Our life today is full of words passing information to us. Televisions, radios, CDs, computers, newspapers, books, films and of course people. Don’t you sometimes long for quietness, the opportunity to think and reflect without being constantly bombarded with new inputs of information? Before I add another few thousand words today, let’s just in silence mull over individually what verse 33 means as it talks about the words of Jesus.
Words are about communication with people. They convey what we think. What we feel. What we believe. But, the experts tell us that the individual words and sentences themselves only account for about 5% of our communication with people. Our face and our body language communicate a large part of what we really mean, as does our tone of voice.
Words are amongst the most powerful tools that we know in this world:
- They have the power to ‘build up’ as Stephen Fisbacher sings on one of his songs, or the power to ‘knock down’.
- They can communicate feelings which intimidate & bully, or feelings which encourage.
- They have the power to make individuals feel good or feel bad.
- They have the power to praise or criticize.
- They have the power to create or destroy meaning for people.
Words have the power to create hatred in society by influencing individuals or large groups of people. For example, if you have ever seen any of the film clips of Hitler speaking to large crowds and seeing their response then you have some idea how great the power of words is to arouse very deep emotional responses.
But, words also have the power to uplift and inspire. Martin Luther King e.g. said in challenging the racism of the America of his time:
(From the speech “March on Washington” - edited)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… I have a dream that one day, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, and sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”
“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character … And with this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
(From the Acceptance Speech, The Nobel Peace Prize, 1964 - Edited)
“I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of a thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth, and unconditional love, will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is still stronger than evil triumphant.”
Martin Luther King illustrated that words can be used to convey deep meaning, and carry the hopes and dreams of people for a better world. He illustrated that words could be used to inspire people to work towards changing our world for the better.
One of the images of God I love is that of the Trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit living in a totally loving relationship with each other, and communicating effortlessly with each other without any barrier. This is a very powerful image of a God who communicates.. God’s word is an extension of his divine personality. His word is invested with divine authority.. But God’s word is not just what is written down on the page here for us today. John’s Gospel begins by saying “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. God’s word is embodied in the presence of Jesus as he speaks these words here to the people of Jerusalem and to his disciples.
Jesus has taught people and offered them the Good News but while some have accepted, others have rejected him and his ways. The words he uses now are very powerful communications for those who have rejected him and for his disciples.
The words that we hear in the Gospel are not nice words of comfort and cheer. Instead, they are words of terror and anguish. In verses 25 and 26 e.g. it says “And there will be signs in sun, moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming into the world for the power of heaven will be shaken”. These are very hard words.
Imagine what it would have been like to actually hear Jesus saying these very hard words. The words he uses are delivered in the context of what the disciples know about his life. Did his face convey the agony he almost certainly felt as he was making these terrible prophecies? Did his tone of voice convey the compassion and sorrow and perhaps anger that he felt?
The passage today looks into the short term future when Jesus warns his disciples that their precious Temple was destined for destruction. As Jesus stands in the City that was chosen by God and celebrated by psalmist and prophet alike, he knows that the generation who reject him will be the last to inhabit Jerusalem.. But he points too in verse 33 to the long term for the world and states “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
So here we are then at Advent, the beginning of the church year. It’s a celebration of the fact that God came into the world in the birth of Jesus. Signifying that the future has been determined by God’s gracious gift to us of Jesus
At Christmas though, we usually like to focus on the positive messages of Advent:
- We prefer to focus on the baby in the manger rather than the enemies who want the baby Jesus destroyed.
- We prefer to focus on the light and warmth of celebration rather than the dirt and discomfort of the makeshift shelter into which Jesus was born
- We prefer to focus on food and presents rather than on the hard messages that Jesus gave, and the haunting images we see on TV screens of the war, violence and hunger that still the norm in our world...
The word Advent offers a future that comes to us as God’s gracious gift. In the light of that gift, like those of old, we can ask God to help us change our lives in response to his message of love, or we can vainly think that God will somehow fit into our own version of the kind of life that we think we should lead.
We have in the great gift of Jesus, much to be thankful for at the start of this Christmas season. Jesus today, as with his disciples, calls us to be alert and to pray for ourselves and for the peoples of our world that we may have the strength to stand before the Son of Man.
Jesus Word has literally not passed away. We have the written version of it here on the table. We worship in the presence of Jesus who is the Word. Let us live our lives as Christians in this world, so that people hear our words, and hear our tone of voice, and experience in what we do the Word of God who lives by his presence in us.
Words are among the most powerful tools that we know in this world. They have the power to ‘build up’ or the power to ‘knock down’. Today we have the privilege and responsibility to use the Word of God to challenge our world, in order that it might be built up.