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15.03.2009_God Who gives life to the dead_english
| 15.03.2009, 22:52 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Psalm 22:23–31; Genesis 17:1–7, 15–16; Romans 4:13–25; Mark 8:31–38 2nd Sunday of Lent, March 15, 2009 God that gives life where there is no life In a movie “Overboard” Joanna Stayton is an arrogant and obstinate wife of a selfish yacht owner. When their yacht stops for repair in a small town, this eccentric Joanna hires a carpenter – Dean – to make an extra cabinet for her hundreds of shoes. But instead of paying him she throws him out because Joanna is never satisfied with anything. One day, trying to retrieve an expensive jewelry that she left on the deck, she falls into the water, and although rescued, she looses all her memory. Dean the carpenter decides to use this opportunity to pay her back and takes her home, names her Annie and declares her to be his wife and a mother of his four rowdy children. So, this arrogant Joanna begins to learn in this family what is really valuable in life. She lost her gold, the old Joanna dies but in reality she gained life. After a time her real husband finds her and she recovers her memory of who she really is and they go back to the yacht. But what she experienced as a poor mother of four does not let her go and she realizes how selfish and excessive her former life was. She asks the captain to turn around, her husband wants to stop her but she is so close to returning to a life that is poor but has values. In the Gospel of Mark Jesus talking to his disciples and the surrounding crowd speaks of the same paradox: you can gain the whole world but loose your life in the process. And that the only way to save one’s life is to loose it for the sake of what is truly valuable. Often times Jesus’ words seem like “uncommon sense”. How can death become a way to new life? Can there be any sense in this? I think that our Old Testament story and Paul’s letter today help us to find an answer to this question. Paul gives us a clue in Romans 4:17, saying that God “gives life to the death and brings to existence things that were not”. That’s how God revealed himself in the life of Abraham and Sarah as we read in Genesis 17 today. This story is the second one of covenant between God and man that we will be meditating on during this Lent. Abraham and Sarah. Actually the story of these relationships with God began 25 year primary to this encounter. In Genesis 12 we find how God first spoke to Abraham promising that He will make a great nation from him and will give this nation the land. At that moment Abraham and Sara were about 70. Then God would appear to him time and again in the midst of difficult circumstances in order to remind and reaffirm His promise: “Do not be afraid, Abraham, I am your shield”. “But I am still childless”, will respond Abraham. And God would promise again: “Look at the sky and count the stars if you can count them. That is how numerous your offspring will be”. “And Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness” and God made a covenant with him (Gen 15). But there were still no children born to Abraham and Sarah. After a while as you know from the story, Abraham decides to act and uses Sarah’s servant to conceive a child – and as a result Ishmael is born. Abraham was 86 at that time and he is sure: this is the son that was promised and through him God’s promise of great number of descendants will be fulfilled. All his hopes, all his love, all his dreams have been poured into this boy. But God appears to him again in the story we heard today. And he reminds Abraham about the covenant between them and that He still plans to multiply him greatly and to bring from him not just a great nation but many nations, even kings and to keep this covenant in all following generations. But this will not happen through Ishmael, but through the son whom his own wife Sarah will give him. It’s from her those nations and kings will come. God will also bless Ishmael but His plans are much greater than anything Abraham tried to accomplish himself. Abraham believed God but as we read this incredible promise caused him to fall on his face laughing. They are nearly 100 years old, way past their child bearing age. In this sense they are “dead”. Paul calls Sarah’s womb “dead”. Nothing in their situation warrants the anticipation of their being progenitors of a great nation – except the presence of the life-giving God. Abraham continued to hope beyond hope for he was certain that God was able to do what He promised. He continue to hold on to the mail confession: “There is nothing impossible for God” and as we know from the story, he will see with his own eyes how God will give life to a “dead” body of Sarah and will give him his son Isaac. This is a story of transformation in which all future generations will participate. Those who were barren in the beginning will bring fruit. Those who were left will be taken care of. Those who were displaced will be made royal. The lonely will become part of a covenantal community. The story of Abraham established a totally new future - inexpressible and impossible in the beginning. This covenant at each hearing gives a future from God that this family could never devise for itself! The whole story of God’s people can really be seen as a long chain of miracles of life – from the birth of Isaac to the resurrection of Jesus – in which God time and again makes something new, unheard, makes out of nothing, creates life where there was none. And so in the life of Jesus God also revealed Himself as the God who raised Him from the dead (Rom. 4:24). He was dead; there are no doubts about that. Ask the soldiers and the Galilean women that followed him to Calvary, ask His mother Mary… Some of course could not except His death for it killed all their hopes. And their desperation created numerous theories: Simon who carried His cross was somehow crucified instead of Him by mistake… a drink given to Jesus when He was on the cross made Him pass out and then He regained consciousness. There are many of these but the church confesses: I believe in Jesus Christ…who suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead and buried”. And on the third day God made the dead alive! The One whom Abraham and Paul believed revealed Himself even fuller, brought forgiveness of sins and made things right. The heart of God who can be trusted was most convincingly and amazingly revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord. Faith of Abraham, then, in essence is the same is that of a Christian – it’s a faith in God who “makes dead alive”. The God who from the “dead” womb of Sarah bore life is the same God who raised Jesus from the dead. Halleluiah! And so it is in the lives of those who believe in Christ crucified and raised from the dead, saying to have been “dead in sins” and “justified” is also a drama of death and resurrection not only of Christ but of every believer. Paul does not like to use the expression “born again” but he so often talks about coming to faith in terms of “coming back to life”. