The Meaning of All History Rests on This

Sermon for the Berryville Alliance of Churches Sunrise Service

8:00 A.M., April 24, 2011

Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 118:1, 10-29;

John 20:1-18; 1 Corinthians 15:1-19

I am going to tell you about Abram Jones. If you happen to know an Abram Jones, this is not the same one. The reason I know that he is not the same one is that this Abram exists only in my own mind. Abram had gone to Sunday school as a child, but along the way through adolescence and young adulthood he had gradually assembled a case from the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, the leading news magazines, some Internet surfing, plus a New Testament survey course in college that was taught by an atheist, that the death and resurrection of Jesus was simply a variant on common ancient myth about spring rebirth with no connection to historical reality. Based on this rather flimsy and easily discredited theory, Abram announced that he was no longer a Christian, but an existentialist. Now for some people the existentialist philosophy has specific content, but for Abram, it was just his way of saying that he would make up whatever meanings he wanted for his life as he went along, and it would save him a lot of time and trouble and money on church activities, and a lot of fretting about whether he was sinning or not.

But here are some well-supported historical facts that Abram did not consider:

1. Jesus was unmistakably dead when he was taken down from the cross on Friday afternoon. Abram could have read a pretty convincing case for that, in full medical detail, in an old Journal of the American Medical Association article posted all over the Internet. Jesus really died on the cross.

2. According to the Scriptures, when the reign of God broke through early on Sunday morning, with a great earthquake and shining angels, an angel of the Lord rolled back the stone that had been sealed over the entrance to the tomb and then sat upon the stone. The guards who had been assigned to guard the tomb trembled and became as dead men, presumably passing out from fear. The women, a considerable collection of them who had followed Jesus from Galilee and of whom only a few are named, came to the tomb to complete the anointing of the body of Jesus, an anointing that had been begun by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus before the arrival of the Sabbath at sundown Friday. The women as they arrived at the tomb found an extraordinary scene and a message from the leading angel which first terrified them into silence, but then, apparently gathering their courage, they carried the message to the inner core of eleven disciples who did not believe them. Peter and John ran to the tomb and found it as the women had said. This caused them to believe something, although we are not told what they believed at that point, perhaps only that the tomb was empty. But that is a significant piece of evidence in itself. The account does not appear to be contrived because a contrived story in that culture would not have started with women witnesses and scared and skeptical disciples.

3. The Scriptures give more attention to the appearances of the risen Jesus: first to Mary Magdalene, then to Cleopas and another unnamed follower, then to the eleven, repeated times, both in Jerusalem and back in Galilee, then to more than 500 at one time, most of whom were still alive 20—25 years later when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, then to Jesus’ brother James and presumably to his other brothers who had not been believers during Jesus’ earthly ministry, and finally in a different manner, years after his ascension, to Paul on the Damascus Road. The resurrection appearances taken together affirm that Jesus’ resurrection body is at once physical and yet not limited by the laws of physics. It is a new kind of body. He can walk, talk, eat, even cook breakfast, allow himself to be touched in his wounds from the cross, but he can also walk through walls and appear and disappear at will. This is a new kind of existence.

4. If that is not yet enough evidence, then consider this: these formerly fearful disciples who ran away when Jesus was arrested, who were still hiding behind locked doors at the time of his first resurrection appearances, began, within 50 days of the resurrection, to publicly proclaim that Jesus who had been crucified, was now the risen and exalted Christ, the Son of God, the Savior and Lord for all the world. These disciples, empowered by the Holy Spirit, who came to those who believed, carried the gospel to the entire Mediterranean world and beyond, many becoming martyrs of the faith in the process. Tradition says that all the original eleven were martyred, with John being the last to die in exile on Patmos, perhaps the only one to die in old age. The message of the risen Jesus was not for them the path to political power or worldly wealth. There was no earthly reason for them to risk their lives repeatedly over the years unless they were utterly convinced that Jesus was risen from the dead.

