2nd Sunday of Lent (16.03.14)
What Value Has A Promise?
A promise’s value is determined by the truthfulness of the promise maker. There’s no greater exponent of truthfulness than God who has no equal. Even so, how do our 21st century Gentile ears hear and evaluate God’s promise to Abraham –
“All the nations of the earth shall find blessing in you.” (Gen:12:3)
This Genesis quote is from the 1st Reading of this 2nd. Sunday of Lent. Does God’s promise still hold good? The short answer is ‘Yes’, for God never takes back a promise – His Word is forever:
Jesus said: “I say to you very seriously that as long as heaven and earth exist, neither the smallest letter nor even the smallest stroke of a pen will be erased from the Law until everything there becomes a reality.” (Matt 5:18)
For people in our day to believe that all the nations of the earth shall find God’s blessing through the Chosen Race demands deep, enduring faith. Despite a generations-spanning catalogue of exterminations, disasters, humiliations and exclusions that dot their history, Jews continue to believe in the promises of God. Abraham had no foreknowledge of what would befall his Jewish descendants, one of whom, Matthew the Evangelist, gives us Jesus’ advice:
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matt 6:34)
In our time-determined, clock-regulated, world, the involuntary cry rises to our lips, “But we see no sign of this! When will it be?” In the Acts of the Apostles (1:6ff) the apostles question Jesus:
“So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”…
Today’s European generations, infected with an all-embracing secular outlook, challenge God. More than ever our daily gift to God of unconditional service and love, to the best of our injured ability, gives evidence of our continuing belief in God’s promises. All the nations of the earth already have access to God’s single most important blessing through the Jewish people namely, the gift of His Divine Son, Jesus. He is the Divine Jew who, in Himself, unites both Jew and Gentile.
God’s promises are timeless and limitless. Reflecting on this Sunday’s first Reading invites our prayer for our Jewish brothers and sisters that they may come to recognize in Jesus of Nazareth, their Jewish brother, the fulfillment of God’s promise of The Messiah. Then the blessing promised in Genesis will find fulfillment.
In his commentary of this Genesis passage, Soren Kierkegaard underscored the quality for which Abram, who became Abraham, will be forever remembered. He wrote: “By faith Abraham went out from the land of his fathers and became a sojourner in the land of promise. He left one thing behind and took one thing with him. He left his earthly understanding behind and took faith with him. Otherwise he would never have gone forth.” (Provocations, The Plough Publishing House, Farmington, Pa.: 1999)
“All the nations of the earth shall find blessing in you.” (Gen: 12:3) is a Divine promise to Abraham and his descendants already in the process of being fulfilled through the birth of God’s only Son-made-Man. Christians, Jews and Muslims honour Abraham with the title ‘our father in faith’. With Abraham’s support may Jews and Muslims come to belief in Jesus’ Divinity.