As we’ve been reading about Abram, as we’ve been exploring his story we’ve been looking for Gospel echoes. Because we believe that the Gospel runs from Genesis to Revelation, it doesn’t begin with Jesus. And in our passage today, in a throwaway line about Abram’s belief, and in an incredibly strange ritual, we find the strongest echoes yet of the Gospel in which we believe.
I’m calling this sermon series Origins: Abraham, because this is the beginnings of God’s salvation plan, this is in some sense the beginning of the Gospel as Abram receives the Gospel promise. So far in Genesis we’ve heard of Creation, Fall, Noah and his Ark, the Tower of Babel, but now the narrative slows down and zooms in, we’re meant to dwell with Abraham for a while. Here with Abraham begins God’s plan of salvation, and here with Abraham we’ll discover more of what our God is like, and more of what we are like as we perhaps see ourselves a little in Abraham, and more of what it means to stumble along with God as we try to follow his will and purposes for us.
I wonder if they noticed as the miracle was happening? Five loaves and two fish broken up isn’t a lot is it, and yet as it goes around that great crowd everyone has enough to eat and be satisfied. I wonder if they noticed it was going further than expected, I wonder if they noticed that the supply didn’t seem to be running out. Five thousand fed, and, as Matthew alone notes, that’s just counting the men.
We’re once again in a wonderfully rich part of Romans, if you’re familiar with the Bible and with Romans there will be quite a few bits you’ll perhaps recognise in this section. And once again there’s far too much to talk about in one sermon here, but we’re going to focus on the pinnacle of this reading, the pinnacle of not just the chapter but all of this letter ‘If God is for us, who can stand against us’.
In our Gospel reading today Jesus gives us three challenges: who do you fear? Whose approval do you care about? And who are you ultimately loyal to? But in the midst of these challenges he also gives us the most wonderful assurance and comfort.
Our readings today are rather wonderful, they speak of the awe and majesty of God, the otherness of God, and they speak of the one who has made him known that we might make him known.
No matter the darkness you find yourself in, Jesus is already there.
As we stand at the foot of the cross we stand in darkness. Literal darkness; we read that darkness covered the land from noon until Jesus’ death three hours later. And metaphorical darkness as Jesus goes down into the very depths with us. And as we stand here in the darkness, we find that Jesus is here with us. And that no matter the darkness we face in our lives, Jesus is already there. The darkness of life’s hardships, the darkness of sin, and the darkness of death.
…And it starts with the news that Lazarus is ill, it’s noted that his sisters are Mary and Martha, who we’ve met in the other Gospels, and they send word to Jesus that ‘the one you love is ill’. From what we can tell from the Gospels Jesus becomes good friends with this little family of 3, and so naturally they send word to him, he’s a miracleworker and his friend is ill, why wouldn’t you contact him.
But by the time he gets there Lazarus is dead. Indeed Jesus knows he is dead before he gets there. And we have repeated on the lips of both sisters a declaration of faith and of despair ‘if you had been here my brother would not have died’.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was tohu va bohu. We tend to translate those words formless and void or empty. It’s a picture of chaos and disorder and yet here over the waters is the God who brings order and life out of chaos and darkness.
Saul, or Paul as he is more often called, is one of the most unlikely people to come to faith in Jesus. He has busied himself with the task of stamping out this new sect who belong to ‘the Way’, what Christians were called before the latter name stuck. He’s travelling the country rounding them up. He’s breathing murderous threats. He’s dragging them into prison. In his own words, as we heard in his letter to the Galatians, he was intent on destroying the Church. If there was anyone the fledgling Church feared, it was Paul. And in some ways their fears may be justified from a human perspective, he seems set to wipe them out.
But God has other ideas, God sees his zeal, misplaced as it was, and chooses to turn that zeal for good.