Sexagesima – Isaiah 55:10-13
“The pen is mightier than the sword.” This familiar axiom reminds us that the power of words – both written and spoken – can be and is greater, and more enduring, than the power of force and violence.
External threats and coercive pressure can change people’s bodily actions, and make them outwardly conform to a tyrant’s demands – even as they internally resent this oppression. But the power of words can re-shape minds and change hearts, and lead people to embrace new ways of thinking and believing.
The great orators and authors in human history have used their skill with words to instill in their listeners and readers both fear and courage; to bring people to tears or to fill people with indignation. Rhetorical skill can be used to deceive or to inform; to manipulate or to inspire.
When considering the subject of Christian proclamation, we should think about how the power of words is brought to bear on the task that Jesus entrusted to his church and its ministers, when he said – as recorded by St. Mark:
“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”
But the Word and message of God, as it is preached and taught – or even as it is read silently from the sacred page of Scripture – is not the same as human messages, which can be strengthened or weakened in their impact and influence, depending on whether or not they are delivered with high rhetorical and linguistic skill.
God’s Word has its own intrinsic, supernatural power. It’s power is not augmented by a preacher with a high mastery of language, and it is not diminished by a preacher with an unassuming and calm manner of speaking. And this doesn’t just apply to professional preachers, either.
I am reminded of a story told in my hearing many years ago by a man named Bill Cetnar, who previously had been a high-ranking member of the Jehovah’s Witness religion. But one day, as he was going from door to door, he came to the house of a simple Christian man who did not slam the door in his face – as often happened – but who talked with him.
He told Cetnar about the grace of God in Christ, about the peace of God’s forgiveness, about the gift of eternal life, and about the confidence and comfort of the faith that God’s Spirit works in those who hear and believe the gospel.
The man was not particularly eloquent or well-spoken, and at the time Cetnar felt that with his well-rehearsed polemical responses to everything the man said, he had won the argument that day.
But as Cetnar continued his story, he said that in the days and weeks that followed this conversation, the words of that man kept echoing in his mind and probing his conscience. He began to lose sleep, as the things this man had told him about Jesus and salvation, over time, caused him to doubt, to question, and eventually to reject everything he had previously believed.
Bill Cetnar became a Christian. Before long, his wife Joan also became a Christian – by means of the same message of Christ crucified for sinners that had changed her husband’s heart, and that he had then shared with her.
What a marvelous story he told. What a marvelous thing happened to him, through the power of God’s Word.
God’s Word truly does have, within itself, the power to convict the conscience and to persuade the will; to convert the heart and to enlighten the mind. It has within itself the divine power of the God from whom it comes, to fulfill God’s purposes with those whose souls it touches.
Through the Prophet Isaiah – as we heard in today’s Old Testament reading – the Lord himself says:
“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud – that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater – so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth. It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
I want to ask each of you a question. What would you identify as the likely thing – or the likely purpose – for which God has sent his Word to you today?
As God’s living Word comes to you, and gets inside of you, what do you think God might be trying to accomplish? As the inspired Scriptures are read to you, and as their message is expounded for you, what outcome – in you – do you perceive would be pleasing to God?
You know, sometimes people get angry at their pastor – people in other churches, of course, not here! But they get angry at their pastor because his sermons sometimes make them feel uncomfortable.
These sermons make them think about things they don’t want to think about. These sermons do not come across as cheerful and uplifting, but they come across as judgmental and critical. Or so it seems to them.
But do you think it’s possible that God, at least occasionally, wants people to feel uncomfortable when they hear a sermon: if those people have become too comfortable otherwise, with things that are displeasing to God?
Is it possible that a sermon that makes you feel uncomfortable, is making you feel that way, because it is a faithful and accurate unfolding and application of God’s law, as God’s law condemns compromises that you have made with a sinful world, or with your own sinful nature?
In his Second Epistle to Timothy, St. Paul instructs this young pastor regarding the need to be firm and faithful in the preaching ministry to which God has called him. Paul writes:
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and idle babblings.”
