The Second Sunday of Lent A, March 5, 2023
The Second Sunday of Lent A, March 5, 2023
Free will belongs to God. Only the Lord asserts his will inevitably. No surprise, then, that the Lord exercises his will upon Abram. Listen to the ways the Lord asserts his will: Go! I will show you… I will make of you… I will bless you… make your name great… I will bless those… I will curse those… (vs. 1-3). Abram is the recipient of all this “willing” on the part of the Lord… and that “willing” is effective. The Lord said, “Go!” and Abram went. He went as the Lord had told him (vs. 4). As the Lord wills, so it is. As the Lord says, so it is.
All those expressions of the Lord’s will are to be played out over generations of people and centuries of time until the Lord’s will receive fulfillment in the Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:16). This fulfillment of the Lord’s will now extends to you for you are the children of the promise (Ro. 9:8). You’ve received the righteousness of faith (Ro. 4:13). You belong to the families of the earth blessed by Abraham’s Seed, Jesus Christ (Ge. 12:3).
Now you, the children of the promise, wait in faith for the consummation of the Lord’s will when the Seed of Abraham appears in his glory. This faith is your righteousness; the Lord imputes it to you (cf. Ge. 15:6). This faith is the blessing all the families of the earth receive in Jesus Christ, Abraham’s seed.
And, oh what a blessing it is! In faith, you have the real presence of Jesus Christ in you as a redeeming reality. In faith, you are reconciled to God through Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:19). In faith, you are the new creature in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). In faith, you have all the evidence you need of the things unseen (He. 11:1). In faith, you go as the Lord tells you just as Abram went for the Lord had told him (Ge. 12:4). So that you would have such faith, the Lord provides you with the ministry of Word and Sacrament. In that ministry, the Lord reveals his will toward you, establishing once again that he is your trustworthy God.
Table Talk: Discuss waiting in faith for the will of God to be fulfilled.
Pray: Heavenly Father, grant to me such faith in Christ that it would be all the evidence I need of the New Creation’s reality. Amen
Genesis 12:1-9 English Standard Version
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring, I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.