"Learning to Hear" Fifth Sunday in Lent Judica March 22, 2015 John 8:46–59
Your life is one of learning to hear. If you are a Christian then you are hearing. Likewise, if you are hearing the Word of God, then you are a Christian. And as a Christian, you need to continue to be learning to hear. How do you learn to hear? The answer is so very simple and yet so very difficult. You learn to hear by hearing. It’s really that simple. Why is it so very difficult? Because by nature you close your ears to God’s Word. You listen to your own voice. You listen to the call of the world. Your itching ears take notice when Satan whispers to you of his doubts about God’s promises to you. You need to learn to hear. Jesus teaches you how you learn this. The Word of God is not just words written on a page. The Word of God is living and active. The Word of God is in a person, having become flesh and having dwelt among us. Christ Himself is the Word of God, He is the Word made flesh and He dwells among us. If you are going to learn to hear you need to hear the Word of God revealed to you in the person of Jesus Christ. In the Gospel reading Jesus tells those who are accusing Him of not being of God that those who are of God are those who hear the words of God. Why were they accusing Him of not being of God? Because He was claiming to be from God. He was claiming, in fact, to be God, one with God the Father. Now, you look back on the ministry of Jesus and readily recognize that He is God. There are many, though, who don’t. They look at the claims Jesus makes in the Scriptures and, just like those in the Gospel reading, reject those claims. They reject Him just as they did. You hear what Jesus says in the written Word of God and you believe in Him. So why is it you need to learn to hear? If you have heard and you believe in Him, why do you need to keep hearing? Why do you need to learn what you already have done? In the same way that you have life and need to keep learning and growing, in your life of faith you need to keep learning and growing. The way your Lord teaches you and strengthens you is by His Word. Since that is the way He does it you need to keep hearing it. Because you so often listen to the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh you need to keep learning to hear. In the Gospel reading Jesus speaks of those who are of God as those hear His words. Responding to those who took issue with Him, Jesus further said that if you keep My word you will never taste death. Hearing is more than just the words hitting the ear drum. Jesus in saying that you hear His Word is saying that you keep it. He is saying that you hear it and take it to heart. You hear His Word and you take heed to it and follow it. Just hearing it but not really listening to it and paying attention to it and actually being obedient to it is not really hearing it. This is why you need to learn to hear. To learn to hear you must first understand that hearing is a receptive activity. When we think of doing something we normally think of actively doing some sort of action or work. But a receptive activity is one in which you are taking in. Another is accomplishing the action and you are the recipient of that action. This is what Jesus is talking about with hearing His Word. You are receiving. He is speaking, you are hearing. If you come to Him thinking you are going to be the one at work then you have already listened to the devil who tells you that you ought to be able to do something for yourself. Just as God gave you new birth in Baptism, so He forgives you and strengthens your faith in His speaking of His Word to you. Don’t listen to the devil, listen to God. There is nothing you can do for God to offset your sin and guilt. You are going to die some day and you cannot prevent that. If you are to address your guilt you must do so by seeing that you can’t. God is the one who does something about it. What He does is He speaks to you. He speaks His forgiveness right into your ears and the forgiveness goes straight to your heart. Your guilt is gone. Your sins are forgiven. This is the only way. It is why you are of God. It is because you hear and receive. It is because He speaks and accomplishes what He says when He speaks. This receptive activity of hearing brings with it something else. Not only are you forgiven, you are given faith and strengthened in faith. This faith He gives you is a busy, living, and active thing. But it’s not really a thing. It is a trust. It is most certainly an active action on your part even as you can only have it because you have received it; because your Lord Himself has given it to you. This faith is what Jesus is getting at when He says that you hear His Word and you keep His Word. You take it to heart and hold it fast. It is your only hope and foundation for why you are not swept away in guilt and unworthiness before God. You hear your Lord’s word and keep it. You trust in Him alone that your hope and your salvation is sure and certain. You trust in Him alone that when He forgives you you are indeed forgiven. You trust in Him that the words of the world and your sinful flesh and the devil are not trustworthy and cannot bring you true peace. You trust in Him alone that despite all the many words and doubts and many things that do not make sense, that He is the one who walked the path to the cross for you and walked the path from the grave to speak to you that your salvation is now accomplished. This is how you hear and keep God’s Word. It is by His work and His speaking. The people in the Gospel reading stood before Jesus in the flesh and rejected Him. So many today see the words of the pages of Scripture and reject Him. You hear those words and believe. Though He doesn’t stand before you He calls servants of His Word to proclaim His Word to you in His stead and by His command. He calls these servants to Baptize and to administer His Holy Supper. His Word is the active thing in these actions of His. It is not really a thing. It is His living Word that is at work when you hear His Word proclaimed. It is His Word that is accomplishing what the words of the Lord’s Supper say, that in and with the bread and wine is the very body and blood of Christ given and shed for you for your forgiveness. You learn to hear God’s Word and you learn to hear it by hearing it. You are not just lazily taking in the words. You are responding to it. You are seeing that you have new life in Christ and so you live that new life. You see that just as He loves you you love others. Just as He forgives you you forgive those who sin against you and do not love you in the same way. You see that your Lord is the Great I AM and has come to you as a servant. Because He has done so He has freed you up to be a servant, humbling yourself before others and thinking of their needs before your own. Thinking of how you can help them before you think of your own desires and needs. This is how hearing your Lord’s words is obedience to Him. You are living in the way that He has given you to live, not in the ways you hear from the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh. When the world tells you that ancient words on a page have no relevance for today, you listen instead to your Lord who tells you that there is nothing more relevant than that He is the great I AM; He has conquered your guilt and the grave by rising from His grave and therefore you will not taste death. When your sinful flesh tells you that it’s okay to do things that are against the Ten Commandments because, after all, what you are doing is not nearly as bad as what some people do, you listen to your Lord who tells you that He gives you what is good and good for you in keeping you from your sinful desires, which only bring you guilt and death. When Satan tells you that God cannot give you anything greater than the pleasures of this life that you can see and experience, you listen to your Lord who tells you that there is nothing greater than the life He gives you in body and soul by giving you His very body and blood in the Meal He invites you to partake of, which is a very feast that you are sharing in with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. Learning to hear is not easy. There’s a reason you need to learn it, it is a lifelong process. It is called sanctification. It is your Lord continually strengthening you, making you holy, forgiving you, renewing you. But that is why you continue to hear. And in so hearing you learn. You learn to hear, you learn that your Lord loves you and will continue to make known His Word to you, always bringing about what His very Word says. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
