Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.

What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”

Scripture is often painfully honest.

I’m sure we all have parts of scripture that we’d prefer weren’t in there. There are several sections that adjusting them to match 21st-century norms would make them a lot easier to read and preach…but they aren’t going away.

The first sentence of this reading reminds us of both the truth and the permanence of God’s word.

That’s an important lesson, but with a couple of important limitations.

First, the words of scripture still suffer from all of the limitations of human language. Meanings change. Translations are unavoidably influenced by the assumptions of the people doing the translating. Copied manuscripts are less than perfect. The original message is based on worldviews that may have changed.

Yet we trust God to preserve the truth of scripture, with his inspiration guiding the reading as well as the original writing…just keep an attitude of humility that your understanding may not be perfect.

The second is to understand what the “word” is. In John, Jesus is described as being the Word who was with God, and was God. All the collections of letters on pages are valuably only to the extent they reflect the truth of the ultimate Word. Again, both trust and humility have to guide our reading of scripture.

After the statement about the endurance of the word, the passage again turns to themes of darkness and preparation.

God often works in darkness.

In the beginning…in the creation account in Genesis…God’s first words of creation were, “Let there be light.” God is a God who revels in bringing light from darkness.

This brings us right back to Jesus, the Word of God. To again refer to the beginning of the Gospel of John: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”

The darkness is powerful and feels overwhelming at times. But we know what the darkness doesn’t: A light is already here that will defeat the darkness for good.