Written by Matt Benton, Pastor of Bethel United Methodist Church in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Genesis 22:1-14

Once upon a time there was a man named Abram. One day Abram was out working in his father’s fields and God spoke to him. God promised a great nation would come from Abram, which in the ancient world meant he’d have lots of children. But in the midst of their travels and trials, Abram and his wife Sarai are unable to conceive. Along the way God renames the couple Abraham and Sarah but even as they both mature into old age, they have no children.

Then, in miraculous fashion, Sarah conceives and gives birth to a son in her old age. Isaac is the fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham and Sarah. And that promise was a long time in being fulfilled. But God kept God’s promise!

And then Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his son. The same God who promised to make of Abraham a great nation is now asking Abraham to sacrifice the only means to see that great nation come to fruition. And beyond that, a father who has waited so long to have a child, waited so long to see his wife become a mother, is now being asked to give all that up. I’m glad God never asked that of me.

But Abraham gets Isaac one morning and starts on a journey towards a particular mountain. He makes all the preparations for the sacrifice and they set off. It’s a three-day journey. Of course, it is. And when they’ve gotten to the base of the mountain Abraham tells the servant he’s brought that he and his son will go the rest of the way alone. Abraham has Isaac carry the wood for the sacrifice. Of course, he does. Abraham carries the fire and the knife.  As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
I can just picture Isaac, and every time I picture it Isaac is the same age as my oldest son, looking at the items they are bringing, seeing his little brain spinning, working it out, and gathering as much courage as the little man can and saying, dad, aren’t we missing something? How can that not break you? How could that not break Abraham?

They go up the mountain. They find a spot suitable for sacrifice. They build the altar. I wonder at what moment Isaac knew. But Abraham puts his son on the altar. And raises the knife.

And then the Angel shouts, “STOP! This has gone far enough!” Abraham is told to take Isaac off the altar, a ram is found, and indeed God has provided the means for the sacrifice. Abraham walks down the mountain with his son.

What do we do with this story? What do we make of it? If we’re honest, this story doesn’t sit well with us, does it? If we’re honest, this is a story that elicits complicated feelings  about this God. This God that would give a man a child by means of miracle and then ask that man to give the child back. And all just to see if he’d really do it. On some level we get to the end of this story and we ask, what was the point? To prove a level of faith that many of us would consider fanatical?

This story elicits many complex feelings. And at this point I want you feeling all of them in full. Because all of the questions we have, all the feelings we have, all the nuances we want to add to this story, it’s time to feel them all fully.

Because the ram wasn’t the sacrifice God provided.

At least the ram wasn’t the sacrifice that took Isaac’s place.

Another would come, who would be destined to be a sacrifice, who would place the wood of the sacrifice upon his back and would make a three-day journey.

Jesus.

Jesus is the new Isaac.

And I wonder if this story doesn’t give us a tiny insight into what God went through for our salvation?

Jesus is the new Isaac. Jesus is the sacrifice God would and did provide. Our world is out of whack, our relationships are out of whack and it’s our fault. But God did what was necessary to right and renew and redeem our relationship with God. And through a renewed and redeemed relationship with God, God intends to redeem all things. God did it, God has done it. God provided what was needed.

But the thing that was needed, and which God provided, was God’s son. God’s only son.

Oftentimes with this story we ask the question what kind of God would ask a father to sacrifice his son? In some respects that’s the lens through which we read all of the Bible. What kind of God is this that we are called to love, follow, and worship? We are troubled by the type of God who would ask a father to sacrifice his son, yet we don’t realize that that isn’t the end of the story. In the ancient world lots of gods asked fathers to sacrifice sons. Our God is the God who tells Abraham to stop and instead offers God’s own son as the sacrifice. I think it’s telling that at the crucial moment, God shouted “stop” to Abraham, but we shouted “Crucify Him” to Jesus.

But that is what our God has done for us. Instead of making us pay the price for our own redemption, God accomplishes it Godself. God does it for us. God does what we cannot do for ourselves. God gives and gives and gives. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Written by Michael Petrin, a professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Genesis 18:1-8:
And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the earth, and said, “My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, while I fetch a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes.” And Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds, and milk, and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

In chapter 18 of Genesis, we find Abraham and Sarah living in a tent by the oaks of Mamre. It’s been about 25 years since the couple first left their home and settled as strangers in the land of Canaan. And it’s been the same number of years since God first promised that he would make of them “a great nation” (Gen. 12:2). So far, however, Abraham and Sarah have been unable to conceive a child, and they know firsthand just how difficult it can be to have faith—just how difficult it can be to trust in the promises of God and to walk in the way of righteousness.