It has been claimed with some justification that we have better evidence for the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ than for any other ancient event. That is as it must be, for no other event in history so challenges ordinary human reasoning. What would be different for Abram Jones if he knew evidence for the resurrection?

If Abram was convinced by the evidence that Jesus was indeed crucified to death and then raised from the dead in a new kind of physical body, then the following things are also true:

1. God is absolute sovereign of the universe, reigning even over death. Abram would acknowledge God’s rule over his life.

2. God has placed the divine stamp of certification on Jesus as the one-of-a-kind Son of God, Messiah, Lord, and Savior. Abram would deal with the utter uniqueness of Jesus Christ by becoming his disciple.

3. God has planned a future new heaven and new earth where those whom Jesus recognizes as living in him will share resurrection bodies like his and share his reign over a perfected creation in which death and grief and strife will be no more. Abram would know that death is not the last word on our lives, that there is solid reason to hope for more and better.

4. Our goal for life beyond death is not to slip away from the material realm into an ethereal realm where we float on the clouds and play harps, but to be transformed for a realm that is at once material and spiritual, that is as material and spiritual as God planned life to be before there were sin and death, purified and durable material existence infused with the life of God. Abram would have a solid goal for his life both now and beyond death.

5. The meaning of our present lives is to live even now as reborn children of God in God’s inbreaking kingdom. Our lives are given over to proclaiming, demonstrating, and celebrating the reign of God as we represent his mercy, grace, compassion, longsuffering, and his abundant steadfast love and faithfulness, cooperating with the Holy Spirit as the Spirit produces in ever greater degrees the fruitof Christ-like living in us. In this way, our character and preferences are being pre-shaped for the future new heaven and new earth, and they are helping others believe our message about our good and sovereign Creator, our loving Lord and Savior. Abram would have guidelines that would help him live now in a way that is fitting to the future that has been promised.

In short, Abram would have resources of hope, faith, love, purpose, courage, and deep joy that he has not even imagined as possible.

Although Abram Jones had never given the matter much thought, he bears the name of a major Bible character. The biblical Abram was, late in life, called by God to a journey of faith. As he neared the fulfillment of his journey and was about to pass the milestone that would bring all the promises of God for him into place, God changed his name to Abraham, meaning “father of multitudes,” starting from one embryonic Isaac. Eventually from one man, and him as good as dead, came not only all the physical offspring of Isaac and his son Jacob/Israel, but also the spiritual offspring who came through the much later offspring Jesus. As Paul writes, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

If Abram jones believes that Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead, he might need to change his name and become Abraham Jones to point to the bigger destiny of which he is now a part. For the promises to the original Abram/Abraham lives on. In Christ believers may have many spiritual offspring. May it be so.

All that, the meaning of all history and of your life and mine, rests on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Don’t let anyone take the bigness of that meaning away from you.

Since God Had Provided Something Better: The Faith of the Cloud of Witnesses

Sermon from April 10, 2011

Matthew 10:16-25; Hebrews 11:32-40: 12:1-2; Acts 7:54-60

Jesus understood that his kingdom ministry, his death on the cross, his resurrection, his ascension, and his sending of the Holy Spirit to his followers would spell the end of the Jerusalem temple. In the deepest sense, he himself was the new temple. Wherever Jesus was present, there people could connect to God, receive assurance of atonement and find answers to their deepest prayers. In a broader sense, Jesus was present wherever two or three of his followers gathered in his name, and so it was those followers who visibly embodied the portable living temple wherever they went. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, it is your job in cooperation with your fellow disciples to be the temple in your interactions with people every day. Think about it. The temple is not a place you go. The temple of the living God is who you are as part of the missionary fellowship we call the church.

Jesus’ original twelve disciples were slow to expand very far upon this concept. And that was as it should have been. Their first job was to be the living temple within and near the physical confines of the original Jerusalem temple, ministering to visitors to the temple with the good news of Jesus Messiah, Son of God, Savior, and Lord, the ultimate fulfillment of Judaism’s hopes for the ages. Jesus had declared that the Jerusalem temple would soon disappear, not one stone left upon another, but it was not the job of the disciples to press for that destruction.

