December 2024
The following is a possible framework for the Witnessing of the Word. It can be personalised or altered: its purpose is to serve as an example of how this Saying might be used primarily in the context of a Prayer Group, but it may be used by individuals too. It is not intended to be definitive. In the context of a group: the periods of silence should be appropriate for your group - probably not less than 5 minutes, or more than 15 minutes.
Saying for the month 'my word ... shall accomplish that which I purpose'. Isaiah 55.11 (ESV).
To begin the exercise, first spend a short while in relaxation and preparing to be still; you may want to relax your way through your muscles or you may find it helpful to become aware of the sounds around you and then put them aside as you offer this time of prayer to God.
Say this introductory invitation to prayer, then keep a further minute or two of silence: ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11.28).
Introduction to the first silence - a preparation for listening with the mind:
‘my word ... shall accomplish that which I purpose’.
For a range of reasons, Chapter 55 of Isaiah is a very remarkable passage. Not only is it a wonderful source for the kind of contemplative listening that we follow in the Fellowship of Contemplative Prayer, but it has a unique place in the shape of the Old Testament.
Chapter 55 is the final section of 2nd Isaiah. That is not to say that we should not take Isaiah as a whole, but it is clear that the central section is written at a different time and with a different purpose than parts 1 and 3. In it, the people are still in exile and Isaiah has been bringing a message of hope and of encouragement to them. They are a people far from home and a people who also feel that their faith has failed them and that God is far away.
When we start reading at verse 6, we find ourselves called to seek the Lord ‘while he may be found, call upon him while he is near’. And this God who is near, thinks thoughts as we think thoughts. Yet these thoughts are utterly different to ours and they are not just general, abstract ideas. The thoughts point to something specific which God is planning and soon to execute. They refer to his design for his world. And God’s design at that time, and now, is to procure the salvation of his people.
At the same time as thought processes may be similar, God’s divine nature means that his exist in utter contrast to ours. Earlier in Isaiah (vs 8) we are told: ‘… my thoughts are not your thoughts … declares The Lord’. How true that is! Yet although simply poles apart, is there not a way that the thoughts of God can be related to the thoughts of human beings?
The thought, the word of salvation, is something upon which the people can depend. Here this passage from Isaiah sounds just as if it was a parable spoken by Jesus:
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there
but water the earth,
making it bring forth
and sprout,
giving seed to the
sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be
that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty (Isaiah 55.10-11).
Here is the link between the word of the majestic creator God and the fragile humble creature person. When God speaks there is a speaker and a hearer. For God, the word is not simply the communication of an idea, the word is an instrument by which something is done, is effected. God’s word is a word that does things. In creation when God spoke, things were created.
As we listen to the words of God in our contemplative times, we often sense that the words are being spoken to us personally – they so often match up with our particular needs at that moment. How often is this true!
But there is a second point too beyond that personal relationship. What that word is, will be fulfilled. It is a word of salvation, a promise that will be fulfilled.
And there is a third point to be made. It is not automatic, this fulfilment. God’s word does not magically call a new state of salvation into being. The word has to be listened to, received and accepted. The message communicated to us begins its work as it is accepted deep down within us. The word for those in exile does not come about in a great triumphal procession through the desert which has miraculously become a lush garden of flowers and trees.
Ever and always, God’s thoughts and designs are higher than ours – as much higher as heaven is higher than the earth. Life may not turn out exactly as we expect it to. The only thing of which we can be certain is that God’s word means that something is going to happen. His word never returns to him empty.
Imagine yourself to be an exile, far from home, longing to return, longing to see Jerusalem again. God has spoken through Isaiah so many wonderful words of encouragement and hope and salvation. We are about to step onto the bridge between exile and a wonderful new beginning. The precise nature of what that new beginning is will have to wait.
For the moment we know – as God declares to us:
‘my word ... shall accomplish that which I purpose’.
We take this Saying now into our minds, allowing it to speak to us in the silence: ‘my word ... shall accomplish that which I purpose’.
A time is now kept for silence of the mind – perhaps between 5 and 15 minutes. The silence concludes with a short thanksgiving, and/or feel free to repeat the Saying.
