“He gives power to the faint and increases the strength of the weak.” (Isaiah 40:29)
“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,
Who seek the LORD:
Look to the rock from which you were hewn
And to the quarry from which you were dug.
Then I blessed him and multiplied him.” (Isaiah 51:1-2)
one I called him,was but heWhen
And to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain;
“Look to Abraham your father
Passing the mantle usually means a cloak or tunic, receiving the honor of carrying on the work of the one before you, as Elisha from Elijah.
But today, I want to talk about a different kind of mantle –the very mantle of the earth. For faith is a bedrock.
How strong is yours?
What makes us “strong”? If you ask that question in our culture today, likely you’ll get a whole lot of different answers: resolve, perseverance, physical strength, resilience. And those would probably be true.
But we also tend to think of being “strong” as being infallible, immovable, stubborn, or unflinching in the face of trouble.
And yet every one of our biblical patriarchs and matriarchs had weaknesses, showed them royally, made mistakes, fell from grace once in a while.
Even Abraham, the “Father” of Israel, the “rock” source of Israel’s strength and heritage, made mistakes.
Being human is not about being perfect. But about loving God with a faith and a resolve that is enduring and steady, firm and unchanging, despite our failings.
Today, we read about some of the “strongest” characters in scripture –Samson and Peter. And while we may admire Samson’s hero-like physique, his strength, we learn, was not in his physical attributes but in his faith in God to redeem him and renew him when he failed.
For God is the true Rock of the Ages, unchanging in love, enduring in promise, everlasting in covenant, true to His holy Word Jesus.
He’s solid! You might say.
Our strength comes from God’s strength. And only when we realize this truth will we truly stand strong in the face of adversity.
We see this truth in the stories of all of those who came before us in scripture, in David, in Abraham, in Jacob, in Gideon, in Samson, in Moses, in Elijah –and in Peter.
The strength of mere man-made things (Temples) cannot withstand the rock-solid faith of a soul firmly rooted in God. That kind of soul is so rock solid, nothing can shake it. And yet, it flows with the living water of the Holy Spirit that nourishes and refreshes.
To be rock solid is to be both strong and nurturing, solid and yet full of life and energy. It is not to hide away from the world but to stand in the midst of the world and to withstand any force or foe.
This is the faith of David. This is the faith of Samson. This is the faith of Peter.
It’s the faith of one who has been redeemed by God, assured of God’s strength and presence, and filled with the Holy Spirit’s power –a power that is both mighty yet merciful, fiercely valiant against wickedness, and yet mild and grace-filled toward the meek.
The mantle of the earth is made of bedrock. Sometimes granite. Sometimes limestone. Sometimes sandstone. This is the ancient rock of the earth, present since the cooling of the earth’s core in the foundations of its creation. Upon this bedrock, all other rock, sand, stone, and soil will lie –and upon its surface life will flourish.
And yet hidden within that bedrock are often reservoirs of “living” water –containing the very elemental foundations of life itself. That living water stands for the presence of God, the power of the Holy Spirit that infuses it with life and promise and purpose.
Identifying bedrock is all important for a builder. Otherwise, a building will sag or sink as the weight of it settles into the ground. When you go to build anything of weighty importance, you always need to found it upon bedrock.
In an old Hebrew fable, recorded in the Aggadic midrash (the Yalkut Shimoni, citations from lost ancient works, both oral and written), amidst the swamp left over after the flood of Noah, God chose Abraham to be a foundation, saying,
“Behold, I have found bedrock (“petra” in the later Greek) to build upon and to lay the foundation of the world.”
From this “rock” Israel’s faith must be hewn, said Isaiah (51:1-2).
Jesus calls upon this powerful statement in his interaction with Peter in our scripture for today, saying to him, as he called him from the waters to stand “naked” and revealed in his sin and failings before Him:
“You are petros (a stone) and upon this petra (bedrock) I will build my ecclesia (people).”
