Suggested Scripture Reading: Romans, Chapters 4-5
Scripture Emphasis
Romans 5: 1-2 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”
Here is one essential fact for everyone to grasp;
for both those who have travelled far on faith’s road and those just now contemplating a beginning on that path. Bind this truth to your heart with ‘hoops of steel’; It IS NEVER ONE’S FEEBLE HOLD ON GOD THAT MATTERS MOST; IT IS RATHER GOD’S MIGHTY GRASP ON YOU.
Christians across the spectrum know that the Old Testament personage, Abraham, is identified as “the father of faith.” From youth, Bible stories of Abraham’s remarkable faith in God become a catalyst helping to develop our own.
But where does Abraham’s faith have its origin? Was faith something that had an arbitrary beginning somewhere within the human psyche? Is Abraham’s faith a sincere attempt to grapple with earthy mysteries, therefore making necessary the creation of a deity?
The only possible answer to any such suggestions is “NO.” It is never from within that one can expect to discover the origin of such endowments as faith, love, hope and mercy. None of these virtues flow from the fountain of our ‘ humanness.’ Someone or some Force has been there before to plant the flag of sovereign ownership.
Each person is more than a mere physical container to hold the world’s abundant offerings. There are latent energies that slumber in the depth of each soul. Aptitudes and talents and the essence of every possible virtue wait for the human will to discover and assimilate. To be truly human is to understand that a twofold destiny awaits our discovery. The body’s mind insists that the whole body is little more than an entity of materiality, part and parcel of all that has life. The SOUL, however, is created with the double function of relating the body to all that has life; BUT as well, it conveys to the mind news of a spiritual entity that implores us to explore the origin of our being. That spiritual entity is God, Who remains ‘The Prime Mover.’
Abraham’s initial experience of God was not the result of human thought but instead the revelatory activity of God. Abraham began to think about God because God first thought about Abraham. God left a God-shaped blank inside Abraham, with the longing to have it filled with Himself. Before Abraham became known as ” the Father of Faith, to the nations, God guided him to that inner sanctum where the mystery is made known to him.
Every infant step along his way now reveals an unseen hand to guide. Songs, unintended, coming to his soul in the dark of the fearsome night, could no longer be dismissed. His uncommitted attitude, so prevalent in his life, now in God’s presence, is a panacea of faith undertakings. And God counted Abraham’s total birthing experience as righteousness.
I imagine that Abraham’s response at that moment must have been,” It was YOU all the time; You were there all The Time.” God’s mighty grasp on him finally replaces Abraham’s feeble hold on God.
St. Paul, in his majestic Letter To the Romans, gathers the strands of ancient Hebrew history to reveal the greater revelation of God’s Redeeming Love for our Salvation.”
It is God’s mighty grasp on Jesus that is His greatest manifestation to us, earth dwellers. Every attempt to maintain one’s grasp on faith, love and truth and all other virtues in this world will amount to naught. Jesus demonstrates this truth throughout His life and ministry.
His helplessness in Bethlehem’s manger evokes the company of God’s angels.
Every worldly attempt to have Jesus fulfill God’s mission fades in the grasp of God’s mighty hand.
In His parting cry from Calvary’s Cross,” Father, into Thy Hands, I commit my spirit,” the glorious truth is undeniably upheld in the mighty Grasp of God’s hand even the last enemy, death, is itself destroyed!
A Prayer To Follow This Meditation
Faithful Father,
Our most carefully crafted words are impotent to capture our thoughts of Your faithfulness towards us all.
A little child is far too young to understand the mysteries that tax even the genius of great minds to comprehend the vast universe fully. You faithfully provide for a child to feel perfectly at home here. When the night is dark, and the temptation is to feel afraid, You fill the sky with twinkling stars. You provide a simple melody, and before long, the night resounds with the music of an innocent child’s praise, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle little star, How I wonder what you are.’ Fear is gone, and the child engages in awesome wonder.
The prodigal son left behind a life of promise and fell for the mistaken image of freedom offering in some free and undisciplined environment. He soon realizes the vision was a cruel mirage. But he also becomes aware that You, God, are there all the time offering to deliver him.
Many times, Father, the night pauses again to hear some other sing a melody of liberation,
‘ Shackled by a heavy burden, neath a load of guilt and shame, Then the hand of Jesus touched me, Now I am no longer the same.’
And again, in that sacred moment when one is sitting at the bedside of one who before long will leave an empty void. It is a thought that drips like molten lead on your naked heart. Until with perfect empathy, that departing loved one intercepts,” Good night, my child, I will see you in the morning.”
Even that moment is a time of Your divine revelation. I have known God to use the parting words of a beloved to initiate ‘the glory of the lighted mind.’
One then knows as never before, that God’s mighty grasp on you far exceeds your feeble grasp on Him.
All thanks and praise be to You, O faithful Father. Amen.
Hymn: All the Way My Saviour Leads Me