2309AFC030523 – That’s a YES for me! – Lent week 2
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Genesis 12:1, 4 – 1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
Psalm 33:22 – 22 Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.
2 Timothy 1:8 b – join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God
Matthew 17:9 – 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him. I cannot account for it at the moment, but just as whose words came on the page, a number from Sister Act hit “broadcast” in my head – I will follow him (↔ Music Link). It still makes my eyes get all teary. Despite whatever feeling I might have for the writer, the star of the film, or the original intent of the song, when I sing it in my heart and make it about Jesus, that’s all I need to start jumping and singing, and clapping and exulting in the Lord! Isn’t strange that a secular song sung by secular artists, set in a semi-religious context can have such a deep and stirring effect?
I have come to realize that such a reaction can indeed occur anywhere along our Faith Journey, but it more likely to come towards the end after we have unlearned most of the prejudices and prideful error we collected between the ages of, say 17 and 67. That’s fifty years of mellowing, and it’s got to have an effect if we have truly given our lives over to our God and Savior Christ Jesus. We are certainly called upon do to things that are difficult, and Jesus himself told us that if this life is to be a bed of roses, we’re going to have to bear with the thorns. There are such tremendous joys (↔ Music Link) to be had in the Christian Life! But we also know from Genesis to Revelation, there is sacrifice and suffering for all who follow him.
We have often referred to our Old Friend Abraham(↔ Learning Link) and the preparation God gave him before blessing him with Isaac. Have any of us ever wondered what Abram did before he wound up giving a Tithe to Melchizedek? How was it that God got him to travel nearly 300 miles from his home, and who went with him? Here’s a bit of biblical history we don’t talk about much: Joshua 24:2-3 – 2 And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors—Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods. 3 Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac. Can you imagine what it must have been like to hear, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.” I’m 75, and I find it hard to go from Kapaʻa to Lihuʻe – about 11 miles! In a car!!
It was Terah who made the trip from Ur to Haran, and later Abram – before God bestowed the covenantal name Abraham. Their gods in Chaldea were most likely idols devoted to the moon. When God call Abram to go to an unknown place, he left his father’s grave, the bulk of his family, perhaps a considerable portion of his riches and made what preparations he could to travel. It seems that perhaps there was a considerable retinue with him, because when he learned his nephew Lot had been captured and hauled off to the area of Dan (↔ Map Learning Link), he took a small army (318 troops) and rescued Lot and recovered all the goods lost. {I recommend a little side trip sometime this weekend to read Genesis 13-15 (↔ Learning Link). We need to reacquaint ourselves with “Our Old Friend, Abraham.”} He traveled around as a shepherd (see, God has always loved shepherds!), became very rich, and finally ended up sending Lot off in one direction and took another direction toward Caanan while Lot moved toward Sodom. All of these things prepared Abram to be Abraham, the Father of many Nations. God prepared him for that role. Part of that preparation was getting up and leaving everything that made him comfortable and heading out to a place he’d never seen. What am I, you, we called to walk toward while leaving all behind? What hope have we that could match Abraham’s? More importantly, what faith have we that could match Abraham’s?
If we look far down the Bible timeline, we come upon one of Abraham’s descendants – King David. In a rather striking summary of Abram’s faith and later his loyalty to God, David says in Psalm 33:22 – 22 Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in you. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, all descendants of The Promise. Through Jacob, called Israel by the Angel of God, came the 
founders of the Twelve Tribes – Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph, and Benjamin – and from them the whole history of the Nation of Israel has its generations of people, periods of splendor and periods of dissipation, periods of power and periods of subjection, until one day a sweet young woman named Mary said YES. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord (↔ Music Link); let it be with me according to your word.” (See Luke 1:38) Her fiat should be/must be our fiat, too. Why? Because our hope is in the Lord who made Heaven and Earth and everything in and around Earth because of Love. Dare we say YES to Love? Ah, ʻŌmea, dare we not say YES to Love? And yet if we do say YES, what then? Are we also saying YES to immeasurable blessings with persecutions? (See Mark 10:28-30) YES, we are! Why? Because Jesus said so, and Jesus is God, so that’s that – except that after all of those blessings and persecutions, there is Eternal Life. That’s not bad for just saying YES. But wait! There’s MORE!
