Wait Upon the Lord with Faith

Undaunted Courage is a book by Stephan Ambrose. In it, Ambrose writes about the Lewis and Clark expedition that took place in the early nineteenth century. After facing massive challenges—hunger, fatigue, desertion, illness and so much more—Lewis and Clark (near Three Forks, Montana) finally reached the headwaters of the Missouri River.

All of their advance information led Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to believe that once they had reached the continental divide—just one-hundred miles west of Three Forks—they would face a half-day portage, reach the waters of the Columbia River, and then float to the Pacific Ocean. The hard part of the journey was behind them. It was time to celebrate.

Or so they thought!

Meriwether Lewis climbed the bluffs near the Continental Divide, expecting to see the Columbia River. Imagine what he felt when, instead of seeing the Columbia River, he was the first non-native American to see the Rocky Mountains. They couldn’t go back, and there was no clear way forward. We have a word for that—trapped.

Do you know that feeling? Sure, you do, we all do; especially at this time when our nation seems to be destroying itself for the inside out, but it is not only our nation that seems trapped, many of us feel trapped in our personal lives as well. We can feel trapped by our addictions, by debt, by a dead-end job or by failing relationships.

If you feel trapped, welcome to the world of Abraham and Sarah. Their story begins in Genesis 11. Abram—as he was called then—was the son of a man named Terah. The family was from the ancient Babylonian city called Ur. It was in Ur that Abram met Sarai—that was her name back then. At some point Abram and Sarai married and then moved from Ur to Haran, a city on the Tigris River.

Then God showed up. In Genesis 12, God called Abram and Sarai to go to the land of Canaan where he would make a great nation through—of all people—Abram and Sarai. Abram was sixty-five years old then; Sarai was fifty-five. Genesis 11:30 says that Sarai was barren. Can you imagine what Abram and Sarai said? “A great nation? But we can’t have any children. And look how old we are!” And so they waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Still, no son.

They got tired of waiting when Abram turned eighty-six and Sarai turned seventy-six years old. Who could blame them? Sarai pushed a woman named Hagar into Abraham’s tent and nine months later their union gave birth to Ishmael.

Thirteen years later, in Genesis 17, Abram is ninety-nine and Sarai is eighty-nine years old. Sarai is still barren; the household is still full with rancor and strife because of the Hagar and Ishmael debacle. They must have felt trapped.

Then according to Paul in Romans 4, something happened, Abraham no longer felt trapped. Paul says, “he did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.” (Romans 4:19)

What happened?

God showed up! Genesis 17:1 states, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty.’” The Hebrew phrase behind the title “God Almighty” is El Shaddai. El Shaddai means that God is sufficient; God is able; God is powerful. El Shaddai means that God is Almighty.

What does El Shaddai do when he shows up? He cuts a covenant. The term “covenant” appears five times in our reading from Genesis 17. In fact, “covenant” appears another eight times in the rest of Genesis 17. Additionally, in three of these references in Genesis 17 (verses 7, 13, and 19) God says that this covenant is eternal. God was making a promise to Abraham, and He was backing it up with blood!

In the Old Testament, covenants weren’t made. In the Old Testament, people didn’t sign their names to paper to make a covenant. There were no attorneys or notary publics. But there was blood. That’s because in the Old Testament, people cut covenants. They killed animals, slit their throats, and poured out their blood. Covenant cutting was a messy business.

Paul’s point in Romans 4 is not that it was the strength of Abraham’s faith that made him the “father of the faithful”. Paul’s point is that it was the strength of God’s promise that made Abraham’s faith strong. Moreover, it is the strength of God’s promise that can make your faith strong as well.

God fulfilled his covenant promise to Abraham and Sarah through the birth of a son—Isaac. All the more, God fulfilled his covenant promise to us through the birth of His son—Jesus. That’s what we are celebrating during Advent season, the fact that God showed up, and He will show up again!

When God showed up in the person of His Son Jesus, there was blood—in Gethsemane, Gabbatha, and Golgotha. The everlasting covenant promised to Abraham is signed, sealed, and delivered to you in the blood of Jesus. It is still being delivered in the means of grace—the Preaching of the Gospel, Baptism, and Holy Communion where Jesus says, “This is the blood of my covenant, shed for you, for the forgiveness of sin.”

Why is it important that we believe that God has cut an everlasting covenant with us by the blood of Jesus?

It is important because as we wait for the fulfillment of all of God’s good promises we will face trials and tribulations; and when we face trials and tribulations, the voice of doubt is always whispering in our ears as it did Abraham and Sarah’s ears. At such times, we can feel trapped.

Doubt says to us,

“See COVID-19, cancer and birth defects; God is not good, nor does He care.”

“See your broken relationship, your dead-end job and your crushed dreams; things are never going to get better and God’s promise of everlasting joy is a lie!”

“See your sins, your addictions and your moral failures; God can’t love you and He will never forgive you.”

We have all heard these and similar things.

It is at times like these that we need to remember that God showed up and cut a covenant with us, “This is the blood of the New Covenant, which has been shed for you.”

This first Sunday of Advent we remember that we must wait with faith. As we began our worship today we sang those haunting words, to a melancholy tune:

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that morns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

In a few moments we will sing and different song, in a joyful tune.

Standing on the promises of Christ my King, thro’ eternal ages let His praises ring;

Glory in the highest, I will shout and sing,

Standing on the promises of God.

Brothers and sisters, because Jesus came in His First Advent to cut a covenant with us in His blood, we can wait for His Second Advent with faith!