The Blood Still Speaks: the Faith of Abel

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!

God Cares About How We Earn Our Livings

Ephesians 4:28; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-12; Isaiah 58:1-14

From the time that God took Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it, to cultivate it and to guard it, to worship and to obey, it has been clear that material and spiritual concerns are not separate, that in a good material creation, obedient children in the image of the Creator are concerned about the material well-being of the creation and of our fellow children of God. Specifically, it has been clear that God cares about how we human beings earn our livings. In Genesis 4, the first chapter after the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden, we see mention of farming the ground, of raising livestock, of building cities, of making music, of metalworking. The list grows as we move on from there. Any morally upright work, ordinary or extraordinary, can be carried out with honor and can be a means of glorifying God.

It is clear from the Sabbath and festival laws that God expected his people to work hard and productively six days a week, most weeks of the year. Sabbath and the religious festivals were interruptions in the constant work that were designed to help us keep perspective on our work and our lives. The breaks remind us that not all is up to us, that God is the provider, and that glorifying God by representing God’s character and values is the highest purpose of all work.

The laws of the Old Testament people of God were designed to encourage helping people who were down on their luck in earning their livings and to give them periodic renewals of opportunity to work meaningfully and productively. No forced servitude in payment of debts could legally be for longer than seven years, and no use of the land could be sold for longer than fifty years.

As the economic lives of God’s covenant people became more diversified and complex, as wealth and power became increasingly concentrated in certain privileged families, problems of social injustice had to be addressed. This was one of the most important reasons for the ministries of the Old Testament prophets. Prophets such as Amos, Micah, and Isaiah raged against the false religiosity of powerful and privileged people who praised God while underpaying, betraying, and otherwise abusing their employees, protecting themselves in the courts by means of bribes, exchanges of favors, and other improper influences such as their common interest with similarly corrupt people. The prophets said that God was appalled by such false worship, disguising lives that were directed completely against God’s honoring of honest labor. Such perverse powerful people could not expect God’s blessings.

J. Alec Motyer shows the structure of one of the best known of these prophetic passages. I have adapted this from Motyer’s book, The Prophecy of Isaiah:

A1 The Voice of Rebuke 1 “Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins.

B1. A Fast without a Blessing 2 Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God. 3 ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. 4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord?

C. The Lord’s Chosen Fast and Its Blessings

a 1 social actions 6 “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

b1 spiritual rewards 8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’

a2 social actions If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, 10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

b2 spiritual and social rewards then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday. 11 And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12 And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.

B2. A Feast with a Blessing 13 “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly;

A2. The Voice of Promise14 then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”


The people of God were complaining that they were carrying out all their religious duties, but were not being blessed. On behalf of the Lord, Isaiah answers their complaints, saying that their observances of religious duties such as Sabbath-keeping and fasting showed that they were carrying out their religious activities for the gain they assumed that it would bring them rather than for God. Fasting and Sabbath-keeping are both designed to suspend our agendas so that we can pay attention to God’s character and purposes. Isaiah says that the Lord cares about how we treat our family, neighbors, workers who serve our needs, and other fellow human beings. If we want to be doing God’s purposes, then we should be showing concern for the well-being of those around us.

While Isaiah’s message recommends charitable deeds, he goes beyond that to speak of justice and dignity for workers. He accuses his audience of using their fasts and Sabbaths to cover their real activities which are about manipulating their social influence and power, their good-ol’-boy networks, to the disadvantage of those who have less power and influence, for putting down their employees and other powerless persons, keeping them in vulnerable, impoverished, indebted, victimized conditions.
Isaiah’s message does not come from a naïve God. God knows that there are some people at the bottom of the social pyramid who are inclined to be lazy leeches, sucking every benefit they can for as little work in return as possible. God just does not want those leeches at the top of the social pyramid, pretending to be religious and upstanding while sucking the last drops of blood out of their employees. Not all, probably not even most, at top or bottom of the heap, are leeches, but it is not what God wants for his people.

Isaiah suggests that, if these complaining worshipers want to be blessed in their spiritual lives, then they need to stop acting against and to start acting on behalf of the weak and dependent, opening up opportunities of dignified living for them. If they will help their workers, God will help them.

It is important to see that there is more to this text than the scolding of religious hypocrites who oppress their workers. There is a positive message about God’s valuing all kinds of honest and productive human labor and valuing efforts to spread well-being through the whole society.

For those of us who live in rural or small town America, areas that have taken a harder and harder hit over the past four decades, there is an encouragement that God cares about how we earn our livings and that the people of God are encouraged to devote worship time and prayer time, Sabbath time and fasting time, to seeking ways to improve matters for the disadvantaged.

This year, we have a new Community Development Ministry dedicated toward that end. Community gardening and leasing space to the Literacy Council may not seem big things, but they are capable of making a positive difference. There are families here in Carroll County earning decent livings through gardening, and there are many other who are supplementing their livings in that way. That is not to mention the number who are eating more healthily because of gardening; I have heard more than one person say that their tastes have changed due to gardening. Our church garden may plant the idea in the minds of some and help others get their beginning experiences in gardening. Plus, we are improving the nutritional quality of food distributed at the Loaves and Fishes food pantry. Of course, there is no adequate way to measure how important literacy is to gainful employment, but it is clearly a major factor. We are making a difference. I am confident that what we are now doing is just the beginning of the kinds of efforts that could help our congregation become a major difference maker in our community.

March 20 and 27, we are in the process of receiving our annual offering for Week of Compassion. Last year, we had record level contributions because the Haiti earthquake touched so many hearts. Make no mistake, disaster relief is an important and indispensable part of our Christian witness, and church agencies are the best way to get the most on-the-ground aid, with the least waste, corruption, and administrative cost for your money. But I am even more excited about the less known development aid offered through church agencies. By providing assistance for local people to improve their own water supplies, health care, appropriate technologies, and marketing infrastructures, by encouraging family-size animal husbandry, gardening, and cottage industries, by efforts to keep children in school longer, we are making major differences in quality of life for many people.

The Apostle Paul reminds us that work is not just about improving our own incomes to satisfy our own desires, but that it is also about carrying our own weight within the community of faith, about helping support our extended families, and about having something left to give to those in need.

When we are contemplating how to spend our money, and whether to buy the latest, greatest, biggest, and best to serve our own pleasures, we need to consider what our faith shows us to be the source of the deepest and most lasting satisfaction, pouring ourselves out for the hungry and the afflicted. In the end, it is a spiritual issue, which is to say that it has to do with who we are as children of a just and loving God.

God promises that, if we will expend our energies and resources toward building a more just and compassionate world, then he will cause his light to break forth upon us and his healing to spring up amongst us. God promises that, if we will not involve ourselves in false accusations and oppressive actions against the weak, but instead will seek to satisfy the basic human needs of the impoverished, then he will turn our darkness and gloom to noonday brightness, that he will cause springs of unfailing waters to rise up for us, and our lives will be fruitful and beautiful, like watered gardens.

What God is really seeking here is a change in the way we view life and what makes our lives good, rich, and satisfying.

We can follow the easy, worldly path and get more of the strife and the stress that the world offers. Or, we can turn that way of looking at things inside out and upside down so that we see things as God does, and we can receive the rich promises of God. Which will it be?

That was the question God was raising through Amos, Micah, and Isaiah. That was the question God was raising through Jesus, Peter, John, James, Paul, Luke, and their fellow missionary leaders. That is the question that God is raising for us today. There is the worldly path, and there is the godly path. Which will we choose?