Our scripture readings this morning begin with a passage from Isaiah 29:17-19. Isaiah is writing about 725 years or so before Jesus, and these words are timeless in the sense that Jesus was very much wedded to the book of Isaiah and often quotes the book of Isaiah throughout his ministry and preaches from it. In fact, he identifies the essence of his calling as coming from Isaiah's words as well. So as we read them, we're back in a time machine which brings us not only back to 725 BC, but also brings us back to the days of Jesus, and then throughout that time to our day. For Isaiah continues to speak to us, because God speaks through these words to our heart today.
Isaiah 29:17-19. "In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field, and the fertile field seem like a forest? In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see. Once more the humble will rejoice in the Lord, and the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel."
From there we turn to Psalm 119, reading just a short section. It is the longest chapter in the entire Bible, but we just have seven verses to read. One of the very interesting things about Psalm 119 is that it is acrostic. I'm not sure if it is in the Bible that you have on your chairs, but every section begins with a different letter and has a different letter as its theme. The alphabet, and so on and so forth, or the alef bet in Hebrew. We are nearing the end of this psalm, in 105 to 112. Words that are, I'm sure, familiar to you.
"Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. I have taken an oath and confirmed it, that I will follow your righteous laws. I have suffered much, so preserve my life, Lord, according to your word. Accept, Lord, the willing praise of my mouth, and teach me your laws. Though I constantly take my life in my hands, I will not forget your law. The wicked have set a snare for me, but I have not strayed from your precepts. Your statutes are my heritage forever. They are the joy of my heart. My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end."
And finally to the Gospel of Luke, as we continue these sections of readings which celebrate the word of God coming to us. Luke 21:29-33. "Jesus told them this parable. Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourself and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." Thanks be to God for the reading of his word.
One of the things I miss most about being retired is the planning and designing, preparing and leading of Bible studies. It's been a rich privilege to spend the greater part of my life learning about and immersing myself in and sharing these incredible stories and events and words. And thanks to faithful congregations and faithful people like yourselves, I got paid for it for all those many happy years. I'm sure Brad's enjoying that part of it as well, as is his family.
It all started for me when I became a Christian in my teens, as the result of invitations from my classmates in high school who were part of a youth group. They shared their faith and their friendship with me. They kept inviting me to church and inviting me to youth events, and I never went. But one particular Sunday I did go. It was a Sunday night service, and there I was in a pew listening to a sermon delivered by an unlikely cranky old man named Ra Bombake. Why I, at that tender age, would have been listening to a cranky old man and paying attention, only the young people among us here can answer that question right now. Although he had the advantage of a big pulpit, and he was one of these preachers, ah, the old school. But there I was listening to this sermon, and the message ended with an invitation to come forward to make a commitment to Christ. And there my Christian walk began, almost 50 years ago to this day. And that very day I was presented with a Bible and I was told, read this. And in my ignorance I did. And 50 years later I'm still reading.
Now that first Bible that I was presented with was a paperback, an easy-to-read version called the Living Bible. And I followed that up with a big thick leatherbound King James study Bible, the Thompson Chain Reference Bible. Much harder to read, but with helpful study notes and thematic links bringing similar themes together, like a road map to the scriptures. If you were a serious young person involved in youth groups back then, carrying around a Thompson Chain Reference Bible was the sign that you were serious about your Christianity.
Now, Bible college saw the introduction of the New King James Bible, and then theological college insisted on the New Revised Standard Version. Various other Bibles and translations soon joined these and others on my shelf. And then with more degrees came more languages, including the Hebrew and the Greek in which the scriptures were originally written. Recent years have been very rich in other new and contemporary translations, so that now you have dozens to choose from, as well as study Bibles of various varieties. There's the men's study Bible and the women's study Bible, and the young men's study Bible and the old men's study Bible and the old women's study Bible, and the women under 40 study Bible, and the pet owner study Bible and all the rest of that. Things have come a long way since that first paperback Living Bible of mine.
