Revelation & Respiration

Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

Auburn WA, January 31, 2010 – Word of God Sunday

by Gregory S. Kaurin, Senior Pastor

Texts: Deuteronomy 4:9-14; Revelation 10:8-11; & John 21:24-25

“Revelation & Respiration”

Last week we began a series on some “re-tion words,” words that start with the prefix “re-“ and end with the suffix “-tion.” Today’s words are about the revelation of scripture, and its respiration.

Sometimes you can be stewing over a problem or situation, and then while you’re trying to sleep the solution might hit you, and the next day you say, “Last night I had a …revelation.” In cartoons a light bulb appears over Elmer Fudd’s head. That’s close to the idea. What was hidden from you has come into the…? Light.

Let’s dig even deeper, take this word apart and understand it more. Revelation comes from the Latin, revelare. Now, in English, the prefix “re-“ usually means again or more than once, but in Latin it often meant to turn, or do the opposite…to undo. Like when we talk about re-penting, Pr. Jon and I have told you that it’s not just a rethinking, but a turning away from your old life.

“-tion” means a state of being or an action. And in the middle of this word we have “vel,” or a covering, a veil in English. Put it together, revelation describes something that is unveiled or uncovered. Or, it can be the ongoing process of being uncovered.

And actually that is an important point about how I have been taught and understand the Bible, and what I expect whenever I come to it. I don’t think that a week will go by without my saying, “Wow, I’ve never noticed that before”: that passage, that phrase, or that deeper meaning. God’s Holy Word is not just a one time, obvious revelation of his will, purpose and desire, but an ongoing process of revealing, uncovering, discovering, teaching something new.

That means, that parts of the scripture as I read or hear them remain covered, or veiled from my understanding, whether it’s because of my limitations, lack of knowledge, or the infinite depths of meaning of God’s Word. In every paragraph of the Bible, there is always something more to discover, for a person, or a group, or a congregation.

Here’s an example. If you’ve got a Bible, or can grab one, then turn to the book of Ephesians in the New Testament. Bit of a race here… Okay just call out from your translation, how many pages long is it? (It’s one of my favorites of Paul’s letters, best written, clear, and theologically dense.) Six chapters long, about as many pages. Here’s one of my favorite commentaries on Ephesians by the Rev. Dr. Lloyd-Jones. Eight volumes, over 2,900 pages, based on sermons he preached, one after the other, on Ephesians for two years in the mid-1950’s.

And this doesn’t exhaust that letter, especially for the preacher and disciple. When you are passionate about something or someone, even going over the same ground is like discovering it all over again. Does that mean that I am absolutely giddy and mesmerized by every passage of scripture in the Bible? No. But that shows my own blindness, lack of knowledge or deafness to God’s Spirit.

You know those passages with all the begat’s: so-and-so begat what’s-his-face, etc. Jesus’ lineage—on a read-through—could seem very dull. Bunch of names, but maybe you remember some time ago when Pastor Jon pointed out in a sermon that a couple of the names were women’s, and those of prostitutes or questionable repute. What might that reveal? What does that show? And it makes even the begat’s more interesting; what might happen if we began to learn and discover the stories behind each of those names? How might we find ourselves in that family tree?

And that gets at the deeper, more important points of the Bible and revelation. It is a process of the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, speaking to his people on every level, working through the leaders and people as the historical actions were taking place, and then as the writers and editors worked, and sometimes reworked the parchments and scrolls, to the writings of the Apostles with St. Paul and later the councils of the Church and pastors, preachers, translators, interpreters, listeners, …all the way to us, the readers and listeners in this moment. The inspiration and revelation of scripture makes no sense to me as just a state of being, but an action of the Holy Spirit, especially the moment you and I open it up, with a heart to listen and hear.

The last main point about the revelation of scripture is the primary task of the Holy Spirit through the Bible: it is not—primarily—a historical document of a people’s beliefs. It is not—primarily—an advice or guidebook for your life, or many other things. It does contain history, more than some care to admit. It does hold very valuable advice on how to conduct your life before God and in community. But for Christians, the primary task of the Bible, as the Word of God, is to point us to the Living Word, to Jesus, to the love and will and desire of God for us that Jesus embodied. It is through Christ that we have our relationship with God: the Bible’s job is to introduce us to Christ, and to help us get to know him better. That means we are always seeking the deeper levels and meanings of scripture. That is the place of Bible study. The more we learn about the words, the contexts, the uses, the more ways God’s Spirit can teach and shape u.

My confirmation teachers, my pastors and seminary professors drilled the idea into me, that reading the Bible shows the letters and words, but understanding the Bible is listening for the Spirit, what is it saying in light of the Gospel, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus, asking why, what purpose and how might it apply us, and our context, …trusting that it does.

In our gospel lesson, St. John wrote that there were many volumes worth of things Jesus said or did that never made it to print. Just imagine if they did! But these are written, he says at the end of the 20^th chapter, so that you might have life in Jesus’ name.

One of the signs of life is? Breath. The verb is to breathe, or to re-spire, to let breath in and out, again and again. And the Latin, spiritus, connected breath and spirit. Biblically, all life includes breathing in and out some of God’s Spirit, his vitality.

