It is dark. Silent. I picture myself sitting on a rock scarp on the western ridge of Jerusalem. It is late and the city walls, brilliantly illuminated a few hours ago, are now dark and heavy with this night.

The walls of the city hold the secrets of the centuries. Throughout those same centuries they have heard many voices: of believers and unbelievers; of peace and war; voices of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaiah and Jeremiah, of Peter and Paul, and most of all, the voice of Jesus. On the other side of the city Jesus once lamented that Jerusalem was deaf, her ears turned away from the Word of God. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those sent to you!" Such is the darkness. It is the opposite of the Word.

Biblical preaching is the Church’s ministry of bringing that Word and its light into people’s lives, to their individual spirituality and into the social dimensions of our decisions and work for justice and peace. The millennia demonstrate this task is far from completed.

Good biblical preaching should begin where Jesus began with the Bible. In Luke 4:14-21 we find that model. Preaching begins with one’s own community. That is where Jesus started, in the synagogue at Nazareth. Other than the Book of Revelation, this is the only place in the New Testament where we read about Jesus himself holding the book (scroll) in his own hands. He proclaims it aloud, in the midst of his community. Then he sits down to absorb the power and meaning of the words himself. Only then does Jesus speak with power and confidence.

The "how to" is found in-between the lines. Jesus knew the book well enough to find the passage he wanted. There is our constant homework: to know the Book. Then he read it aloud. Too often we read the words silently to ourselves. Often an insight or the power of a passage is revealed to us in reading aloud, the way we read in the midst of the assembly. Then study the passage. If you have the background, read the original texts. Compare versions. Look up references to people and places. But most of all, let the words come out of your own perception, not that of some commentary. Jesus spoke out of his own conviction and experience. Do the same.

Biblical preaching is not the stringing together of citation after citation, rather it is getting inside the soul of the experience and persons the passage describes in any way you can. It helps to pair the First Reading with the Gospel. Use the Responsorial Psalm as a guide to the church’s own understanding of what is being taught.

Luke 4 continues to teach how Jesus himself was the example of the Word taking flesh in the presence of the community. He was its fulfillment. The initial praise for his words also transformed into angry confrontation when his words became unwelcome truth. That, too, is a sign of authentic preaching. It comforts and challenges. Truth does that to us. Biblical preaching is the effort to bring that word into our own lives first, in faith, and then, in charity, to share its power with others, especially with our own congregations.