Bible Sunday

No matter how long ago we were taught it, I’m sure we all remember the alphabet song. Even though we may now only ever sing it with our children or grandchildren, it stays with us.

I believe this is because learning the alphabet is the building block, the first step to learning how to read and write, to capture our spoken language and the world around us on a page or communicate with other people.

First we learn the names and shapes of letters, then we learn what sounds they make, then we start to piece all the letters and sounds together to create the words that form our language.

‘C’ ‘A’ ‘T’ becomes CAT – letters on a page that somehow represent the real life creature when you put them all together. Just like that, random symbols are used to capture the reality we see around us.

The alphabet is so important to our language but once we’ve learned it and learned how to read and write, we don’t often think about it and can even take it for granted. It has become a part of us. The alphabet abides deeply in us.

Now what does this have to do with Bible Sunday or any of our readings today? Well, hopefully I’ll be able to explain. In today’s Gospel passage Jesus says something to the religious people around him that struck me. He is attending a Jewish festival in Jerusalem and heals a man who has been sick for many years. When the Jews hear of it, instead of being amazed at the healing, they are angry with Jesus for healing someone on the Sabbath, the day of rest. Responding to their criticism, Jesus says: “You have never heard {God, the Father’s] voice or seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you because you do not believe him whom he has sent.”

The word Jesus uses – abiding – means continuing, accompanying, staying. Just as the alphabet abides and stays with us for life, he implies that the Word of God should abide with us in the same way.

Jesus seems to be saying that the religious people, despite their knowledge of the Torah and the Prophets, had not absorbed or understood its message. They could recite the scriptures, recite the prophets, recite the history, but couldn’t put them together to understand what – or who - all of it is pointing to – Jesus.

It’s like someone learning the alphabet, then the phonics, putting together words and sentences but then not understanding what the words are trying to represent. They haven’t made the leap from ‘C’ ‘A’ ‘T’ to the cute animal sitting on a mat.

When these religious leaders see Jesus, the living Word of God, in front of them, actually living out the essence of God, the essence of the Father, they do not recognise him or believe him to be the one that the Torah and the prophets have pointed them towards. They haven’t made the leap from the prophesied Messiah on the page and this man, Jesus, standing in front of them.

They are not truly reading. They don’t hear God’s invitation through the prophet Isaiah, “Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”

They can’t read that God is offering a free gift of Grace. Eternal, fulfilling life that is freely given to all. All has been paid for by God himself and he is offering forgiveness and new life for all peoples, true satisfaction. They don’t hear as God calls through Isaiah, pleading with everyone to come, to pay attention, to listen so that we might live. To listen to news of an everlasting covenant, God’s everlasting love, His everlasting mercy and pardon for our thoughts and ways that fall far short of who God is.

These people knew their scriptures. Jesus says to them: “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

The religious people of Jesus’s day had focused on the alphabet and the individual words but had not seen the spirit of the words, the living embodiment and fulfilment of the Word and Law, Jesus Christ. That’s why they focused on the fact that they felt Jesus had broken the commandment to rest on the Sabbath Day yet couldn’t see that Jesus’ miraculous healing of the man meant that for the first time in 35 years he would actually be able to rest and have a Sabbath from his suffering.

Today is Bible Sunday. Founded in 1915 by the Bible Society it is a celebration that focuses on the place of the Scriptures in our daily lives. The Bible Society believe that when people engage with the Bible, lives can change for good, so they work hard in this country and all around the world to find ways to translate and distribute the Bible and help people relate to and make sense of it in their everyday lives.

I think Bible Sunday is a good time to examine ourselves in the light of Jesus’s words today and ask: “is God’s Word abiding in me?” The question is not, ‘have we read the Bible or memorised it’. But are we allowing the Holy Spirit living within us to embed God’s Word into our very being, to write God’s words in our heart? Do we see the Bible as our alphabet building block to understanding God’s language and message to us and the world? Are we allowing the Word to correct us when we are wrong and train us in how to live in truth and integrity? Are we submitting to the Word or resisting the parts we don’t like and trying to find others who will support our rebellion rather than challenge it? Are we being equipped by the Word, is it encouraging us towards good works and loving actions, towards forgiveness and away from resentment? Do our actions, thoughts and deeds in our every-day life look anything like the Spirit of the Scriptures we read? Do our lives speak God’s language?

Jesus’ words in this passage challenge me. He challenges all who believe in Him, the Living Word, to develop a true hunger for the Bible that speaks of Him in the Old and New Testaments.

It challenges us to get deeper into the Word than the ‘alphabet’ song but instead put it all together and let it accompany us in our actions, thoughts and words every day, recognising that when we do, the words on these pages all represent Jesus – the Word of God, the embodiment of God’s Grace to all who will come, listen and believe.