One of Satan’s strategies is the illusion that scripture is only ink on paper like any other book in the library. It is not uncommon for us all to forget that the Word is living and active…that it contains life and power when it is received and spoken by faith. The moment we forget that scripture is the Word of God revealing himself to us, the Word begins to lose its transformative function in our lives.
I am currently reading a little commentary on the Book of Revelation by Eugene Peterson. As he lays foundations for understanding the book, he reminds us that scripture is designed to awaken our senses and engage our imagination. We should not read the gospels without imagining what the scenes of Jesus healing, raising the dead, walking on the waves of Galilee, and turning over the tables in the temple courtyard would look like, sound like, and smell like. If we simply read the passage as sterile facts like dates in a history book, we miss what God intends.
I still remember American history classes in college. Two semesters were required. I had one professor who showed up at the last minute and opened his loose-leaf notebook and read facts and dates to us for an hour and then left. It was boring, mind-numbing, utterly forgettable. It was so meaningless that I dropped the course thinking I would take it in a short summer semester where I might endure the class. So, the following summer, I signed up under another professor. This teacher made history come to life. He told the back stories, the intrigues, and described the scenes so that we could place ourselves in the moment. It wasn’t dates and facts. It was people and life and uncertainty. I was riveted. I never missed a class and I remembered the lessons from history, not just the facts.
God intends for us to read scripture that way. He wants us not just to engage our minds but all of our senses. In the Book of Revelation, we are told of dragons and angels, trumpets, and thrones. We are told of battles in the heavenlies and a golden city 1500 miles wide and high. We are told of burning incense and prayers and scrolls flying through the air with writing. As we read these things, we have the opportunity to imagine and to engage all of our senses. In Revelation 1:3, John tells us, ”Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear it…” John invites us to take it off the page, read it aloud, hear it as we read it, and read it with meaning so that those who hear it are riveted.
This engagement of the senses is not just to make the Word more interesting, but when the mind and the senses are involved, it writes it on our heart in much deeper ways. Think about it. The events and the moments you remember most in your life are anchored to the things you witnessed with your eyes, the smells associated with the event, the sounds you heard, the people that were there, you and the things you touched or that touched you. Any similar sounds, smells, or feelings you experience in the present will take you back to the past in powerful ways like a song from your childhood. The memory may be traumatic or full of goodness. It may be in a hospital room, on a battlefield, or in your grandmother’s kitchen at Christmas. When the senses are involved, you don’t just remember it, you re-experience it. Intense experiences establish themselves in neural pathways in your brain that stay with you forever.
Let me encourage you to take the time to make the Word come alive. Read it aloud. Engage your imagination asking the Spirit to direct your thoughts and reveal the pictures he wants you to see. Let him sanctify your imagination. Imagine the scene, the smells, the sounds, the people. Place yourself there. Read the Christmas story to your children or grandchildren and think about the long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. What was the road like; what were the dangers; what would it be like to be in your ninth month making that pilgrimage? Imagine sleepy shepherds outside of Bethlehem, the smell of sheep, the sting of cold air, the tangible fear when angels appeared in the sky, the sound of their voices, or the frustration when a room was not available for a woman about to give birth? What were the sounds and smells in the manger…a child being born, a young woman experiencing her first birth without family surrounding her, the smell and feel of straw, animals, and dampness? These were real people and real circumstances that God wants us to experience…not just facts to recount.
Perhaps, this Christmas will be a great time to remember that the Word is living and active, the very word of God, and it written to stir our imaginations so that we never forget what God has revealed to us.