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The Christian does not meditate because life is calm. The Christian meditates because life is anything but calm. Trials teach us that we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
You might not want to take spiritual advice from me. I was asked to leave the voluntary spiritual direction class at seminary. Once a week, I went to an hour-long meditation group led by a retired seminary professor, an Augustinian scholar. He would guide us through silence, reflection, and a few carefully chosen words and phrases. And always, about 15 minutes in, I would fall asleep.
I was getting enough sleep. I tried bringing coffee. I brought a notepad so I could doodle and keep myself awake. For the life of me, I could not stay awake. Eventually, I was gently informed that this group was not for me.
That experience has stayed with me, partly because it was embarrassing, but mostly because it named a problem I already suspected. If meditation depends on my spiritual focus for more than fifteen minutes, then I am in trouble. Thankfully, Martin Luther gives us another way to understand meditation.
When most people hear the word “meditation,” they think of reflection. They imagine stillness, silence, and the careful examination of the soul. In that sense, meditation means stepping away from the noise, looking inward, considering God, and hoping some deeper insight rises from the exercise.
There is a long Christian tradition that speaks this way, and Lutheranism has not been untouched by it. Lutheran pastors such as Ole Hallesby and Johann Starck have encouraged forms of prayer and meditation that include reflection, examination, and attention to the inner life. For many people, this discipline can be a real blessing. It can be like running for people who enjoy running. To others, running sounds like punishment. But to the runner, it clears the mind, strengthens the body, and even becomes a joyful form of exercise.
But Luther pushes in a different direction. Meditation is not mainly an inward look. It is the Christian receiving the Word from outside. Luther famously describes the making of a theologian with three Latin terms: oratio, meditatio, and tentatio—prayer, meditation, and trial. These are not three techniques for spiritual improvement. They are not steps in a program to climb to God. They are what life looks like when God’s Word gets hold of a sinner.
Oswald Bayer puts the point sharply. Luther “seems to all but reverse the normal meaning of the word when he focuses meditation on the external word.” Bayer continues, “When we meditate, we do not listen to our inner selves, we do not turn inwards, but we go outside ourselves” (Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way, p. 53). In other words, meditation is not primarily an exercise in human reflection. Rather, it is hearing, speaking, praying, and pondering what God has said. When meditating on the Word, the Christian listens for what God is saying there: the law names our sin, the gospel gives us Christ, and God’s promises steady anxious hearts. All of this is mercy meant to send us back into daily life forgiven and free. That is why meditation does not start with us. It starts with God.
The Hebrew word for meditation is hagah. It appears, for example, in Psalm 1, where the blessed person delights in the law of the Lord, “and on his law he meditates day and night.” Hagah is not an interior exercise. The word carries the sense of muttering, murmuring, or making a low sound. It is the kind of word that can be used for the growling of an animal. My teacher James Limburg once put it memorably: think of a lion chewing on meat. The word hagah sounds like a growl. Meditation is not a delicate private spiritual abstraction. It is more like chewing on a juicy steak.
To meditate on Scripture is to chew on the Word of God. It is to take the Word into the mouth. Speak it. Preach it. Taste it. Be fed by it. The Word is not simply glanced at. It is not skimmed like a headline. It is not swallowed like another post, clip, or sound bite. It is taken in slowly. It is savored. That is why the psalmist said: “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Ps 119:103). Jeremiah says: “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart” (Jer 15:16). Ezekiel is given a scroll to eat, and in his mouth, it becomes “as sweet as honey” (Ezek 3:3). In other words, the Word of God is food.
This is why Luther’s understanding of meditation is so freeing. It does not ask the Christian to manufacture spiritual depth. Meditation does not belong only to those who can sit quietly for long stretches without falling asleep. It is given to sinners who need to hear again what God has promised. And what has God promised? He has promised Christ.
We meditate on the Word because it is there that Christ is delivered to us. There, sinners are forgiven. There, the dead are raised. There, the guilty are justified. There, the anxious hear, “Do not be afraid.” There the weary hear, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.” There, the baptized hear that their lives are hidden in Christ.
This also means that meditation is not detached from prayer and trial. Luther’s three terms belong together: oratio, meditatio, and tentatio. Prayer leads us to the Word. Meditation chews on the Word. Trials drive us back to the Word. The Christian does not meditate because life is calm. The Christian meditates because life is anything but calm. Trials teach us that we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
In that sense, meditation is not a luxury for the spiritually advanced. It is daily bread for the needy. This matters in a time like ours. We are all consuming something. We consume news, arguments, ads, entertainment, social media, opinions, slogans, ideologies, and carefully curated images of other people’s lives. We may pretend these things pass through us without consequence, but they do not. Ideas are not weightless. Words feed us, form us, and sometimes poison us.
A bad idea can be like bad food. It goes in easily enough. It may even taste good at first. But after a while it leaves us sick. Much of our misery comes from eating all day at tables that cannot nourish us.
So the invitation to meditate on God’s Word is not one more spiritual chore. It is an invitation to a healthy feast. God sets before us what is true, good, and life-giving. The Spirit calls us away from the junk food of the age and back to the bread of life.
It may be as simple as reading a Psalm aloud in the morning. It may be repeating a verse on the drive to work. It may be praying the Lord’s Prayer slowly. It may be hearing the absolution: “You are forgiven.” There is no need to romanticize it. A lion chewing meat is not refined. A Christian muttering a Psalm at the kitchen table may not look especially mystical. But there, in that ordinary chewing, God is at work.
The same semester I was asked to leave the spiritual direction group, I took the Gospel of John with Craig Koester. There, meditation wasn’t silent. It was studying a passage, hearing its promises, turning its words over, and discovering Christ throughout it.
So take and eat. Chew on the Scriptures. There is more than enough there to feed you, because in it Christ gives himself to you.
