The Word Is Near You

 

Jesu Juva

Romans 10:8b-13                                                                  

March 6, 2022

Lent 1C                                        

Dear saints of our Savior~

          “Where is God?”  That seems to be a popular question these days.  Although it’s frequently asked in the past tense:  “Where was God?”  And the skeptics and atheists will usually ask it this way:  “So, where was God, anyway?”  Where was

God when an armed man forced his way into an elementary school and massacred helpless children and teachers?  Where was God when tornadoes tore through Tennessee in the middle of the night, killing dozens?  Increasingly, many people are simply concluding that there must not be a God at all, or that God is only a remote and distant being, unconcerned with earthly affairs.

          For the Christian, however, the question isn’t whether God exists (He does)—or whether He is good (He is).  The question for us is, “How can I get in touch with God?  Where can I find him?  How can my life be connected to His life—especially when I’ve got trials and temptations?”  It’s ironic that we don’t have to ask those kinds of questions about the devil—who is always prominently featured on this first Sunday in Lent.  There’s no doubt about the devil, is there?  His footprints and his fingerprints are all over the place.  No one ever has to ask, “So, where’s the devil hiding out nowadays?”  I’m convinced that even our dreams are sometimes written, directed, and produced by the Prince of Darkness himself.

          So where is God?  It’s what we ask when our lives are touched by tragedy.  It’s what we ask when we feel the relentless pull of addiction.  It’s what parents ask when their grown children drift away from the faith.  It’s what grown children ask when their aging parents drift away into dementia.  Where is God?  It’s an urgent question.  We need to know.

          Some Christians are content to say, “God is in my heart.”  And the Scriptures do speak of our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, to be sure.  But to say that God is found in my heart isn’t a very satisfying answer.  Because, you know what?  I don’t always feel God there.  And besides that, we know for a fact that our hearts are already contaminated with hatred, jealousy and lust.  It makes it hard to go looking for God there.

          Other Christians can be rather adamant in declaring that God is in heaven.  Who can argue with that?  But what good does that do us when here on earth we’re faced with no end of troubles and tragedy?  A God who’s only in heaven isn’t much use when you’re stuck on earth.

          Where is God?  The answer—a very satisfying answer to that question—can be found in today’s epistle from Romans 10. If you want to find God in our world today—if you want to know Him and draw strength from the power of His resurrection—you will find Him in His Word. 

          Paul is quoting from the book of Deuteronomy when he writes, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”  And then he clarifies what he means by the “word” when he writes, “That is, the word of faith that we proclaim.”  The words that Paul and the apostles preached—the words written down and recorded in the pages of the Old and New Testaments—even the words preached and proclaimed from this pulpit—in and through these words of the gospel, God Himself is present—present with faith for you, forgiveness for you, hope and peace and joy for you.  In His Word, God Himself is drawing near to you.  In His Word, God is changing your life.

          You can read Moby Dick and learn a little something about Herman Melville, the author.  You can read Great Expectations and take a gander into the soul of Charles Dickens.  You can read Pride and Prejudice and ponder the themes that Jane Austen thought were important.  But Melville, Dickens, and Austen are dead and gone.  But you—you can set your heart on hearing, reading, and learning the Word of God—and, in the process, encounter the presence of the living God and the power of the living God, for your eternal good. 

          In God’s Word, the power of the Holy Trinity is at your disposal.  Wherever His Word is preached, God is there to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.  Where there is the Word, there is the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life.  And only by that Spirit can you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, and so confessing and believing, be saved.

          God draws near in His Word; and yet His Word is often the last place we go looking for Him.  We treat the Scriptures like dry and dusty history instead of a precious means of grace bringing faith and forgiveness.  We treat the Word proclaimed in sermons like an infomercial, words to draw upon if you ever get in a tight spot—kind of like the flight attendant speech about using your seat as a flotation device and how to secure the oxygen mask if the cabin pressure should suddenly drop.  You don’t really pay close attention until your life takes a nose dive.  That’s sort of how God’s Word is for us.  “I’ll tune in when there’s a crisis—when the bombs start falling, or when the shots ring out, or when the doctors say there’s nothing more than can be done.”  If only we could believe that in, with, and under the words we are hearing, God Himself is speaking to us.  He’s so much nearer than we know or believe. And when God speaks, good things happen.

          Precisely because sinful human hearts will never go looking for God in the right places, God in Christ has come looking for you.  He came in weakness, clothed in human skin and bones—vulnerable and tempt-able.  And even though it meant death—a horrible death on the cross—He humbled Himself so that He could take all our sins upon Himself and remove forever the barrier of sin that separates you from Him.  This is the God we have.  He shoulders His cross and carries our sin, and dies our death.  But the grave could not hold Him, and through faith in Jesus it cannot hold you either.

          Where is God?  There’s no shame in wondering about that sometimes.  Even Martin Luther, who knew and trusted the Word of God better than anyone—even he sometimes wondered whether God was as near to Him as He promised.  In the late 1520s Luther was frequently afflicted by serious illness, so serious, in fact, that Luther nearly died.  He wrote about his near-death experience to a friend:  I spent more than a week in death and hell.  My entire body was in pain, and I still tremble.  Completely abandoned by Christ, I labored under . . . storms of desperation and blasphemy against God.  But through the prayers of the saints God began to have mercy on me and pulled my soul from the inferno below.  Luther’s faith had been shaken.  He had felt abandoned.  For him too, the question was, “Where is God?”

          But Luther also knew the answer.  He knew and believed that God’s power to save and to comfort sinners was found in the Word of the gospel.  In fact, it was during these months of suffering and sickness—when Luther was at his lowest point—that he wrote these words from the hymn we sang a few minutes ago:  Though devils all the world should fill, All eager to devour us, We tremble not, we fear no ill, They shall not overpow’r us.  This world’s prince may still Scowl fierce as he will, He can harm us none.  He’s judged; the deed is done; One little word can fell him.  One little word—the Word of God—can stop Satan in his tracks.  And that devil-destroying Word is near you.  It is at your disposal.  And in that Word God has located Himself—His power and His presence—for your salvation.

          Where is God?  Not far away.  Not locked away in heaven.  Right here.  In the precious gospel of Jesus, His Son. He is in your mouth and in your heart.  He is near you today—in every time of trouble—in every time of temptation, and for all eternity. 

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.