I watched a local school board meeting on cable access television a few years and found myself most amused at the indecision of one school board member. The topic of the discussion was whether or not to lengthen the school year because of excessive snow days. This particular school board member changed her opinion on three different votes on the subject, nervously laughing after the third vote that she just couldn't make up her mind. I'm not sure her fellow board members found her indecision as amusing as she did.
Some decisions are obviously easier to make than others. Whipped cream and a cherry on that hot fudge sundae,,,of course! Get up early to take a walk or stay in bed another twenty minutes...well....??? The writer of the book of Hebrews finds himself in a moment of decision...a moment of truth, if you will, in which he must decide whether or not God can be trusted. He prefaces his final declaration with a belief that Christ presents his followers with a new and living way. This belief is based on the perfect sacrifice offered through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. This is not a casual relationship built on strictly ideological or theological discourse...this is about the relentless pursuit of sinful human beings by the Creator God whose ultimate act of love was to offer his only Son as atonement for your sins and mine. In response to what God has done, he writes, "Let us hold firmly to the hope that we have confessed, because we can trust God to do what he promised."
This is, for the writer, a moment of decision. He will hold firmly to what he has already declared...no turning back, no reconsideration because of changing circumstance...his is the assurance that God can be trusted, so he will stand firm. In the shifting sands of contemporary living, where values are often situational
and decisions questioned from all sides, there is a foundation of faith that empowers one to live in the mercy, grace, and forgiveness of God. Let these words ring in your ears and be called forth to your lips again and again on this Lenten journey, "...we can trust God to do what he promised."
Amen and Amen!
Jim Abernathy
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