Faith and Facts

         

            When Abraham was ninety-nine years old, God came to him and promised him that he would be the father of many nations and that he and Sarah would have a son.  Abraham was almost a hundred years old but yet God made such a promise.  It happened soon after.  Sarah gave birth to Isaac and the promise began to be fulfilled.  There was another moment when three men came to visit Abraham and he knew that they were God.  Again, they made their promise that Sarah would give birth to a child and Sarah hid behind a door and laughed.  The wonderful thing is that Isaac means “laughter”. This birth became not only the beginning of Abraham’s family, but the cornerstone of the many nations that God had promised.  It is also true that Abraham is the cornerstone of not only the Hebrew religion, but also Islam and Christianity.  Faith is what has caused this to happen.  It certainly isn’t facts.  A hundred-year old man and his equally aged wife began a family that has changed the world.  

            Jesus came to us to give us faith.  In Mark’s gospel is the story of how he told his disciples what was going to happen.  He told them that he would be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, be killed and then three days later rise again. Peter took him aside and rebuked him, saying that this must not happen.  Jesus said to Peter, get behind me Satan, you are setting your mind on human things, not divine things. And it all happened, just as Jesus told them.  They made their way to Jerusalem and Jesus was taken captive, tried before Pontius Pilate then crucified and died.  Then three days later he rose from the dead.  When he was crucified, the disciples all ran away; Peter denied him and the rest simply hid.  Three days later, they were all together in an upper room with the door locked when Jesus suddenly appeared to them.  They knew then that what their Lord had told them was true and that they no longer needed to be afraid.  

            Faith is a beautiful thing.  It can change our lives, give us strength and help us through the worst of times.  When I left the television industry and went to seminary, I had a wonderful wife and three kids.  Rosie and I agreed to take this step.  Rosie went to work outside the home to help to provide for all of us.  I remember in my senior year, I applied for a grant to help with our finances.  They wanted a budget, so I worked out the numbers.  It amounted to about $20,000 which surprised me.  In looking back, it was apparent that those funds had been provided for us by Rosie’s work and the few donations that we had received, but I didn’t know it at all.  It was faith that had gotten us through these years and I was amazed.  Faith is what can provide for us even when we have no idea of how to get through our lives.  Belief in God is critical to the living of full lives that respond to the plan of God to make this world into a place more reflective of heaven than earth.  I know that is what Jesus meant by his words to Peter about thinking about human things instead of divine things.  God stands ready to be with us, to help us and make us whole.  Here in the season of Lent, we can look forward to the certainty of the resurrection, not as an item of fact, but as the reality of faith. It is not what we have created, but it is what God has promised.