When three strangers show up unexpectedly at their camp, then, we might expect Abraham and Sarah to turn them away. We might expect them to say, “Sorry, we already have enough to deal with right now. You should ask somebody else for help.”

But that’s not what they do. Instead, when Abraham sees the three men, he jumps up from his seat and runs to meet them. He calls himself their “servant,” and he invites them to rest at his camp and wash their feet. He and Sarah also set out a sumptuous feast: cakes baked with fine meal, curds and milk instead of mere water, and the prime meat of a freshly slaughtered calf. After the strangers enjoy the couple’s remarkable hospitality, one of them promises Sarah that she will finally give birth to a son within the year.

Who are these three strangers? And does Abraham know their identity?
The Letter to the Hebrews offers us a preliminary answer to these questions. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,” the letter says, “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (13:2). According to this verse, the strangers to whom Abraham showed hospitality were angels, but he did not know their identity.

Subsequent Christian interpreters have disagreed about precisely which of the strangers were angels. Some, such as Saint Irenaeus, have claimed that two were angels, but that the third was the Son of God himself, whom Christians worship as “Lord” (see Gen. 18:1, 22-33). Others, such as Saint Augustine, have argued that all three of the strangers were angels, but that God’s own presence was made manifest through them.

Christians have thus long understood the visit of the three strangers as a story that teaches us about the very nature of God. According to some, the story prefigures the incarnation of Christ: that wonderful event when the eternal Word of God became flesh and was born into a world that did not know him (John 1:1-18). According to others, the story is an image of the Holy Trinity: the one God who exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, an eternal communion of divine love (2 Cor. 13:14). Either way, the story of the three strangers is about more than meets the eye; it is a story that tells us something about who God is.

It is also a story that tells us about our relationship with God. For example, it teaches us that we are able to meet God—to encounter his very presence—in the process of eating a meal. And of course for Christians this happens in a special way at the Lord’s Supper, when we have the chance to share in the body and blood of Christ himself (1 Cor. 10:16). In a way, whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup, we join Abraham in welcoming the divine stranger who is our Lord. This is a lesson that two of the first disciples learned on the road to Emmaus, when they first encountered the risen Christ as a stranger but later recognized him “in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35).

The story of the three strangers also teaches us that we can meet God by performing concrete acts of love in service of other people. Jesus himself offered us a model of this loving service when he washed the feet of his disciples and commanded them to love one another as he had first loved them (John 13:1-35). He also taught us that when we love our neighbor, we actually love God as well—because when we feed the hungry, we feed Christ himself; when we clothe the naked, we clothe Christ himself; and when we welcome strangers, we welcome Christ himself (Matt. 25:34-40).

When we read the story of the three strangers in Genesis 18, therefore, we can find various levels of meaning. We can, of course, learn about Abraham and Sarah’s hospitality, but we can also learn about God’s own nature and about where we can encounter God in our daily lives. As Christians, then, we should follow the example of Abraham and Sarah in being always ready to show hospitality to strangers and thus always ready to welcome God into our hearts. What is more, we shouldn’t forget to thank and praise God for the hospitality that he has shown to us, who have fallen away and become strangers to him through sin. For if “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8), how can we choose anything but to love him in return?

Written by Yun Kim, Pastor of St. Peter’s UMC in Richmond, VA.

YHWH Elohim breathed in ‘ADAM’

“Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” – Genesis 2:7

Job 33:4 says, “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”

In the original language of the Bible, niš-maṯ ḥay-yîm means “Breathed the Divine Spirit” in English. In other words, the Spirit of God came into the soul and the soul became alive. This is the story that we intend to convey through the creation story today.

What is required of the earth to become a man? The only one is to fill the spirit of God in the earth. God filled the earth with the Spirit of God and called his name Adam. If you translate the name ‘Adam’ into Korean, it is Sa-Ram (person). In this sense, the filling of the Spirit of God means that a person is truly living as a person.

Ultimately, for a person to be a real human being, one should be filled with the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, to be truly alive. When we are full of the Holy Spirit, we can function as God intended as God’s creation.

