Faith Journeys 3-5-23
Faith Journey’s
John 3:1-17; Gen 12:1-4a
John 3:1-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Gen 12:1-4a
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.
Prayer -
About 4000 years ago a family of nomads left Ur of the Chaldeans, perhaps in southeast Iraq near Nasariyah, and settled in Haran, Turkey, on the Syrian border. In Haran, the family patriarch died, while his son, Abram, later becoming Abraham, started hearing the voice of God calling him to a faith and faith journey. In time, Abraham believed that voice was indeed the voice of God calling him, and so he dared to obey that voice to go, to go on a journey of faith that would change the very fiber of the world.
‘Leave, Leave your country,’ God told Abraham. ‘Leave your people and your family. Leave all that you hold dear and familiar. Go to the land I will show you.’ So Abraham and Sarah left, as the Lord told them to do, to begin a journey of faith to the uncertain, to the unknown, to faithfully do as God has asked. And though they couldn’t have known it at the time, Abraham and Sarah’s journey of faith altered human history forever.
Abraham, wife Sarah, set out in faith, not knowing where they were going, or even why they were going, except that God has asked of them to go on this faith journey. Abraham and Sarah defied both the inner propensities of human nature and the outer pressures of cultural conformity that call us in different directions: to journey faithfully from the unknown to the known, from what we do not have to what we think we want and need, from the strange and unpredictable to the safe and secure, and from mere promises to divine guarantees. Abraham and Sarah acted whole-heartedly but without absolute certainty, to journey faithfully into a future grounded in a promise of blessings.
In our text this morning from the Hebrew Scriptures, we see in microcosm three major themes that will gird the rest of the OT witness to God’s activity in and through Israel – call, covenant, and journey. And these three themes are intertwined, so much that if you want to grasp one of them, you really need to grasp all three.
The story of Abraham, the first Jew, and thus, God’s people Israel, begins with a call – ‘Go from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’ Nothing in the text indicates why God chose Abraham to be the one who God called. Abraham is mentioned in one of Genesis’ genealogy lists but the only thing that really stands out is that Abraham’s wife Sarah is barren which sets the stage for the next part of the story.
Not only are Abraham and Sarah called to go, to leave everything they know and love behind, but side by side to this call is the covenantal promise that Abraham and Sarah would be parents to a great nation and that his name would be blessed. I can only imagine the depth and breadth of the faith of Abraham and Sarah to say, ‘Okay, God, you say you are going to do this and we have a part in this unfolding faith journey.’ God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah becomes the launching point of a much larger divine project – restoration of God’s promise to renew all of creation after the flood.
Abraham and Sarah’ departure from Haran is a story about more than a change of geography. In leaving Haran for a promised land, they left all that was familiar – all custom and comfort, family and friends, all the regularity and rhythm of life. They would take with them a treasure chest of memories but this faith journey was one from what they had to what they don’t have, from the known to the unknown, from the familiar to the strange – a leap of faith, a lurch of faith, it doesn’t really matter because it was step out and faith and trust were the foundation. Abraham and Sarah believed God’s promise, so they began a faith journey.
Abraham didn’t weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead because he was nearly a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waiver concerning the promises of God, rather he and Sarah grew stronger in faith being fully convinced that God was able to do what God had promised.
God has called Abraham and Sarah to go, to go faithfully to a strange place and with that calling is the covenant, namely that from Abraham and Sarah would come a ‘great nation,’ that his name would be blessed. God’s promise of greatness probably sounds wonderful since he is a simple nomad from Ur, not a king or warrior, and that promise, even if it for the future is a promise worth going after for Abraham and Sarah.
The covenant with Abraham is a launching point for the faithful as it is a continuation of the previous covenant with Noah, which was for the entire creation, a promise that God would not destroy creation but instead would work within the creation for renewal. As such, the covenant with Abraham must be seen as part of God’s ongoing and larger activity, namely the reclamation of creation that had gone so wrong and fallen under the curse in chapters 1-11 of Genesis. As God promises Abraham, the entire world and all who live in it will be blessed or shall bless themselves through God.
To offer hope and reconciliation to the people of the world, God has called into covenant a people, all of us, and yet, the covenant people are just as much a part of the problem. This has borne out over the millennia from OT, as God’s people go up and down, up and down in dealing with this God of the covenant. Alongside all of the stories of faithfulness are the stories of failure; alongside the stories of trust are stories of doubt. Exodus and exile; deliverance and judgment. Covenant made, covenant broken, covenant restored.
This pattern typically brings us, the people of the covenant to the faith journey. The call comes, the covenant is made but the promise is yet unfulfilled. There is a journey to be made; a journey of faith just as Abraham and Sarah made – together they traveled from Haran to the Land of Promise – Canaan, where God revealed to them that this is the land which will be given to them and all of theirs.
The faith journey didn’t end with Abraham and Sarah arriving in the Promised Land. His descendants, the people of the promise, will have their own faith journeys to make; a journey to and out of Egypt, a 40 year journey in the wilderness, the journey into the land, the journey into exile, and the journey back home. Through it all, the call and the covenant remain in the background, or perhaps better understood as the foundation of the faith journey, always offering hope and assurance in the midst of that circuitous faith journey, especially in those times when the road seems most treacherous, those words of hope and promise remain in the memory of God’s beloved.
Today we stand as children of this call and covenant. Those promises made to Abraham and Sarah are promises we ourselves cling to in the midst of the world we currently live in. As we devastation and destruction, as we witness pain and hurt and brokenness, as our world suffers from war and hatred and oppression, we hear God’s still-speaking voice calling again and reminding us of covenant. Our faith journeys are still before us, a journey to try and make the covenant real in this world, to enact those covenant promises, that we might be blessings to all the families of the earth.
Call, covenant and faith journey. In these things we see the ongoing revelation of a God who loves us no matter where we may find ourselves on the path. The One who calls us, who makes relationship with us, and who guides us wherever we go, just like Abraham and Sarah. And just like those first faithful sojourners, we don’t always know the entire picture, yet we go, trusting that God knows what God is doing, trusting that we will hear God’s voice saying here we are, and believing that the call we heard, the covenant we are members of, and that journey, the faith journey is well worth beginning and continuing each and every day – thanks be to God – amen.