From the womb...

[Caveat: another fumbling about something I am trying to find the right words, the best words, to say.]

The other night I was lying with my head on Amos and was struck by how noisy his body is. And then I started thinking...

We like to think of the womb as a peaceful dark quiet place, a perfect place marked by absolute serenity.  However, babies are actually surrounded by the constant noise of life: beating hearts, grumbling stomachs, gurgling intestines, swishing lungs, swooshing blood, vibrating vocal cords...not to mention the sounds of life external to their mothers' bodies, such as music and voices.  From the very beginning of their existence, babies are surrounded by a veritable cacophony.

So, in a way, from the very beginning, babies learn that life is sound; sound is life.  They learn that life can be found in hearing. Babies spend all their time seeing very little in the womb, but once their hearings developed, they experience a plethora of different sounds, all pointing to life.  Could you not, therefore, conclude that from the very beginning, the idea of the spoken Word being life is epitomized, made tangible example to babies as their own bodies become complete?

And then there is the generally accepted recognition that hearing is the final sense to go before death.  Not taste.  Not touch.  Not sight.  Sound.  Perhaps this is because of all that we gain, all that we can receive by hearing.

It is no fluke that the Psalter is filled with the encouragement and admonition to have the Living Word on our tongues, in our mouths, falling from our lips, and filling our ears, despite being penned by different men.  It is no casual happenstance that God spoke to Moses, spoke to those at Jesus' baptism.  It is no coincidence that Christ spoke to God from the cross, asking Him to forgive those who did not understand what they were doing in the crucifixion, and spoke to Paul.  The message of the Gospel, from the beginning, has been a spoken Word.  And that Word is a living Word.

In the Large Catechism, Luther tells us that the Word "has and is able to do all that God is and can do" (BOC, LC, IV, 17-18). This is why it is the Word that makes the Sacrament, the spoken Word.  The Word combined with water is Baptism.  The Word combined with bread and wine is the Lord's Supper, the true body and blood of Christ.  The Word combined with proclamation by a called and ordained servant is absolution. Our bodies feel the water, taste the bread and wine, see the undershepherd before us, but our ears receive the forgiveness, the sustenance, the healing, and the life renewed, refreshed. We hear them.

There is no mystery, then, to how it is that when I am caught up in hurt or pain or confusion or frustration or despair, that speaking the Living Word to me can and will calm and soothe me, even if I am not particularly completely open to being calmed or soothed.  Even when I am filled with doubt, unable to see a future and certain there is no possibility of hope, hearing the Living Word breaks through the darkness, the death, surrounding me and brings the light, brings the life, that changes .

Of all the destruction the devil has wrought upon creation through sin, surely the most egregious perfidy committed is the deafening of mankind, is keeping God's children from hearing the Living Word.  Not that deafness can thwart God from bestowing the gifts of Christ upon His beloved.  Still, I weep at the thought of never being able to hear sweet, sweet Gospel.

Being an avid reader, I have always thought the worst thing that could happen to me would be blindness.  I could not fathom a life where I was not able to read.  Now, by far, the greatest loss to me would most assuredly be deafness. 

Strange thought to be had whilst starting to fall asleep on my puppy's body, eh?


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!