Yes … I really do talk about both of those people. If you don’t like it, “Pardon me for breathing.”
Luke 12:32-40; Hebrews 11:13,8-16; Psalm 33:12-22; Genesis 15:1-6
In 1641, philosopher René Descartes published Meditations on First Principles. This was a 6-part work in which Descartes sought out to find out what exactly is going on with our world. In the first meditation, he sets up his plan to systematically doubt everything that he ever thought he knew, operating on the assumption that nothing is real unless proven to be so. It’s kind of an interesting proposition, as he completely lays aside his beliefs in everything – himself, God, the world around us – and starts from a place of nothingness.
In the second meditation, he discovers that because he is contemplating the existence of things outside of himself, that he must exist. It’s a fairly simple argument that takes him a while to flesh out, yet it is important because he’s essentially set aside faith in everything. The third meditation has Descartes exploring the existence of God. Beginning with his own existence, he concludes that something must have created him, and that something could only have been God.
Meditations on First Principles is an interesting little philosophical work, one that I had the “joy” of reading good portions of in a high school philosophy class, but also raises interesting questions of faith for us as Christians. Descartes started with himself, and decided there must be a God. That’s all well and good, but not exactly what the Bible teaches. Descartes saw faith as something to but be put aside. In essence, if it can’t be proved it isn’t real. But our reading from Hebrews tells us that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”. Faith is believing in something that cannot be proved.
Hebrews 11 is sometimes called the “Faith Hall of Fame”, because they’re all people to whom God made a promise, even though they didn’t completely see the outcome. Abel’s sacrifice, made in faith, was acceptable to God even though Cain’s wasn’t. Enoch’s faith was rewarded by being taken up into heaven. Noah built an ark, though he was mocked by everyone around him for doing so, and he was saved from the flood. Abraham left his home to go to Canaan even though he had no idea what to expect when he got there. Then, when he and his wife were too old to have children, God gave them a son, Isaac. Even after all that, when God asked him to offer his son as a sacrifice, he did, trusting in God always. Isaac and Jacob each blessed their sons in their faith, and Joseph prophesied about the Exodus. Moses’ parents trusted in God to care for their young son when they set him adrift in the river. Moses himself sided with his people even while raised as an Egyptian. Then he trusted God to watch over the people of Israel when give instruction on the Passover. When the Exodus happened, with the Red Sea before them and the Egyptian army behind, the people of Israel trusted the power of God to keep the waters back and they crossed on dry land. During the siege of Jericho, the people trusted God collapse the walls and he did. Rahab had faith, and the Israelites spared her and her family. And then the text reminds us of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who through their faith conquered kingdoms, administed justice, were saved from lions, were not harmed in flames, were saved from death, had sons raised from the dead, endured stoning, tortures, poverty, and pain – all because of faith.
But the amazing thing, all of these people mentioned, are Old Testament people. They endured all this, yet still hadn’t experienced the greatest promise of God to his people, his Son. They still trusted God to watch over them, to care for them, and to give them eternal life.
That’s what faith is – trusting in God to care for us, forgive us, and ultimately give us eternal life. Of course, sometimes we think that faith and proof don’t go well together. In Douglas Adam’s book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, there is a small fish called a “Babel fish”, which when inserted into the ear translates any language for you. The book goes on to say that, since there is absolutely no way the Babel fish could develop naturally, it proved God’s existence thereby eliminating the need for faith and causing God to immediately not exist. While the concept in the book is quite silly, as is most things Douglas Adams writes, it does reflect a certain tension in our culture that faith and fact can’t mix.
But that’s not the way it is. Abraham was promised as many descendants as there are stars in the sky when he was quite young, yet he didn’t have his first child until he was 85, and that wasn’t the child God promised, Isaac, who wasn’t born until Abraham was at least 100. Even though it took some time, Abraham’s faith was perfected by the fact of Isaac’s birth. Similarly, the promise of the Messiah had been given to Israel long before Jesus was born, yet faith didn’t go away when Jesus was born, faith was made complete.
Scripture is full of God’s promises to us, and many of them have yet been fulfilled. But we trust in faith that God will come through, because so many of his promises have been fulfilled. Because Jesus has been raised from the dead, we have faith that God will do the same for all who died in Christ. Because God takes care of the birds, we have faith that God will do the same for all of us. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. And then, when we do see it, we can celebrate God’s faithfulness to us and to all His creation.