“Against All Hope”

March 08, 2009

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 Mark 8:31-33 Romans 4:13-25

When is the last time you signed a contract? We do it all the time, sometimes without thinking about it. Get
a new Internet connection? Sign a contract. Change your cable channels? Sign a contract. Buy on credit?
Sign a contract. We really do, do it all the time. Contracts are incredibly common in our society because
they legally obligate one or both parties to certain behaviors. Part of the need for contracts grows from our
lack of trustworthiness. When a handshake or a verbal promise were ethically and morally binding, there
was no need to write things down and make a contract that had to be enforced by a third party such as the
government or the police. The problem that we have today is, human beings have grown so accustomed to
signing contracts that we have begun to ignore them almost as much as we ignore our obligations from
handshakes and verbal promises. Breaking a contract doesn’t seem to be a such big deal anymore and since
legally, marriage is no longer anything more than a contractual agreement, marriage often seems to be
heading into the dumper as well.

Things weren’t always like this. In recent history a handshake was a solemn promise and a man’s word was
bound by honor. Men and women would often rather die than break their word. In the days of the Old
Testament, contracts had not been invented and most business was conducted quite well without them.
Business was negotiated and then sealed by a promise or a handshake or something similar. If it needed to
be particularly formal, then the promise could me made in the gates of the city with city elders and leaders
standing as witnesses of the exchange. Such a promise was exchanged when Boaz agreed to redeem Ruth
and take the lands that had belonged to her husband’s family and to take her to live with him as his wife. In
rare cases, if an exchange of major importance was to take place and if that exchange was intended to last
for a very long time, often forever, then a covenant could be made.

Let’s be very clear, covenants are not the legal equivalent to contracts. Covenants do not exist in our
modern culture and we have difficulty in fully understanding what they once meant. Covenants are
commonly referred to as "blood covenants." That is because "cutting," or entering into, a covenant requires
the shedding of blood. Covenants were normally used when one nation made a treaty with another. The
terms of the covenant were spelled out, the gods of both countries were sworn upon, often in writing, the
obligations of one or both parties were spelled out in some detail and finally, dire and horrible punishments
were declared for any who would break the covenant. The punishments that were called for in the covenant
could be brought to bear against the offenders by either human hands, by the power of the gods noted earlier
in the covenant or both.

In Genesis, God made just such a covenant with Abraham and promised that through Abraham God would
create a might nation if Abraham and his descendants would do the things that God required of them. Two
unique things about God’s covenant should be noted. First, God could not swear upon any other higher
powers and so swore upon himself. Second, when normally both parties would walk thorough the blood of
the sacrifice as a demonstration of their participation in the covenant, God caused Abraham to fall into a
deep sleep and carried the burden of the blood, and therefore the burden of punishment, upon himself alone.

In Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 God reminds Abraham of the agreement that they had made many years earlier…

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When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk
before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase
your numbers."
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Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the
father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made
you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come
from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your
descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after
you.
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God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be
Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother
of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”

In Mark 8:31-33, we hear Jesus speak and Jesus seems to be laying out the language for a new covenant
with his people…
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He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders,
chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32He spoke
plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
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But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said.
"You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

Here in chapter eight, Jesus speaks to his followers that he will be rejected and killed and rise again after
three days. But one chapter later the message hasn’t sunk in yet. (Mark 9:2-9)
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After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they
were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. 3His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than
anyone in the world could bleach them. 4And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were
talking with Jesus.
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Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for
Moses and one for Elijah." 6(He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)
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Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: "This is my Son, whom I
love. Listen to him!"
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Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.
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As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen
until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what "rising
from the dead" meant.

Peter, James and John are witnesses to something that is clearly unearthly and supernatural. They see two
men they have never met before and yet understand that the men must be Elijah and Moses. They hear the
voice of God and hear him command them to listen to Jesus. Finally, Jesus commands them to tell no one
until after he has risen from the dead and they still don’t understand what he is talking about even though he
had spelled it out for them less than a week before. Somehow the disciples were completely unable to
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comprehend that Jesus knew he would die or that it was even possible that Jesus could die. We’re kind of
hard on the disciples for this inability, but if we were fair, we would remember that dealing with the
supernatural is often considerably beyond our experience. When we interpret the supernatural from our
experience in the humdrum and “normal” world we live in, I suspect that we often get things wrong just like
they did.

