Every story begins with an unspoken promise. Whether we realize it or not, when we take up any book, we enter into it with a confidence that the beginning will be fulfilled in the end. In the same vein, every story invites the reader into a very special relationship with the author. Through the promise that he will be enriched by this story, the reader makes an act of trust. He agrees to follow the author wherever he takes him.
So too with salvation history, we encounter a story grounded upon promise and relationship. Today’s readings draw us first into the beginning, with Abraham and his unique covenant relationship with the Lord, and then to their fulfillment in Christ.
The Impossible Promise
The story begins with Abraham’s radical act of faith in response to the call of the Lord. If we place ourselves there with him at the beginning, we come to see how impossible the promise must have seemed to him, and thus how great a leap was his faith. In today’s passage from Genesis, we read that Abram was ninety-nine years old and childless when the Lord called him into covenant relationship. He promises Abraham, “You shall be the father of a multitude of nations.” To anyone on the outside that would have been laughable, and even Abraham must have wondered about it. Yet the promise hinges upon a sacred covenant relationship between Abraham and the Lord, and through that profound trust, Abraham is able to receive the promise.
However, more than a thousand years later, the nation of Israel began to fall apart as it succumbed to the Assyrians and then the Babylonians. To the remnant of faithful Jews left after the exile, the promise they had been given seemed to have evaporated. Where was the story heading? Had it all been for nothing?
Fulfillment in Christ
Enter Christ. It was in the light of this apparent dissolution and defeat that he came to bring fulfillment of the story that had started with Abraham. There would indeed be a whole multitude of nations that could trace their spiritual lineage back to Abraham, but it would come about in an entirely unexpected way, through Christ.
In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus engages in discussion with the Jews so as to reveal that He is the one for whom they have been waiting. While they profess themselves the offspring of Abraham, Jesus speaks more and more firmly of his authority until they object, “Can you be greater than our father Abraham, who died?” Jesus then makes a startling revelation: “Abraham was joyful over seeing my day.” And then in response to their disbelief, he unleashes an even more breathtaking declaration: “Truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I AM.”
His utterance of the divine I AM must have shaken the Jews to their core. It is perhaps one of the most incongruent sentences ever pronounced. Jesus attests that He exists eternally, long before even Abraham. He takes upon himself God’s own unutterable name.
The Author Arrives
When we consider this dramatic revelation in the context of Abraham, it becomes all the more powerful. Abraham’s total obedience to God marked a beginning of salvation history. Now, after all the centuries of wandering, defeat and collapse, the impossible triumph has arrived. God himself has entered the field so as to fulfill the promise made to Abraham. The Author has come into the story.
In these latter days of Lent, let us share Abraham’s joy in contemplating the fulfillment which Christ brings to the story of salvation. The promise He made to Abraham was not wasted, even through generations of loss and sin, but like a warrior, God has come in glory to bring about the impossible.
