The Words of Jesus

I tell you the truth: anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life (Jn. 5:24).

 

When I was growing up, every household more or less had a family Bible, some of which were like recorded family histories, with the names of parents, grandparents, and children born into the family.  Not many homes that I was familiar with actually used the Bible on a regular basis; mostly, it sat on a shelf and collected dust.  Occasionally, when I dusted the bookshelves -- a job I loved and that took me most of a Saturday morning -- I would open the big Bible and look through it.  I noticed that the words of Jesus were written in red, a practice I never really understood.

 

For one thing, the red print was harder to read than the black; for another, I found that the "words in red" interrupted the flow of the story and were more distracting than enlightening.  I tended to skim over them rapidly so as to get on with what was happening in the story. 

 

Actually, when we first begin reading the Bible, we tend to read much like this--reading as we would a novel, reading to find out "what happens next," and skimming over the words of Jesus as we would dialog in a novel.  After we have "read it," however, after we are familiar with the "plots" and the stories, we can afford to slow down and chew on the actual words of Jesus.  In the books of Isaiah and of Ezekiel, as well as in a few of the Psalms, we find references to "eating the scroll," or the Word of the Lord:  Your word came to me, and I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth, says Ezekiel.  "Open wide your mouth, I will fill it," says the Lord in one of the Psalms. 

 

When we finally stop reading for information and begin to take in, ingest, the words of Jesus for inspiration and transformation, everything changes.  The point is not to find out "what happens next," but rather to allow the Word(s) to change us from the inside out.  Now, the "words in red" can come to the forefront, allowing the story to recede into the background.  Now we are able to skim over the familiar story and slow down over the words of Jesus.

 

Scripture says (somewhere), "Even a child is known by the words he speaks."  If we want to truly know Jesus Christ, I think it important that we get to the point in our reading of Scripture that His words enter into our souls and minds.  I think that listening attentively to His words will actually change our souls and minds, for His words are Truth. 

 

He reveals in His words Who He is, Who the Father is, Who the Spirit is.  If we do not attend to what He says, it is doubtful that we can enter into Truth by our own ruminations about Who God Is.  In order that we might believe His words, He did mighty works, saying, If you believe not Me, believe the works: that you might know and believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me (Jn. 10: 38).

 

The works He did testify that He came from God and that His words were true.  I think He would tell us today to believe His words -- and today, unlike in His day and the centuries that followed Him ---His words are readily accessible to everyone who wants to know them.  What if, during Lent, instead of giving up chocolate ( a worthy sacrifice indeed), we instead began to feed on the words of Jesus, slowly and deliberately?  We might find a diet richer than chocolate and sweeter than honey to our souls.