January 5, 2025
Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible. It’s got 176 verses, and the whole psalm is a hymn of praise to God’s word. To make it more manageable, it’s divided into 22 sections of eight verses each. This number corresponds with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, so each of the sections is headed by a different letter. Please listen as I read to you section פ. The page number in the pew Bible is in your bulletin, if you want to follow along:
Your laws are wonderful. No wonder I obey them!
The teaching of your word gives light, so even the simple can understand.
I pant with expectation, longing for your commands.
Come and show me your mercy, as you do for all who love your Name.
Guide my steps by your word, so I will not be overcome by evil.
Ransom me from the oppression of evil people; then I can obey your commandments.
Look upon me with love; teach me your decrees.
Rivers of tears gush from my eyes because people disobey your instructions.
—Ps. 119:129-136
Familiarity with the scriptures is important, and to me, it’s an important mark of a person of faith. We read the scriptures to listen for God’s voice, and to understand the triumphs and defeats, the wisdom and mistakes of God’s people throughout history. We read the Bible to find ourselves in the stories, and to challenge ourselves to do better. We read the Bible to learn about God’s love, to increase our trust in God, and to find hope when things look bleak.
People in our tradition are in dialogue with the scriptures. We openly admit to our disagreements when we discover violence or injustice in its contents. This doesn’t mean that we tear those pages from our Bibles. After all, just because we don’t understand why something’s in there doesn’t mean that we’re right. It simply means that it’s time to pray and to take our lack of understanding to the faith community. But very often, our first encounters with the scriptures take place when we’re alone, when we’re praying in private or doing or morning or evening devotions.
For my own private devotions, I depend on a book called Watchwords. It’s published every year by the Moravian Church, and I came to rely on it during my three years in Germany. There, it seemed to me that most faithful Protestants used this little Moravian book, regardless of the church they belonged to. The book consists of 365 Old Testament “watchwords” chosen by lot every year, and each of these verses is accompanied by a corresponding teaching text from the New Testament. The book also contains some words to hymns and a prayer for each day.
Moravians aren’t too well-known to us, though there are plenty of them not too far from here in Tuscarawas County. They originated in the present-day Czech Republic. Over a century before Martin Luther, a Czech priest named Jan Hus began teaching that the Bible should be made available to everybody, and that the church should be more transparent and just. The authorities disagreed and put him to death. But that did not end the movement he started. It spread like wildfire through his homeland, and still today has hundreds of thousands of adherents there.
At the height of persecution, some of Hus’s followers moved from the Moravian region of Czechia to Saxony in Germany, and from there spread to many other places in the world. In the 1700’s, they were found in both England and the American colonies. One true story about them is that a group of Moravians was on the same ship as John Wesley as he was returning home after a failed missionary trip to the new colony of Georgia. During a storm at sea when he feared for his life, he couldn’t help but notice how the Moravians on board faced the storm with quiet faith. So when he returned to England, he began to worship with them in London. It was during one of their gatherings on May 24, 1738—in a chapel on Aldersgate Street—that he felt his heart “strangely warmed,” and that God truly did love him. Thus, it is generally believed by Methodists throughout the world that their movement had its beginnings in a Moravian prayer meeting.
When I was in Germany, I ministered to three Methodist congregations in the Netherlands, and one of them met in a very pretty Moravian church building in Rotterdam. These Methodists hadn’t come from England or the United States, but from the Caribbean, where Moravians are particularly strong. There’s a Moravian University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; and the Salem part of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was originally a Moravian settlement. Decades before Ohio was a state, Moravians settled places like Newcomerstown and Gnadenhutten in present-day Tuscarawas County. These people were pacifists, but were accused of being on the wrong side during the American Revolution. Over 140 native Americans—all of them Moravian Christians—were massacred by the Pennsylvania militia in 1782, even as they prayed and sang hymns.
The Moravians persevered, however, and to this day they have several well-established congregations down there. If you take daytrips, a good one would be to go see the monument to the victims of the 1782 massacre in Gnadenhutten. But Moravians have better monuments, I think. One of them is the Moravian star. It appears in Moravian churches and homes every year during Advent, and is displayed through Epiphany. According to their church website,
The star reminds us of God, who caused the light to shine out of darkness and of the light which is the life of humanity. It reminds us of the promise of Abraham that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars; we are reminded of the star that pointed to the ‘great and heavenly light from Bethlehem’s manger shining bright.’ The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. This is the message of the Advent star, which also points to Jesus, who said, ‘I am the bright and Morning Star.’ It is the star of promise, the star of fulfillment, and the star of hope.
But the most important monument to the Moravian faith in the world is their commitment to peace. Through Jesus Christ, all humanity belongs to the same family, and so they won’t take sides, no matter what. You heard the story of their pacifism in Tuscarawas County in the 1700’s. There’s another story I’d like to share with you, from the 20th century. It’s about a man named Arno Pötzsch who fought for Germany in the 1st World War. After the war, he experienced a crisis of faith and that’s when he discovered the Moravians and became a pastor.
During the 2nd World War, he wrote what he called “emergency hymns,” and one of them is still remembered and quoted by Germans when they’re going through an impossible time: Despite all our hardship, all paths lead to God’s grace, through fate or guilt or death. You can’t fall any deeper than into God’s hand stretched beneath us to save us all.
And so, as we gather round the table this morning, have faith that you were led here by the light of God, who desires peace for you. And no matter what happens in the year to come, remember through it all that you can fall no deeper than into God’s beloved hand.
—©2025 Sam Greening
