John 1:1-5, 14
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it...

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...



The Heart of the Matter
This past Thursday, as our Bible study fumbled through a tough patch, the refrain of a song kept repeating in my head: “The Heart of the Matter,” by Don Henley. Anyone remember it? The chorus goes like this:

I’ve been trying to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts start to scatter

But I think it’s about... forgiveness… forgiveness
Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore.



God’s Explicit Expectations in the Exodus
Let me back up and tell you why the song was running through my head. In order to learn about the life of Jesus, a Jew, we’re exploring highlights of the Old Testament. On Thursday, we discussed the powerful story of the Exodus, where God leads the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt into the wilderness with the promise that they would be led to their own land some day in the future.

During the dramatic exodus from Egypt and the time of wandering in the wilderness, the people experience God’s care and providence, keeping them safe from the pursuing Egyptian army and feeding them as they wandered the wilderness. In the midst of this wilderness wandering, the people are given the law - the commandments for how they are supposed to live as God’s chosen people. They are also given specific, ritual instructions for the building of the tabernacle, the tent that will serve as God’s dwelling for parts of the sojourn.

These instructions - both for the law and the construction of the tabernacle - are very extensive and very detailed. Part of the instructions for the tabernacle was the use of gold, gems and fine linens for specific parts of the tabernacle.
The Devil’s in the Details
A hand went up. “If they’re wandering in the wilderness, where are they getting the gold and other fine things from?”

Another chimed in, “Weren’t they able to get gold from the Egyptians before they left?”

“Why would they bring it with them? What use would they have for it in the desert?” added another.

“Maybe they tucked a little bit away to bring with them. But, how could they have enough for the tabernacle?”



“How could they carry it?”


The questions went on and on. I took my best stab.

“Remember,” I said, “this wasn’t just a rag-tag bunch. When they were in Egypt, they kept growing in numbers, despite Pharaoh’s attempts to suppress them. They were growing so numerous that he was feeling threatened. They left in the night, but it wasn’t a just handful of people hopping the wall of the city and running off into the sunset. This was thousands of people leaving the country, with their families, goods, etc. And, we don’t know if they encountered other people and had opportunities to trade with them as they wandered. On the other hand, any good anthropologist will tell you that these things needed for the construction of the tabernacle - gold, gems, linen - were all things that come with established communities that generate enough wealth through agriculture and trade to afford such items.”

But, the bottom line is. We just don’t know. There are a lot of details in the Bible that confound us.

This book that we call scripture... this Bible we call the Living Word of God... is so full of inconsistencies and contradictions. It’s so full of stories that have significant gaps missing and there are so many details that just don’t always make sense.

But, if we’re looking for the bible to make sense, if we’re looking for the bible to be a factual record of details, we’re missing the point.



The Baby in the Stable

Thankfully, one of our participants saved me by chiming in, “I always just thought that the reference to gold and gems and all that stuff is to remind us that we’re supposed to give our best to God.”

Later, in tears, someone added, “The point is not the details, it’s the feeling... to feel what it was like to be so lost, so desperate, so NOT in control that you learn to lean on God, to depend on God for everything. What matters is that feeling. When we know that feeling, our lives are changed.”

That’s the power of the Word of God. That’s the heart of the matter.

One of my colleagues in ministry in Tucson often reminded the students that the Bible is sort of like the stable that held the baby Jesus. The stable was made up of wood, essential for holding something, even though it might be a bit rough and uninspiring. There’s also lots of straw, again essential, but really just filler. And, there’s even some animal dung in there. It’s inevitable. But in the midst of that rough wood, that straw and those animal droppings, lays the baby Jesus… Word of God, the Living Word. Our job is to reach down, through the other stuff, and lift up to the baby - God with Us - for the world to see!



The Word in Worship
Our Protestant ancestors realized the importance and power of lifting up the Word of God. In the medieval, Roman Catholic church, the mass was dominated by the sacraments, controlled by the priests, with a passing reading of the scriptures... always in Latin, a language that few of the people understood.

The Reformers realized that the people needed to have access to the Word of God in their own language, and that it was too important to simply read through as a routine part of the liturgy. It deserved rigorous study and prayer. It needed to be chewed on - like Jeremiah from our Old Testament reading, eating God’s Word. Isn’t that a compelling image?

They realized that chewing on the Word on our own isn’t enough, though. We need the help of the Holy Spirit to help us digest the Word... to help it become a part of us. This is why we have a prayer for illumination before we read our scripture in worship. Every time you hear the prayer, you’ll hear a request for the Holy Spirit to illumine the scripture for our understanding.




