t lose anything in the process (I still have the concept in my mind) but now you do too.
For example, If I say, “TABLE”, immediately you have in your mind a table. I have transferred an idea or object in my mind to yours, and still retain it in my mind.
(This is all from St. Augustine by the way)
But now get this... What happens when God wants to communicate to you and me? When God uses his breath and speaks a word, that word is also transferred to us. But God’s breath is not just air and his word is not just an idea... His breath is the Holy Spirit and his Word is Christ himself. The Word of God is not an idea, it’s not nice sayings, the Word of God is first and foremost a person!
St. John’s Gospel starts out with “in the beginning was the... WORD” (he could have said Christ)... and when you hear “in the beginning”, as a good Catholic or a good Jew of the time, you would immediately think of what? Genesis right?
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind (Spirit or Ruah) sweeping over the waters—Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light.
There’s the Spirit or Breath (Ruah) of God and the Word that God’ Speaks... and all of creation comes forth... and the Word of God is Spirit and Life.
There is power in the Word of God, power to create Life... power to give life to all things! To everything you see.
That’s why in Mass, after the readings the lector always says, “The Word of the Lord” (you say... “Thanks be to God”). When the lector says “the Word of the Lord” he doesn’t first and foremost mean the words on the page, he doesn’t mean the ideas that were spoken... he means the Second Person of the Trinity through which all of life came forth and who became flesh in Jesus Christ.
To Him, to the Word of God, to Jesus Christ, we say “Thanks be to God”.
In the first reading we encounter Nehemiah and Ezra ministering to the people of God. Israel has just returned from the Babylonian exile and they look around at what’s left of their land, at what’s left of the temple, at what’s left of their homes and they’re discouraged. Like many of us after the destruction of Harvey, it was easy to be overwhelmed and discouraged...
And so Ezra stands on a wooden platform and from morning and to midday he opens the scroll and he reads the Word of God, the book of the law to the people. And touched by this very word they shout, “Amen, amen!” Or as we would say, “Thanks be to God!” And “they bowed down and prostrated themselves before the LORD.”
Ezra and Nehemiah knew that before the people can begin rebuilding the temple and begin rebuilding their lives, they needed the creative power of the Word to recreate anew their hearts. There is power in the Word, because the Word is a person!
I love the story of Ezekiel and the dry bones. God comes to Ezekiel and leads him to a valley of dry bones and tells him to prophesize to bones, to speak the Word of God to them, and when he does suddenly the bones came together one by one and sinews and muscles and skin and the bones came to life! The Word of God has power to bring back the dead to life!
Should we be surprise then that when the Word became flesh in Jesus Christ, that He had the power to bring the dead to life?
Brothers and sisters, when we come to Mass and we hear the Word of God proclaimed, it’s not “just more words”, the person of Christ is being given to us, and it has the power to transform you if you let it. And then after being recreated, we are invited to the altar of the Lord where not only does Christ give us new life, but he gives us HIS life, and puts HIS life in us.
But the wonderful thing is this. We don’t have to go to Church to receive the Word of God, we can receive him in our homes. Hopefully every family here has a bible somewhere in their homes... hopefully you remember where it is. You can if you want receive the power and Spirit of the Word every day. The creative power and life of Christ is at your fingertips... don’t allow the Word of God to remain being “just more words”.
