The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Its such a beautiful phrase, isn’t it? In just ten words we get a summary of the great first things first principle of life- wisdom begins with a healthy fear of God. It is not often that fear is used in common language as a virtue, as a good thing, even as the essential thing. But we know this is not just any use of the word fear. It is a fundamental topic of any confirmation class to define Fear of the Lord as the healthy sense of awe and respect we have for the God who created us and upholds our being.
The Fear of the LORD in us in not a terror fear at what is dangerous and unpredictable or even hostile to us, but instead a fear that recognizes that absolutely everything depends on God’s mercy to us- and we have nothing we can supply on our own.
Our recognition of who we are in relation to God, tells us something about who God is. When we see our complete dependence on God, we see God rightly. In fact, ‘Fear of the Lord’ is equated with knowledge- we need only look as far as the second half of Proverbs 9, verse 10. “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
God is referred to as the Holy One. This is the word the Seraphim use in Isaiah chapter 6 to describe the LORD, Holy, Holy, Holy. Holy means set apart from anything common. And that includes us. The Holy Spirit has given us the wisdom to confess that Jesus is the holy one of God, both like us as man , and set apart from us as our Holy God. We fear Jesus because we have been given the knowledge that he alone is holy, he alone posses the wisdom and order that created and upholds the world. It is no coincidence that we sing about our thrice Holy God in the words of the Sanctus, as we prepare to encounter God in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Last year and the early part of this year, I felt in my conscience that it was not right for me to be still in the process of adjusting latex gloves while we were singing to our thrice Holy God. The celebration of the Lord’s Supper is a time when the Fear of the LORD rightly prepares us to come to knowledge of the Lord in the pure gospel gift of the Lord’s Supper. And of course, adjusting gloves reminds us instead of what we do ourselves for our safety. Together we have learned a lesson of wisdom in trusting in the LORD. Sometimes you need a trial in life to be humbled and refined in knowing what is most important.
Over history some people have put forward wisdom expressions not starting with a Fear of the LORD, but based on principles of humility, learning from experience, and keen observation of how the world works and what is the best way to live in harmony with the laws of nature.
These observations provide some value because they often touch on some aspects of truth already found in God’s Word.
Encouraging statements can be helpful, they may invite us to overcome fears, lighten up, or learn to laugh at ourselves. Some people have daily inspirational quote calendars to serve as an encouragement through challenging aspects of everyday life.
But expressions of wisdom alone cannot give us the true wisdom that is our worship and dependence on our Lord. If you try and make yourself wise on your own, it may give you worldly wisdom- but it will not give you the wisdom that is of God. Without the fear of the LORD, our idea of wisdom is self centered, and lost in sin.
King Solomon, inspired by the Holy Spirit understood the beginning and end of wisdom:
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy one is insight.” Wisdom always comes back to our relationship with God. You cannot have wisdom without considering your place in creation and your relationship with God.
Our Old Testament reading from Proverbs uses imagery to show that God has established all wisdom on the earth. “Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars.” The earth is the house where wisdom has been built, a giant house with a number of pillars of completeness- seven. In other words, wisdom inhabits the entire world, because all of the world was created by God.
It is true we can see much foolishness in the world and the book of Proverbs addresses the foolishness of the world “O simple ones, learn prudence, O fools, learn sense.” Yet the world was not designed this way. The wisdom of God designed the world. Proverbs 8:22 “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.”
Contrary what evolutionary perspectives of science that are taught in public school claims, the world’s beginning was not chaos, it was not a big bang, it was not a hot primordial soup. Instead, the world was created through the order and purpose of God’s design. The Son of God Himself was this wisdom who seeks to rescue our world from the foolishness that sin brought into the world.
In our gospel lesson Jesus makes clear that because the order in the world comes from God, it is only through connection with Him that you can have true spiritual life. And so Jesus build on the teaching we have been hearing the previous two Sundays, that he is the bread of life. ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you.’ And later Jesus reinforces this truth: “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me.” This was a difficult teaching for people to hear. Jesus uses language about eating his flesh that is naturally offensive to hearers who are not thinking of the big picture of the Lord’s Supper. Any mention of eating of the flesh of a person is disgusting, unthinkable. And Jesus even magnifies the offense by using a word in the original Greek that signifies less eating in a ceremonial ordered way, but instead, feasting on, savoring and relishing the act of eating. It is the difference between eating something to be polite and really digging into something as your chief passion as you would a favorite meal. To feed on Jesus is to go all in on subsisting on and surviving on Him, to feed on Jesus is to base all of your identity on Him.
This is a hard teaching because it requires that a person give up a claim to enjoy eating other things in life to get by. Feeding on the Son of Man requires that we give up any illusion that our own wisdom can get us anywhere in our life.
As the climax of three Sundays worth of verses in our gospel lesson from John Chapter 6 we hear how after this hard teaching was, as many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. Jesus asks the twelve: “Do you want to go away as well? And we know quite intimately Simon Peter’s answer. We sing it every Sunday right as we prepare to hear the potentially hard to swallow teaching of Jesus in our gospel lesson.
We sing these words and I pray that as we sing we recognize that there is indeed nobody else we would turn to, that no matter the cost, we turn to Jesus. “Lord to whom shall we go, Peter confessed, You have the words of eternal life.”
This is the wisdom given to us by the Holy Spirit, the Fear of the Lord by which we confess, as the rest of the verse reads and we don’t sing this part, so we could easily overlook: “Lord to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and we have come to know that you are the Holy one of God.”
Isn’t that amazing, Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit confessed the first and the second half of Proverbs 9:10. He confessed the fear of God, and the knowledge of God as the Holy One.
We see what the hard teaching of Jesus can be like. We know what it means in our sinful nature to wish that following Jesus could be one part of life, that we could put down at times and come back to Jesus when we need him. And we see brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, friends, co-workers, neighbors among us who turn from walking beside Jesus because of hard teachings.
People want Jesus to perhaps be a good element in their lives, but they do not want to die to everything else. For many it seems that Jesus is someone who can bring joy on Christmas Eve or Easter. But they are not so sure they want the Jesus who talks about picking up your cross and following him.
Or the Jesus who insists that he alone is the one who brings us sustenance and wisdom- as he says my flesh is true food, my blood is true drink. It is discouraging to see others less involved or not involved much at all in following Jesus. Those who marry someone who does not have a lot of interest in following Jesus completely, often find it is even harder to follow Jesus, as the example is set right in the home to seek an easier path and approach to life where Jesus is not so essential and front and center to life.
The unbelief of others is indeed discouraging. But how great is the gift that Jesus gives to us. He laid down his life for us on the cross to give us true food and drink. He is wisdom born among us who calls our foolish hearts to repentance and life in him.
May the Lord bless you all with a living faith where your fear of the LORD leads you into all wisdom in handling the fast changing world we live in. May the Lord Jesus bless you with an intimate knowledge of his steadfast love for you. Amen.