For Stephen, it was a different matter. He was not one of the original twelve. Like the twelve, he was Jewish. Unlike the twelve, his first language was not Aramaic, but Greek. He was part of the group of Messianic Jews known as the Hellenists, meaning “of the Greek language and culture.” They originated not from Judea or Galilee, but from further away, from southern Europe, western Asia, northern Africa, or a Mediterranean island. Unless they had sacrificed greatly to move back to Jerusalem, they normally came to Jerusalem only occasionally for one of the great Jewish festivals such as Passover, Pentecost, or Tabernacles. We could guess that Stephen was present for Pentecost and was brought to Christ on the first day that the church went public with its message about Jesus, or very soon thereafter.

When the twelve Aramaic-speaking apostles appointed seven Greek-speaking ministers (alternate translation: deacons, servants), who were Spirit-filled and with a reputation for wisdom and good character, to handle the distribution of food to widows and other needy church members, Stephen was one of the seven. In addition to distributing food, he was soon preaching and teaching in public, and making some enemies. The enemies went to some high-powered Jerusalem religious leaders and, with false testimony convinced them to seize Stephen and put him on trial. Stephen used the occasion of his trial to preach a bold and powerful sermon.

Luke reports Stephen’s sermon in which he weaves together two major themes: (1) that Israel has always resisted the Holy Spirit, and (2) that the temple was never meant to box God in. When his audience was sufficiently enraged, about to attack, Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” Of course, Jesus was that exalted Son of Man, who now exercised the authority of God in judging the world. Stephen was claiming to see the man that the Sanhedrin had managed to get the Roman government to crucify, now standing in the place of authority to judge the religious leaders who were about to kill Stephen. Stephen’s audience cried out loudly, stopped their ears, and rushed at him. They cast him outside the city and stoned him to death. So far as we know, Stephen was the very first martyr for Jesus, the first to follow Jesus all the way to the end on the Way of Suffering. I mean all the way to the end. His last words, with the pain of stoning already upon him, were, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Sounds a lot like, “Father, forgive them,” doesn’t it?

And the Lord honored Stephen’s prayer, at least insofar as not writing off forever those who had executed Stephen. In the crowd, one of the leaders of the opposition, who held the cloaks of those who threw the stones, was a man whose Jewish name was Saul and whose Roman name was Paul. The Lord Jesus later went way beyond the ways of human justice by revealing himself to this man and calling him to be an apostle to the Gentiles.

Later, Paul summed it up, “Last of all, as to one untimely born he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not in vain.” Indeed the Lord’s grace was not in vain, for no other human being in history has been more important to the mission of Christ than this forgiven and redeemed accomplice to the murder of the first Christian martyr. Paul, who had begun as a violent enemy of the early church, did more than any other apostle to spread the faith of the church and to plant new churches around the Mediterranean world. He who had been so enraged by Stephen’s sermon about the end of the old temple, is the one who put legs on the idea of the church as a portable living temple proclaiming the gospel in all the world.

The ways of God are indeed strange and wonderful! It never would have occurred to me to call Paul, one of the leading persecutors of the church, to become a leading Christian apostle. It’s a good thing I am not God!

And making Paul an apostle is not the strangest thing God has done either! I am flatly puzzled by some of the inclusions of heroes of the faith in Hebrews Chapter 11. None puzzle me more than four of the names from the book of Judges.

Barak was not actually a judge, but the general of Judge Deborah; and he was not awful, just a bit more dependent on Deborah than she thought he should be. If he were a professional basketball player, the sports writers would say that he was a good enough role player, but not an all-star, let alone hall of fame material.