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ”, reminds us Paul (Eph 2:5–6). That’s how Paul understood Christian baptism: death, burial and resurrection with Christ. . So “as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3–4). What God has done in Abraham and in Jesus Christ becomes reality in the life of a believer: God still give life to the dead. God’s covenant with Abraham in many ways is like that with Noah – God is the initiator and the covenant will be true for all generations. But unlike Noah’s covenant, now is the time to move onto mutual relationships – Abraham is expected to respond! Now, 25 years after the first encounter of God with Abraham, He begins to build a relationship which will not be limited only by God making promises to Abraham and keeping them. In chapter 15 God only ratified His promises but they were still one step away from true relationships which were one-sided. Now it’s time to make them mutual and it’s signified first of all in God giving Abram and Sarai new names: Abraham – “father of many nations” and Sarah – “princess” – the one who will bear kings (is there a hint on Christ the King for a Christian ear that hears it?) They become participants in what God will do through the centuries. In the ancient world when names were given, they were invested with a blessing and destiny. When parents named their child they often invested their hopes and dreams into that name. But when God gives a name, there is even more meaning. Until now God related to Abraham, guided him but now He is more like taking him into His home. He promises “I will be your God and God of your descendants” (17:7). For many years God never asked for anything in response; He just showed time and again – He Himself want to step towards us to overcome “human condition” of hopelessness and sin. He himself will set a covenant’ only He can give a possibility of a new future. He does that without any conditions; He does that because He loves him, He does that whether he will accept it or not. He sets an uncalculated covenant; it’s not based on whether a person will respond but only out of love and mercy. He gives time for this truth of his unconditional love to sink deeply into the heart of man. But until only God acts, promises and keeps the promises, they will continue to remain one step away from true relationships. That’s why God invites Abraham -“walk before Me and be blameless”, be before Me, respond to Me, be available for a relationship on terms that I suggest, risk to commit yourself to our relationships as fully as I committed Myself to them. I committed Myself fully without any conditions. Will you do the same? Then we can have a relationship and only then you will be able participate fully in the new future that I’ve already prepared for you. Here it is before you, will you accept it? This step is very important, friends. Because only when we commit ourselves to God who is already so committed to “overcome our deadliness” and to give us life we cease to make out of God Almighty this “genie” who can change bullet trajectories and guaranties that our every crisis will end happily. Unfortunately a great deal of contemporary Christian literature demonstrates that the followers of Christ today do treat God and faith as a “genie” in a bottle and never in their lives hear a call to commit themselves to the one who committed Himself to us even unto death on the cross. One of the popular Christian books gives examples as such: A man went on vacation with his wife and saw a beautiful country house. His first thought was that it is unthinkable that he can ever own a house like that. But then he scolded himself. Of course, if he thinks that he will never be able to have a house like that, he will not have it. He needs to start thinking differently and his victorious thoughts will make out of him a winner rather than a looser. He just needs to believe. A young lady could never get above the third place in a beauty pageant. Disappointed she moved to a different city and would spend many hours watching the recordings of the previous winner and then went to the pageant again. This time she won and said that it is her faith in God that helped her do that, that when she watched those tapes she imagined herself in this diadem. The author concludes these examples saying, “If God is on your side, you will never loose”. And very often that’s how we understand God’s great grace. But do you really think that Jesus came so that His disciples could “Buy such big houses and win beauty pageants?” Is it really all that God promised and Jesus came to give us in life? Is it what He suffered for, was rejected for and died on the cross for? The author of the book will say a confident “yes”. But I think that like Peter who confronted Jesus, this author will hear, “get behind me, Satan, for you think of what is human and not about of is divine”. But if God’s promises are not about what He will give, then in what? For Abraham and Sarah God’s promise meant to live between a “promise of the impossible” – becoming parents of many nations and source of blessing for many – and its ultimate fulfillment. Their faith was not in that God will do exactly what they desire in each situation but a trust in God that He will honor His commitments – He will remain the God who gives life to the death and brings to existence what didn’t exist! For us, the promise given in Romans 4 that forms our faith in God’s miraculous presence is the promise that God justifies sinner and that we will be able to stand on the Day of Judgment not because of the list of things we did or did not do but because of the certain forgiveness of the Judge. All of us are called to live between an amazing promise that God will redeem the worlds (and us with it) – which seems so beyond hope – and the ultimate fulfillment of this promised. And like Abraham and Sarah we are called today to hope beyond all hope that God can and will raise us to life from the slaver of death that holds us. Whatever this death in our life is – God is still the God who raises the death with the same power that He raised Jesus from the dead. And today He invites all those who found assurance that God did everything for us demanding nothing in return – to come and participate in the fulfillment of His promise. He invites those who understood that while God’s grace is free to receive it cost Him a whole lot, not to stand one step away from a relationships with Him, not to treat Him as a “genie” that does what we desire and gives earthly goods. But to commit ourselves as He committed Himself to us, to accept His terms, and to find life where new life for us seemed impossible up till now. | |
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