Being a person of faith today runs counter to the messages we face every day. We owe it to ourselves to rediscover how to keep holding and strengthening our faith as things in our lives shift and change, and as things in the world make us lose confidence that God is still working. Our faith is being tested. It is being tested by declining church attendance; by the current social issues in our nation, global warming, wars, poverty and strife – all of which dominate the media. We are also tested through personal experiences, changes with our aging bodies, and losing people we love or care for. Holding onto faith means remaining resolute amidst these changes, one of the hardest things we can do. Lent gives time to examine our faith, to pause and focus on God’s redemptive plan for ourselves and the world. The Eastern Orthodox church calls Lent the Bright Sadness. It is such a contrast – two sides of the same coin – one cannot exist without the other. It captures the sadness our Saviour endured, and the dawning of Easter day – Jesus is the Bright Light of the world.
In the book of Romans, chapter 4 is a rousing faith-fuelled passage that takes us to the start of God’s redemptive plan: the calling of Abraham. Abraham is a great example of humanity’s folly and repeated failure. He did not keep faith in God’s promise, and tried to sort it himself with Ishmael and Hagar. After 25 years of waiting, Isaac was born. Not too far into Isaac’s life, Abraham’s faith is tested extremely: obeying the harshest of instructions to sacrifice his only son Isaac, whose descendants will be more numerous than the stars in the sky. What kind of faith did Abraham have to go ahead with this? The Abraham we see at this point is different. He had faith to do as he was asked. We know the story well. At the last minute, a ram was caught in the bushes, and Isaac lived to a good age, continuing the family line. How wonderful to know God’s redemptive plan, right at the birth of the chosen nation.
In Mark’s Gospel, chapter 8 is a pivotal passage. Jesus begins to reveal His destiny to His followers. He would undergo great suffering, be rejected by elders, killed and three days later, He will rise. Jesus was showing them their faith journey as His followers. Yet, they still did not grasp it. He then gave a huge faith challenge – being His followers means denying oneself and take-up the cross. Jesus knew a year before that He would die in this horrific way. I am perplexed that none of His followers’ faith was strong enough to believe what Jesus was saying. His would be the sacrifice that wasn’t reprieved as it was for Abraham.
In this season of Bright Sadness, the challenge for all of us is to grow our faith, to examine where we are in our faith journey. We do this by waiting and seeking God through prayer, reading His word and meeting together to share in the sad moments, then rejoice together in celebrating our Risen Lord, falling more in love with our amazing Saviour and God.
(Reflection written by Ruth Fabby)
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