“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever” (Isaiah 40.8)
The difference between hope and blind optimism is that hope is something is based on a solid foundation. Things that are short-lived, ephemeral or unreliable don’t make a good basis for hope. But if we place our trust in something that is long-lived, solid and unshakeable, then that becomes a real, firmly grounded hope.
The word of the Lord is one of those things that is worthy of our trust. What do I mean by ‘the word of the Lord’? When we read the Old Testament, we often come upon that phrase, referring to a specific thing that God says to a prophet. In 1 Kings 19, for example, Elijah spend the night in a cave on the mountain, and it is the word of the Lord that comes to him and asks “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
In the New Testament, the phrase “the word of the Lord” is used quite often in the Acts of the Apostles. Here it refers to the gospel message that the apostles were preaching, the good news about Jesus.
And today we often talk about the “word of the Lord”, (or “the word of God) and refer to the Bible. After the readings at Mass, the reader proclaims “The Word of the Lord”, and we reply, “Thanks be to God”. By doing this, we mean more than that this reading we have just heard is an extract from the Bible. By that response, we acknowledge that through that reading, God is communicating with us here and now, in our own lives. There is something within each reading that we hear at Mass that can be helpful for us. It might directly connect to a situation in our own lives. There might be something about the words or actions of the people spoken of in the reading that is inspirational to us (or even a warning to us!). It might connect with our emotions in some way, connecting what is happening within us to our understanding of God. Or there might simply be information within it that fills out our understanding of who God is, and how God acts in the world.
There is something particular about the Bible that marks it out as being different to other books. Even the latest parts of the Bible were written many centuries ago, but unlike anything else that was written at that time, it continues to be read. It is still a book that many, many people see as containing something central to their lives. After all this time, it continues to illuminate people, to show them their way in life. Or to be more precise, God continues to act in people’s lives, through their hearing or reading of God’s word.
This hearing and reading is something that can be transformative in our lives, because it is a place where we encounter God. Any authentic meeting with God will leave us changed somehow. It will involve growth as a person and a better understanding of who God is, who we are and how we connect to the people around us who we meet every day. But most of all, it will leave us with a greater love.
Over the centuries since Jesus’s death and resurrection, church has grown and developed and changed in many ways. But underneath all of this is that encounter with God in the the words that we find in the Bible. The history of the church is a history of Jesus’s followers encountering God and being changed by that encounter. As Catholics, we know that we don’t do this on our own, but as a community of people being transformed in this way. We know that we are always coming to God, and receiving God’s love in many different ways. Whichever way we think about, fundamentally it is God’s love that lies at the heart of it, transforming us. And that is what provides the solid foundation for our hope.
Richard Green O.Carm
