[This is what I delivered at today's service. The lessons were Genesis 12: 1-4a, Romans 4: 1-5, 13-17, and John 3: 1-17.]
Our readings of the last two weeks and today have had specific themes. Two weeks ago, we heard about the Transfiguration, when the divinity of Jesus was made manifest upon the mountaintop. Last week, we heard about temptation, when Adam yielded to the temptation to disobey God, while Jesus did not. Today, we hear of trust—trust in God’s promise.
In this short excerpt from Genesis, Abraham (as we know him) is told by God to leave his home and his family and his country (Mesopotamia) and go to a new land (Canaan) where God “will make of you a great nation”. Now, I have moved eight times in my life (that’s moving from state to state, not across town) and that’s always an unsettling experience. I’ve always had a certain feeling of jumping into the unknown, even though the people are always of the same country, speak the same language as I do (more or less!), and especially in my move here, had a great deal of ability to learn about my soon-to-be home.
Now, consider what God is asking of Abraham. In an era, about 2,000 to 1,700 BC (or about 4,000 years ago) when men were defined by where they came from and lived, who their tribe and family were, God says pack up and move with your wife Sarah and nephew Lot to a new country! Put another way, God calls Abraham to follow him to a new country. God promises new life to those who hear, trust, and follow him.
What does Abraham do? He doesn’t argue or try to bargain with God. He answers God’s call. He trusts that God will keep His promise. As Paul says in the letter to the Romans, God’s promise that Abraham would be the founder of a great nation wasn’t based on the law or rights or a bargain, it was based on faith—on trust. In fact, Abraham’s significance for all three main religions arising in the Middle East can’t be overstated. He is considered the spiritual father of the Jews, Christians, and Moslems. When he paid tribute to the late King Hussein of Jordan in 1999, the then-prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke of “all the children of Abraham.”
We move forward about two thousand years to the time of Jesus. A Pharisee named Nicodemus comes to see Jesus at night. He is attracted by what Jesus says and does, but something holds him back. He is confused when Jesus tells him, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” The Greek word anothen that John uses here can be translated in several ways, “born from above”, “born again,” or “born anew.” Also, we often mistake the phase “kingdom of God” with heaven. When Jesus uses the phrases “Kingdom of God” or “Kingdom of Heaven”, he is referring to a condition or a time on earth when God’s will is done and where God’s justice is carried out. What Jesus is saying is that we can not be in that wondrous place without our spirits being reborn through the Holy Spirit.
And that occurs in Baptism. As we say in the blessing of the water, “Through it [water] we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” So, if someone asks you if you have been “born again” or if you are a “born-again Christian”, the true answer is yes, even though they probably have a different meaning in mind. Actually, to be a baptized member of the Body of Christ is by definition to be “born again.”
How do we know that God keeps his promises? If we say “know” in the rational post-Enlightenment sense of “something based upon proof”, we don’t. Like Abraham, we trust in God. People who trust in God are saved, because God does not want condemnation, but salvation. We trust that God is there, even, perhaps especially, when we are close to despair.
That trust is what keeps us going, keeps us seeking the Easter at the end of Lent, even after a diagnosis of a dreadful disease or the collapse of a cherished relationship. We know that there is something better ahead.
Last weekend, when I was in Illinois for my father’s funeral, our sadness at parting was mixed with trust and hope. We trust in God’s promise of everlasting life and have hope that, in a wonderful way and place that we can’t comprehend, we will be reunited in God’s good time. I can’t prove this with scientific evidence, but I know with all my heart that this is true, for our God is definitively good and his promises are never empty.
Every day, people are faced with painful events—serious illness, failure of a relationship, loss of a loved one. There is no promise that God’s will is always done here or that we will have an easy, painless path. But when we conclude our Lenten journey at the foot of the cross on Good Friday and we hear Jesus’ despairing cry, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”, we will see that God always keeps His promises. Lent isn’t simply a time to “bewail our manifold sins and wickednesses”. It is a time to engage our new life in Christ more deeply, a time to trust and risk. Paul spoke of “calling into existence things which do not exist”. Lent is the time for listening for that call in our lives. And we can learn to trust Him.
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