So, if your milk has ex-pired, what does that mean? The breath or life has gone out of it…even tho’ we know the real problem is that a bunch of little critters are very much alive in it! Or when we say that something, or an idea, …or the Bible, is in-spired we mean that breath has gone… into it.

Now, whatever is inspired, has inhaled, needs to…? Exhale. For the whole process to work, inspiration needs to lead to respiration, letting the Word of God breathe in and out of us.

I mentioned last week, that I joined a gym, and since then I’ve met with my trainer a couple of times. One of the things we talked about was breathing. Simple lesson that I often get backwards, but you breathe out as you exert yourself, pushing or pulling, and you breathe in as you relax or let the weights ease back into place.

That nails scripture reading and our life. Reading and even studying the Bible should be like breathing in for us. St. John said, read these words, so that you may have life in Christ. Reading, or hearing the Bible, or its interpretation, going to small group, that’s breathing it in, even if you don’t always understand every idea, or sometimes any idea. You get more out of it, obviously, as you learn more, but the life flows in regardless, because this is the Spirit of God flowing into your body and life.

Sometimes we over-exert this part, make it a goal setting drudgery: “I’m going to get through Leviticus tonight if it kills me.” Well, it might. No, devotions and time in scripture can more often be breathing in, and letting God’s Spirit speak for himself, and trusting, that the deeper, or more frequently we breathe God’s Spirit in, then the more we’ll have as we go out and live and work and encounter others. God’s Spirit will be exhaling out of us.

If you are having a problem, the Bible (with some caution) can be an excellent, maybe the best, source to seek God’s advice. But too often, (and I am just as guilty, and perhaps as a teacher and preacher, more guilty than others) but too often, we come to the Bible for what we want or what we expect to get out of it. Problem-solution. Or, as preachers, we have a sermon to prepare, and want these passages to inspire us, support or illustrate our messages. Or, as teachers or Bible study leaders, we need to prepare our lessons, so we read the texts and commentaries to do our job. We study. And the Spirit does work through it.

But God calls us into a relationship with him. And the best relationships include conversation and listening, not coming with an agenda, or a purpose, or a problem. How often do we just allow God’s Spirit to talk to us in scripture? Let the words come, and then let those words stir up ideas, memories, connections and sometimes application.

We sometimes filter God’s Word by placing too many of our own obstructions and qualifiers in the way. This coming Lent, we’ll be talking about this even more, how even the churchiest most Bible-reading and hardest working Christians have incredible religious looking-ways to keep God at arms length, to try to control how and where they will let God’s Spirit affect or change them. How they will listen to him or refuse to listen to him.

Just like at home, we can get so busy doing churchy, servant-like work, that we aren’t spending time at Christ’s feet. Even in Bible-reading, we can be so busy use thing scripture that we aren’t really listening. It’s like that person who pretends to listen to you, but in his head, he’s just waiting for you to pause, because he’s already figured out what he’s going to say in response. I do that, and I confess to you that too often I do that to God’s Word of Scripture. So, I am trying to learn better, to breathe in, listening, letting God fill me up, before exhaling and hopefully letting his Spirit flow out through my words and actions.

This can include several different ways of letting the scripture speak to you. At 9:30 and at 10:45 if we can encourage more to join that second hour, two groups of adults are simply reading through the Bible story together, starting with Genesis. They take turns reading a passage. They pause for some discussion if it leads to any, and they read on. That is breathing in, letting the Bible speak, and the Spirit speak as he might.

Other people learn a brief passage of scripture; memorize it, and during the day let their thoughts drift back to it, sometimes one passage for a week, or even a month. That is Biblical respiration, breathing a passage. There are other ways…

Or put all models aside and just meet God at a regular devotional time, instead of only when you need something. Start with a letter or Gospel or Bible story, whether for 5 minutes a day or an hour. That’s breathing.

Sometimes it is as comforting, smooth and healing like honey, and other times it will be hard, and challenging.

Let God speak into you.

Today is Word of God Sunday, and we lift and celebrate the gift God gave us in the Bible. Many of you brought Bibles from home. For most of Christianity’s history, before there was printing, we didn’t have that luxury to own our own Bibles, but now the scriptures in written or oral form are reaching every culture through every language. The Spirit precedes, works through, and follows the Bible wherever it goes.

So, we are going to bless our Bibles, not because we worship them, but because we trust God’s Spirit to work through them. Really, we are simply giving thanks to God for the sacramental way he feeds us with his Words, and we are asking him to do it all the more, for us, for those who have yet to hear…how God so loves the world, that he gave his only Son.

If you brought a Bible from home, your family or personal Bible, or if you brought a translation in another language, in just a moment I’ll ask you to hold them open. If you have more than one Bible, you can look for people around and let them share yours. If you didn’t know about this today, or forgot to bring one, you can either symbolically hold your hands open, or touch someone’s open Bible near you. We’re not casting spells here, this isn’t going to make the Bibles here more holy or powerful than any left at home. Instead, this blessing is simply about thanking God for the Bible, and about opening ourselves more to God’s presence through the scriptures.

So, please stand and open your Bibles for this blessing and prayer…