- - NO AUDIO :: TEXT ONLY - -
READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Joshua 1:8-9
Philippians 4:8-9
- St. Luke 2:15-19
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Who speaks to us this evening from Philippians, saying,
“What you have
learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the
God of peace will be with you”
One thing all of our readings this evening have in common is
the call to find an object. What I mean is, they all talk about the good and
the true and good success and marvels, and then the hearers are told to go and
find those things.
This book of Law that Joshua is told about which contains
strength, courage, and prosperity is written. He is supposed to find it, read
it out loud, and act according to it. The just, the pure, and the lovely that
St. Paul is preaching about in Philippians, the Christian is told to learn,
receive, hear, and see them in St. Paul himself. The shepherds are told to go
to Bethlehem, not to look for enlightenment, but to find the baby.
Tonight on “How to make a theologian” we discuss meditation.
Meditation makes a theologian.
Last week, we discovered that prayer makes a theologian, because
through prayer, the believer lays hold of the real Teacher of Scripture,
Himself: Jesus Christ. It is not some self-absorbed exercise.
Thus, meditation is also more than just calming the mind. It
is also an exercise in both the spiritual and physical realms. Meditatio, our
Latin, is grounded in the externum verbum, the external Word.
This is evident from the passages in Scripture we have read this evening.
What I mean by external is that God is not using us to save
ourselves. He is not asking us to dig deep, make ourselves holy, or to be more
godly. This would lead to boasting and special treatment, with no use for Jesus
and His Work on the cross.
Our Confessions put it this way:
"In these matters, which concern the external, spoken
Word, we must hold firmly to the conviction that God gives no one his Spirit or
grace except through or with the external Word which comes before. Thus we
shall be protected from the enthusiasts-that is, from the spiritualists who
boast that they possess the Spirit without and before the Word and who
therefore judge, interpret, and twist the Scriptures or spoken Word according
to their pleasure" (SA III:VIII:3).
Like theology and prayer, meditation is something that
everybody does, regardless of its objective. We all take a breather, we all
take a step back, we all try to look at the bigger picture. That is, we cannot
help but need to meditate on something or another. It is part of what makes us
human to search for answers.
However, how meditation is usually sold to us is one of two
ways. Either you must silence the outside things in order to look deep inside yourself
for truth and peace, or you must open yourself to the universe to seek those
things. In other words, first ignore God’s external Word in favor of “self”,
then seek outside intervention in any other place except God.
Through prayer and meditation, Jesus orders those desires in
the Truth, by grounding them directly in something outside of themselves. This
fact should not be news to the Christian. the One, True God of Holy Scripture
is always creating objects. From heaven and earth to us, and every time He
interacts with His creation, it is always through objects, through means.
Noah’s Ark, the Burning Bush, the Temple, the Prophets. All
were created objects that the Lord attached a Promise to. God chooses to do His
work, all His work, through means, through tools found in creation.
Not just any tools. He doesn’t leave it up to us to discover
them or make them. He lays out the tools and also lays out the rules. It is His
Word that is to be meditated on. It is His Word that is to be sought out for
eternal life. It is His Word alone which grants His Spirit, Who gives faith in Christ
Jesus.
And although we have His Promise that the Word dwells in us,
we are never commanded to seek anything there. We are told specifically what is
there, inside us. Filthy rags, crimson transgression, deceit. If our meditating
focuses on the inside, we will be dupped and quickly led to evil.
And although we have His Promise that the Word is the
Creator of all things, we do not have a word from God telling us to seek Him in
all things. We are told specifically that the devil and all his angels work
lies and murder from the beginning. We are also told that our sinful nature
sides with them. So, if our meditating focuses on opening ourselves to the
outside, we will be possessed, dupped, and quickly led to evil.
Thus, God stands Himself, as Himself. Not as a created
object, but the object of faith and works. He is God, three persons in one God.
Spirit and now, in the Word made flesh, body and Soul in Jesus Christ. Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. Each Person, with His own thoughts, words, and
deeds.
If you want to meditate on the truth, you must contend with
the Trinity. This is why we say meditation is grounded in the external Word.
There is no meditating apart from or outside of God’s revelation of Himself in
the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Thus, like prayer, meditation also seeks
to lay hold of Jesus Himself.
In this way, meditation is also a life to live. To be sure,
it is burying yourself in our Lord’s Scripture, as He has given it to us in the
Old and New Testaments. But it is also acknowledging that meditations on the
Word of Life, bring life. It is reading, hearing, and doing.
In Exodus 24, Moses wakes early, prepares for church, and “took
the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people” (v.7). Joshua, from our
Old Testament reading, “There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded
that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women
and children, and the foreigners who lived among them” (Joshua 8:35).
King Josiah was 8 when he was made king and his people had
forgotten God’s Word. So, “He went up to the temple of the Lord with the
people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets—all
the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the
words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the
Lord” (2 Kings 23:2).
Each time, the command is to return to the Book. Hear the
Word of the Lord and live, says Jesus (John 5:24). God will not give you His
Spirit without His external Word. Without Jesus, the Word of God, and without
His revelation in Holy Scriptures, there is no faith, there is no forgiveness
of sins, and there is no eternal life.
Dr. John Kleinig, a Lutheran pastor and professor in
Australia, puts it this way:
“Luther does not envisage the practice of meditation as an
inward,
mental activity, but as an outward ritual enactment. As such
it was
inspired by the liturgy and derived from the enactment of
God's word
publicly in the divine service. God commands the church to
preach, read,
hear, sing, and speak His word, so that He could thereby
convey and
deliver His Holy Spirit to His people. That external
proclamation and
enactment of God's word determines how the student of
theology
meditates. Just as the Scriptures are read in the Divine
Service, so he
reads them out aloud to himself as he meditates on some part
of them.
Just as the psalms are sung there, so he sings them to
himself. Just as
God's word is preached there, so he preaches it to himself.
Just as God's
word is spoken there, so he hears it addressed personally to
himself” (CTQ 66:3:262, July 2002)
For the fruit of meditation is preaching and teaching. First
we find God’s Law, cold and unmerciful. You may meditate on “You shall not
murder” and find only a tyrant god. But true meditation does not let it end
there. True meditation finds the fulfillment of “you shall not murder” in the
murder of Jesus Christ, Who’s death we proclaim in the eating and drinking of
His Body and Blood, until He returns.
No comments:
Post a Comment