2051AFC121820 – 2020 Advent Series #4 – The Word of Course
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Luke 1:38 – 38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
Genesis 15:1 – 1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
Psalm 33:6 – 6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
May Peace always be with you and may God bless you, Belovéd! Back in October, I created a post called 2040AFC100220 – Think about these things and in that post was this statement: We discern what is good, and follow everything that points to the Love of God in Christ Jesus. We never, never, never, never give up Hope! We place Faith as our mast, and Love as our sail, and with Wisdom as our rudder we follow the course laid out in Scripture.
My dear friend and mentor, John Kretser, commented on that. He liked the image and contributed the thought that the Boat that holds that mast, sail, rudder, and follows our course is our Hope in Christ Jesus. KA-CHING! There it was laid out for me just as I had hoped. Today we will continue with the Course – Scripture. As I worked on deciding how to build this series, a second set of instructions came in: BUILD IT FROM PREVIOUSLY-USED MATERIALS AND INSERT NEW MATERIAL FROM EACH SUNDAY’S READINGS. This is the fourth in the Series. I’ll give you links where you can go look at the origin of what you’ll see in these posts. Last week we talked about the rudder – Wisdom. Wisdom comes from knowing God, so if we wish to know wisdom, then the wise thing to do is to know God. It is God who will design and install that rudder of Wisdom in your life! And Belovéd, how do we know God? Let me provide a little hint: What word – a Key Concept Word – occurs in each of the three Key Verse for today? We hear it all the time, especially in Church, in our daily devotions, and nearly 700 times in the Bible. Did you find that recurring word? It’s also in the title. It is Word. Where do we find “God’s Word?” OK, that’s too easy. We find it in the Bible, the Word of God – Holy Scripture. We use Holy Scripture to plot our course in life. It functions as a map.
We’ve learned how a mast, a sail, and a rudder work, so how does a map work? A map is an illustration of an environment. It shows landmarks, paths, roads, geographic features, and gives us information to orient us in that environment. We can see what we will encounter between where we are and where we want to go. The map will not take us there, but it will show us where “there” is. That can help us plan our journey. If Scripture is like a map, then how does Scripture work? Pretty much the same way.
Scripture shows us landmarks such as Sacred Places. Scripture lays out paths and roads we can follow so that we can navigate the terrain between this life and the Life to come. In Scripture we can get a clearer understanding of the processes of making a journey – where we can nourish our souls or gain protection. We can find respite in times of fatigue or danger. We can find courage, encouragement, enlightenment, and even Peace by learning Scripture – by hearing, seeing, and learning the Word of God. Scripture will not take us to Heaven, but it can certainly help us get a better idea of what is necessary to go there. It gives us a good deal of information about the “lay of the land,” but we still have to make the journey and follow the directions we acquire by our map-reading. Scripture is a great tool for navigating life’s peaks and valleys, rivers and streams, puddles and lakes and oceans. Making sense of the features of this map – Scripture – is aided by another tool that we learn about in Scripture but is accessed primarily as an optional extra to Scripture. This other tool functions like a compass.
OK, ya got me! “How does a compass work?” Well, the really cool thing about a compass is that it is “always on,” it is always working, and it always works the same way. It’s fairly easy to learn how to relate the actions of the compass to the information in the map. The map doesn’t help much if you don’t know which way “over there” is. That’s how a compass helps. We can spot a couple of landmarks, see how they relate to each other on the map, and then see how the compass helps us differentiate that there from this here. Using the map and the compass together makes journeying more efficient and less dangerous. As many of us know, using a map along with a compass is a good way to travel, but even with the two tools together we can still get lost. What is there in our faith that acts like a compass, it’s always on, it always works the same way, and it helps make easier the whole process of reading the map and the terrain it represents? Hmmm. What does that sound like? Could it be the Holy Spirit?
Well, certainly we learn about the Holy Spirit in Scripture, and clearly using the Holy Spirit and Scripture together is a great way to travel (or as the little bird used to say, “The ONLY way to fly!). Now then, we have the mast, the sail, the rudder, and the course – the chart and compass help us set and follow the course – so what can we find out in Scripture about how all that fits together? How about a guide, a navigator, an experienced leader who can help us find the way. OK, ya got me again. Who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”? (See John 14:6) How did we learn about the Man who said that? We learned it in Scripture! And how did we come to better understand what Jesus meant when he told us that? Through the Power of the Holy Spirit! And how do we learn about Scripture, Jesus, the Father, the Holy Spirit, the Way and Truth and Life, Heaven and Hell, Love, Mercy, Peace, JOY, and every good thing that comes down from Heaven above?
