On the ancient stone steps to a pulpit there is a Latin inscription, which translates, "He who goes up with fear comes down with honor."

A man certainly dare not consider preaching if the thought of it doesn’t send a chill of fright down his spine. We must, like Isaiah, begin by saying, "Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips." And only after God has once again singed our lips with the hot pardon from His altar can we dare to say, "Here am I. Send me. Send me" (Isaiah 6).

The sermon must be simple but not simplistic, artful but not artsy, picturesque but not flowery, concrete but not trivial, cosmic but not spacy, familiar but not cliche, timely but not transitory, confrontational but with no love of controversy, helpful yet without being a self-help talk, compelling yet with no scent of compulsion, comforting yet with no invitation to complacency, stimulating but not caffeinated, classic but not dusty, joyful but not jocular, full of grandeur but void of any grand-standing, humble and honest but finding no communion with impenitence, intimate but not mushy, direct but, as much as faithfully possible, winsome, courageous but not insensitive, sensitive but not compromising, meek but not cowering.

Above all this it must be natural but also supernatural, just like Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Supernatural made natural.

The really difficult thing about all this is that for this to happen, the preacher’s heart must be all these things. And, of course, the preacher’s heart is by nature none of these things. Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34b). He also said, "Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander" (Matthew 15:19). So for the preacher to get good stuff into his mouth, he’ll have to get good stuff into his heart.

He does this by getting good stuff into his head, that is, by studying and praying. There is no substitute for faithful, frequent and fearless studying. To be able to give anything, the preacher must risk everything, all his assumptions and assertions, as he places himself beneath an open Bible seen through the faith of the Church.

In the pulpit he cannot stand firmly as he must, if in his study he has not first knelt quivering before God as one starved and empty and waiting to be filled. He has no friend like the vacuous empty lost longing within him, the longing to know God and be accepted by Him, the longing to commune with Him, unite with Him, and no longer be at odds with Him. He studies to discover the Gospel anew. As he kneels, as his head lowers to where his heart was, that good stuff is in just the right place so that when he stands up again, it’s in his heart. That is, as the preacher goes to God with the stuff God has given to him, as the text studied with the mind is prayed with the mouth, God’s good stuff trickles down to the preacher’s heart.

And this is how it must be. The Word we preach must never become merely a set of words. The Word we preach points to the sacramental life and it points to Christian vocation. The Word is enfleshed in the preacher who points to the Word enfleshed in water and bread and wine and Holy Absolution. He stands on the shore to walk men down to Jordan’s waters. He goes out to the highways to bring men to the banquet table. His words, the Word speaking through him, are not an end in themselves. The service is not over when he is done talking; rather, things are ready to begin, ready to move from the pulpit to the altar. The Word is enfleshed in the preacher so as to bring men to the Word enfleshed elsewhere also.

The preacher’s purpose is also to help the Church see herself as an enfleshment of the Word in the world.

Reality, life, is Sunday morning, where Christ’s body and blood are, where "angels and archangels and all the company of heaven" gather. This is eternal reality. Sunday morning is not to be judged by how well it helps us throughout the rest of the week. The rest of the week is to be judged by how well it helps us really be there on Sunday morning. The purpose of heaven is not to prepare us for earth. The purpose of earth is to prepare us for heaven. Monday through Saturday–earth. Sunday morning–heaven. The week is now all about getting ready for next Sunday and the eternal Sunday. It’s all about the life of daily repentance, of daily baptismal renewal, of daily longing for the bread of God, the life of God. After six days of toil on earth, we long for a visit to our eternal Sabbath.

God has set foot on earth to walk us to heaven, to the Father. The sermon points to His footprints and to the tangible Gospel gifts that place our feet into those footprints. We step into the Jordan – "I am baptized." We feel the desert sand hot between our toes – "Deliver me from evil." We climb the stairs to the Upper Room and stoop to wash other feet – "With this ring, I thee wed." We feel the nail in our ankles – "I a poor miserable sinner confess. . ." We awaken alive in a tomb open to the morning sun – "In the stead and by the command . . . I forgive you." Mary Magdalene is in the Garden outside the tomb clinging to those ankles – "Behold, how they love one another."

We tell her we are yet to ascend – to the apostles’ ankles she should go – "He who hears you hears Me." And we ascend to commune at God’s right hand with the life of His Son in our veins – "Take, eat. . .Take, drink..." The Father is well pleased with us – "The Lord bless you and keep you . . ."

And the cycle begins anew and will keep beginning and spinning anew until the centrifugal force of its spinning through time punctures eternity where all the church’s moments at the table and all her members at the table merge into one grand unending feast.

The sermon is a set of words by which God’s Word moves people beyond mere words into these events, these realities. Because preaching does this, it is itself more than a set of words. It is an event. Something is happening. Heaven is opening. History is made present. God is taking action. The preacher is like the person in a Star Trek episode who sets the transporter coordinates. By his preaching people are taken apart and put back together again in another place, the ark, the altar, the cross, the throne.

The sermon is there so that during the week the believers come to see all of life anew. The bathtub now points to the font that points both to the Flood and to the River of Life. The kitchen table points to the communion table that points both to the Upper Room and to the Banquet Table in heaven. The Christian life is lived, from the most menial point upward, in an anticipatory remembrance, in remembering anticipation. The sacraments are God’s love applied to us, and we, as we work and serve all week, are God’s love applied to our neighbors.

Good Friday, next Tuesday, our eternal Sunday – all these widely distant time zones meet together at the north pole of the pulpit. It’s Santa’s Workshop. It’s always Christmas. God prepares His gifts for us, or rather prepares us for His gifts. And "never again" and "now" and "not yet" all get mixed up in the God who is love, who changes not, who from eternity has chosen us in Christ.

But it happens on Sunday morning at 10 a.m. It is an event. God is doing something. God is not merely telling us about something that has happened or will happen. No. God is doing something right now. And silently in the pew there are results. David is saying, "I have sinned." He is hearing Nathan say, "You will not die. Your sin is forgiven." And Abraham sees Melchizedek preparing the feast of bread and wine to celebrate victory over Lot’s captors. And the temple veil is torn and the dead rise and walk about the city. And people know God is talking to them, softening them or hardening them, slaying them or reviving them, injuring them or binding up their wounds. There is conflict in the room – conflict of cosmic proportions. And Satan is there, pouting, cowering, conniving. And angels are there, rejoicing over one sinner who repents.

It is not just that information is being transmitted. It is that God, the God who spoke the world into being out of nothing, is speaking and is bringing something out of nothing, faith out of unbelief, light out of darkness, hope out of despair, life out of death, heaven out of hell, Easter out of Good Friday, friendship out of enmity, community out of alienation, and sometimes, division out of a false and feeble concord made of merely human affections.

All of these momentous events are blowing off the preacher’s lips and into eternity. Who cannot view such a task without fear? And who cannot perform such a task without honor? "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’" (Isaiah 52:7).