Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Moses said to all Israel: The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet...I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command."

This is the simple word of a prophet with profound impact upon faith for three thousand years. The word of God, spoken through the prophet, was to Israel as important as a strong defense or a low unemployment rate to Americans.

It may surprise us to hear of such a focus on God's Word, on "words" in general in scripture. Words, it seems, have come to mean less and less in our time. They are twisted, abused, and shaped to have a particular effect upon us, especially in advertising, but perhaps also in relationships.

Even our trite phrases reinforce the lesser place of words in our lives. We chant as children, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me." "Actions," we say as adults, "speak louder than words."

Things were clearly different in ancient times. In the bible, creation is by a word, redemption is through the word, and judgment is pronounced in the word. There is in scripture no power greater than the word. "And God said," is sufficient. No further action is necessary.

And for Christians, the substance of our faith begins with the simple phrase, "and the word became flesh." Jesus, the Word of God, took on our humanity to live our lives, know our stories, and reshape our destiny. Words, in scripture, are deeds. We should not underestimate their power.

The word of a prophet, a simple statement attributed to Moses, had a profound impact upon Israel, as it anticipated the coming messiah. The word made flesh has transformed history, now touching virtually every nation on earth.

In the days of Moses and the early days of the Monarchy, God was already transforming Israel, preparing it for the destiny that God had established for it. In these words of a prophet, yet another new possibility was being presented, a vision to inspire hope for a millennium of another prophet, another expression of the word of God, whose speaking would have a power and authority unlike any but that of God.

This passage, attributed to Moses, was a word of hope spoken to a people about to end their days of wandering in the wilderness. The people Israel, after forty years of nomadic existence in Sinai, were about to settle into the land of Canaan, the land of promise. Here in Deuteronomy, Moses provides careful instruction for these people who are about to lose their leader of forty years. Moses knows that living on the land will bring new challenges and struggles; that it will test their mettle and relationships in unexpected ways.

As you likely know, the word "Deuteronomy"—the book under consideration this morning—means "second law." It's not that the first was insufficient or inadequate. It's that a new period in salvation history required new interpretations and new regulations.

In this context, Moses offers the powerful word of the 18th chapter. God will not forsake God's people. They will not be left without a leader. The ship of state will not be left rudderless. Moses declares: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people."

While this announcement points to Joshua as Moses' replacement, reflection on this text led over time to a less immediate interpretation. The promise of a prophet like Moses became almost an eschatological hope, filled with a multitude of expectations. When Jesus appeared on the scene in Palestine, this is one of the texts and memories that filled his life and work with meaning.

The office of prophet, one attributed fully to Christ, is one of the primary ways that God uses to communicate with us. The prophets became conduits for keeping God and the people connected. The prophet gave assurance of a continuing relationship with the divine. He spoke on behalf of God, suffered for the sins of the people, even died in their place.

The early church saw in Deuteronomy 18:15-20 a prophecy that was fully realized in Jesus Christ. It was a simple matter to identify Jesus as the one of whom Moses speaks.

There are echoes of this brief passage from the fifth book of the Torah in many places in the New Testament. I hear them in Jesus' pastoral prayer in John's gospel. And Matthew's depiction of Jesus in terms similar to those of Moses may have this Deuteronomic text as its backdrop. In Matthew's gospel, Jesus is visited by the rich and powerful in his infancy. He's saved from a tyrant's slaughter of children. He's called out of Egypt. And he brings God's Word down from the mountain.

The expectations engendered by such texts are what led people to ask, as they do in John, chapter 1 about John the Baptizer, "What then? Are you Elijah?" (v. 21) And they led to statements about Jesus like the one later in that same chapter (v. 45), "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

And today, as Christians, we may lay claim to the same promise penned three millennia ago. For we know a prophet like Moses who has arisen from among the people, whom we may heed without qualm. This prophet has given us the word of God and has become the Word of God, and we are called to follow his teachings.

As our text has it: "Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable."

More than this, this prophet not only lived and died for us, but continues to be fully present in and through us. God has fulfilled the prophecy of Deuteronomy for all time in the person of Jesus, for whose word we are forever grateful.

Pete Hamil is a columnist who published his memoirs in a book entitled "A Drinking Life." The book recounts his life among writers in bars around the world, and he notes particularly the one day he realized that he was an alcoholic. Here is what he said about that moment of awakening in an interview:

"I went into the bar, paid my money, sat down to a drink, and waited for the entertainment. I had the feeling that I wasn't really there, that I was somehow watching myself being there. And I stopped drinking at that moment. I was buying fun rather than having it. I was performing life rather than living it."

Hamil discovered that his life was being wasted, that it was based on idolatry of drink and not on a real appreciation of life. He was suddenly aware of his need for a new word to live by, a new center, a new focus.

This is the kind of need that we down-play all too much in our society. The powerful word that came by the prophet Moses and was fulfilled in the Word-made-flesh of Jesus Christ is the rudder of our lives. Without it we, like the ancient peoples of Israel and like Pete Hamil, drift in a sea filled with the sharks of one desire or another, one dependency or another, one false god or another. If we fail to embark upon the ship of the church, whose rudder is Christ and whose sails are filled by the strong wind of the Holy Spirit, we have failed to know who and whose we are. We "buy fun rather than have it." We "perform life rather than living it."

The church witnesses to the power of God for living, the power of the word proclaimed by the prophets and fulfilled in Jesus. We declare here the transforming word of grace, the undeserved and unconditional love of God for every human being and for the whole earth.

We rehearse it in our marriage ceremonies, where people come as close as we ever do to the creative capacity of the word, establishing between themselves, by the public vows they make in the presence of God and the gathered community, an entirely new thing. Their words create a new relationship and thereby transform their futures, their identities, their potentials.

We, on behalf of God, use what Lutherans call visible words in the sacraments to effect the benefits of God's grace. In baptism, God's word added to the water creates a visible sign of God's love. Infants and adults become new creatures as they die to the old slavery to sin and arise to a new life in Christ through the baptismal waters. In Holy Communion, we speak the words of Christ as he celebrated the Passover with his disciples the evening before his crucifixion. By so doing, we both remember the great gifts of his life and suffering for us and create anew through the power of God's word the Body of Christ here in this place among the members of this community.

Words are not mere useless and powerless things. We live them. They bear force into our lives. They have the vigor and energy of opening up realities that are otherwise unavailable.

The word of the prophet, from that of Moses to the voice of Christ in our hearts and in the Holy Scriptures, is a most precious gift. To misunderstand its significance is to miss the opportunity for life that is genuine, abundant, rich, and authentic. To choose another shelter in the storm of life is to give our lives to something that is less than dependable and loving. Only God in Christ will not forsake us. Only God's Word is absolutely trustworthy.

Jesus, our prophet, priest, and king, is now the means through which God communicates with God's people. Jesus is the direct means through which we are related to our God; he assures us of contact with the divine. He speaks on behalf of God, having suffered for the sins of the people, and having lived and died for us. Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal life. Amen.