C Cycle – 2^nd Sunday of Lent 25

Lk. 9:28b-36

You cannot blame Abraham for doubting God’s promise to make his descendants as numerous as the stars.  Year after year had passed since he left his home to go to a place God would show him and make him a great nation.    

Now God repeats His promise, and Abraham is wondering when all God promised would happen.  He expresses his impatience saying, “…how am I to know all that God promised would happen.”  When we are waiting for God to act it is human to wonder if God hears our pleas or care about what we are going through.  God’s answer to Abrahams provides us some answers and a means to believe God will act.  God told Abraham to “…prepare a sacrifice and place it on the altar and wait.” 

We know Abraham did what God said, and it was credited to him as “righteousness.”  It had to concern Abraham as he watched his sacrifice being desecrated by birds of prey.  Trust in God is an important part of what God is teaching us through this scripture passage. When we are experiencing disaster, it is hard to set aside our negative emotions as we try to believe God is at work.  During those moments when God is silent, it is hard to believe God cares.    

But waiting and trusting are critical parts of experiencing God’s presence. If we believe during those moments of disaster, we will discover God is always with us.  We need to learn the lesson every man and woman in scripture learned.  It is human to ask where God is and to wonder if He knows what we are experiencing.  While at the same time boldly state we can place our trust in God.  Abraham is just one example of having an absolute trust in God despite the long wait.  Waiting for God to accomplish what He promised is something we can learn from Abraham. 

But Abraham’s humanity like ours, compelled him to take matters into his own hands and accomplish what God had promised him.  He did when he said Sarah was his sister to keep Pharoh from killing him and take Sarah into his harem (Gen.20:2).  He did that with Hagar by having a son with her (Gen.16:21).  Despite those human weaknesses, Abraham was called “righteous” by God.

That alone should give us hope and increase our trust in God’s mercy and in His plan to make us righteous.  Our sacrifice is to give God our hearts not our offerings.  Why does God want our hearts? The answer is simple: we must become vulnerable to give God our hearts.  We cannot love God without becoming vulnerable.  Each of us needs to believe God has a plan for our holiness.  God promised to remove the penalty of our sins by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

Do we believe that promise or do we try to do things to make up for our sinfulness attempting to appease God?  Can we like Abraham go beyond sacrifices and trust God?  Can we wait and sit in the presence of God believing He will always reveal something to us?  God revealed something to Abraham long after the sacrifice was placed on the altar.   God will reveal all to us just as He did Abraham, Saul of Tarsus and Peter. Our God is a God of constant revelation if only we would recognize His voice.    

God is revealing the same message to Peter, James, and John during Christ’s transfiguration.  Yet, they failed to grasp God’s plan of restoration and their own destiny.  God’s plan was promised by the prophets and yet they failed to grasp the promise.  Each of us are invited to experience an encounter with God which will remove all doubt as to His plan for our salvation.  God desires to provide us with an encounter which will break down the barriers and allow us to become vulnerable and experience God’s embrace and forgiveness. 

Without an encounter, we will continue to depend on our ability to be disciplined and continue to offer our sacrifices to please God.  We need to understand the sacrifice we need to make is our own hearts placed on the altar.  God has done something to make us holy through the gift of Jesus Christ. Plus, the transforming power of the Holy Spirit changing us from “…one degree of glory to another into the very mage of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:18).    

The scriptures today give us a reason to believe in the promised of God.  For God is the source of our holiness. Our presence before God should not be one of doing it is one of being present.  Lent is often a time of ensuring we have fulfilled your Lenten sacrifice.  But you should also consider how what we do is perhaps a source of pride and a sign that we must allow Christ to reveal a deeper reality to each of us – our holiness depends on allowing the Holy Spirit to enlighten us and change us.

What lessons can we learn from Abraham, Paul, and Peter today?  We can realize their willingness to admit they often got it wrong and depended on themselves more than they depended on God.  It was when they listening to God, they realized how much they needed to wait of God to guide them.  To grasp what God was doing for them and within them.   We can admit transformation can only be accomplished by listening and acting on what God reveals to us.