And yet, as Timothy rightly divided the Word of truth – in distinguishing law and gospel according to the text, and according to the circumstances of his listeners – Timothy would be serving simply as a vessel and instrument of that Word. At a deeper, supernatural level, the Word of truth itself would be rightly dividing itself, through Timothy.
As we heard a few minutes ago, the Epistle to the Hebrews reminds us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
A preacher is God’s instrument for delivering God’s Word through the ear and into the conscience. And God’s Word, in turn, is God’s instrument for suppressing and slaying the old nature within each of us, by the judgments of his law; and for enlivening and raising up the new nature that his Spirit has planted within each of us, by the forgiveness and regeneration of his gospel.
In the Book of Deuteronomy, God himself declares: “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal.”
And that’s why you should listen to your pastor, and believe what he tells you, when he speaks these or similar words to you:
“Hear the holy and comforting Word of our Lord: ‘Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.’”
“Lift up your hearts! By the authority of God and of my holy office, I forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
These are not the pastor’s words. They are God’s words. And they are God’s words for you: with the inherent power to create the faith that they call for, and to bestow the forgiveness of which they speak.
God is making you alive through these words. God is healing you through these words.
And if you do like some – or all – of your pastor’s sermons, I hope it is not because you think they are entertaining and humorous, or because you think that they soar to the heights of rhetorical eloquence. Rather, I hope it is because you can hear God’s voice through those sermons.
And sometimes, what God would say to you truly will make you uncomfortable – at least at first. That’s what God intends to do, and that’s what he does.
It’s not the pastor doing this. It’s God’s Word doing this, so that his Word will not return to him void or empty.
Through what is preached – when God’s own commandments and their application are what is preached – the Holy Spirit convicts the world “concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” The Holy Spirit convicts you concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.
God’s ultimate goal and desire, however, always is to comfort those whom he addresses, and whom his Word impacts.
This comfort, however, is always the comfort of Christ: “who became for us wisdom from God – and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’” – quoting the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.
God’s Word will never comfort you on the basis of your glory: your wisdom, your righteousness, or your self-sufficiency. That’s not the purpose for which he sent his Word into your mind and heart.
The message of the cross will comfort you, because in the death of Christ for you, God gives you life. The message of the resurrection will comfort you, because in Christ’s victory for you, God promises that he will never leave you or forsake you.
The message of the gift of Christ’s Spirit comforts you, because by his indwelling you become a new creature in Christ, are given the mind of Christ, and grow into the image of Christ.
The Christian faith is very much a religion of the Word of God. God’s Word gives form and definition to everything in our faith: our doctrine and our morality, our values and our priorities, our inner devotion and our outward ritual.
We read and chant God’s Word; we sing and pray God’s Word. We live according to the instruction and direction of God’s Word, and we die in the hope and peace of God’s Word.
With a humble trust in him, we receive God’s Word and internalize it, over and over again, in sermon and in sacrament.
It is indeed the Word of God – as spoken by Jesus in his institution of each sacrament, and as repeated by the minister today at his command when each sacrament is administered – that makes this washing or this meal truly to be a sacrament: through which forgiveness, life, and salvation are offered and bestowed.
The Christian faith is not a religion of subjective mysticism or philosophical speculation. We are not on a search for God.
Instead, we rejoice to know that in his Son Jesus Christ, whom he sent into the world to be our Savior, God has searched for us – like the woman in one of Jesus’ parables searched for her lost coin – and God has found us.
God speaks, and we hear him. God gives us warnings, and we heed him. God makes promises, and we believe him.
God reveals himself to you, and works for you and in you, by the power of his Word. And you respond to everything that God has done, and is doing, with prayers that have been shaped by his Word, and that match these sentiments from Psalm 119:
“With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes!”
“With my lips I declare all the just decrees of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts, and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.”
The Lord says:
“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud – that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater – so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth. It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Amen.