“Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad.” The people said, “You aren’t even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham?” Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am!” At that point they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden from them and left the Temple.”
John 8:56-59 NLT
The people with Jesus in the Temple failed to realise that Jesus was indeed the Son of God, partially divine and partially human. It was just too much for them to get their minds around. In the past, visitations to the Jews from Heavenly realms had taken place through obviously supernatural figures like angels. Such occasions were either on a personal, one to one basis, such as to Zechariah by the angel Gabriel – “While Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the incense altar. … Then the angel said, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring you this good news!” (Luke 1:11,19). Sometimes a Heavenly visitation was to a group of people – consider the shepherds in Luke 2:9, “Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified,”. In the Old Testament, we read the passage about how the Lord Himself appeared to Abraham – “The Lord appeared again to Abraham near the oak grove belonging to Mamre. One day Abraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent during the hottest part of the day” (Genesis 18:1). Isaiah received a vision of the Lord in the Temple, as we read in Isaiah 6:1, “It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple.” But in these and other occasions, it was clear to the person or people there at the time that they were receiving an indisputably Heavenly visitation, if not from God Himself then one of His angelic messengers.
But here we have an ordinary looking Man teaching in the Temple and engaged in a dispute with a group of religious leaders about His pedigree and His message. Jesus was not wearing a luminous glowing robe. His presence was not that of an angel. He was as Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 53:2b, “ … There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him.” But unlike Abraham, the people failed to discern that the Person before them was from God. Jesus was a divisive Person; people either believed in Him and followed Him as His disciples, or they rejected Him, rationalising that He was an imposter or worse. There was of course the sitting-on-the-fence position where the people were unsure about Jesus, but were almost convinced – “they said, “would you expect the Messiah to do more miraculous signs than this man has done?”” (John 7:37b).
According to the Apostle Paul, Abraham was the father of the Jews. Romans 4:1, “Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God?” Paul went on to write that Abraham didn’t rely on his good deeds for his salvation. Romans 4:3 “For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”” There was much in the Genesis account of Abraham and his faith that pointed forward to a Descendant who would fulfil God’s promise to mankind. In Genesis 18:1 we read that the Lord appeared to Abraham, and some theologians believe that this was a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Himself.
We pilgrims have a spiritual example through Abraham. Paul wrote in Romans 4 that the custom of circumcision, so significant to the Jews, makes no difference when it comes to the importance of faith in God. And we read in Romans 4:13, “Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith.” In the end it’s all about God and His grace and love for mankind. We are all accountable to God for the light that we have received. Man made customs and liturgies are meaningless without faith in God.
Dear God. Thank You for the man Abraham, who lived so long ago. His faith in You has encouraged all of Your children through the ages, and I pray that such faith continues to bless us as we continue out journey to our own promised land. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 