The state of being filled with the Holy Spirit is not a perfect human state of being completely delivered from sin, but a state of having His Spirit and His love so completely that there is no space for sin to intrude. When the Holy Spirit fills us, we are in a state of being a complete human. John Wesley explained that state as Christian Perfection.

In chapter 2 of Gospel of John, the first sign Jesus performed before starting his public life is recorded. What is it? It was changing water into wine. Have you ever thought about why Jesus’ first miracle was changing of water into wine, something that doesn’t seem that impressive? Wouldn’t it have been better if it had been another, more powerful, miracle? For example, a miracle of feeding 5,000 or calming the storm? Wouldn’t it have revealed more clearly that Jesus is Christ? Changing water into wine could be seen as just a visual deception that any magician in the world could do.

This miracle is just like preface to the gospel of John. It reveals what Jesus Christ would do in the days to come. There were six water jars used for cleansing ceremony. It was not for cleaning hands and feet for hygiene, but to symbolize forgiveness of sin and to become clean before God and people according to Jewish ceremony. Whenever the chief priest went into the holy place, he had to wash his hands and feet in water from the jar. Only when his sins were washed clean could he face God. So, he cleansed the visible body to symbolize the required purity of soul.

In a way, those jars symbolize the outer layer of old religion. It symbolizes those who repeat meaningless act void of life. Many religious people – of Jesus’ time and of ours – have only the outer layers of religion left, but Jesus filled them with the new wine. He breathed the new spirit inside the outer layer of dead religion.

That is the very thing the Lord did for us. To fill the new wine in us who are like a jar that looks like alive but not. He fills the new wine to the top in us who were dysfunctional because we are not alive.

In The Family, a book written by John Bradshaw after he was delivered from the trap of long-term addiction, he wrote, “This starting point assumes the innocence of mankind as children, who have this mental cup waiting to be filled with love, nurture, and acceptance. When the cup is filled with the toxic pollutants of the world, you get people who just react badly.”

In the end our true new life would not come from our effort and will power but what gets filled inside us. I pray that inside of us will be a recurrence of the new creation through death and resurrection of new Adam.

Written by Sarah Locke, Pastor of Hickory United Methodist Church in Chesapeake, VA.

“Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’” – Mark 2:24-28

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” – Matthew 11: 29

For people who have spent more time in our home this year than every before, I cannot say that I am “well rested.” The demands of family, church, work, and the regular routine have not ceased – they have just morphed. I have found it harder than ever to find a way to feel rested. The things that have always worked – a day of binging Netflix, a walk in the park with our kids, a date night with my husband – they all used to be things that left me feeling rejuvenated and ready to face the world. And now I wake up after a “day off” still weary. Can I get an Amen?

I think as Christ followers, there are times we hear Sabbath and all we hear is a biblical mandate to take a day off and simply to do no work. Sabbath is just about a “day off” or a “vacation” right? We think this because while God had every resource and all the energy needed to create the whole world, and as scripture promises God never sleeps or slumbers on the job, God still took a break. On the 7th day of creation, God called the day holy and did no work. And so, we see the command to practice the Sabbath as just that. A command that while sounding nice doesn’t mean all that much in our modern world.

As a mom of 5, a wife, a pastor, and a person highly influenced to over work and under rest this command often feels unrealistic. And then COVID hit and in my optimism, I thought, okay quarantine. Take this. I will name you Sabbath and I will come out the other side healthier. If God rested so can I.

Now 11 months later, I would say that while I have done many of the “right” things, I am wearier than ever. And for many of us that is the case. We have survived one of the hardest years of most of our lives. And the resources that used to work just do not anymore. A day off does not prepare me for the other 6. And here is why: Because my resting is not what powers my life.

In Mark, we see Jesus taking some heat from the Pharisees who feel that Jesus’ rule-breaking tendencies are not honoring the commandment to keep the day holy. Jesus has been healing folks on the Sabbath. Jesus’ response is simple: Sabbath is not a commandment to get us to bend to the will of another, but, instead, the day of rest which was made for us. It is a gift. And gifts are not something we can give ourselves. Sabbath is experience of the Lord’s presence or grace in our lives in spite of our inability to sit still well. The commandment of Sabbath is simply SO that we can experience the grace and love God has always wanted to offer us.

