Only say the Word: Homily for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Church of St Godric, Durham: 28 January 2018

Whenever we hear in the Scriptures talk of the Lord’s raising a man up, immediately we think of the Father Who raised up His Son from the grace of death, to the Resurrection that opens up to us the new and living Way. In today’s reading from the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 18.52-20), God raises up a prophet who will speak the very words of God Himself; and so we who are Christians, always reading the Hebrew Scriptures in the light of Christ, think not just of a prophet and his words from long ago but of the Word of God, the Lord God incarnate Himself, Emmanuel, God with us, the Word made flesh.

And when we hear in the Gospel (Mark 1.21-28) that Christ teaches with authority, we see Who the Word is, and what this Word means. This Word brings with it the power to enter right into our souls and, with one command, to free them from what constrains and binds us, all that keeps us sinning and inclined to our usual old ways, and everything that holds us back from God, holds us back from praising Him for all He has done for us and everything that He means to us, and holds us back from following Him where He leads us onto that new and living Way.

St Paul typically presents a stark contrast of extremes (I Corinthians 7.32-35), a rhetorical exaggeration to make this very point easy to grasp in the midst of our lives. He says that single people are free to devote themselves to Christ, and married people need constantly to be consumed with husbands, wives and families He could easily have said the same about our work and daily duties, our passions in life and our leisure activity, about our ideas and our politics, about sport or meeting up with others in our groups of those we know in the communities of life in which we are all bound up. St Paul’s point would be the same. Whatever we are caught up in, whatever involves us, even to the depths and heights of our natures, nothing must ultimately and completely get in the way of our fundamental devotion to Christ, and our love for Him as “our” Person, the One for us, out of which all other human loves and attachments flow.

In a few moments’ time, at the hands of our priest, no prophet of old but the Lord Himself shall be raised up; and we shall ask Him, “only say the word”. Thus we shall ask Him to tell the truth about us, to loosen us from what is holding us back, to heal our souls, and to fill us with His own life, God with us. When we see Him, he captures us in adoration. We who have sung from our hearts find our hearts are indeed lifted up and for a moment in this sacred place we are in heaven here in the world. All that St Paul is saying is, when you leave and go back to your home and your earthly affairs, don’t leave heaven behind but take it with you. Just as you have seen the Word made flesh raised up and speaking into your soul, so let the people to whom we are going to return see the same Lord in us and hear Him inciting them too to find His new and living Way. None will see His glory in the world unless they can see it in us and desire the same for themselves.

So let it be that we who have been taken up with His glory, and worshipped the One raised up on the Cross for our sake, the One raised up from the dead to open up for us our new and living Way, and the One raised up in the Host to speak the Word deep into our souls to heal and delight us - let it be that we, even we, may be the vision of Christ to the people of the world, and the ones to bring the world to desire to live and be as the very Kingdom of God.