And I know Brad would be delighted to recommend one or more wonderful Bibles to you, if you come and say, "Brad, I want to buy a new Bible. Which should I get?" There's few things that can make a minister happier than somebody coming in and asking a question about buying a new Bible, because buying a new Bible is fun.
One of the bonuses in buying a new Bible is the introductory material that comes with it. I'm willing to bet that very few of you have ever read the preface or the introduction section in those Bibles that are on your coffee tables and nightstands or bookshelves or pews. And there's good stuff there, and not only for hopeless Bible nerds like myself. Many years ago I was so impressed with what Eugene Peterson had to say in his introduction to his translation paraphrase that's called The Message. Those words hit me so much that I wrote them down, and I'm now going to pass them on to you more or less complete.
And Peterson wrote this. He said, "Reading is the first thing, just reading the Bible, because as we read we enter a new world of words and we find ourselves in on a conversation in which God has the first and the last words. We soon realize that we are included in this conversation. We didn't expect this, but this is precisely what generation after generation of Bible readers do find. The Bible is not only written about us, it's written to us. In these pages we become insiders to a conversation in which God uses words to form and bless us, to teach us, and to guide us and forgive us and save us. And so just reading this Bible and listening to what we read is the first thing. There will be time enough for study later on, but first it's important simply to read leisurely and thoughtfully.
"We need to get a feel for the way that these stories and songs, these prayers and conversations, these sermons and visions invite us into this large world in which the invisible God is behind and involved in everything visible, and illuminates what it is to live here. Really live, not just get across the street. And as we read, and the longer we read, we begin to get it. We're in conversation with God. We find ourselves listening and answering in matters that most concern us. Who we are, where we come from, where we're going, what makes us tick, the texture of the world, the communities that 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 ever dreamed. And this more has to do with God. The Bible's given to us in the first place simply to invite us to make ourselves at home in the world of God, in God's word and world, and we become familiar with the way God speaks and the ways in which we answer him with our lives."
Now, that's easy for Peterson to say. But you say, "Well, you know, I flip through the Bible and it falls on deaf eyes. It sounds in blind ears. I've tried to look at it and read it and listen to it. Nothing. Nothing. I read it in the morning, I feel like I'm not waking up. I read it at night, I feel like I'm falling asleep. The light doesn't shine for me."
Well, let me tell you a favorite story of mine. Close to 30, I guess 30 years ago, yeah, I was in Germany, in Braunschweig, for the funeral of my aunt, my Tante Margot. And on a spare afternoon I had trudged, camera in hand, to the thousand-year-old cathedral called the Braunschweiger Dom. And I attached myself to a tour. Now, the tour was in Italian, but I was too cheap to get in on the English tour, so I just got in on the Italian tour for free, and I wasn't reaping much benefit from the commentary. My Italian is weak. But it did get me behind otherwise locked doors.
And the tour then went down this winding staircase that was cut into the rock, and it entered the vast cellar beneath the cathedral floor. There was the harsh glare of suspended lights and the naked bulbs making us squint. And then the guide pulled out this iron key and put it in this big door and opened the lock, and then, creak, opened the big wooden door. The tour group, we were all huddled close, due to the chill as much as the 50 or so sarcophagi scattered around, and skeletons in little shelves against the wall. I wish I could say there were bats flying around. It would have been better, but no bats.
And the guide was continuing his endless rapid fire Italian commentary, and so I kind of wandered off by myself through the dusty skeletons and eerie effigies and old stone caskets, trying to make out the Latin and the dates. And I was crouched down behind one, I was sort of tracing the numbers with my finger, and suddenly the Italians make their exit. The door clangs shut. The lights are extinguished. And I am left behind alone in the darkest place I have ever, ever been.
And I stood and I stared into absolutely nothing for what seemed like ages. Couldn't see a thing. I was running plans through my mind. Banging on the door and yelling my head off, which was my first instinct, would have been embarrassing and quite ineffective, as I was at least 50 feet below ground with only solid rock and a foot thick door of wood and iron between me and anybody who'd not been dead for at least 600 years. Now, the dead didn't frighten me, but the prospect of being locked up until next Tuesday's tour had me pretty rattled. I also didn't have a ticket, and I was afraid I'd be charged admission.
