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The Preaching Life

by Jeren Rowell

Just Say the Words

Those of us who preach know something about the power of words. That power can be positive or negative. There is also something powerful that happens when there is no word. One of the harshest things people can do to each other is to stop talking to one another.

What is true about words in our relationships with each other is also true in our relationship with God. We need desperately to hear from God. This basic need is a point of powerful intersection with the gospel of Advent. John shows this profoundly in the opening of his Gospel. He doesn’t start with a birth narrative or with “a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” He starts with “in the beginning was the word.” John begins his Gospel by talking about a word.

From the outset God must be understood as One who speaks. He is the God who reveals himself through a word. Throughout the story of God’s dealings with His people, that relationship has always been characterized by speech. God spoke with Adam and Eve in the garden. He spoke with Noah. He called Abram out of Ur and into the covenant promise of a people and a land. He spoke to Moses and through Moses to the people. God spoke to the prophets like Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and Amos.

And then in the story of the people of God a strange thing happens. Between the closing words of the First Testament and the opening of the Second Testament, there are some 400 years of silence. There is no word. The questions must have been sharp. Where is God? Has He left us forever?

But into that deafening silence, finally God speaks. He speaks a word that is everlasting. We needed so desperately to hear a word from God and what was it? It was a word of love. It was a word of forgiveness and acceptance. It was a word of compassion and a word of life. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. The writer to the Hebrews says it this way: “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through prophets . . . in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (1:1-2).

That we serve a God who speaks is very good news to all of us and especially to we who preach. During these days of Advent we are bold to proclaim this gospel: that God has spoken to us! As we make this bold proclamation, we are not left to work with words of our own manufacture. We are stewards of a great gift: the received, remembered, and recorded words of good news that bring tidings of great joy.

People are hungry to hear these words, even though many are at least vaguely familiar and some are keenly familiar with the sound of them. Advent preaching, while certainly open for creative expression, is no time to tinker with the words until they lose their power to connect to the simple, good news of the season: “a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). So just say the words. Say them passionately, simply, and lovingly. God will honor the proclamation with the anointing of the Holy Spirit and people will be saved. Now that’s a good word! ?