In ancient times, covenants were meant to be kept and they were often kept by force. Those who violated a
covenant would suffer the punishments that were spelled out in the covenant. When God made his covenant
with Abraham he took the blood of the covenant only upon himself and in figurative language accepted that
the burden of punishment for breaking the covenant would fall upon him alone. Abraham’s descendants
were never been able to keep their covenant with God and the nation of Israel as well as all humanity
deserved to be punished for failing to keep their promises to God. With Jesus’ death on the cross, with the
shedding of God’s blood, God kept his word and paid the price required by the covenant when the people of
Israel broke their part of it. The problem was that Israel had become confused by how their covenant was to
be kept. The people of Israel, even after the death of Jesus, believed that honoring God and honoring their
covenant with God meant following all of the rules that had been written down by Moses and the prophets.

In Romans 4:13-25, Paul explains to the Jews in the church in Rome that this was not the case…

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It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the
world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has
no value and the promise is worthless, 15because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no
transgression.
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Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's
offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the
father of us all. 17As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight
of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though
they were.
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Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been
said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 19Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body
was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20Yet
he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave
glory to God, 21being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22This is why "it was
credited to him as righteousness." 23The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, 24but
also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord
from the dead. 25He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

Paul points out that “It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise.” It was
not through the law; it was not through adherence to a bunch of rules and regulations that made God’s
promises real. God didn’t require blind obedience or perfect performance for his people to be heirs of his
benevolence. Paul points out that when God made his promise to Abraham, when God sealed the covenant
that was between them, the law had not yet been written and would not be written for close to a thousand
years. God’s promise to the people of Israel is not sealed by human compliance to a specific set of rules and
regulations. Instead, Paul reminds us that God’s promise to us comes by faith and through God’s grace.

Paul says, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations…”
Abraham, in hope, believed, had faith, trusted that God would do what God had promised that he would do.
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It was never Abraham’s total obedience or perfection that saved him. In fact, scripture shows that Abraham
made some pretty boneheaded mistakes and messed up pretty bad from time to time. But God still loved
him. Abraham sometimes tried to do things on his own instead of trusting God to keep him safe but Paul
says that the thing Abraham did not do, was to doubt that God would keep his solemn promise, his covenant,
even when he was ninety nine years old and well past the time when “normal” people are having babies.

I like those words, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…” Sometimes our faith, hope, or trust is
seen as “unreasonable” by the rest of the world and maybe even to ourselves. Our faith, hope and trust
would be unreasonable except that we have learned the God can bear our weight. Through the practice of
trusting him with smaller things and gradually trusting him with progressively larger things, we know that
God can be trusted with our most precious of possessions and even our very lives. We can trust God with
all that we are and all that we have even in the most dire of circumstances.

Jesus knew that a covenant made in blood could only be redeemed by blood. Jesus knew that only his life
would be enough to pay the penalty for the human violations of that covenant and so he did as God
commanded and gave up his life so that the price of our failure would be paid in God’s own blood.

The end of this story is beautiful. It is as Paul said; we don’t have to be perfect. It was not through
adherence to a bunch of rules and regulations that made God’s promises real. God didn’t require blind
obedience or perfect performance for his people to be heirs of his generosity. The price of our disobedience
has already been paid.

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…”

We can trust God with all that we are and all that we have even in the worst of circumstances.

If you haven’t trusted Jesus, I challenge you to trust him today. If you’ve only trusted him a little, I
challenge you to trust him a little more. No matter how much weight you need to put on his shoulders, he is
able to bear it.

Have faith. Trust Jesus. He will not fail you.

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 You have been reading a message presented at Johnsville Grace and Steam Corners United Methodist Churches on the date
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