Faith
This sermon is part of a midweek Advent series on faith, hope, and love.
Text: Gen. 15:1-6, Heb. 11:1-16, Luke 1:26-38
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Niels Bohr, the father of quantum physics, was quoted as saying, “If anyone is not shocked by quantum mechanics, they have not truly understood it.” The reason for this is that as physicists delved deeper and deeper into the tiniest particles that made up the universe we live in, they found that it became stranger and stranger. All the laws they knew about how everything worked suddenly were suspended, or in some cases, outright broken. This was startling to a field that had been steadily progressing in its knowledge and understanding from the time of the Renaissance right up to the 20th century. And then suddenly they were faced with the realization that they had not understood as much as they thought.
One point in particular that was rattling was discovered by a man named Werner Heisenberg. He discovered that not only did scientists not know as much as they thought they did; they, in fact, could not know as much as they wanted. He discovered what is now called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states that when it comes to these tiny, beyond microscopic pieces that make up everything, that scientists can only measure the speed they’re traveling or the location. They can never know both. It’s simply impossible. This was flabbergasting to groups of people that had previously thought they could eventually know everything there was to know in the universe. Nothing they had seen or measured or observed could help them understand this new discovery about how things really are.
As shocking as it may be, turning everything that scientists knew on its head, quantum mechanics gives us a description of how the universe works in those tiny places that are unobservable to us. It gives an explanation of why the math that’s woven into the cosmos works out the way that it does. It has answers to some of the most profound questions about the universe. Quantum physics makes a claim about reality, in spite of what the senses can observe or prove.
This is the nature of faith. Faith is a claim about reality. Faith says that something is true, even when all else seems to be saying something different. We heard that in our reading about Abraham this evening. When Abraham had no children and was much too old to begin having them, the Lord told him, “Your very own son shall be your heir…Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them. So shall your offspring be.” By all his experience and what he—and everyone else—knew of how the world works, Abraham would have known that an old man and an old woman do not have babies and become the parents of nations. And yet faith hears and believes and says that yes, this is reality.
We heard the same about numerous other examples from our Hebrews reading tonight. Abel offered a sacrifice more acceptable than Cain’s even though everything told him that as the younger child of Adam and Eve, Cain was the favored one. Enoch watched the world go its way for his entire life, knowing that all people died, and yet he did not see death, but was taken to God apart from the way of the world. Noah constructed an ark even though nothing in conventional wisdom told him that such a boat would be necessary, for there had never been water like that and there was no warning but God’s Word saying that a flood was coming. All these lived and acted in faith, with their reason and all their senses telling them one thing about the world and how it works, but knowing there was another reality that was known only by what God said.
All too often people speak of faith as if it is a fragile thing; that if faith is presented with something that contradicts it, then it will crumble and wither under the heat and pressure of those observable things. Now if we’re talking about something less than faith—say, a mere assertion or a thought about some facts that could easily be countered by other facts—that might be true. But that’s not the nature of faith at all. Faith is the statement that this is true and remains true. Faith routinely faces objections and little daggers. The author of Hebrews notes that the faithful have suffered mocking and flogging, chains and imprisonments, stoned and sawn in two, killed with the sword, mistreated in every imaginable way. And yet, in spite of those challenges, those attacks, in spite of things observable and accessible to the senses, faith says “No, this is the only way the math works out. This is how the universe actually is, even though I can’t see it. This is what I’ll hold on to, no matter what. This is reality.”
In Advent, we rejoice in faith. We hear of a young girl, a virgin, who becomes a radiant example of faith. When the angel Gabriel says to her, “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus,” rather than saying, “But Gabriel, that’s now how things work,” Mary says instead, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” This is real. This is true. This is how creation works when God is so deeply involved in it.
Mary’s faith is your faith. For this Advent and Christmas, you will see a baby presented to you and that’s all you’ll see in the nativity, in the manger, on Christmas cards. But faith will say, “That infant created the cosmos and laid the foundations of the world. That is the infinite Son of God somehow contained in a manger, with ten tiny fingers and toes.” The world will say that Christmas is about sentiment, or presents, or being nice, or finding the best in our human nature (that we know is fallen and in need of saving). But faith will say, “No, Christmas is about God and what He has done in coming to us in flesh and blood in His Son Jesus.” And you will carry that faith with you throughout the season and into the new year. Because your eyes will see sorrow. Your nerves and mind and heart will feel pain. Your soul will feel grief. But faith will say, “Jesus came to this world to defeat these things for me.” The world will mock you, but St. John says, “Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” Sin will accuse you, but faith will say, “I am forgiven.” Death will bare its teeth at you and faith will laugh in its face, knock out death’s dentures, and say, “Jesus already defeated you the first time He came to the world.” Then faith will take you by the hand, show you your Lord’s life-giving, sin-absolving body and blood as He comes to you again, under bread and wine, beyond sight, but speaking truth about the world and how it actually works. Then faith will lift your chin to show you Jesus’ final return on the horizon. Faith will encourage you and lead you as you wait for that glorious Advent to say “Let it be to me according to the Lord’s Word.” In the name of Jesus, who gives us faith. Amen.
