Ancient Words

I was listening again today to one of my favorite praise songs, Ancient Words, written by Lynn deShazo. . . .

Holy words long preserved

For our walk in this world,

They resound with God's own heart

Oh, let the ancient words impart.

Words of life, words of hope

Give us strength, help us cope

In this world, where'er we roam

Ancient words will guide us home.

Ancient words ever true

Changing me, and changing you.

We have come with open hearts

Oh let the ancient words impart.

Holy words of our faith

Handed down to this age.

Came to us through sacrifice

Oh heed the faithful words of Christ.

As I listened to this song I reflected on three types of "ancient words" I very much need in my life. The first and most important category of "ancient word" that I need is the word of God from the Bible. This is the word I need to "eat" every day. It is the essential nourishment of my Christian life. It is the main way that Christ speaks to me as I speak to him in prayer. Without these ancient words I would truly be lost. They are my comfort, encouragement, guide and friend. And I have come to the point in my life where I have concluded that it matters not so much what I make of these ancient words, but it matters immensely what I allow these ancient words to make of me.

A second category of ancient word which I need, not as much as the direct word of God, but almost as much, is the ancient word of other Christian pilgrims throughout the last 2000 years. These words help to counteract the typical blindness and deafness of the conventional wisdom of the time in which I live. And so here and now I want to commit to reading again, throughout the coming year, much of what pre-21st century Christians have written. C. S. Lewis comes in handy here--as a corrective to many modern spiritual illnesses. But Lewis is helpful precisely because he is so completely soaked in ancient wisdom himself. Lewis said that for every modern book we read we should also read some old book. That is something I hope to do in the coming year.

A third category of ancient word which I find myself longing for, the older I get, is the ancient word of ancient liturgy. As much as I love some contemporary praise and worship music, and would find my life greatly diminished without it, I need the ancient liturgy of the church more. I need some of the really old hymns, especially those written before the sentimentalizing 19th century. I relish the prayers in the Book of Common Prayer and other ancient resources. These old prayers enrich my own prayer life, deepening and broadening it, helping me to focus on what really matters. Without these ancient words my vocabulary in prayer would be severely impoverished. Once again, C. S. Lewis has written quite helpfully on this topic. He notes several benefits to utilizing the ancient prayers of others in one's private prayer times:

"First, it keeps me in touch with 'sound doctrine.' Left to oneself, one could easily slide away from 'the faith once given' into a phantom called 'my religion.'

"Secondly, it reminds me 'what things I ought to ask' (perhaps especially when I am praying for other people). The crisis of the moment, like the nearest telegraph-post, will always loom largest. Isn't there a danger that our great, permanent, objective necessities--often more important--may get crowded out? . . .

"Finally, they provide an element of the ceremonial. On your view, that is just what we don't want. On mine, it is part of what we want. I see what you mean when you say that using ready-made prayers would be like 'making love to your own wife out of Petrarch or Donne.' (Incidentally might you not quote them--to such a literary wife as Betty?) The parallel won't do.

"I fully agree that the relationship between God and a man is more private and intimate than any possible relation between two fellow creatures. Yes, but at the same time there is, in another way, a greater distance between the participants. We are approaching--well I won't say 'the wholly Other,' for I suspect that is meaningless, but the Unimaginably and Insupportably Other. We ought to be--sometimes I hope one is--simultaneously aware of closest proximity and infinite distance. You make things far too snug and confiding. Your erotic analogy needs to be supplemented by 'I fell at His feet as one dead.' . . .

"A few formal, ready-made, prayers serve me as a corrective of--well, let's call it 'cheek.' They keep one side of the paradox alive. Of course it is only one side. It would be better not to be reverent at all than to have a reverence which denied the proximity." Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, pp. 12-13.

So I say . . . thank you to our Triune God for ancient words . . . the ancient words of Scripture . . . the ancient words of other Christian pilgrims after the apostles . . . the ancient words of the prayer book. Each of these ancient words sustain and nourish me in my journey with Christ. And so I want to make even better use of these ancient words in the year to come, than I have in the year past. Help me, O God, to that end. Amen.

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