What are the most important words you’ve ever heard? Or spoken?
Phrases like, “Will you marry me?” come to mind. That one’s a life changer. Or, “It’s a boy” or “It’s a girl” have to be high on anyone’s list. Of course these words are intensely personal.
Some words have a broader impact. “The peak of this massive hurricane will hit the area at approximately 2pm.” That’s a phrase with regional impact, to be sure. When Hurricane Andrew hit the Bahamas, Florida and Louisiana in 1991 as a Category 5 hurricane it had sustained wind speeds of 165 miles per hour, demolishing homes and leaving nothing but their concrete foundations. Dozens of people lost their lives. Andrew caused over $25 billion of damage in a matter of hours. Still, only regional impact.
There are words that have global impact, too, even if their impact isn’t immediately seen. After the US determined that one of the top-ranking scientists in it’s nuclear program was actually a spy for the Soviet Union, which meant that the Soviets knew everything the US did about building a uranium-fission atomic bomb, President Truman announced the development of a hydrogen bomb that would be hundreds of times more powerful than the ones dropped on Japan. It took two years, but when the United States detonated the world’s first hydrogen bomb on the Eniwetok Atoll it instantly vaporized the island and left a mile-wide crater in it’s place.
WORDS. They can carry incredible impact. They convey information, but words also reveal the heart. Words can instruct, and direct the actions that cause things to be produced. But we haven’t looked at the most powerful words yet.
Thanks for joining me today on Mornings with Bishop Robert, where you and I share a daily word of timely faith from the historic Church.
Today’s verse says IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD. AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD. AND THE WORD WAS GOD.
We’ve looked at words that had personal, regional and even global impact. But these words impact the universe! And time!
The first recorded words of God that we know about were, “LET THERE BE.” And everything He said came to pass. Instantly. The elements obeyed as He spoke them into existence … BY HIS WORDS. Light. Water. Sky. Land. He spoke, they came into existence, and obeyed.
John the apostle reveals Jesus as being intimately involved in that creative miracle. He was there “in the beginning.” John says, “the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That one can be hard for us to wrap our puny minds around. We don’t yet have the capacity to fully understand HOW that can be. That doesn’t bother me. One of my friends started the synthetic intelligence lab at MIT – the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is among the premier technology schools on the planet. When he describes quantum computing and AI, I don’t understand most of what he says. And he’s not God. So why would I expect that I would totally understand the full depth of everything God says ???
My friend Newton will occasionally explain a concept he totally grasps in simple words, so I can begin to understand a basic element even if I don’t totally grasp the entire idea.
So does God.
When He says, “the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” I can begin to get a glimpse into the unity of the Trinity. Jesus was with God. Jesus is God. He is the one who created the universe. No wonder the wind and the waves obeyed Him when He told them to calm down. They’ve ALWAYS obeyed Him. No wonder Jesus could heal the man born blind by rubbing some mud on his eyes. He formed Adam out of the dust of the earth, so he used the same material for a small repair job. I get it !!
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD. AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD. AND THE WORD WAS GOD.
So, what are the most important words you’ve ever heard? Or spoken?
My vote is for three OTHER words God spoke. I believe the most important words you and I have ever heard have got to be, “IT IS FINISHED.”
The most important words you’ll ever speak? I’d have to say they’d be to quote what Thomas said in the Upper Room as he faced the Risen Messiah — “My Lord and my God !”
