March 9, 2010

Hebrews 11

In a way, this is almost an answer to my question of if I'm making it too easy on myself. After all, one of my main beliefs and strays from traditional Catholic and Christian doctrine is that you don't have to be Christian to go to heaven. You don't even have to be Christian, I have come to believe, to follow God. He loves us so much, I can't imagine Him loving the atheists and Jews and Hindus of my acquaintance less than I do - or less than He loves me, finding any way He can to speak to them to tell them of His great love.

But oh, what it means to have this tradition of faith. Chapter Eleven is a beautiful and brief recap of the Old Testament, hitting most of the big names and many that have since become rather lost in the shuffled (although with Enoch and Rahab in particular that's a real shame). And just before Noah, just after Enoch who was taken up into heaven like Mary, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him."

And the most beautiful part of this passage is probably the longest story, Abraham's, and the description of their journey: "They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are speaking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them."

I mean, wow. That's beautiful. And how many of us have felt that way? We want to go home, when this world is cruel and makes us weary. When those we love hurt us, when we don't feel close to God here, when everything just becomes so very hard. Even when things are wonderful. There are those among us whom the world can never seem to touch, and sometimes at my best I feel like one of them. And even when the briars catch and pull me down, I am always reminded, I am seeking my true home. I am on a path to my true, heavenly home.

Imagine a whole people moving through the desert on such a mission, with such a goal and such full hearts, for forty years. Always for our mistakes we are punished with the scenic route. Always for our love we are shown that we are already in the Kingdom of God.

May God always be proud to be called our God. But then, that was for the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish race and faith. If He was going to come down as a tribal deity, then the people He chose to introduce Him to the rest of the world were truly beautiful people. I love this description of them and how they made Him proud.

But at the end of the long list (including the Gentile believer Rahab notably), Paul sighs that this was not the end point of the story. This was not a history lesson about where the Hebrew people came from or how God is, now, currently, reaching out to His people. It is a reminder that the rules have changed.

"Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect." Faith was not enough, in the end. Because we still fell down and wandered in the desert. It took the salvation of Jesus Christ. And that was free to all mankind. Forever.

What a beautiful story was building towards His sacrifice, His humanity, His words spoken in a simple human tongue. What a glorious thing has replaced it.