He isn't Reacting.
Most Wednesdays I get out of the city, head up to the mountains, and take a seat perched above the South Platte River. I spend those Wednesdays wrestling with the text I’ll be preaching the upcoming Sunday, praying, and being reminded of something absolutely essential in our age. Here I see gallons and gallons of water steadily pouring down the valley. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t wait to consider what’s happening all around. It asks no questions about the upcoming presidential election or what latest controversies are boiling in the lives of people around it. Here are trees, big evergreens and a small grove of aspens, swaying in the wind but mostly just standing there, oblivious to all the concerns and the latest outrages everyone’s all jazzed about. Here are mountains, definitely unmoved by all the things that throw us around, changing our blood pressure, anxiously spinning our thoughts and emotions as we are moved by an endless wave of news and scandals and trends. It dawns on me this particular Wednesday that here is an entire world, full of glory and life and death and all manner of things - speaking constantly about the sovereignty, power and majesty of God - and it has almost no regard for the things that consume most of our lives and news cycles.
And then, still sitting in this same spot, I consider the Scriptures themselves. Here is testimony and law and song and grace upon grace fixed on pages by God’s Spirit. All of them witness to God’s sovereignty, His power and his majesty. All of them unmoved by our fears and ambitions and tragedies. Here is a rock of God’s revelation - of truth and beauty and goodness that is not concerned with responding to all our latest foolishness and not attempting to coddle us in our sins and anxieties. Rather, here is a word that simply and gloriously stands, in the midst of all our madness and seeming chaos, it stands and speaks the same word over and over and over again - unchanging, unconfused. And such a word, in a culture such as ours, can be a rather remarkable anchor. An unmoved Word in the midst of stormy seas and a cacophony of voices demanding your attention. Here is another grace given to us in the Bible - a steady and sure word.
The Westminster Confession (echoing the author of Hebrews words) tells us in chapter 1: “Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing…”
“…for the…comfort of the church…”
God has given us these sure words, these unchanging words for the “comfort of the church.” It isn’t simply the content of His words that are to comfort God’s people, it is also the simple fact of their existence, their unchanging nature is itself to be a comfort to the church. These trees, this river, these mountains do what they do - and they keep doing what they do, because God has commanded them to and only because God commands them to. These words, in this marvelous book called the Bible, they are given to us, unchanging, as a comfort, a steadying rail as we’re shoved and pushed and spinning around often confused by the storms that swirl around us.
Another thing strikes me in considering this comfort: God is not reacting. He is not spinning around, scrambling to make sure he stays ahead of the latest trouble or confusion. He isn’t coming up with new responses to address an ever changing world. He isn’t updating his research in light of new sociological and scientific data. He has spoken. His word and his words stand forever. When we return to dust, with our political and social agendas, his words will remain - always doing what they were intended to do. When we return to dust, with our anxieties and addictions and rebellions, his words will remain - always doing what they were intended to do.
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” - Matthew 24:35
“I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.” - Psalm 138:2
“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, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” - Isaiah 55:10-11