Nothing is Impossible

While we were on the Alaska cruise, we missed a Disciples class. I enjoyed doing my reading on the balcony of our cabin. Sitting on the back of the ship, watching the shore go by, I read Hebrews. Great experience.

Read these verses:

Christ, however, was faithful over God's house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm, the confidence and the pride that belong to hope. Hebrews 3:6

We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain,... Hebrews 6:16

Those verses stopped me. We are taught that pride is a sin, and yet in the verse above, pride is something we hold onto in order to be part of God's house. And hope...we often use the word hope to mean wish, and yet in this verse, hope is the anchor of our soul. I daresay, it is not a wish.


The difference is that these have been transformed by God. It is not our sinful pride, but we are able to boast because of God. It is not our wishing that is the anchor, but God's promise.


And if you keep reading Hebrews, you find this verse:

...looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2

Imagine that -- Christ, crucified, for the sake of the joy that was set before him. Transformation.


I said once in Sunday school that those who are ordained in the UM church say they are moving onto perfection. Someone told me that wasn't possible; I must be mistaken. I wasn't wrong -- it is one of the historical questions. It seems to me if God can transform pride into something to which we must hold firm, hope into steadfast assurance and bring joy from death, then moving me or you to wholeness is not nearly as impossible as it sounds.

With God, all things are possible.

Logos -- Hebrews 2:10-18

I was reading the lectionary readings for this week, and I was stopped by some of the phrases in the Hebrews passage -- 2:10-18.

• Part of verse 13: "I will put my trust in him." -- We spent Advent in Sunday school talking about hope. One thing I learned from those lessons is how much trust is tied up in hope. If hope if the certainty of what we cannot seen, it is grown in the soil of trust. We trust God; therefore, we have hope.
• Verse 15: and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. -- It is obvious (although wonderful) to say that we are given freedom from death by the sacrifice of Jesus. It occurred to me today that we are given freedom from the fear of so many different kinds of death. Can death be metaphorically defined by an ending? Don't you think that we find ourselves captive to our fear of endings? Our fear of the "what next?" Christ gives us freedom from that kind of fear, too. We know that endings bring with them the presence of God, and that by letting go, we open ourselves up to the gift of the future.
• Verse 16 -- For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. -- Isn't it wonderful to realize that Jesus came to help us? That we are important enough to him -- loved so much by him -- that he came to help us?
• Verse 18 -- Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested. -- I find wonderful grace and comfort in that statement. He understands suffering, he understands testing, because he has experienced it. If he has experienced it, he will understand what I am going through.

He came to help us, including teaching us what it means to be human -- experiencing suffering and testing, but doing so in the light of hope. We are freed from hopelessness by trusting in God. Amen.

Persistence

I was watching our hummingbird feeder this morning, and I learned a few lessons in persistence.

1. One of our first hummingbird visitors this morning understood persistence. She stayed on the feeder for a very long time -- longer than I've ever seen a hummingbird remain at the feeder before flying away. She devoted time to the effort. She would perch, she would hover. A couple of times while she was perching, she would open her wings, and I could see the bumblebee nature of them -- veined and translucent. Light as a -- if you'll pardon the expression -- feather.
2. This same hummingbird also demonstrated creativity. Creativity is a wonderful tool to have to enhance your persistence. She tried every place on that feeder to find nectar -- underneath, the middle, the finial on the bottom. She was not going to let any opportunities go by because of a lack of imagination. A little bit later in the morning, either the same bird or another one try to find nectar in the red cardinal finial on our seed feeder set up. No "in the box" thinking here.
3. Even while she was persistent, she was aware of the pitfalls and dangers. She was always on the lookout -- even for other hummingbirds. They are aggressive!
4. As I tried to get pictures, I learned other lessons about persistence. Be prepared. I completely missed taking pictures of our very persistent female visitor because the camera was downstairs. The ones in the post today are of other birds that visited this morning.
5. Be expectant. I would be watching, supposedly waiting for a hummingbird to come along, but I would not be holding the camera at the ready. When one arrived, I would have to raise the camera, re-focus it and then snap. If I had been always expectant, then my persistence would have paid off more often.

The author of Hebrews tells us about running the race. This passage is Hebrews 12:1-3:

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!