Faith

Brothers and sisters: Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Because of it the ancients were well attested. By faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being through the invisible. By faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice greater than Cain's. Through this, he was attested to be righteous, God bearing witness to his gifts, and through this, though dead, he still speaks.

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was found no more because God had taken him. Before he was taken up, he was attested to have pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him, for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

By faith Noah, warned about what was not yet seen, with reverence built an ark for the salvation of his household. Through this, he condemned the world and inherited the righteousness that comes through faith. (Hebrews 11:1-7)

We are about to enter Lent leading us to Holy Week.  We focus on hope and what we have never seen – the Resurrection.  It’s what we call faith through which we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being through the invisible. 

The universe is an immensely big place, and our planet is just a speck of dust within it.  Therefore, the wonder of Earth, and us as walking and talking primates having evolved from star dust with God being our architect, makes us realize the majesty of creation.  We humans are primates – a diverse group including some 200 species. Monkeys, lemurs and apes are our cousins, and we all have evolved from a common ancestor over the last 60 million years.  

For those of us who refuse to believe this and are totally committed to the Adam and Eve story, check out the Scopes [Monkey] Trial of 1925.  This trial “publicized the fundamentalist–modernist controversy, which set Modernists, who said evolution could be consistent with religion, against fundamentalists, who said the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge. The case was thus seen both as a theological contest and as a trial on whether evolution should be taught in schools…It was not until the 1960s that the Scopes trial began to be mentioned in the history textbooks which were used in American high schools and colleges, they usually portrayed it as an example of the fundamentalists and modernists, and it was frequently mentioned in the sections of those same textbooks which also described the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the South.”  Watch the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind, starring Spencer Tracey and Frederic March that vividly depicts that trial.  

The LORD works in mysterious ways.  It’s up to us to unpack those mysteries and to then realize we who approach God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.  This Lent and during Holy Week we are to approach God.  Perhaps we also should renew our faith in science though which we have come to understand the visible and invisible.  Science provides us with evidence of things not yet seen - and there is still much to see.

Deacon David Pierce