Gideon came out of a family background of faithless idolatry, was compelled by God into leadership, tested God repeatedly, but at last acted bravely and faithfully and even heroically enough to win the day, but then, while declining formal kingship, began to act in the manner of a pagan monarch, with multiple wives and concubines, and making for himself a golden priestly garment although he was not a priest. The garment was worshiped and became a spiritual snare for Gideon’s family and for all Israel. Fulfilling Gideon’s move toward unauthorized monarchy, one of Gideon’s illegitimate sons Abimelech killed the seventy legitimate sons of Gideon and had himself proclaimed king. His reign lasted only three years. Gideon’s legacy is not that good, but here he is in faith’s hall of fame.

It gets worse: Gilead was a wealthy man who had several sons by his wife and another by a prostitute. The latter son was named Jephthah, and his half brothers denied him a share in the family inheritance. Jephthah became a leader of a band of guerilla robbers. But when the Ammonites threatened, his half-brothers came to Jephthah and asked him to lead the battle against the Ammonites. He accepted on the grounds that they make him their ruler. The Spirit of the LORD empowered Jephthah, but Jephthah had little understanding of the ways of the LORD. He made a rash vow that, if the LORD would give him victory, he would upon returning home sacrifice whatever came out the door of his home to greet him. How grieved he was, when returning victorious, his daughter, his only child, was first out the door to greet him. Not only did he not know that human sacrifice was completely against the will of the LORD, but also he did not know that the law of Moses provided a way out for people who made rash vows, and, apparently, no one around him knew either. Essentially, Jephthah was a spiritually ignorant man in a spiritually ignorant culture. Jephthah’s folly reached its culmination in his slaughter of 42,000 Israelites of the tribe of Ephraim at the fording place of the Jordan River. Granted, the Ephraimites were somewhat at fault, but surely inspired wisdom could have found a better way. Yet, here we find Jephthah in faith’s hall of fame.

Then there is Samson. His parents tried to raise him to keep the ways of a lifelong Nazirite vow, with strict purity of devotion to the Lord. A Nazirite refrains from any product of a vineyard, presumably the point being to avoid wine and other strong drink. A Nazirite also did not cut or shave his hair or beard during the time of the vow. Finally, a Nazirite did not touch or even go near dead bodies. Surely, these strange rules were designed to impress upon the vow-maker that he was under total obligation to the holy standards of the LORD. But Samson did not keep the rules and certainly did not keep the holy intent behind them. True, he did kill many of the Philistine enemies of Israel, the greatest number in his last act when he pulled a Philistine temple down upon himself and many Philistines. Perhaps a certain heroism can be found in Samson, but he doesn’t seem like material for faith’s hall of fame.

But Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and more are to be found on the list. And the divinely inspired writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says of those on the list, “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.” Apart from the later work of Christ and the salvation offered to the later faithful, the Old Testament figures on this list could not have been saved for eternal life, but it is clearly implied that alongside those of us who are saved through Jesus Christ, these four men and many more come to the blessings of eternal life in the presence of God. How extraordinary!

What does God know about these four that we do not know? He sees them not just for the sorry things they did, but also for what they might have done with better upbringing, with a more spiritual cultural environment, with more models of faithful living, with more acquaintance with the Scriptures, with the advantage of knowing about Jesus. He counts such faith as they had for what it might have become with opportunity. Most of all, he knows their hearts.

Please do not think that God abandoned his holy standards out of weak sentimentality or foolish idealism. Not so. God did not give up one characteristic of the perfect future that he has planned for the faithful. He just sees that, even in these incredibly flawed figures, there is yet the basis for far more than they even dared dream within their earthly lives. What they have, I would venture to guess, is the readiness to let God reign. With that readiness to let God reign, they can enter God’s future. Without that readiness to let God reign, even the most pious churchgoer, with every doctrine nailed down, cannot enter God’s future.

Stephen is an example of a faithful person who was ready to let God reign, even at the cost of his life, even if it meant that those who stoned him to death, would also be brought around to enter the future realm with him.

