Genesis 17:1-16
Mark 8:31-38
In preparation for Christmas, we rushed from Thanksgiving to Christmas, trying to get everything we had to accomplish done. All, while at the same time, balancing the lighting of candles for Faith, Hope, Love and Joy, that the child of God, the Savior, the Messiah prophesied for seven centuries, was entering into the world. Young Mary's pregnancy went from 40 weeks, to Advent being only four weeks of anticipation. In contrast, Lent is a much slower seven weeks, forty days plus the Sundays. Rather than following a girl far too young giving birth to a child, we follow Abram and Sarai, a couple much slower and more reflective about life. God called Abram to leave home and family at 75 years of age following where God would lead, with promise of a child and land and fortunes and esteem. Eleven long years went by, as they wandered the Earth, Abram got to be 86, and no proof, no accomplishment of all God had promised. So Abram and Sarai took her servant Hagar, to make a child for God. Ishmael is born and thirteen more years transpire. Almost 25 years have been accomplished since they were called to leave everything for God, Abram is now over 99 years of age, when God announces a new relationship of faith.

In the Scriptures, relationships of faith require a Covenant and create new identities, not only for the subject of the covenant/ the individual believer, but for everyone. Abram, whose name meant “ancestor” “ancient one” becomes “ancestor of many nations” Abraham. Sarai, who was “princess” becomes Sarah “mother of nations”. God who up until this point in Genesis had been known as the Creator, now is also identified as El Shaddai, “God Almighty”, “the Almighty”, literally God of the mountains, which I like to understand as God of the ends of the Earth. Like the Covenant of the Rainbow with Noah, in which God decided it has been too painful to war against humanity with chaos, God decides to be the God not only of Abraham but of all his future generations. Abram had not accomplished anything, this Covenant was a free act of God, committing that for all future generations God can be trusted to be with us.

Too often we take for granted, seeing a rainbow in the heavens, we imagine “How pretty” or “I wonder if there is a pot of gold at the end?” When what God stated at the cutting of the Covenant, because that is the origin of the ancient root word for Covenant is to “Cut”, was that this C Section in the heavens, this ethereal bow of light is God hanging up Weapons of War. We have known great and terrible wars, we have within recent years deposed dictators, witnessed revolutions for democracy, but when God witnessed the devastation of war, after the battle was over, God hung up the Bow forever. In this new Covenant with Abram becoming Abraham, we react to Circumcision the cutting of our most intimate flesh, we respond to kosher laws of being set apart by our diet, instead of considering, these come in response to God's Covenant to be Trusted, that God would be faithful for all generations. How do we demonstrate being “trustworthy?” In business, what we protect more than anything else is our product's reputation. Thirty years ago, Johnson and Johnson set the industry standard, that when it appeared Tylenol had been tampered with, they pulled all of their product off of the shelves everywhere, until they could come up with a new packaging to ensure their product was trustworthy. In relationships, how do we demonstrate we are trustworthy? The reality is that often we do not fulfill one another's expectations, as spouses and partners, as parents to our children, as employees to our supervisors, as owners of companies to our employees, as peers and neighbors, one of the most heart-breaking for me is that as pastor to those who are dying, as much as we try, we cannot meet all the expectations of one another. We try, we do not betray or abuse that trust, but regardless at times we fail and trust is broken. Beginning during the Superbowl this year, a series of commercials appeared. America's auto industries went bankrupt. The CEOs of the auto industry flew private jets to appear before Congress to ask for money, and were embarrassed for what they had done. Yet, what the commercials now describe is their redemption, having failed, they have come back.

God's Covenant with Abraham, is that no matter what God will still be faithful. We may become angry we God, we may not approve of life, but God is still God and can be counted upon to still be with us, even when for 25 years fulfillment has not happened. In response, Abraham falls on his face and laughs. It could be any number of different responses: Disbelief? Laughing that at 100 years old, I am now going to be a father? That my wife at 80 will be a mother? That God wants me to take a sharp rock and do what to my what? This seems ridiculous! This seems impossible! To go forward means to believe, not just in what is hard, what is expensive, what is impractical, but in the impossible. After 25 years of wandering, that at age 100, that there could still be joy?

Lent involves following as Jesus goes from his own temptation in the wilderness, to the temptation of winning without cost, ever closer to the confrontation of life and death at the cross. Simon Peter thought he had Jesus figured out. When asked “Who do you think Jesus is?” Peter replied without thinking: Jesus was the Messiah, the charismatic leader who would change people's lives. But then Jesus began talking about the costs, what real change would involve, what sacrifice is all about. Confronted with the temptation of power and accomplishments without confronting danger, Jesus says “no.” He stands up to peer pressure, to the expectations of those who follow him, stands up against a life measured in accomplishments, to say “no.”

Martin Luther in the Heidelberg Confession described the distinction between a Theology (a faith in God) based on Glory and a Theology based on the Cross. A Theology based on Glory only sees the accomplishments, without struggle, without hardship, without failure, a theology in which the church conquers the world is a deception, because the point is not the power of the church, the power of God in this world. The only Theology that maters is a theology of the CROSS, the struggle, the hardship, the failures and still believing in God. Every Church Sanctuary you enter, anywhere in the world, will have the symbol of The Cross. It may be understated and implicitly portrayed within the ceiling and doors, the cross may be in the Stained glass windows, or behind the pulpit. But the tragedy, the great travesty, is that for many the cross has become like the rainbow, something pretty that we do not understand, or like circumcision something we laugh about with embarrassment not really wanting to consider.

Taking up your cross is not accepting responsibility for a parent or spouse or child who is ill. Bearing your cross is not having to live with a difficult circumstance. Taking up the Cross, bearing your cross, is embracing life, with all the hardships and impossibilities, and still believing God will be trusted to be God. Where are the places in life, where it seems there is no logical answer, no way to win, nothing to accomplish, and all we can do, the only thing we can do is to try even though it may mean we are going to fail but we will keep trying? Each of us somewhere have a cross, what would be truly amazing, would be for everyone to carry that cross with them in life throughout Lent, and then to bring their cross to Christ's sanctuary. Not that we have a gold cross on the shelf, but that as we have walked through life, cognizant that we have carried the cross through all we have experienced, we now turn over that symbol of death and persecution and hopeless struggle believing in the resurrection.