This post, by Dennis Hassell, is a reflection on the “A Most Absurd Miracle” sermon as part of the “Unraveled” sermon series.
Pastor Elaine’s message on Sunday, September 15 moved me, so I would very much like to share a few reflections. And I would very much like to remember what those reflections were. Hmmm. Just one noisy weekday has passed but it is already erasing the Sabbath’s imprint.
Ah! Now that I re-read Genesis 18:1-15, where God promises the very old couple Abraham and Sarah a child, I have “total recall “, and it is twofold:
First, Pastor Elaine related how Sarah was barren, which was very hard for women in almost every culture, even in our culture today. And of course, couples today (like Abraham and Sarah) struggle and suffer together from infertility. And single people can still feel stigmatized. (Interestingly, “stigmata” means the marks of the cross, a sign of sainthood). Further, a woman’s very identity is bound up in bearing children, and to a significant amount even today. And today, our society is preoccupied with examining gender as identity: what makes a woman a woman, and what defines a man? As in all things, we look to Jesus as our example and our guide.
It struck me that Jesus never fathered children. And Jesus never married. And Jesus never even had sex. But who would dare say that Jesus of Nazareth was not fully a man, who fully lived His life?
- Jesus provided six vats of excellent wine for a wedding party (120-160 gallons). Does that sound like a religious aesthete? Or “Baptists Gone Wild”?
- Jesus fasted 40 days, the absolute limit of a human body. Does that sound like a sissy?
- Jesus drove corrupt officials out of the temple with a whip of cords.
- Jesus battled with a legion of demons and confronted the hypocritical religious state and its leaders, even as they plotted to kill Him.
- Jesus was whipped with a scourge, beaten, mocked, and marched to the cross. Iron spikes were driven through his wrists and ankles so that he slowly suffocated. And then He said, “Father, forgive them”. A great man might die for his friends. But who dies for his enemies. The sergeant of the execution squad said, “Surely this man was the Son of God”.
And yet, Jesus was also gentle, kind, nurturing, learned, wise, and gracious, and loved children. He referred to himself metaphorically as a mother hen, brooding over Jerusalem. Does that sound like a Rambo macho model of manhood? Jesus was all that paradox of meekness and strength, love and truth, without being married or being a father, or being sexually active. This flies in the face of our culture, and of our selves.
Jesus also promised that those without family would receive all the family they could handle in His Kingdom. So a question came to me, not specifically as a man but as a follower, “What children could I foster-uncle and support (in the context of their families)? That is an open question, like “Who is my neighbour?” (Any person you come across in need).
I need to see single folks and divorced folks and childless couples (whether by choice or by circumstance) the way Jesus sees them: brothers and sisters in His family with me.
The second observation is that in Genesis 18, God’s angel (“angel” means “messenger”) does NOT say “Nothing is too hard for God”. The angel instead asks a question: “Is anything too hard for God?” It struck me that by making a question, it requires our answer, and our answer shapes the outcome. It makes us compare what we say we believe with how we actually believe. And the word “believe” comes from the old Anglo-Saxon, “by-lief”, “by life”: what we believe can only be what we live.
For me, the lasting power of Scripture stories is that they are still happening today. God is every bit as active today, — and every bit as invisible. So do I believe, in all my griefs and disappointments and deaths-of-dreams in my 61 years, that nothing is too hard for God? Do I believe that God allows our dreams to die so that He can resurrect them transformed to His purpose, which is love? As a grief-stricken parent, who was suddenly no longer a parent, said to Jesus “I do believe, Lord! But help my unbelief.”