Jesus’ new “Temple” built on the “rock” of salvation would be built upon the earth on the foundation of Peter’s faith.
Peter was not perfect. But he was strong in his faith, and strong in his willingness to reveal his failings and his mistakes in front of Jesus, to stand before him in sin and to declare his faith despite his failings.
That is true strength. And that is the strength that God wishes for all of us.
Strong does not mean, an unrevealed stony-like façade in which no man or woman can penetrate it. Many people think being “strong” means unemotional, unflinching toward others, unmoving when it comes to mercy and forgiveness, stubborn resolve.
But for Jesus, strong means the courage to face one’s own failings and to reveal them boldly before Jesus even while professing faith amidst failings.
Ever have a parent apologize? It’s so powerful, isn’t it? Because we have this idea of our parents as always right, strong enduring figures for us, who tower over us in our youth as knowing what’s right and being that stalwart of strength. And then one day, we realize, they were human too. They made mistakes. And there is nothing more powerful than a parent who can say to a child, perhaps later in life, “I made mistakes. I was wrong when I did this or that. I didn’t do everything right. I’m sorry.” That’s a truly “strong” parent.
And there is nothing more grace filled and strong than re-bonding with that parent as a human being. From human to human. We are strong in our weaknesses, because in our weaknesses, God is our strength.
When Samson bends and breaks the pillars of the Philistine Gaza Temple in Judges 16:23-30, the words in Hebrew are natah (to bend) in bekoha (in strength, which means in a capacity to act). Samson’s strength was realized by God in his capacity to bend (to realize and repent of his mistakes, his arrogance) to bow again before God revealed in his weakness, and in only his faith to act, knowing God would redeem and renew him. It was God who pulled those pillars down. Make no mistake. Samson knew it. And the Philistines knew it.
Peter knew it. And you know it too.
In scripture, Jesus names as God names. And in naming Peter, Jesus identified Himself as the Creator of the World, born before the dawn of creation, with the power to heal and save, and the command to bestow blessing.
Peter may be a mere stone among many, but Jesus saw that his faith was rock solid, and upon that bedrock, which may have been chipped and worn and eroded from sin, Jesus would still choose to build His everlasting Church, founded in a new covenant that would multiply in number and fill the earth with people praising God.
Peter would grow to become an apostle and healer, a proclaimer of Jesus’ power and a rock-solid foundation of faith for all generations after him.
“Behold I will stand before you there upon the rock in Horeb; and you will smite the rock, and there will come water out of it, that the people may drink,” said the Lord to Moses.
“Feed my sheep,” beckoned Jesus to Peter.
For this is true strength in faith. A rock that reveals the living Water of God to others, who acts in solid faith even though chipped in sorrow, who trusts the Lord’s promise, love, and mercy, because “my Lord is my rock.”
In the art of ballet, the most graceful dancer is the one with the strongest and most trained muscles. Grace within strength is the secret to that art of dance.
Think of your discipleship as the art of dancing with Jesus. Your arms and feet. His strength. A heart muscle that will not yield, even is the body is weak. Grace that overflows revealed in every movement, in every blessing, in every outreached hand, in every gesture.
That’s strong.
*The visual for this sermon is borrowed from a photograph taken by Morgunblaðið photographer Árni Sæberg of the Þrídrangaviti lighthouse, located in the Westman Islands in Iceland. The name means three rock pillars.
Based on the Story Lectionary
Major Text
Jesus’ Seaside Appearance and the Reinstatement of Peter (John 21)
Minor Text
Moses Commissions Joshua to Succeed Him (Numbers 27:12-23)
The Story of Samson (Judges 16)
The Passing of the Mantle from Elijah to Elisha (1 Kings 19 and 2 Kings 2)
The Book of Jonah (including the Song of Jonah)
Psalm 51: Create in Me a Pure Heart and Renew Me with Your Spirit
Psalm 139: Where Can I Go from Your Spirit?
The Story of Peter’s Conversion of the Gentiles (Acts 10)