So I just stayed there and I stood and I stared. And after another eternity my eyes began to pick up the faintest glow of orange light. Just a hint, a whisper of light from the other end of the vast chamber. So I kind of touched and eased my way around the caskets and made my way slowly along. I wish I could say I had accidentally picked up a leg bone and had that, but no, I didn't. Soon I'm in the part of the room, and maybe only 20 feet or so stand between me and the stone coffins of Heinrich der Löwe, who built the place a thousand years before, and his bride, Mrs. Heinrich der Löwe. I can't remember her name. And their coffins are glowing a faint, faint orange.
I kind of approach this chamber, and the light becomes more clear, and now I can make out the edges of the arch which borders the room, and I stumble into the chamber and I look up and I see, far, far above me, the source of the light. It's a piece of amber, maybe the shape and size of a small loaf of bread, and it's in the ceiling of this cellar, set into the floor of the sanctuary above, and it's letting the faintest glimmer of light through to the coffins below. This is not enough for me to even see my hand in front of my face, but it's reflecting in the marble of the tomb. It's a magic moment. And I stay spellbound, bathed in the light, until the door opens an hour later to let the Dutch group in to have a look. And I've loved the Dutch ever since.
And you know, the scriptures glow too, with a light not of amber but a light of truth, which is timeless and strong. And these writings come from the hearts and the minds of people who have been touched by God, and the afterglow of their experience illumines the scriptures still, showing us a light in the midst of our darkness, a way out of our tomb. And the scriptures are not just any stories, but they're the stories and the testimonies pointing to the God of us all, pointing to the God who came to be with us in a mighty way, a powerful way. A way as real as sitting around a table for a meal, as real as watching the sun set over the Sea of Galilee.
And those words, that light, reveals to us that God has come to us and reached out to us and touched us in our hopeless confusion, our self-deceit and our sorrow and our pain, and has given us a light in the darkness of our lives. As he breathed life into the hearts of those around, he breathed life into their testimony, their witness of God in their midst. And these stories are the scriptures.
Just as our eyes take time to adjust to the dark, so do the scriptures take time to enlighten our hearts and our minds. So when you read the scriptures, take time. Let your eyes, let your mind, let your heart adjust to their light. When you read the scriptures, read with a prayer that God would speak to you through them.
When you read the scriptures, put yourself there. In the garden, naming the animals with Adam. Building the ark with Noah and his friends. Facing Goliath with the young shepherd David. Or standing before the fiery furnace with Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego. And tremble before the angels with the shepherds in Bethlehem. Stand and hear the Baptist preach. Ride the waves with the fishermen disciples. Hold your breath as Lazarus rises from the dead. As Jesus receives the lash, or as Mary comes running from the tomb. Stand on the road to Damascus as Paul finally finds, in a way that he never expected, the Jesus that he'd been trying to hunt down. Cry out with the disciples in the upper room as the Holy Spirit descends and sets our heart aflame.
These stories are our stories. These people are our people. The promises are the promises to us. For the God of the Bible is not some distant God, some other God, some forgotten God of long ago, but he is our God. Our God. The life of Jesus, the words of Jesus, the love of Jesus, the death and the resurrection of Jesus are for us. They are ours. These words, these stories are our words and our stories, for they are our past and our present and our future. They are alive in a world which changes and which becomes increasingly unfamiliar, unrecognizable with every passing day. Here we have an unchanging word of an unchanging God. A rock upon which we might rest, upon which we might find our strength. "Heaven and earth will pass away," said Jesus, "but my words will not pass away."
In a world of rapid change, the church, when it has found itself lost, always turned and returned to the scriptures for strength and stability and guidance. This place is known as a Christian Reformed congregation, and that Reformation happened with a return to the word of God when the word of God had become lost. In a world where there are fewer and fewer absolutes, where the courts protect the perpetrators and cause the innocent to despair, where the fulfilling of any desire becomes the only moral code, where truth is a matter of opinion and leaders lead us astray, we have the very word of God to guide us on the path to life. It is, in the midst of a strange place, a sanctuary. It is a light in the darkness. It is the very presence of God.
