During the past few months, I have been helping Rebecca clean out her family home of 150 years. While it’s been hard on many levels, it has also been a labor of love. As we finished up the process—everything having been shared, sold, or thrown away—we were left with a stack of old Bibles. One was embossed with the name of Rebecca’s grandmother, a woman I never knew. It was tattered and barely held together. I opened it carefully and began to look at some things that were stuffed inside: a certificate indicating that she and her husband had completed a training class to teach the Psalms, an obituary for a relative, notes on how to lead someone to Christ, a picture of a son, and a pocket square embroidered with her husband’s initials. These old tattered Bibles are reminders of lives lived through many challenges but in the presence of God. The notes and marked verses are evidence of how and where the Spirit spoke into their lives as He still does into ours today.
As Peter describes the living hope of life in Christ, he borrows the words of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 40:6-8) that had been read throughout preceding generations. These words remind us that while life is fleeting, the word of the Lord is eternal. In fact, it is the word of the Lord that in some way unites us with the people of God who have come before us. As we read the same words they read, that same Spirit works in our minds so that we can “have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.”
As we live our lives this week and face the challenges of the present time, let us remember the power of God’s word to give us wisdom, encouragement, and hope. Even after everything else has been used and discarded, the word of the Lord endures forever.