The Word of the Lord is Coming to You!

12-09-2018Weekly Reflection

The gospel tells us that the word of the Lord visited JB (John the Baptist) in the wilderness. God can pitch his tent with you, to address you in what seems to be your very ordinary life. The word of the Lord can visit us as it did with JB when our lives are in the wilderness places of life. We usually expect God to show up when everything is polished and prepared, but in fact, the Scripture suggests God, more times than not, comes to us when the garden of life has become a desert when dreams have died and health has waned.

You ask where and how we hear the word of the Lord? If your life is at some vulnerable, dry, seemingly lifeless place, let your ears perk upwith expectation: the word of the Lord is coming to you in that very barren, desolate moment when life seems almost gone.

When life looks so unlike life, what does the word of the Lord sound like? According to John, God’s word came to him in whispers on desert winds saying: “Every valley” would belifted up, “every mountain” made low; crooked places would be straightened and rough places made smooth. When you feel as if the very life has been knocked out of you, listen for the sound of the coming word of the Lord.

Cancer survivors know the sound of the coming of the Lord. As chemotherapeutic fluid drips through veins, when radiation zaps a rogue tumor, when a caring physician says options are few and time may be short, faithful believers know the sound of the word of the Lord. Persons who have endured alife-wrecking divorce know the sound of the word of the Lord, as do men and women in tough economic times who have lost their jobs and with a pink slip, so many hopes for a better life.

The sound faithful ones hear is the sound of hope before the brutal winds of a dry desert. That sound is the word of the Lord that tells us neither cancer nor divorce nor loss nor abandonment and even death itself shall ultimately defeat us. Why? Because as Paul writes, “the one who began a good workamong you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” Listen for the sound of the coming word of the Lord.

Far from being only a sound, the word of the Lord is a presence, a force, an energy that brings color and life, joy and meaning to life’s desert moments. God sends the word to us as a gift to bless others through us.

This season of expectant waiting is a time when the word of the Lord comes to us in so many unexpected ways. Perhaps this Advent moment is a time when the word of the Lord comes to you so that through you the word of the Lord might come to someone else. Perchance in our frenzy to find just the right gift for that special someone, we become God’s gift to everyone we know. Perhaps the sound of God’s word this season becomes the sound of our own voice telling another they will triumph over the tragedy that has come their way by the gift that is God’s grace.

May this season of Advent bring the word of the Lord into the barren desert of your life, amen!