Lenten Theme: Holding Resurrection Faith While Bearing the Cross
John 6:35-40; 53-58; Hebrews 11:4; 12:22-24; Genesis 4:1-16, 25-26
4:1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Eve was proud of the accomplishment of delivering her firstborn son, naming him Cain to indicate, “I have gotten a man, uh, hmmm, oh yeah, with the help of the Lord, of course.” I assume that her second son is named with more humility, with more awareness of his fragility. His name Abel (Habal in Hebrew) means breath or vapor. It is the same word used in Ecclesiastes to mean vanity or emptiness or meaninglessness, but it can also refer to fragility of life, in this case a prophetic name.
Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”
For reasons we are not directly told, the Lord preferred Abel’s offering. Contrary to many explanations you may have read or heard, there is no hint in this story that God prefers ranching to farming or that thank-offerings had to have blood in them. All the text tells us is that Cain did not do well, perhaps because he did not give his best as Abel did, butt hat is more than we are clearly told. . 1 John 3:12 tells us that Cain murdered his brother because his own deeds were already evil. He had already departed from letting God shape his heart when the Lord turned down his offering. Cain’s resentment suggests that he was calculating that, if he met the basic requirements of the offering, God was obligated to reward him. His anger is that his calculations did not work out. Calculations never do work out when we think that we are obligating God to please us.
It seemed to Cain that God unfairly favored Abel; Cain was jealous. James tells us that bitter jealousy and selfish ambition are earthly, unspiritual, demonic, and that they lead to frustration, quarreling, and murder. Apparently, this was true of the first two descendants of Adam and Eve born outside of Eden, for that is just what happens:
8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?” 10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” 13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” 15 Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. 16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.…
Let us note again the following words of the Lord to Cain: “The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.” One might say that Abel was the world’s first martyr of the faith. His innocent blood ran into the ground and from there cried out to God for righteousness, justice, and vindication, just as the prayers of martyrs in heaven cry out for justice and vindication to this day. Note Revelation 6:9-11 where John reports his vision into the heavenly throne room as follows: I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. It is not up to us to take vengeance. When the number of faithful martyrs reaches a predetermined point, the One who says, “Vengeance is mine,” the Sovereign Lord of the universe, will act in the name of justice. We may rest in confidence that Justice will ultimately prevail. The voice of Abel and all his spiritual heirs who have been martyred for their faith and righteousness will be answered. Vindication will come.
In the meantime, life goes on. 25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” 26 To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.
When Cain killed Abel, it was as though Adam and Eve lost both their sons, one murdered, the other a fugitive murderer. They had a third son whose name was Seth, meaning “He appointed.” Eve explained, “God has appointed for me another offspring.” Seth was more than just another offspring. He was the one whose lineage led down through Enosh (at which time worship of the Lord began to be observed) to Noah and from there to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, also known as Israel, to the twelve sons of Israel, including Judah from whom in time sprang the royal line of David, leading on down to Jesus, who had no physical offspring, but of whom all who gather in his name, today and through all history, are the spiritual offspring. Seth, who was appointed to keep the path open to the future that God had planned, kept the path open until the time when another voice would speak out of martyr’s blood a different and better message than that of Abel’s blood. It is not that Abel did anything wrong. It is not that the cry of his blood will not be answered, for, as we have seen, it will be answered. For further confirmation that the cry is heard and answered by God, we turn to Hebrews 11:4, “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.”
The cry of Abel’s blood will be answered. But in the very next chapter of Hebrews, in 12:22-24 we read, “22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
When the text says, “You have come to Mount Zion,” this is addressed to Christian worshipers who read this text. How have we come to Mount Zion? Is that not where the Jerusalem temple was? It is no longer there. But the author of the Letter to the Hebrews is aware that through Jesus we have spiritual access to the heavenly New Jerusalem and to the glorious worship there. That is the Mount Zion to which we have come this morning. Today, as we worship God, we worship with the angels of heaven and with the human saints of all the ages. The writer describes the saints as the “firstborn,” that is, those who are baptized into union with Jesus, the firstborn Son of God, the heir of God’s kingdom. We also, who are enrolled on the pages of the book of life, are counted as firstborn heirs of the reign of God. It is explained that those who have been counted as righteous through Christ will there be made perfect. We come into this new position through the blood of Jesus, and it is this blood that speaks a better word than mere justice and vindication. The blood of Jesus speaks the word of total transformation, or rebirth brought to completion in perfection. We are not yet there in our bodily lives, but as we worship we are connected to the throne from where God and the Lamb reign and determine what will be, and the voice of the blood of the Lamb will bring us beyond righteousness, justice, and vindication, toward our ultimate fulfillment as royal children of a loving and sovereign God.
Hebrews also tells us that it is through us who are in Christ that Abel’s anticipatory faith is counted as sufficient. When the writer completes his long describing of the faithful of the Old Testament, a listing that began with Abel, he has a word of hope for this cloud of Old Testament witnesses. They did not receive perfection through their faith until Jesus had completed his work. They rested in blessing until they could receive their perfection along with the faithful in Christ, along with us. The writer says, “And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” It implies strongly that, with us, they too will be made perfect.
Now don’t ask me to explain the timetable of that. You and I are still in the earthly, linear time frame. Heaven, and the new heaven and new earth that will be, are in the eternal time frame. The two time frames are not in one-to-one correspondence. It is simply beyond the capacity of our poor limited brains to fathom how our human time frame links up with the eternal time frame. But we do not have to fathom it. We just have to trust that it all comes right in the end. We may be in the solemn season, Lent, but the truth, that all we have to understand is that it all comes right in the end through faith in Jesus Christ, is even now worth an “Alleluia!”
The cry of Abel’s blood will be answered. And the cry of Jesus’ blood will win the full victory in the end. Abel’s blood cries for justice, Jesus’ blood cries for redemption and for perfect fulfillment of all that can be purified. In the end, it will all come together just as it should. Alleluia!
We live in a broken world. We do not have to look far to see signs of its brokenness. We know of enough brokenness in our own daily lives that we do not even have to watch the news to see it. Indeed, many of us might be better off not feeding ever more images of darkness and outrage into our minds. We might do better to spend more time considering what Jesus has accomplished and letting Jesus determine our outlook on life.
In this world there are crosses. There is, both literally and figuratively, always more righteous blood being spilled. Sometimes that spilling of righteous blood touches us personally, especially as we seek to live as representatives of Jesus. Jesus does not call us to hide our eyes, but neither does he call us to become angry avengers. He calls us to take up our crosses and to live as vulnerable representatives of his better voice, the voice of healing and delivering and reconciling and redeeming, the voice of new beginnings, the voice of wholeness, the voice of steadfast love, the voice of faith and hope, the voice of God.
That is not an easy voice to raise in this world of crosses, but we are not only bearers of crosses, we are also holders of the good news of resurrection. A victory is coming. It has already been secured and guaranteed by Jesus, crucified, risen, and exalted. Even as we cry out for justice, let us even more clearly celebrate our Lord’s victory. We can bear the cross in this life because we hold to the resurrection that rules the next life. It all comes right in the end. So speaks the blood of Jesus. That is the better voice. Alleluia! Amen!
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