Word(s)

So, I stumbled across this random book in my house called Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC by Frederick Buechner this weekend. I love Buechner, but I think I picked this particular book up in a coffee shop in Wilmore for a couple of dollars and haven't picked it up since. I was thumbing through it this weekend and stumbled across an entry for "Word." Here's just a sampling of what I found...

"Words are power, essentially the power of creation. By my words I both discover and create who I am. By my words I elicit a word from you. Through our converse we create each other.

When God said, 'Let there be light,' there was light where before there was only darkness. When I say I love you, there is love where before there was only ambiguous silence. In a sense, I do not love you first and then speak it, but only by speaking it give it reality."

This is just a sampling of what Buechner had to say about "word." He begins the section noting that in Hebrew the term dabar actually means "word" and "deed." So, to say something is to do something. That is certainly the case in the Word. In the Old and New Testaments, the power of a word is felt from Genesis to Revelation. Creation began in conversation. Covenants between God and man were created through conversation. The Word became flesh and lived among us...There were a thousand conversations between creation and the incarnation and there have been scores since.

I cannot help but think of the passage in John 15 as I type this blog. It is the one about the vine and the branches. But nestled in the imagery is a statement I have never been able to shake or fully comprehend.

"You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you." - John 15:3

And what has the Lord spoken to me (and you) but light and life...faith and favor...grace and goodness...care and compassion...mercy and love? His words mean everything to me (us). I (We) struggle sometimes to believe them. I (we) often put words in his mouth. But everything he has spoken to me (us) is good...I (We) would do well to remember that.