All the theology of the church came later as a way to explicate and account for this reality. The fundamental records are a witness of faith to faith. We stand in the continuity of the faith , not of its demonstrable certainty. What is demanded of me is no less an act of faith than was demanded of Peter, Paul, or John.
To be a Christian is to to sail on perilous seas. We live by faith, and it's never a finished faith. Mine has been collapsed and lying around me in shambles time after time. I've had to stop and reconsider and slowly build it up again, inasmuch as one builds it by oneself.
We trust what those before us trusted. We do not need to find the remains of the Ark in order to have faith as those before us had faith. We do not need to be able to secure power in the world in order to know that our faith is resting in the proper place. We are out on the edge of something promised and we take it by faith that the promise will bring new life. In that way, we are much like the faithful that have gone before us. Even though we say we are baptized in Christ, Jesus, and have new life, it doesn't mean that the story is over. Rather, the new life of faith begins anew every day. Every day we are invited to have faith in this promise that God is love and the witness of that love we have come to know in Jesus is a real way of life that is open to us. Unfortunately, it will be a very vulnerable pathway that may not appear to be the best way to go in this world...and yet, like those saints of old, the invitation is still ours and we are encouraged to trust in its way. This faith in the is promise is not like having a diamond ring or precious stone we can hold onto for security. Rather it is something that can be moved by the wind of the day. Our prayer therefore, is one that asks that we might be anchored to this promise so that we will again and again be able to return to this promise that is...for ever...even when we cannot be faithful in every time and place.
Connection: We are not followers of Jesus because it is becoming popular or has become some sort of cultural status symbol. We have faith in this story of God's promise alive among us and - to be quite frank - we never know what it will do with our lives. We are simply invited to travel with those who have trusted in this promise before us and thus passed on the story for us.
Be for us that anchor, O God. Be for us that anchor that allows us to go our own way but also gives us a way back into the realm of your promises. We doubt and we have faith...and then the cycle comes back again. In the midst of it all, be that anchor that reminds us in all things that there is this promise of new life that begins and ends in your love for us. Amen.
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