The Assurance of Things Hoped For

I love the definition of faith with which our reading from Hebrews begins: “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
 
It’s poetic language, but the point is not too complicated. God has made promises to us. God’s promises give us hope. And because God’s promises are trustworthy, we can rest assured in that hope. That’s what Hebrews says faith is—a deep trust in the promises of God.
 
We all know what it means to trust someone’s promises, to have faith that another person will do what he or she promises to do.
 
Here’s a trivial example from my own life. On a backpacking trip years ago, I got caught in the rain a little before lunchtime. I was not far from a shelter, which on the Appalachian Trail is a simple structure with a floor, a roof, and three walls. I figured I would wait out the storm in the relative comfort of the shelter.
 
To my great chagrin, I arrived at the shelter to find it already full of people. But I didn’t want to hike in the rain, so, unhappily, I pushed my way in.
 
Making me still more unhappy, the rain kept coming, and so did more hikers. After a while, our shelter was badly overcrowded, and it was clear that the rain was not going to let up for the rest of the day. I realized I was stuck there for the rest of that day and that night. I was in misery.
 
One of the hikers in the shelter announced to the group that he was waiting for friends who were coming out for an overnight. When they arrived, he planned to tent with them.
 
We were all enthusiastic about the prospect of somebody leaving the shelter. But none of us believed him. No sane person would voluntarily come out for an overnight in that kind of rain.
 
Despite our skepticism, the hiker insisted his friends would show, and he never wavered. Sure enough, later that afternoon, his friends showed up.
 
That hiker had something like the faith described in Hebrews. His friends had promised they would come. He trusted their promises. He felt assurance in the thing he hoped for.
 
That’s a trivial example. A bigger one is marriage. Carrie and I celebrated our thirty-third wedding anniversary during our trip. Thirty-three years ago, we promised each other that we would be faithful for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, until we are parted by death.
 
We each made those promises in the hope that the other would honor them. Our promises have been tested at times. Our trust in each other has wavered at points. But so far, we have both held to the assurance that when push came to shove, the other would come through. We have faith in each other.
 
Hebrews reminds us that Abraham had that kind of relationship with God. So, when God promised Abraham a new home, Abraham trusted God enough to set out for the promised land. When God promised Abraham a child with his wife Sarah, and eventually descendants as many as the stars of heaven or the grains of sand on the seashore, Abraham trusted that one, too. Abraham felt assurance that God would give him the things he hoped for. Abraham had faith in God.
 
But then Hebrews takes a turn. It notes that Abraham, and the other heroes of the faith it mentioned before him, “died in faith without having received the promises.” It was only “from a distance [that] they saw and greeted them.”
 
Abraham lived in the promised land, but only “as in a foreign land, living in tents.” Abraham never actually inherited the land that God promised to his descendants. And, although Abraham did have a son with his wife Sarah, he didn’t live to see his grandchildren and great grandchildren begin to really multiply.
 
And, of course, the deeper promise to Abraham, the one God only hinted at, was the coming of the Messiah, God’s own Son, to make all things right. But Abraham died when Christ’s coming was still centuries away.
 
The point Hebrews makes is that Abraham lived in faith, and Abraham died in faith, still trusting God’s promises and still waiting to receive the fullness of God’s promises. Abraham was not always patient in his waiting. But Abraham never lost faith.
 
Bring it forward to us. We are the people of God in this generation. We inherit all the promises that God has made to God’s people. And in one important way, we are blessed beyond anything Abraham received because we know Christ not as a distant hope, but as a figure that lived in our past and continues with us in the present.
 
We have God’s promises. Those promises offer us hope. Those promises are the basis for our faith.
 
But like Abraham’s, our hope is so far largely unrealized. Christ defeated death, and yet we die. Christ overcame sin and evil, and yet sin abounds and evil often seems triumphant. Christ came to redeem creation, and yet, when I look around, I don’t see God’s kingdom bursting forth all around me.
 
And so the question for us, as God’s people today, is, do we still have faith? Do we still trust the promises of God to come true in all their fullness? And, are we prepared to stake our lives on that faith, as Abraham did?
 
When the stakes are low, the answer is easy. I happily trust God as long as I believe that God’s promises don’t demand much of me. But how about when the stakes are high?
 
The Chosen is a fabulous series dramatizing the life of Jesus. The series generally stays close to Scripture, but also expands the biblical story in ways that I love, including adding characters.
 
(I am going to do my best to avoid spoilers here, but spoiler alert.) In an episode from the fourth season, a major character dies. The disciples all loved her, and one of the disciples especially loved her.
 
As the woman is dying, Jesus approaches. And the disciple who loved the dying woman begs Jesus, “Lord, heal her, please. I know you can do it. I’ve seen you do it for others.” Jesus replies, “I love you. The Father loves you. But it is not her time to be healed.”
 
It’s a severe test for the disciple. Jesus has promised to restore all things. But the disciple has just lost the person he loves most in the world. Can he continue to trust Jesus’ promises? Can he hold on to his assurance of things hoped for? Can he continue to walk in faith when it is really hard?
 
Like Abraham, like this disciple, we have our own tests, times when things are not going well, times when it seems like God’s kingdom is retreat.
 
And we have God’s promise, repeated in our Gospel reading. The Son of Man is coming, at an unexpected hour.
 
I have never been tested as severely as that disciple was, and as some of you have been. But what I know from Christian history, what I know from my own life, is that God continues to act, that God continues to touch us and heal us, that God continues with us always, whether or not we are aware of God’s presence.
 
And so I, we, continue our journey in faith, waiting and hoping for the final fulfillment of God’s promises, and trusting that God will help us in our struggles all along the way.
 
In Christ’s name. Amen.