One of the many problems that we have experienced in COVID is that our work has changed. And while we may not be commuting and our time has been spent differently, the internal work of navigating the world has gotten more intense. Our emotions have been tested, our relationships have been strained, physical connections have been broken, we have been more isolated, experienced greater anxiety, and heightened fear. And while Netflix and walks help quiet our minds for a few moments or hours they don’t stop the chaos that lives with-in. There is only one source of Sabbath- there is only one source of peace and rest and it requires that I place myself in the presence of the Lord.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Sabbath. Jesus offers us a picture not of a God that simply takes a nap, but instead offers to carry our burdens. Jesus offers to yoke himself to us. That is the gift. We will not carry this alone. Rest is not a lack of work; it is instead a change from trying to carry the load ourselves. When we are yoked to Christ, we can experience the lightening of that the heavy load of fear, anxiety, and loneliness we have been carrying. We can know that those things we drag along behind us will not overwhelm us or leave us stuck in the mud. Jesus becomes the power of our rest. The old ways don’t work because they never really did. The only rest we need is to place ourselves in the path of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has been called “Lord of the Sabbath.” Amen.

Written by Taylor Mertins, Pastor of Cokesbury United Methodist Church, Woodbridge, VA.

“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” – Isaiah 43:1

Election is, often, a dirty word in the church. In our particularly problematic political times we like to keep people happy so we generally avoid talking about politics and partisan ideologies. We encourage people to think for themselves and make their own decisions in regard to such matters.

However, even more divisive than American electoral politics is the church’s struggle to respond to the Doctrine of Election.

Put simply – The Doctrine of Election attempts to explain the lengths of God’s sovereignty. Or, perhaps even more simply, it is a theological way to respond to questions like “Why did God allow this/that to happen?”

To talk about election is to take steps into mystery. We, of course, don’t care much for mystery. We like to have answers to all of our questions. We like things being neat and orderly. However, God often hands us the complete opposite.

And so, because we like to make order out of chaos, we have disagreed throughout the history of the church about God’s electing work and we now have the great mosaic of denominations rather than “dwelling together in unity.”

Enter Karl Barth. [Karl Barth was a very significant Christian theologian in the middle of the 20th century.  He wrote a four-volume work of theology called “Church Dogmatics” that, in many ways, revolutionized the ways that contemporary Christians talk and think about God.] In II.2 of the “Church Dogmatics” Barth sets out to define what it is that makes one “elect.” He begins with a general answer about how election is not something to be earned or deserved, but simply is the way that it is. But then, in a profound and rather long excursus, Barth compares the elected and the rejected characters throughout the Old Testament in order to bring home exactly what it means to be elect in Jesus Christ.

Cain and Abel – The difference between the brothers is not based on any prior mark of distinction, but from a decision on God’s behalf concerning them. However, even though Abel is clearly favored and Cain is not, this does not mean that God has abandoned or rejected Cain. Notably, even though Cain killed his brother, God promises to protect Cain’s life.

Jacob and Esau – Esau is the older and favorite son of Isaac, but it is Jacob (the little heel grabber) who ultimately receives the birthright and the blessing. However, God does not abandon either of them to their own devices, but promises to bless the world through their offspring.

Rachel and Leah – Jacob loves Rachel more than Leah but Leah is the one the Lord makes fruitful. However, God does not reject Rachel and she, eventually, gives birth to Joseph.

Joseph and his brothers – Joseph is rejected by his brothers and sold off into slavery. However, Joseph is instrumental in the deliverance of God’s people from famine who are then brought into the land of Egypt.

On and on we could go. Barth’s central point is that even though certain figures appear rejected by God, they are, in fact, blessed and intimately involved in God’s great story that culminates in Jesus.

Without them the great narrative simply isn’t possible.

And then, in Jesus, we discover both the elected and the rejected. The Elect Son of God, born for us and among us, is ultimately rejected by us.

He is regaled by the crowds and dismissed by the religious authorities.

He is celebrated by the last, least, lost, little, and dead only to be chased out of town for preaching a sermon about himself.

He is surrounded by followers who hang on his every word only to be abandoned by all of them when he, himself, hung on the cross.

And yet, how does Jesus choose to use some of his final earthly breaths?  “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

We, all of us, deserve rejection. We all choose to do things we know we shouldn’t do, and we all avoid doing things we know we should do. That, in a sense, is what Lent is all about. This liturgical season is focused on considering the condition of our condition.

To borrow an expression of Paul’s: There is nothing good in us.

We, to put it another way, are up the creek without a paddle.

And yet, strangely enough, the elected rejected, Jesus Christ, takes all of our sins, nails them to the cross, and leaves them there forever. Thanks be to God.