Making Space to Surrender
Altar’d • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Think back to a time when you felt isolated and confined - and yes, you can feel that way even though there are other people around.
You probably do not need to think too far back - many of us experienced times of isolation and confinement during the Covid pandemic - and one of the hardest hit groups were those who were residents in nursing homes. In conversations with friends who had parents or grandparents in nursing home facilities, I remember the anguish they went through as they noticed a significant decline in the mental health of their loved ones.
Humans need connection - we need to love and be loved in order to flourish. The same is true for a spiritual well-being - we need to be connected with the One who created us if we are to experience true shalom - or wholeness and peace.
I would argue that Noah experienced isolation and confinement of a magnitude greater than any human has ever experienced. Susan Kent, author of Altar’d - the devotional book we as a church are following during the season of Lent, asks the following:
Imagine if you were closed up in your house for a year with your family and hundreds or thousands of animals.
Consider the constant noise and the smell. Now imagine that the day came when you could open up the doors and leave your house. What would be your first act?
For Noah, his first act was an act of worship.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
He created an altar, a space to encounter and honor God who had saved his family and provided them with a new life. This is the first altar mentioned in the Bible and was a sign of Noah’s faith. His first priority was the Lord.
As we begin this series, Altar’d, it is fitting to define what an altar is. An altar in the physical sense is a raised structure or platform upon which a sacrifice is given. Altars were typically constructed of uncut stone, had a flat surface on top where a fire was built. Often times, an altar was erected to commemorate the place where one had a profound encounter with the Lord - in that sense, an altar served as a memorial, a sacred monument - a reminder - of what God had done. In all cases, an altar was a place of consecration - a sacred place where persons sought God’s favor, dedicated themselves to be set aside for the Lord, where they sought God’s forgiveness or offered thanksgiving. There are over 400 references to altars in the Bible.
For today’s message, I’m going to focus on two main themes when it comes to altars: the making of space and the making of a sacrifice as a means of surrender. Noah stepped off the Ark and shortly thereafter, made a space that would be used to worship and give thanks to the Lord. He built an altar, lit a fire, took some of the animals considered clean, sacrificed them to the Lord and placed them in the fire.
Making space and making a sacrifice as a means of surrender.
We don’t typically erect stone altars today - but not all altars are made of stone. Within the church building, the Lord’s Table is considered an altar. It is a sacred space for the purpose of encountering God. We light the candles on the altar - representing the fire of the Holy Spirit’s presence. On this altar is placed the sacrifice - the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine - representing the body and blood of Jesus.
Where are the altars in your life?
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
How are we making space to worship God both physically and mentally? Jesus often made space to be with His Father.
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.
Notice it doesn’t say, “Jesus woke up and prayed in his bed until he fell back asleep.” That often tends to be my way of praying - which I need to continually expand upon.
Jesus got up and made space to be with His Father. Making space is important. Remember what Jesus taught about prayer on the sermon on the Mount:
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
He tells us to make space - be intentional. It is not that the 3am prayers when you are laying in bed awake are not good - I find prayer to be a great use of that time. But how often, do I get up early and go off to a quiet place to be alone with the Lord?
Not often enough.
During this season of Lent, I encourage you to make the space. Set aside the time, designate a quiet place, intentionally be present.
The second theme of altars is to make a sacrifice as a means to surrender.
Listen to what Susan Kent says of Noah’s sacrifice:
To sacrifice some of the limited resources was a sign that he trusted the Lord would continue to care for his family. In this space, Noah gave what he had as an act of surrender. As followers of Jesus, our lives must be centered on surrender. It is in the act of sacrifice that we experience the transforming power of Christ.
What will be your sacrifice? What can you offer that will cost you something? What can you give to the Lord that by doing so clearly says “my life is in your hands Lord”?
As one writer I came across put it: “Every day of our lives contains within it the possibility for sacrifice. In every decision we make, we have the opportunity to choose the self or choose the other, and if we have the wherewithal to choose the other, we have a further opportunity to do so begrudgingly or lovingly, even joyfully.”
It is in the little daily sacrifices that we begin to experience God’s care for us and His presence in us. Those little daily sacrifices help us to surrender more.
We sacrifice our time by being present in worship, present with our families, present in our service to others, in witnessing our faith and strengthening our local church.
We sacrifice our resources by tithing and by giving generously to those in need.
We sacrifice our talent by taking those gifts that God has given us, those strengths that we possess, and putting to use within the Church and out in the world for the purposes of growing God’s kingdom.
The more we sacrifice - with joyful hearts seeking to bring glory to the Father, the more Christ-like we become.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
Losing your life for Jesus’ sake is sacrifice as a means of surrender.
And what do we mean by surrender? In the world, surrender is not a positive word - in fact, it tends to show weakness. Yet through Christ, surrender is the way toward victory. John Piper gives a good explanation of what it means to surrender:
“The picture of surrender is that once we were enemies and our lives were at odds with God. We did not submit to him. We were not surrendered to him. We were our own masters, doing our own will, robbing God of not only everything he’s given to us, but our souls as well. Then a miracle happens: We’re born again, and everything turns around. We don’t want to withhold anything from God anymore. We are eager to be totally at his disposal: to do anything he wants at any cost. We want to do it in the power that he supplies, so that in everything he gets the glory. That’s what it means to be saved from the old way.” That is the reality of surrender.
I was searching for an example of a surrendered life and I came across the story of Saint Maximilian Kolbe. One of the things I really admire about our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters is that they recognize those who lives so clearly point to Jesus and they repeat their stories. St. Kolbe was a Polish priest who ran a printing press during World War II and, willingly taking on great risk to life, he published anti-Nazi publications to expose this evil and he also hid thousands of Jewish people in his monastery. You would think this would be the normal actions of all Christians - but that is not the case. Many Christians said and did nothing our of fear or indifference. Maximillian stood up against evil. His actions led to being imprisoned in a concentration camp. That did not stop him from total surrender to Christ. In his last great act, he offered his life in place of another prisoner, a Jewish father. He was subjected to starvation, but he would not die. Even as his life lingered, he led prayers for the other prisoners. Finally, he was put to death by a lethal injection.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
How great is his reward? He kept his eyes on Jesus and stored up his treasure in heaven. His heart was an altar unto the Lord. A sacred space that he made to give his sacrifice.
Do not underestimate the power of the altar, of making space and giving sacrifice.
Let’s close by considering again Noah’s altar.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
As author John Sailhamer notes,
As a result of Noah’s altar and sacrifice, the whole state of mankind before the Flood is reestablished. Man is still fallen; but through an offering on the altar, he may yet find God’s blessing.
What we can see in this early story at the beginning of the Bible is the power of sacrifice. It is through sacrifice blessings would flow. And ultimately, it will be the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that would redeem fallen humanity.
We have been redeemed - glory to God. Now may our hearts be an altar unto the Lord. Make space and surrender - for that is where you will find true life.
Amen.