People of saving faith know that there is something better ahead, and they are willing to lay everything on the line, in order to keep moving toward that better future. It is not how far we have come that counts. It is the direction that we are moving.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

The Righteousness That Comes by Faith: The Faith of Enoch and Noah

John 3:16-21; Hebrews 11:5-7;

Genesis 5:21-24; 6:5-9, 9:8-17

Make what you will of the long lives reported for the pre-flood line from Adam and Eve down to Noah and his wife. Of the ten names in that list, all the reported ages are far beyond our experience and expectation for human life. The Bible does not explain why this is so, and we have no other data, so all our attempts to use human reason either to defend or to explain away these reports are simply speculative. Enoch lived on earth about five times the average modern life span, but when compared to his immediate family line only 47% of the next shortest lifespan in this list and only 37% of the longest, his son Methuselah. Why did Enoch get the short end of the lifespan stick? Had he done something very bad? Not so. Beyond the fact that Enoch fathered Methuselah and other sons and daughters, we know one other thing about him. The text says, “Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him.” It wasn’t punishment; it was blessing. Presumably, it was something similar to what later happened to Elijah when he was escorted alive out of this life by chariots of holy fire.

Enoch was transferred from the realm that is visible to us into what is from our perspective the invisible realm of God…without first dying. This is not the sort of thing that God does for everyone who pleases him. Usually it is preferable that we live out our calling on earth and demonstrate how to live, to suffer, and to die with obedient, vulnerable, vibrant, creation-affirming faith before we enter eternal glory. Enoch’s transfer is a sign and an assurance to us of what pleases God, and what pleases God is a life spent walking with God. The Letter to the Hebrews gives the best explanation of the purpose of this sign: 11:5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

What the text says is that, if we would draw near to walk in close fellowship with God, we must have faith, believing and trusting that God exists and that, in some extraordinarily valuable way, God rewards those who seek him. Sometimes the reward is in this life, sometimes in the next life, sometimes the reward is a part of ordinary experience. Sometimes it can only be called miraculous, but what is important, either way, is that it comes from the hand of the sovereign God. To be sure, God may work to refine our understanding of what it means to be rewarded, blessed, and favored by God. Early in our walk of faith we may understand blessing too much in terms of the rewards that this world encourages us to seek: health, wealth, education, influence, pleasure, surface happiness, and we may be sometimes pleased to get what we want, but often disappointed when what we are expecting simply does not happen. The lack of the reward we had in mind does not mean that a reward is not coming, or even that it has not already come unnoticed by us. As we mature in faith, we are more likely to see blessing in the deep satisfactions of knowing that we know that we know that we serve a God who is holy, gracious, faithful, and eternally sovereign. The sooner we learn this, the sooner our satisfactions grow rich and deep. Jesus said, and I liberally paraphrase, “Seek first the prevailing of God’s will and righteousness, and all the rest of the stuff will fall satisfactorily into its proper place.”

What Jesus is saying is that we must by faith prioritize seeking God and his righteous will. This means that our number one goal in life must become to know who God is, what God wants, and what God is doing around us right now. If knowing God is really our number one goal, that means that we will spend time reading God’s word in search of deeper understanding of what God has revealed of his nature and purposes. If knowing God is really our number one goal, then we will frequently spend time in prayer listening for what God would speak to our hearts and minds through the Holy Spirit. If knowing God is really our number one goal, then we will find time to join in what God is doing around us so that we can know him better through serving him, experiencing God in action. Indeed, if we want to know God, we will practice the spiritual disciplines in which God shows up; our way of describing those is the 9 Ways.

