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sxmas205
Let No Tongue on
Earth be Silent
Text:
John 1:1-18
Date: Christmas II
1/2/05 retail space for lease
Let
the heights of heav'n adore him;
Angel
hosts, his praises sing;
Pow'rs,
dominions, bow before him
And
extol our God and King;
Let
no tongue on earth be silent,
Ev'ry
voice in concert ring
Evermore
and evermore. [LW 36:4]
The
Hymn of the Day for the Second Sunday after Christmas has us invite
all heaven's angels and every human tongue to join in the praises
of God who has come to save us in the Person of the Child of Bethlehem.
The call, “Let no tongue on earth be silent,” urges both praise
of God for and witness to the world of
His mighty acts of salvation.
In
a week when the earth wobbled and over 80, no, 90, 100, no, now
over 140,000-and-counting tongues were silenced by the devastating
Tsunami in Asia and Africa, and millions now are in peril for lack
of the basic necessities of water, food and shelter, in the face
of forces of nature way beyond our control, many are looking for
some purpose or meaning in such a huge loss of life. At best such
questions evidence the beginning of a spiritual awakening in some.
At worst they are an effort only to somehow once again blame God
for our suffering. The real question is, does God have anything
to say about this and, if he does, do we have the ears to hear and
understand?
When
you consider the enormous power of merely natural forces of tectonic
plates shifting only according to the laws of gravity and thermodynamics,
how much more powerful and awesome does that Word of God appear
by which he brought everything into existence out of nothing in
the first place? Not in the silence of his mind or will, after all,
but in the act of speaking God said “Let there be” earth, water,
light, land, sea, sky, vegetation, sun, stars, moons, living creatures
and, finally, human beings, and there they were. And here we are.
Where did you come from? None of us ever asked to be born. No, you
are the creation of God. In contrast to God's mighty Word of creation,
what a comparatively small thing therefore things like Noah's flood,
the parting of the Red Sea before Moses and Pharaoh, or the Fathering
of the Son to be born of the Virgin Mary! Each of these and all
the mighty acts of God is done not in silence but by the act of
speaking—the Word of God. “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have
found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb
and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus” [Luke 1:30-31
(ESV)]. Mary conceived through her ears, by the Mighty Word. As
we handle and speak and hear and eat and drink the Word of God this
day, may we be the more aware of the power, both the danger and
the blessing of The Mighty Word!
“In
the beginning was the Word.” The one, true God is a speaking God
and not a dumb, that is, silent idol.
"What
profit is an idol
when
its maker has shaped it,
a
metal image, a teacher of lies?
For
its maker trusts in his own creation
when
he makes speechless idols!
Woe
to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake;
to
a silent stone, Arise!
Can
this teach?
Behold,
it is overlaid with gold and silver,
and
there is no breath at all in it. [Habakkuk 2:18-19 (ESV)].
“Our
Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says” [LW Introduction,
p. 6]. And all that is because His Word, this Word is not just a
thought, an idea or a sound, but this Word is a Person—God himself
with flesh and blood on it. “He was in the beginning with God. All
things were made through him.”
And
even better than that, not only did this speaking God, this Word,
make all things but also he continues to “make me and all creatures”
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