The Word is Everything: Psalm 119:9-16

How can a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed according to Your word.
With my whole heart I have sought You;
Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!
Your word I have hidden in my heart,
That I might not sin against You.
Blessed are You, O LORD!
Teach me Your statutes.
With my lips I have declared
All the judgments of Your mouth.
I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies,
As much as in all riches.
I will meditate on Your precepts,
And contemplate Your ways.
I will delight myself in Your statutes;
I will not forget Your word.

Of all the things we have a hard time believing in our modern era, the Word of God seems to be at the center of our angst. As a society, having inherited the principles of the Enlightenment, summed up well in the famous state motto of “Show me,” we’re not well inclined to believe much of anything. In order to win my trust, you have the obligation to “show” what it is you are saying to “me” in such a way, that you win my approval and acceptance. I am the measure of all things, including whatever words fall out of your mouth, or off the printed page. I am the judge, and I am the measure. Whatever word may exist out there, it has the obligation of convincing me of its validity, and why my sovereign brain should give it any thought at all. I am king, after all—at least inside my own head.

As much as that individual practice of judging all things and ideas may be helpful between purely human conversations, where each of the human actors is equally flawed and prone to error, it is a horrible way to approach the Word of God. God is not obliged to convince us of anything—frankly, He’s not even obliged to speak to us in the first place. While we’re busy convincing ourselves of our own magisterial merit, God sits enthroned over the whole of creation, with none to challenge Him. He is the beginning of all things, and He will be the end of all things. Eternally before all things came to be, and eternally after all things cease to be, He is. We might like think of ourselves as the measure of all things, but in reality, we’re the measure of just about nothing… we can’t even measure ourselves without a reference point. (As a sidebar, try measuring yourself sometime, without any external reference point; no other people, no watch, no scale, no measuring tape, no GPA, no GPS, no history; when you’ve finished the exercise of your own inherent incompetence, keep reading…)

At the end of the day, without the objective Word of God, given by the One who stands eternally as the objective standard by which all things are measured, judged, and even rationally comprehended, we’re lost. We need His Word to tell us up from down, left from right, good from evil. His Word is written in the very fabric of the universe He created, so that we can understand cause and effect, time and energy and mass, and even life and death. His Word pierces our darkness and confusion with the blinding light of His eternal Law, so that we might know the difference between His majesty and holiness, versus our own wretchedness and evil. His Word that brought all things to be, sustains them through His good and gracious will, and provides us the light we need to enlighten our reason, orienting ourselves in all things. The further we get from His Word, the more confused, irrational, and incoherent we become.

Most importantly, though, we need His Word which was made flesh and dwelt among us—a Word beheld by the Apostles full of grace and truth, as the Only Son of the Father. This Word we need most of all, because after the Word of His Law reveals the hopelessness of our fallen human condition, this Word Made Flesh reveals to us to resolution of our troubles. The very Word of God, Jesus Christ, who took on our flesh, our sin, our death, reveals to us not only the extent of sin’s curse, but the unfathomable richness of God’s love for each and every human being. The love of God is made known to us, in His Word Made Flesh, the very image of the invisible God. It is the Word of God which was nailed to the tree, suffered death at the hands of the sinful creatures He came to save, and rose victoriously from the grave. It is the Word of God which speaks to us, that life and forgiveness is found in Him alone—for no one comes to the Father but through the Son, by the working of the Holy Spirit.

When we come to the end of ourselves, we find that it really is all about the Word. The Word does not come to us to justify itself, but to give us Justification, where we have only death and hopelessness on our own. The Word need not present itself before us, yet it comes to every person, that we might know the love of God for us all. The King of the Universe has spoken in words of Law and Gospel, that we might hear, repent, believe, and live. The Word—His Word—is everything to us. May Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh, ever be at the center of our meditations and contemplations, burning and hidden in our hearts, that we may never wonder from Him. Amen.