The Substance of Things Hoped For

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

God had appeared to Abraham three times over the years.

The first time: "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great...and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

The second time: "Look up at the sky and count the stars--if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be."

The third time: "You will be the father of many nations." 

And yet decades had passed since God first appeared to Abraham promising to make him into the father of a great nation, and his wife remained childless. Abraham and his wife were now very old, and well past childbearing years. Their friends had long ago raised their children, who were now married with families of their own.

Sometimes there comes a time to let the dream slip through your fingers, to put your hope in something more certain.

________________

Sarah laughed until her belly ached at the memory of the three foreigners who had showed up out of the blue by their tents not long ago. Strange men, those three. Weavers of tall tales and outrageous fantasies, masters of the too-good-to-be-true. First curiosity had overcome her, then the entertainment of the newcomers' stories had drawn her to remain close to the tent entrance where she could inconspicuously overhear snatches of the men's conversation from a respectful distance.

Such foolishness. "I will return to you at this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son."

Her body was no longer young. That dream had become an impossibility a long time ago. Sarah had come to terms with what was not to be for her, those dreams of rocking her own sweet smelling baby boy in her arms. Sure, there had been a time when she would awaken at night, Abraham snoring beside her, with the tears still wet on her cheeks aching with dreams of the child she had longed for as long as she could remember.

But those years were so very long ago.

_________________

Sometimes our laughter betrays us. 

I laughed last week as I related to a friend one too many things in a series of recent events in which it seemed that nothing was going the way I had hoped.

There was nothing funny about it, really. Inside my heart was aching, longing for things to go differently, doing the grief-work associated with letting go of that which is dear to you. 

As we parted, she asked me, "What can I hold for you in all of this?"

I had no response, until I drove away. Then, deep within me, I felt an answer rise up.

Hope. Hold onto hope. I can't hold it myself right now.

_________________

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann writes, "Faith is not a reasonable act which fits into the normal scheme of life and perception. The promise of the gospel is not a conventional piece of wisdom that is easily accommodated to everything else."

How often does God's promise to God's people come as nonsensical?

Sarah: Even at 90 years old, within a year, you will bear the son that your heart has yearned for your whole life.

Abraham: After waiting for decades, after losing hope, after years of wondering how to understand those visions and whether God would really come through, you are about to become the patriarch through whom countless people have come to have faith.

God appears to Moses as a burning bush in the middle of the wilderness. 

God enters the world as a baby born far from home, in a stable, whose first bed is an empty trough. 

Our greatest display of love and power is a man who lays down his life for his friends, condemned to death alongside common criminals although he himself is innocent.

________________

Faith is no small proposition. If we struggle to hold onto hope that God's promises can come true, we're in good company. People no less than Abraham himself have struggled to have faith in the face of unreasonable odds.

And yet, God shows up in the strangest of places, at the most unexpected of times, among the most unlikely people.

Unlikely people like you. And me. 

If we could see it, it wouldn't be faith. If it were tangible, we wouldn't need hope.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1