Preparing the music for this Sunday’s service brought me back in contact with Jeremiah’s call to prophecy. Previous contact with this passage (Jer 1: 4-10) has always drawn my focus to the prophet’s foreordination and the philosophical debate still taking place about free will vs. destiny. This time, however, I was drawn to the end of the passage. Yahweh puts his words in Jeremiah’s mouth and tells him that by doing so, He has put the prophet over nations and kingdoms. Yahweh’s words in Jeremiah’s mouth have the power to tear up, knock down, destroy, and overthrow. They can also build and plant. Does this sound familiar in our day?
The power of words. Jesus was the Jedi master when it came to using this power. His words to the people of Nazareth, his hometown, were enough to incite them to attempted murder (Luke 4:21-30). It’s never comfortable to hear one of your own people tell you that you’re too shortsighted, doubting, and stubborn to be worth performing miracles for, but their reaction was extreme, a witness to the power of the words directed at them.
Jesus’s words also had the power to heal. Stories of that healing power sometimes involve physical touch, but just as often, all Jesus does is speak and healing miracles occur. The words of Jesus have retained their power for over two millennia. “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” (John 8:11) “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you…Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14: 27) Powerful words, indeed!
The most powerful words attributed to Jesus might be these: “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love…This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15: 9, 12) Later, the apostle Paul sent some additional words about love to the Corinthians, hoping to heal the divisions among them. In the thirteenth chapter of his first epistle to them, Paul writes of the body of Christ, how Christ’s disciples are members of His body here on Earth, and of each member’s importance in that body. Each member brings with them essential gifts. Lest any member think its gifts more essential than the others, however, Paul goes on to say that all the gifts shall at some point fail and that none of them are perfectly manifest in humanity anyway. Then he tells them only faith, hope, and love endure after everything else has failed, and that of these three gifts, the greatest is love. He’s not wrong about that.
As a verbal and vocal human, I’m keenly aware of the power of words and sounds to hurt or heal. I’ve always been sensitive to it. My love of and strong opinions about music are a direct result of that sensitivity. In my fallible, imperfect way, I do what I can to use the power given me for healing and the expression of love. I’ve seen hearts forever changed by the utterance of loving words. I’ve also seen the deep wounds rendered by careless or malicious words.
We have the power given us by the Creator to heal the rifts in our world by healing the hearts of those around us. The question in this life for each of us is whether or not we will choose to do just that.
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