But, it’s not just for our understanding, it’s really for integrating the Word into our lives. Just as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, we are invited to let the Word become a part of our beings... a part of our flesh.



Thoughts on the Bible from a Master

Eugene Peterson, a retired Presbyterian minister, biblical scholar, and titan of the faith, and whom I often refer to, shares the following thoughts in his introduction to The Message, his paraphrase of the Bible:

We need to get a feel for the way these stories and songs, these prayers and conversations, these sermons and visions, invite us into this large, large world in which the invisible God is behind and involved in everything visible and illuminates what it means to live here - really live, not just get across the street. As we read, and the longer we read, we begin to “get it” - we are in conversation with God. We find ourselves listening and answering in matters that most concern us: who we are, where we came from, where we are going, what makes us tick, the texture of the world and the community we live in, and - most of all - the incredible love of God among us, doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Through reading the Bible, we see that there is far more to the world, more to us, more to what we see and more to what we don’t see - more to everything! - than we had ever dreamed, and this ‘more’ has to do with God.

This is new for many of us, a different sort of book - a book that reads us even as we read it. We are used to picking up and reading books for what we can get out of them... but the Bible is given to us in the first place simply to invite us to make ourselves at home in the world of God, God’s word and world, and become familiar with the way God speaks and the way we answer him with our lives...

Some are surprised that Bible reading does not introduce us to a “nicer” world. This biblical world is decidedly not an ideal world, the kind we see advertised in travel posters. Suffering and injustice and ugliness are not purged from the world in which God works and loves and saves. Nothing is glossed over. God works patiently and deeply, but often in hidden ways, in the mess of our humanity and history. Ours is not a neat and tidy world in which we are assured that we can get everything under our control. This takes considerable time getting used to - there is mystery everywhere. The bible does not give us a predictable cause-effect world in which we can plan our careers and secure our futures. It is not a dream world in which everything works out according to our adolescent expectations - there is pain and poverty and abuse at which we cry out in indignation, “You can’t let this happen!” For most of us it takes years and years and years to exchange our dream world for this real world of grace and mercy, sacrifice and love, freedom and joy - the God-saved world...




Sisters and brothers on the Lenten journey, our scripture today reminds us that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

Peterson continues:

The Bible begins with God speaking creation and us into being. It continues with God entering into personalized and complex relationships with us, helping and blessing us, teaching and training us, correcting and disciplining us, loving and saving us. This is not an escape from reality but a plunge into more reality - a sacrificial but altogether better life all the way.

Many of us find that the most important question we ask as we read is not, “What does this mean?” but “How can I live it?” We read in order to live our true selves, not just get information we can use to raise our standard of living.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In Jesus, God plunged into our reality and sacrificed so that we could be plunged into God’s reality. This changes everything.

Peterson closes his introduction to the Bible with these words:

You are going to hear stories in this Book that will take you out of your preoccupation with yourself and into the spacious freedom in which God is working the world’s salvation. You are going to come across words and sentences that stab you awake to a beauty and hope that will connect you to your real life.

Be sure to answer, Peterson admonishes, Be sure to answer.



I Give My Heart To
Whether you realize it or not… whether the Word connects with you consciously or not… every week, in our worship, we, as a body, heed Peterson’s advice to respond to God’s invitation in the Word. This is something our ancestors in faith intentionally inserted in the liturgy… the important worship work of the people. We sing a Responsive Hymn, carefully chosen to give us words that affirm our desire to let the Word proclaimed become a part of our lives.
Then, we stand for the affirmation of faith and say what we believe. Often, it takes the form of a Creed. On communion Sundays, it will be the Apostle’s Creed. On other days, our affirmation of faith might come from scripture, or a portion of one of the confessions in our book of confessions.

When we met with our confirmation class on Friday night, we introduced the confirmands to the concept of creed, which comes from the Latin word, Credo. My colleague explained that it means, I believe. But, a more accurate translation… a deeper translation… of Credo is, “I give my heart to.”

Sometimes, when we read the word of God, we might find ourselves wondering about the miracles of Jesus. Sometimes, when we hear the Word proclaimed, we might hear something that doesn’t sit well with us. Sometimes, when we recite our creeds, we might find ourselves wondering about the factual truth of the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection.

I don’t know about you, but there are times in my life when I feel overwhelmingly unclear about what I believe. But, I have no doubt about what I give my heart to. I have no doubt about what I give my heart to.

With apologies to Don Henley, I’d like to sing the chorus one more time, with a slight change in the words.

I’ve been trying to get down
To the heart of the matter
Cuz the flesh will get weak
And the ashes will scatter

But, I think it’s about... forgiveness…forgiveness
We believe, we believe You love us forevermore.

May it be so. Amen.