Advent is perhaps about nothing if not about faith—believing in and waiting for what may come to be. And the book of Hebrews is written to early Christians as a reminder of and exhortation to faith—to remember the faith of past “heroes” and to renew the call to continued faith in God’s promises.
This could hardly be clearer in Hebrews 11 & 12. Chapter 11 is a catalog of examples from the Old Testament, and it is followed by a call to be aware of this “cloud of witnesses” from the past as they watch over the current inheritors of God’s covenant as they seek to live their own faithful lives.
But as the writer recalls the stories of Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Moses and others, he is aware not only of their having thought to have received a promise from God, and of having presumed that they had acted as asked, but also of the fulfillment seeming a bit muddled, certainly less than complete. The narrative structure of promise, action, and reward doesn’t always follow a simple line.
As in the case from the verses above (11:17-18), what sort of crazy must Abraham have thought about God when, after believing he had a promise to build his legacy on the offspring of Isaac, the son of his and his wife Sarah’s elder years, there comes an order to take Isaac into the bush and kill him. No living legacy there. But for the writer of Hebrews, this is not a story about Abraham complaining that “this isn’t what you told me, God!” It is a reminder that Abraham had acted as he was told to act—to offer his only son as sacrifice, however crazy that must have seemed. If there’s a lesson here, maybe it’s “there’s more to God’s promise than you understand.” The faithful Abraham is provided a scapegoat, an alternate sacrifice, at the last moment, but for the writer of Hebrews, he is a hero because his faith led him to obedience.
I confess that I’d like the promises I am given to be clear and reasonable and kept. I’d like the consistency of a contract fulfilled according to its agreed-upon terms. I do like order. But maybe that’s too human for a promise from God. Maybe that’s not enough faith for Advent. The writer seems to say that if we will live in faith, even when we fail to understand fully where that may lead us, then God will fulfill his promise in ways that are beyond our imagining, in a time we cannot fathom, in a form we may not recognize. It’s not a simple line. The road to our own Advent may involve more than order and reason. It may require the miracle of faith.
Doug Watson