It seems very much removed from my experience, as I expect it does from yours. But the Lord was meeting Abram where he was, not where we are now. Just as the Lord communicates with us in our time and in ways we'll understand. I think this shows us the true character, even the humility of God. Not that He expects us to get to His level before coming into a relationship with Him. No, He comes down to our level to lift us up to Him.
The covenant isn't between equal partners. It's the Lord who takes the initiative and makes an everlasting relationship of love with Abram and his descendants. In this covenant God is really saying: "Let me be sacrificed, as these as these animals were, if it isn't fulfilled. I'll take the blame and the consequences myself, even if you and your descendants break this covenant." Abram and his wife Sarai had been unable to have children, and yet the Lord promised what seemed to be impossible, that his descendants would be too many to count. Nevertheless he: "Believed the Lord, and the Lord declared him righteous because of his faith." (1)
Because Abram took the Lord at His word and put his life into the Lord's hands, he was brought into a right relationship with God. At that moment the history of mankind was changed, because out of Abram and his descendants came Jesus the Saviour. Heaven held its breath when the Lord called Abram, as it did when Mary was asked if she would accept the call to be Mother of the Saviour. Both were free to say "Yes" or "No" to these invitations from the Lord. What a risk for Him to take! Allowing Himself to be so vulnerable that He trusted Himself to human beings.
The character of the righteousness, which the Lord gave to Abram and his descendants in faith, is self-sacrificing love, in place of our natural self-love and self-righteousness. And we're the descendants promised to Abram because of our faith in the Lord Jesus. Paul gives us assurance of this in his Letter to the Galatians: "Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham." (2) he writes. Not because we belong to a particular country or race of people, but because we, as Abram did, have taken the Lord at His word.
He's not a distant Lord: He's down here with us pulling us out of the mire, washing the dirt off so that we can be just like Him, just like Jesus. To put it another way, in the words of the Apostle Paul: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (3) Because He loves us just as we are, but wants so much more for us, Jesus "didn't demand or cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing, and was born as a man. And humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's death on a cross." (4) "All of this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, not counting [our sins against us] (5)
- It reminds me of the story of two friends who lost contact with each other when they left school. One went up in the world and became a distinguished Judge; the other went down in the world and became a criminal. Years later they met again in the Judge's Court when the criminal pleaded guilty to a crime he'd committed. The Judge recognised his friend and faced a dilemma. He was a Judge so he had to be just; he couldn't let the man off. On the other hand he didn't want to punish him, because he loved his old friend. What could he do? He sentenced the man to be fined the correct penalty for his crime, but the man had no money. Then the Judge took off his wig, descended into the body of the Court and wrote out a cheque to pay the fine. (6)
Every Sunday, in a real spiritual sense, we come here to celebrate the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. No more so than Easter, and particularly at the Easter Vigil, when each of us should reflect on the reality of our own Baptism. Paul says: "We were buried through baptism into [Jesus'] death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too may live a new life." (7)
None of us can say, "I was born a Christian." None of us should say, "I'm Baptised," and leave it at that. Each of us must ask the Spirit to fan into a flame the spark, which was ignited at our Baptism. But how? Jesus answers that. He said: "You must be born again. No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Sprit." (8)
So we must pray, for the Spirit to come upon us this Easter and make that happen. If we don't, then our own Christian life, and the life of our Christian community, is going to slowly shrivel up and die.
(1) Gen. 15: 5-6
(2) Gal. 3: 7
(3) 2 Cor. 5: 21
(4) Phil. 2: 6-8 paraphrase
(5) 2 Cor. 5: 18-19
(6) Nicky Gumbel: Questions of Life.
(7) Rm. 6: 3-4
(8) Jn. 3: 3 & 5