Now, I've long appreciated the Christian Reformed Church for the emphasis that's always placed upon Bible reading. Many people recall the family gathered around the dinner table for a daily scripture passage. I remember neighbors of mine in Toronto, where we lived for so many years, the Boonstras. And Rudy Boonstra, the patriarch of the family, would always talk to me, as we bumped into each other in the street, about the interesting passage that he and the family had read at the dinner table after supper. Do any of you remember times like that in your own family? A very ancient people raising their arms.
But you know, many of my Reformed colleagues over the years reported to me that the tradition of family devotional times is becoming increasingly less common. I know that's the case in my own Presbyterian church, and I'm pretty sure it's a major factor which has led to our own denominational decline. If in your family reading the scriptures together is your regular practice, I commend you for your dedication. If it once was but it's fallen aside, or if it's just something that you can remember from your childhood, maybe this can be a reminder to rediscover that practice in your own home. It can be the basis for some very important discussions, and for seeds of faith to be planted within.
But however you do it, whether with the family, whether as a morning devotion, whether as a nighttime before sleep, whether as a mid afternoon time, however you do it, listen afresh for God speaking to you, to your heart, to your life. Make the effort to hear. Read with patience the scriptures on your own. And better yet, join up with a Bible study in the fall. After all, contrary to our culture of individualism, the Bible was always meant to be experienced in community. You'll be amazed at how interesting and compelling and just plain fun it can be.
Bible study was a central part of my focus and ministry at Zion, and my congregations before that time. And at Zion it was unquestionably a key component of our congregational growth. Time and again after a study, participants would say to me, "I never realized the Bible could be so interesting." And I'd respond, "The Bible is interesting. It takes a lot of work to make it boring, and frankly, I'm not willing to put that kind of effort into it." After I said that, one visitor said to me, "Our minister must work very hard." Others would say, "This really makes the Bible come alive." And I'd respond, "It's already alive. Bible study is all about us coming alive to it."
So open those Bibles. Start with a Gospel, maybe Luke, and see what all the excitement is about. Follow it up with the book of Acts, which is Gospel of Luke part two, and read about how this thing that we call the church came into being and began to spread from Jerusalem to all the wider world. And follow that up by eavesdropping, by reading somebody else's mail, say the letter to the Corinthians, and find out that the early church had surprisingly modern sounding struggles and scandals, not dissimilar to churches in our own day, as well as lessons about how to go about loving one another in a way that will not only change us but change our world. Dip into the Old Testament. Uncover ancient wisdom in the Proverbs, and learn how to pray honestly by reading the Psalms.
Come to a study and share the excitement with others. Sense the words coming alive in your heart and in your mind. Watch the light come on. And so may the prophecy of Isaiah ring true for you. "In that day the deaf will hear the words of the book, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see." Thanks be to God. Amen.
Let us pray. We thank you, Father, that you've come to us. You spoke to the people of Israel and entered into covenant with them, and from Israel came Jesus Christ, your son, bringing salvation through a new covenant entered by faith. May we be witnesses of Jesus Christ, sharing that news of salvation with all.
We thank you, Father, you continue to come to us by the Holy Spirit, your living presence in the world and within us. By your Holy Spirit we have strength and weakness, comfort and sorrow, encouragement in faith and power in mission. May we be witnesses through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Father, especially today, we thank you for your church, which upholds and defends the truth given to the apostles and recorded in the scriptures. We thank you for the Bible, for the Old and New Testaments, which witness to your mighty acts. We thank you that they reveal your holy love and lead us to Jesus Christ. May we not only respect the scriptures, but may we read and learn and live by them as the great witness to the life and love and teaching of Christ.
Lord God, give us that impetus, that desire, that hunger for your word. And as we read, often hesitantly and often stumbling, we pray that your Holy Spirit will bless us with insight and understanding, and that deep within, the light would come on and lead us forward into life in you. We ask in Christ our Lord. Amen.