Monday, February 22, 2021

What’s in a word?

What’s in a word? Words heal and hurt; words craft peace and declare war; words encourage and prohibit; words instruct, inform and invite. Words forgive; words bear the soul and reveal the heart. In Scripture, it’s evident that the word of God is purposeful and fulfilling; that the word, who is God, is faithful.

In Isaiah we read: “So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)

During this season of Lent we must have the ears to hear the word of God and choose our words of response carefully. We must allow the word from God to achieve its desired results. We must not block out God’s word with a cacophony of our own words, or as Matthew says, “babbling like the pagans.” We must listen and wait for God to speak. (Matthew 6:7-15)

Matthew says as much in his familiar passage where Jesus is instructing His followers how to pray. “The Our Father” has a personal meaning for each of us as we experience its power in our own life. During Lent this prayer takes on an added urgency.

The Lord’s Prayer invokes God to manifest His glory by an act of power, in this case, by the establishment of His kingdom in its fullness. This can only be accomplished through the actions of the end-game of Lent—the passion, death and resurrection of the Messiah. And as we pray Lent, we move closer to the establishment of that kingdom on earth, in each of us, as well as in heaven.

We pray: “Our Father in heaven” as an invocation found in the rabbinic prayers after the time of Jesus. It establishes our personal relationship to God.

We pray: “Hallowed is thy name” understood as reverence done to God by human praise and obedience to God’s will.

We pray: “Your kingdom come” turning towards divine rather than human action.

We pray: “Give us today our daily bread” is a petition for a speedy coming of the kingdom, which is often portrayed in both Old and New Testament under the image of a feast.

We pray: “Forgive us our debts” – which is a metaphor of “sins/trespasses” – at the final judgment.

So we go back to Isaiah and recall his words, “that just as the rain and the snow come down and does not return until that have watered the earth…giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats, just so the word of God will not return to God void.”

The words of “The Our Father” are divine in inspiration and hence purposeful in intent. When we pray them they yield new life in each of us and thus fulfill God’s purpose. The journey that is Lent opens before us bounteous opportunities to experience the word of God as purposeful and life-giving.

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"I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself from it.

I am giving you three ways of exercising mercy toward your neighbor:
the first — by deed, the second — by word, the third — by prayer. In these three degrees is contained the fullness of mercy, and it is an unquestionable proof of love for Me. By this means a soul glorifies and pays reverence to My mercy.

Many souls ... are often worried because they do not have the material means with which to carry out an act of mercy. Yet spiritual mercy, which requires neither permissions nor storehouses, is much more meritorious and is within the grasp of every soul.

If a soul does not exercise mercy somehow or other, it will not obtain My mercy on the day of judgment. Oh, if only souls knew how to gather eternal treasure for themselves, they would not be judged, for they would forestall My judgment with their mercy".