Recent Sermons
St. Andrew's Church
An Anglican Church • Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
Preached by
Stuart Pike
Rector
For More Information Contact the Office
Notice any errors? Have a suggestion? Or a comment? Then ....
Lent 2 A - A Journey in Faith
Genesis 12: 1-4a
John 3: 1-17
St. Andrew's Church, Grimsby
17 February 2008
In today's Old Testament lesson, we get the beginning of the story of Abram who the Lord later named Abraham. It is fitting during this season of Lent for us to be considering a story about a great journey made by a faithful man. It is especially during lent that we should be considering where we are in our own journeys of faith.
Abram was approached by God after he had just completed a journey from his native land of Ur to Haran. But they stopped their journey there where Abram's father died. So when they had just settled down again, Abram receives a visit from the Lord who tells him that he wants Abram to pick up again and move to the land that he would show Abram.
The story is told so matter-of-factly that perhaps we cannot realize the great faith that Abram displayed in moving once again. I wonder what the response of his family would have been, let alone his friends and acquaintances. It would have made it all the more difficult for Abram to explain the promise that God had given him. He said to Abram that if he moved to the land that he would show him, that God would make of him a great nation. Yet Sarai, Abram's wife was barren. She couldn't have any children, which was why Abram adopted his dead brother's son, Lot.
Yet, despite the fact that it didn't seem to make any sense, Abram didn't even question God, but simply did what he was told. It didn't make sense but so often the things of the faith don't make sense. Abram's response to God is such an example of pure faith, and being a journey of faith, it can speak to each of us so well that people have used Abram's example for thousand's of years in their consideration of what faith is, and how they can go on their own journey of faith which is to last all of each of our lives.
First of all, it is important to notice that God did keep his promise to Abram, though it didn't happen in exactly the way that Abram would probably have expected it. It took God many generations before the promise was fulfilled. Abram's journey of faith lasted longer than his physical journey across the land. It lasted his whole life, just as ours must.
As Christians we never come to the point where we have 'arrived' and no longer need to continue in our search for God and for God's wisdom. God continues to ask for our faith for our own salvation, our own health, and God continues to fulfill his promises to us throughout our lives. Once we give up the idea that we are supposed to suddenly arrive at a point of enlightenment and complete health and salvation all in one go, we finally realize that there is everything in our lives to live for.
The journey in faith never ends in our life-times, and there always exists the possibility of deeper and deeper faith, and of greater wisdom. Most people realize in their lives that they never really stop learning about things. Everyday provides new opportunities to learn something new. Enlightenment is something that can happen again and again.
But, besides the fact that it is a life-long journey, there can be a point in the life of every Christian of a sudden re-birth - a whole new way of seeing the world, and a new way of living in it - a sudden deepening in one's relationship to Christ, and therefore, with our God. This is the type of experience that Jesus is trying to explain to Nicodemus in the Gospel lesson. It is the experience of conversion. And it really is an experience as Jesus explains it. A complete new birth of the person to a type of life that they didn't have before.
Nicodemus is hesitant about it because he realizes how life-changing this experience can be. And it is something that for all of us is at once what we most desire in our lives, and perhaps what we are most afraid of. It causes fear among us for the same reason that Nicodemus was afraid of it - we know that it will change our lives, and we are not sure if we want our lives to change in this way.
Yet it is what we were created for, and without this new birth, we are not complete in our Christianity - we are not complete as human beings. Since God witnessed that human beings were not becoming what they were created for, God sent his son, Jesus for this reason. To give this new birth was the plan for Jesus and the goal of his ministry. In Jesus, God became human, so that we might have new birth.
Our journey of faith is indeed a life-long journey, as Abram's was. But the whole purpose of God becoming human in Jesus Christ is to show us which path to follow in order to have everlasting life. Last week, I spoke about how Lent is an invitation to join Jesus in the wilderness. Don't forget that Lent is a also a journey of faith - like Abraham's journey. It is also a place of discovery - where we can find the signs of God's kingdom. It is also a place of transformation - where we can be reborn into a new life of faithfulness to God's kingdom. Amen.
