The “Larvae” of God

Let me introduce you to a little English word, somewhat creepy in contemporary connotation, yet with a wonderful theological backdrop in its Latin original. Larva. You know what larvae are. (And you are probably thinking of something creepy.)

“Larva” (pl., larvae) is a Latin word, originally. It may be translated “mask” or maybe “disguise.” In 1768, Carl Linnaeus employed the term to describe a phase in the development of an organism that “masks” its mature form. A tadpole is the larval form of a frog. A caterpillar masks a butterfly. “Larvae” tend to be creepy, wriggly, unsophisticated sorts of things throughout the animal kingdom. This is the word’s common connotation.

Years before Linnaeus, however, Martin Luther employed the term, as well, and found another use for it. God has “larvae” in the world, Luther said – the larvae Dei, the “larvae of God.” And Luther found the “larvae of God” almost everywhere.

The “larvae of God” are the external forms through which God accomplishes his purposes for the world, often in quiet and hidden sorts of ways. They are the “masks” behind which God himself is present and at work. Where the word of God is lived and shared – though it may not always seem like much – God Almighty is at work and actively on the scene. Where the holy sacraments are administered – though it may seem unremarkable – heaven itself breaks in. God is at work behind the mask, in the spoken word, the water, the bread and wine.

And Luther found God’s wonderful “larvae” in the simple, faithful life and work of Christians, too. Wherever Christians are found – in their family life, in their work-a-day life, in their Christian service and gospel testimony – God is “masking” something absolutely extraordinary. Or maybe better put, God is revealing something through the witness and service of his people around the world.

He reveals his care and involvement in every area of life. Nothing is “secular” for him; no one is beyond his fatherly concern. He reveals his desire to find the lost, to heal the sick, to bind up the broken, and to invite men and women everywhere into his family. He makes himself present, through his children, in factories, and schoolrooms, and offices, and clinics. And when simple, faithful Christians share the word of the gospel, God reveals something more: he reveals the truth about sin and his astonishing answer for it. He presents us with Jesus.

In this month’s issue of Together in Prayer you will read of ordinary men and women doing ordinary service in the name of Jesus Christ, here and there around the world. You will read of illnesses and challenges of one sort or another. You will learn of open doors and exciting possibilities for ministry. You will read of martyrdom, too.

This month’s issue, you might say, is filled with the “larvae” of God. Ordinary service. Ordinary sacrifice. Ordinary people. Believing people, just like you, investing themselves, their families and energies – and sometimes their lives – in the service of Jesus on behalf of the world.

The effort may not seem like much in some ways, I suppose. The world may think it, even, a waste. But the gospel of God “hatches out” through simple, unsophisticated efforts like these. When we pray, when we give, when we go in his name – we are God’s own larvae at work. Behind the mask there is something extraordinary at work. Luther might say that God himself is “hiding” there. And he is waiting to be found.