What does the Word have that I do not have?

Is that a weird question?

And yet, the answer is of great importance.

In the Word is life.

Jesus says things very succinctly. Especially when he uses images. Then they become well-known. Perhaps so well-known, that we do not always feel the depth of their meaning anymore.

In the Word is Life⤒🔗

The Word he speaks is like a seed. It is sprinkled on the earth. Without the seed the ground is dead and remains dead. The earth itself will not bring forth anything.

This is how the relationship is between the Word of God and me.

Jesus said it very plainly: unless you listen well and intently to Me, you have no life in yourself.

Listen, so that you eat and drink Me, so as to speak like the True One.

For I am your life (John 6:22-59).

That hit the people quite hard. Some of them walked away angry, and among them were some of his disciples. They wanted to learn from Jesus, they wanted to be religious, and they were willing to do everything for him. But this was going too far.

Did they really have to admit that in themselves they were dead? That they could only live if he gave them life? No, that is too crazy, that it too much to ask.

But the people did not only walk away then. It still happens today. And before you know it, you do it yourself. Reading the Bible is an easy thing to skip. In the morning it is too early, in the afternoon it is too busy and in the evening it is too late. I sometimes talk to people who have not seen God’s Word in days. They pray, but they do not listen.

That makes them restless, and they remain unsatisfied.

Life Is (in) Jesus←⤒🔗

The Word is a seed, for in it our life is contained. How is that? Because the Word is full of Jesus, everything is about him. By speaking and letting it speak, he gives himself. Every word in Scripture is full of him.

A young man filled with confidence, can say to his girlfriend: “I love you!” This is more than an expression, for in each word that he says he gives himself.

This is how Jesus gives himself when he speaks to our heart. He wants to share his life with us, and while speaking, he declares his love and opens our heart.

His Word is full of his own Spirit, who wants to dwell in us. The seed wants to grow roots in our heart, where it comes to life.

When you think that through, then you cannot skip the reading and listening. It is the only way to receive Jesus and to share in his life. Peter calls this the seed of being born again (1 Peter 1:23). When the Word comes into you, then Jesus enters. His love permeates you and changes your thinking and your desires.

How important it is then to take time for the Word of God, to read intently and to ponder it. When you skip this, you dry up. It is your food and drink.

How important too to answer. To accept Jesus in faith. To thank God, and let the Spirit guide your thoughts.

Cherish the Uninhibited Listening←⤒🔗

Because this is so real for us, exactly on this point there are many temptations. We know them from the parable of the sower (Matt. 13). There is much seed that is unused and picked up by the birds. Other seed lands between the rocks, it does not go very deep, and listening only lasts a short while. A little further the seed is overgrown by thistles and thorns, which grow much faster, hearts are quickly filled up with what man thinks of himself or what he is concerned about. There is always a reason to “just quickly” read something, or not at all.

Or to keep running without further depth or much thought.

Then we act as if we have control over our lives. It will be all right, even without receiving it.

This can also happen regarding church. We catch the Word in confessions. This is how we keep the Christian teachings, which is taught in Scripture. There is nothing against this, on the contrary, it is very much needed in the midst of various errors and liberalism. As long as we do not think that to keep and guard the truth, is the same as listening to it. That would be a big mistake.

The confessions are the property of the church, they are already ages old, while we can never claim to have the life that God gives us. This is every day anew, and every Sunday again, a matter of listening and then answering: “Amen, Lord, You are my life!”

The girlfriend who hears her friend say: “I love you” does not react with: “that matches your previous statement”. Factually, this may be so, she would strictly speaking then hear exactly the same. But if she reacts like that, she does not get what she receives anew at that very moment, namely the love of her friend. That is the important part!

This is why we cannot lean on our confessions in the church, in the confidence that they contain the truth, without us staying active in listening to the proclamation of the Word which gives us true life. We should also not use most of our energy in various discussions about what we have built up and shaped so far. However much value it may contain, this will easily turn into thorns and thistles which will overgrow our unashamed listening, and which will take the enthusiasm out of the worship services.

Neither is the sermon intended to repeat everything exactly as we together have agreed upon, this is also not what people will appreciate listening to.

Hear from every text that Jesus comes to you and declares his love for you and wants to share his life with you, to take you along to the Father. Even when you already knew that, as often as you hear this, it is being given to you.

Then subsequently it is about your answer in faithful realization, your amen for God!

Thorns and Thistles←⤒🔗

Woe to him/her who already knows everything. Who, during listening, has lost his amazement and in fact only checks if everything is correct.

Woe to the person who refuses to exert himself to understand the proclamation of the Word, and to receive it, who is only open for what “appeals” to him.

Thorns and thistles grow everywhere, in various ways. They shoot up as soon as we dictate what we want to hear, and in which way. Of course, the content and the form are important, and no pastor has a monopoly on those things. But it can also be that we are so full of ourselves, our demands, and our situations, that in fact we have no room left anymore to receive the Lord as he gives himself.

Add to this the sometimes rather empty discussions we have and the stresses we evoke through these. And the critical glares and comments about everything that is “different”.

All together then, a lot of attention is diverted and is in fact kept prisoner. At the cost of the one thing which is needed.

On the other hand: how difficult can the preaching be about this, that, and the other, but not containing enough food and drink for people who cannot keep themselves alive.

Correctly done, worship services can be tiring and disappointing when we are not going home with the experience that we have met the LORD and have received his Son and in him the one true life.

We are rather good in preserving forms and patterns. If they serve us well, that is good. But when they overgrow the living relationship in God’s covenant, they are still thorns and thistles for which we are to watch out.

The Field Is Large←⤒🔗

The Word is a seed. And the field is the world (Matt. 13:38). Sowing is not an intra-church activity, and it is not good if it becomes that. Thorns and thistles also grow where others cannot listen to the Word because we speak our secret language, only to be understood by the initiates. And where we maintain a church culture, which to a large extent is opaque, even for our own members. We have no idea what we do to others and to ourselves with that, and how we perhaps rob ourselves of the powerful working of the Word of God, though we could be a decisive and hospitable church.

There is so much language in the church, which is not from today, and which our children do not understand. Complete sermons float over their heads, of which they narrowly grasp the meaning. There then goes their food and drink.

Criticism is sometimes difficult because no untruths were being told. And yet there is the cardinal question: was it possible to listen to the Word of God, everyone in their own tongue?

For the guests, the strangers, for the new generation, for people in today’s world?

The seed drops everywhere. Also in places where we do not expect it (to drop). Between the prostitutes and the drug addicts, in the streets of the big city.

This is amazing. We cannot easily mark it on the map. But we must be open to that, as church and as individuals. For Jesus brings them to us.

The Word is like a seed. You cannot fathom that it is so full of life. You cannot understand where it goes. You cannot control it and should not want to try to do so either. It is larger and stronger than we are. To listen, that is what matters.

And to proclaim, passing it on, so that others can listen too.

Make time and room for this, for yourself and for others. Dare to clear out what stands in the way, personally and together.

For this is life.