The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Ephphatha Parish of the Deaf
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY
Today's readings from the Bible give us the beginnings of two journeys. Neither journey is finished yet, although thousands of years have passed since the two began! What's more, we also are involved in a similar journey of our own, as we will be hearing soon.
The reading from Genesis tells us of how God gave Abram instructions to set out on a journey. Abram was an elderly man, near to his hundredth birthday, and God's instructions were that he and his wife, also elderly, should leave home, pack up their servants, their flocks and their tent, and start walking. Where to? A place I shall show you, the Lord
said. No indication as to how far, what direction, what kind of clothes to pack, what they were likely to encounter along the way. Just, pack up, leave your home and your people, and start out to a place I will show you.
How many of us would accept marching orders like that? (pause for a show of hands, or a response) It just isn't sensible. Hardly anybody would listen to such orders, let alone follow them. Especially not if you were close to the century mark, your wife was about twenty years younger, and you had no children to help you along the way, just a bunch of servants and huge flocks of sheep and goats who would be a problem...think about finding grazing and water for all the animals, never mind the lack of directions or planning.
Yet, Abram listened, and wonder of wonders, obeyed.
We do not have any indication in the Scripture that Abram was devout, or had much, if any, knowledge of God. But he must have found some reason to trust this voice from heaven, from an invisible Being, because he made his preparations and set out without any question or fuss.
That, you know, is called FAITH. Acting on an order from on high, with no guarantee of how it was going to work out, just simply obeying.
Paul's letter to the Romans talks about Abram's faith, too. And the letter to the Hebrews tells us that his faith was counted to him as righteousness. Even though he was a sinner like all the rest of us, even though from time to time he wondered if he was crazy to be following God's instructions, and maybe wondered who this God person was anyway, he obeyed, and that demonstrates faith, which counts as righteousness, holiness.
This is what St. Augustine had to say about Abram's faith:
The right thing to do, brothers and sisters, is to believe God before he pays up anything, because just as God cannot possibly lie, he cannot possibly deceive (or fool) us. Because, he is God....That's how Abram believed him. There's a faith for you, that really deserves to be admired and made widely known. Abram had received nothing from God, but had believed his promise. We, ourselves, do not yet really believe God, although we have already received so much from him.
Look now at the visit of Nicodemus to Jesus by night. Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of the Jews. It was this court that some years later would order Jesus to be executed. So, he came by night, not wanting any of his fellow Sanhedrin members to know that he was visiting this preacher who hadn't graduated from any rabbinical school and who hadn't been ordained or anything that he knew of. Of course WE know differently, because we heard a few weeks ago what happened at Jesus' baptism, when the voice of God himself proclaimed Jesus' identity and preaching credentials. But apparently
Nicodemus and most of the Sanhedrin hadn't heard about what had happened that day by the Jordan river.
That talk with Jesus, that dark night, was the beginning of a journey for
Nicodemus. The Bible doesn't tell us much about this particular individual's journey of faith. We know that he helped bury Jesus after his death on the cross, which of course would make the Sanhedrin pretty suspicious of him. Some of the ancient writings tell us that
Nicodemus became a preacher after Jesus returned to heaven, going about and preaching Jesus' message. But we have no real proof of this. What we do know is that the visit in the dark of the night started
Nicodemus on the road to faith, too, and so he felt more and more drawn to the group of Jesus' followers, and eventually became one of them. And this is how most people have become Christians...finding out about Jesus and gradually growing in faith enough that they become followers of Christ, Christians, too.
One of the early bishops, Isaac from the town of Nineveh, in what is now Iraq, preached a sermon about
Nicodemus' visit to Jesus. What he said was this: The sum of all is God, the Lord of all, who from love for his creatures has delivered his own son to death on the cross. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son for it. Not because he was unable to save us in another way, but in this way it was possible to show his abundant love most abundantly, by bringing us close to him through the death of his son. If God had anything more dear to him, he would have given that to us, so that we could become his. And, because of his great love for us, he did not even force us to become free from sin through Christ's death, although he had the power to do that. But he wanted us to come nearer to him through our love for him, that he arouses by his love for us.
As we continue our own journeys along the ways of God, especially during this Lent, I hope we will keep these teachings of the Church in our minds and think about them. Nobody forces us to obey God, but it is to be hoped that we will do so because we love him. No matter how much we love God, we cannot possibly love him as much as he loves us. No matter what we hope to get from God, we can never earn it, because he so much delights in giving us everything he possibly can that is good for us to have. Although the events of life do sometimes make us feel that we are not loved or being given what we need from God, that is only because we do not stop to think how much he has already shown his love for us, and how much he has already given us...just because he loves us, and hopes that we will continue our journeys closer to him, and finally right into his loving arms for all eternity. Amen.