The first silence ends with the words: Father, we thank you for the gift of your Word.
Introduction to the second silence - a preparation for listening with the heart:
In the first silence of this exercise, we sought to receive this concept into our minds, imagining what it was like to hear these words of encouragement for the first time: ‘my word ... shall accomplish that which I purpose’.
Now we seek to receive it deep down in within ourselves, in our hearts. As Christians we wonder where the story of Jesus begins. In his own distinctive way John says that the story of Jesus begins with the Word. I now spell that with a capital ‘W’. It begins with the Word, the Logos – for the story of Jesus is the story of the Word – the word that God says will not return to him empty. This is the Word that we are longing for this Advent.
The Word was inclusive – it incorporated Jewish concepts of Torah, of law and of wisdom – it incorporated Greek ideas of Logos, of understanding the meaning of the Gospel story – and of effective speech. In Psalm 33.6 we hear ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made’ and we read this at Genesis 1, where whatever God speaks happens.
The Word incorporates a sound at a specific moment, time and eternity, God and humanity. The Word is what takes place within history and what takes place beyond history. The Word was there right at the beginning of everything – before the creation. The Word may be likened to the eternal purpose of God himself – something that gives purpose to the whole of existence. The divine action that took place in the life of Jesus Christ was not some afterthought by God, but the whole purpose of God expressed in a personal, historical human life.
It is impossible to explain this most profound of mysteries. What we do know, and what we are waiting for with such longing at this time, is for the Word to become flesh and to dwell among us: God will become a human being. To the Greek, this would have been incredible; a rational principle simply couldn’t become a human being. Yet this was something that had to be accepted.
To the Jew the Word was creative: ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made’. The Word was also communicated: ‘Thus says the Lord’. How many times these words appear in the Old Testament! Thought – Wisdom – had a personal existence alongside God. But the idea that ‘thought’ could become a human being was impossible.
The next sentence of John’s prologue is a comment on what all this means: ‘We have beheld his glory, glory as from the only Son from the Father’ (John 1.14). This compresses into one short sentence the whole of the life of Jesus, from the manager at Bethlehem to the Resurrection and Ascension in Jerusalem. Truly the Word has not returned to him empty.
Now those whose eyes were opened to the whole of the life of Jesus really saw the glory of the Lord – they saw the Word fulfilled. God has become flesh in the person of his Son. God’s eternity has become joined to human history. Now humanity has access to God himself.
Here is something for us to ponder deep down in our hearts during this Advent season. It is not something just to skim over as we have time between the rush and the bustle of everything else that goes on. It is instead something to hold deep down in here, inside us. We are listening to one of the great promises of the whole of scripture.
I quote from Wisdom 18.14-15: ‘For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, thy all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne into the midst of the land’.
With all this in mind, we take this word into our hearts, as we allow Jesus’ words to speak in us, to let it touch us and let it work more deeply upon our lives.
‘my word ... shall accomplish that which I purpose’.
A time is now kept for silence of the heart – perhaps between 5 and 15 minutes.
The second silence ends with the words: Father, we thank you that your Word is alive and within us.
Introduction to the time of intercession – taking God’s word outwards into the world.
Now, in the final part of our exercise, we take God’s words out into his world, naming those aloud who we may feel need their comfort most at this time.
Say the name of a person or a group of people, and after a short pause, repeat the saying. For example:
‘Alison and your family … ‘ … my word … shall accomplish that which I purpose’.
As we allow the word to speak through us we might direct Jesus’ word towards those people and situations where there is suffering, hurt and an absence of joy and where abiding in Christ would bring comfort. Conclude this time of intercession with words of thanksgiving: Father, we thank you that your Word has gone out through us to those for whom we pray.
The Conclusion
Feel free to use the Fellowship Prayer (below) or another closing prayer to conclude your time of contemplative prayer:
Loving Heavenly Father, we thank you for all your unsearchable riches which pour forth from you as light from the sun, in boundless profusion and generosity, whether received, ignored or rejected. And now we offer to you, in so far as we are able, as an emptiness to be filled with your divine fullness, ourselves, our souls and bodies; all that we are, all that we have and all that we do. Amen
You may wish to say the Grace together before departing.