We have that “cheery little note” from The Apostle Paul: 2 Timothy 1:8 b – join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God. Whoa! That’s a heck of a club to join if all we’re looking for is party hearty. What happened to “Peace I leave you; MY Peace I give you” as we find in John 14:27? As Jesus spoke those words, he knew right well what his YES would cost him – hours of agony, death, a trip to Sheol to preach to the souls there, and a Resurrection. Why? Because of Love. “For God so Loved the World that he gave his only begotten son …” (See John 3:16-19, especially verses 17-18) At the moment of The Incarnation, Jesus, God as the Word made Flesh, gave a YES that literally killed him – but he did it, and to the maximum – Τετέλεσται, (Tetélestai) {teh-TEH-les-tie}. Jesus had not gone to his death completely unaware of what was happening, what would happen, or what the results would be. He fully understood what was in that cup he asked his Father 
about in Gethsemane. He completely emptied that cup so that it was fully-completed, made-to-order, exactly-right process concluded properly and correctly in every possible way. He completed that process in the same way that Adam had undone the perfection of creation. Adam’s fall and death came through the use of his free will to disobey. Jesus’ death and resurrection came through the use of his free will to obey. Adam said, “God, I know what you want, but I want to do it myself.” Jesus said, “Nevertheless, thy will be done.” Knowing what he knew, that was a very big and important YES, especially because of the mysterious promise he implied after his transfiguration.
As he and the three Apostles with him – Peter, James, and John – descended the mountain where Jesus was Glorified in the Presence of Moses and Elijah, he gave them this admonition found in Matthew 17:9 – 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” We read some additional information in Mark 9:10 – 10 So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean. They were just a few days out from Jesus’ declaration that he “must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (See Mark 8:31-38). Jesus predicted his death at least three times in the synoptic Gospels. The dramatizations of his Passion in the Mass Media sometimes portray him as a helpless man spiraling down toward disaster without any understanding. That is a LIE, a favorite device of ha-Satan, the Accuser. His answer is always NO. It was his jealousy of the Power of God and God’s intention to bring man closer to himself and thus higher than the angels that brought death into the world as we read in Wisdom 4:23-24 –
| Verse | Explication |
| and they [the wicked] did not know the secret purposes of God | [eternal life and beatitude with him] |
| nor hoped for the wages of holiness, | [eternal life after the Resurrection at the end of time |
| nor discerned the prize for blameless souls; | [everlasting, constantly renewed Life] |
| 23 for God created us for incorruption, | [to be with him forever] |
| and made us in the image of his own eternity | [we are created in his image – eternal and Holy] |
| 24 but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, | [and our First Parents said YES to that!] |
| and those who belong to his company experience it | [This deprivation of our original justice and original holiness ended our close spiritual familiarity with our Creator.] |
GNT version (← Check it out!)
What can my YES cost me? Everything. What can my YES gain for me? EVERYTHING and MORE! We have often said here, “Why would you want anything less?” YES means more. NO means less. We’re going to do a quick deep-see on Mark 34-38, but particularly verse 36:
34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? * 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
* Some translations have the word “soul” here. The Greek word is psuché {psoo-khay’} which is “the breath of life, the human soul.” It corresponds exactly to the Hebrew word nephesh {neh’-fesh} “a soul, living being, life.”
So, Belovéd, lose a life or save a life? Be alive or not alive? Be deprived of original justice and original holiness or be depraved and unwilling and unable to accept the Grace of God? Do I, do you, do we want to be back in the Presence of God for eternity? I want a seat close to the threshold of the Throne Room so I can hear the angels sing! That’s a YES for me! How about you, ʻŌmea? When we stand before the Trinity, the Word that has spoken will be the judge and tally up our YES’s to them. How many of those will be YES for God and how many will be YES for Satan? We struggle with that daily, but that’s why we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation. That’s also called the M.A.P., and all of this is the APP. In the Absolutely Perfect Plan, you and I have a part, a major role in fact. We are the ones who chose to stand up and say, “That’s a YES for me!” I think I hear the angles calling, “Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, It’s off to Home we go.” Well, something like that anyway. 😉 Can I mark you as a YES, too?
If you would like to find a really mind-blowing reading, choose Wisdom, Chapter 11; you will conclude that the last three verses (24-26) apply to all who are called Earthlings.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
