At this very split second in time, God is much closer to you than you think. In two of our passages today the line between earth and heaven becomes wafer thin.
When Abraham meets the three visitors (many Christian traditions hold that this is the Trinity), they speak the very words of God. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” God promises Abraham a son despite the odds. In his very next conversation with the visitors, Abraham stops bartering below ten, as perhaps he’s beginning to understand the greatness of God’s mercy and that God would save just even one righteous man - and as we’ll see, He does -Abraham’s nephew Lot.
Exactly a week after Peter’s ‘mustard-seed’ confession of “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” he is given the ‘mountain-moving’ revelation of Jesus transfigured in all His glory fulfilling the Law, Moses, and the prophets, Elijah. (An extraordinary moment not just for the disciples but for Moses too, who finally saw the face he had previously hidden from.) And the disciples inability to heal the epileptic boy shows how much they needed this ‘mustard seed’ faith, a faith that Jesus still demands from all his disciples - a faith that can move mountains. “Nothing will be impossible for you” And we know this applies even more to us, because God is not just close, but by His Holy Spirit, He lives in us. And what of the curious story of the coin and the fish? Jesus knew they were both exempt from the temple tax but to have argued would have just wasted time. Maybe Jesus was just trying to buy time with his friend Peter. He wants to spend as much time as he can with us too. He wants us to be in the place where the line between earth and heaven is wafer thin.
(homegroup member)