There is a corollary to prioritizing knowing God, and that is that we must want God to know us as we really are so that God can work within us to make us more what he has planned for us to become. Of course, God already does know everything about us, but we must want that to be so. We must stop fooling ourselves into thinking that we can hide anything about ourselves from God. At most, we can fool ourselves into thinking we have hidden it from God. Really seeking God means letting go of foolish games of spiritual hide and seek, and letting ourselves (as we actually are) be found by God (as God actually is). God rewards that choice in deep and rich ways. Remember, whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Besides Enoch, we get especially favorable comment on one other of the listed ten. In Genesis 6:8-9, it says, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord….Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” Noah found favor with the Lord and stood out in his generation as righteous and blameless, because, like Enoch, he walked with God. But he did not get transferred out of this life. Instead, he was assigned to oversee the repopulation of the earth after God’s sweeping judgment on its sin.

Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. 9 … Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. You know the story. God commanded Noah to build an ark. Noah followed God’s specifications and built the ark, supplying it and filling it as instructed, so that male and female of each kind of living creature of land and air, along with Noah and his family, were all preserved. The rains came, the waters rose, the world was flooded until there was no land life outside the ark, the rains stopped, the floods receded, and at last life was sustainable again outside the ark, and so the Lord sent the occupants of the ark out to repopulate the earth. There is, of course, more to the story than that, and every part has its importance, but today I want to skip to the ending.

Genesis 9:12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

By binding himself to this covenant, God guaranteed that there would never again be a destructive judgment as encompassing as in the time of Noah. Despite this covenant, God remained holy, not giving up one piece of his plans of perfection for his human children, and yet at the same time knew that his human children would slide back into sin. The rainbow covenant was extremely costly for God. It meant that he would have to take upon himself the cost of redeeming sinful humanity. In the fullness of time, the rainbow would require the cross of his perfect Son Jesus Christ through which God would offer to his wayward children not just forgiveness, but covering with righteousness and gradual transformation into actual righteousness, all that without yielding one iota of his holiness. When you see a rainbow, imagine not the pot of gold at its end, but envision the infinitely more costly and glorious cross of Christ, emblazoned in glory at the peak of that rainbow.

As the first recipient of the rainbow promise, Noah had an important part to play in the drama. Hebrews 11 sees it this way. Hebrews 11: 7 By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

By obeying God’s instructions for preserving life and faith in the face of righteous judgment, Noah demonstrated a faith that was in marked contrast to that of the perishing world. In this way, he condemned the world for its lack of faith and was himself counted righteous by means of Christ’s much later death on the cross.

When it says that Noah condemned the world, I am not saying that he went around giving angry denouncement speeches. I am saying that the positive counterexample of his faith showed the kind of faith that was open to everyone.

Noah was not a perfect person. You don’t have to be yet perfected to be by God’s grace through your faith on the path to perfection. Grace and faith will get you to the goal if you will hold on, keep getting up, dusting yourself off, and listening to and obeying God yet again. If you are living your life in Jesus Christ, that kind of faith turns to righteousness and eternal life.

Our texts emphasize walking with God, faith, righteousness, and obedience. Perhaps it is time for me to emphasize also that these are possible only by the grace of God. We enter and persevere in the journey to salvation only by the grace of God.

How does God’s grace make this possible? First of all, salvation is only through Jesus Christ, even for Enoch and Noah and the other saints of the Old Testament. They did not know Jesus, but he provided the way for imperfect people of faith to be counted in. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one-of-a-kind Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus with his costly perfect righteousness agrees to stand in for us, to set the balances right, so that our faith can be counted as righteousness, and so that we can enter eternity without wrecking the perfect plans of God. Without Jesus, that cannot happen and so salvation would never get started.

Second of all, God sends his Holy Spirit to those who believe in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit gives us new birth and gradual metamorphosis, changing us degree by degree toward the goal. It is only those who are on this journey who will persevere in their faith. And this journey would not be possible without the Spirit of God graciously living within us.

So, from beginning to end, our salvation is the gracious work of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but to receive God’s gracious saving work, we must gratefully walk with God in faith and obedience. When we read them carefully, the New Testament writers from Paul to James are in total agreement on this. It is time for us understand that the gracious signs of the rainbow and the cross call for us, like Enoch and Noah, to walk daily with God. One more time, remember, whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So seek him, today and every day. Walk with God.

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!