Surrender as Faith--September 23, 2021

Surrender as Faith--September 23, 2021

"By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned." [Hebrews 11:29]

Sometimes, as we have seen in recent days, faith requires bold, daring action; but in other moments, faith takes just the opposite form and allows God to be the one to do entirely what we cannot do ourselves.  Sometimes faith looks like surrender, and the humble acceptance of the fact that God is the one who does the saving, and we are the ones who bring empty hands to the table.

In the actual storytelling of the book of Exodus, there's a moment where God says very clearly to the people about to be delivered from slavery and death at the shores of the Sea, "You have only to be still--God is the one who will fight on your behalf and deliver you today."  It's a reminder that the people don't save themselves by killing Egyptians or carrying out a scheme of their own devising--they are rescued beyond their own power or understanding by the God who liberates.  Their job--their act of faith in that moment--is to let God be God, and to allow themselves to be the recipients of God's saving power.  That's an important element of faith, after all--the ability to put yourself into the hands of One who can do for you what you cannot do for yourself, and to get out of the way of the help.

That's true in relatively ordinary daily life, too, if we're honest.  If I have appendicitis, or a gall bladder in need of being removed, what would be most helpful on my part is simply to show up at the hospital for the surgery and let the doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, and the rest of the surgical team do the work that will heal me.  If I try doing surgery on myself, I will almost certainly make it worse, since I don't really know where my appendix is, or if I can reach it with my own two arms, and I'd likely bleed out or pass out from the pain of trying to operate on myself without anesthetic.  There's one of those times where my attempt to "do my part" will make it worse, but what I really need to do is to let someone else do the saving.

Same if I'm in a car accident and need the jaws of life to get me out, or if my heart would stop and I need someone to administer CPR or use an AED on me.  There are times where I simply can't do anything to save myself, and where my role is to trust I am in good hands when the ambulance crew arrives on the scene.  

Even the first action of any twelve-step addiction recovery program has the same starting point: the recognition of being powerless to save ourselves, and the need for a power greater than our own to intervene.  Even when the saving we need doesn't transpire in a single jolt like from the defibrillator paddles, or the moment a surgeon removes an appendix before it bursts, but rather unfolds slowly in the move from addiction to sobriety, we find ourselves in need of One beyond ourselves who can tell us, "Be still.  Quit striving and straining.  Let me save you. Take my hand."

Resurrection doesn't happen because the deceased will themselves back to life, but when the voice of Life himself calls to you and says, "Lazarus, come out," or "Little girl, arise." Faith, then, isn't about my trying to prove to God how devout I am in order to win heavenly prizes from God, but rather about surrender that lets me trust God to give to me what I cannot achieve on my own.  Like our older brother Martin Luther says in his explanation of the Creed, "I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me..."  In other words, faith isn't so much about me impressing God about how well I believe the correct facts about God, but the surrender that God makes possible so I can get out of the way of myself and let God raise up to life all that is dead in me.  It's not an achievement, and accomplishment, or another line to add to your resume.  It's the opening up of empty hands to allow God to take us by the hand and lead us through a path in the Sea.

Today, then, maybe the most faithful thing each of us can do is to pause, to be still, and to trust the One who has taken our hand.  That will look to others like being passive sometimes.  It will look like we are not constantly "achieving."  It will look like letting God bring us to life rather than trying to perform heart surgery on ourselves.  And it will make possible the peace in these hearts of ours as we realize we are held with a love that will not let us go.

In this day, before we get back to our lists of things to do and accomplish, let it sink in: God does the rescuing, the saving, and resurrecting, and ours is simply to live the new life God hands us.

Lord God, call us back to life where we are dead, save us where we are in trouble again, and let us be still in the goodness of your grace.