God gives all of those to us as his Gift through our parents, our pastors, our Sunday School teachers, and dusty old men who spend hours at the keyboard writing up essays like this one. We know that because Scripture says –
Romans 10:10, 14-17 – 10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. […]14 But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? 15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” 16 But not all have obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” 17 So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.
1 Peter 1:23-25 – 23 You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord endures forever*.” That word is the good news that was announced to you. (*See Isaiah 40:6)
When we lay out our course in life based on That word [which] is the good news that was announced to you, we have the Holy Spirit as our compass, Jesus as our navigator, and all of God’s Living Word – Scripture – to guide us from this here to that there. Belovéd, “that there” is absolutely where I want to end up and we can all get to Heaven in a little row boat. Through baptism God has made us Priest, Prophet, and King. 1719AFC051217 – Stones and Thrones As Prophets, we are graced with the opportunity to speak The Word of the Lord in our hearts and minds as well as in the hearts and minds of others – our families, communities, churches, and workplaces – through example and testimony. In Numbers 11:29, Moses scolds the Israelites, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” Later the prophet Joel speaks in God’s way and says, “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.” (See Joel 2:28-29) We are the recipients of that Spirit of the Living God. In the Spirit of Prophecy, we teach our children and each other as witnesses to “The Way, the Truth, and the Life.” As Priest, we consult Scripture, the Bible, to learn what to share with our brothers and sisters in faith.
2010AFC030620 – Do you hear what I hear? Christian Fundamentalist, Christian Evangelical, Orthodox Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Protestant, Universalist, Mormon, or even just “Religion-Curious,” whatever your particular persuasion, you have been called to hear, and by hearing you are called to faith, and by faith you are called to accept the Gift of Love in Christ Jesus. Did you know you can be the voice through which The Word is heard? It is often said, “Our lives are the only Bible some people will ever read.” Beloved, consider making your life an audio-book as well as a pop-up action book. Whatever your calling in Christ, honor the Giver by accepting – and sharing – the Gift of The Living Word. “Now hear ye the Word of the Lord.” He is calling! If you listen, you will hear; if you hear, Faith is just a “yes” away. That’s how Mary’s “YES” changed the whole World. What YES can we give to this world? Our prayers would be a wonderful gift. 1639AFC092316 – Listen up! In our prayers, we CAN:
- Pray for those who reach and preach as well as for those who draw near to hear.
- Pray for those who turn a deaf ear.
- Pray for all the suffering souls whose ears are filled with the sounds of famine, war, terror, prejudice, pestilence, mockery, and abuse.
- Pray for all those souls who afflict such things as these on others.
- Pray for the people dying everywhere that they will find Peace and Mercy at the end of their days
- Pray for those who suffer with chronic and acute illnesses that they will know the sustaining love of God, family, friends, and caregivers in every moment of their lives.
- Pray for Peace as though the future depends on it. Truly it does.
- Pray for the children who are denied the opportunity to hear about Jesus for whatever reason, but especially for those children whose parents have closed their ears to The Word.
- Pray for adults who think they haven’t got time for God, are too sophisticated to be taken in by religion, or whose lives have been so devoid of genuine love that they don’t know what Love is. SHOW THEM WHAT HAPPINESS LOOKS LIKE! (↔ Music Link)
And the best part of Scripture as a map for many of us is we don’t have to fold it up to put it away. We just fold it into our hearts and minds. God himself told us the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. (See Deuteronomy 30:11-14 and Romans 10:6-12 for this in context – seriously, read’em) Belovéd, what really, really matters here is “1 In the beginning was the Word†, and the Word† was with God, and the Word† was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:1-5) † λόγος – logos The Word (Jesus) expressing the thoughts of the Father through the Spirit. If we map out our lives in the Word with the counsel of the Holy Spirit and the steering of Jesus, our journey “over yonder past Jordan’s banks” will surely be successful, because we, too, can say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
