Homily For The Fifth Sunday in Lent 2026

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad.  In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

It's hard for most of us to fully understand the connection that the Jewish people felt with  Abraham. He was their father, and as their Patriarch, He was their representative.  They were present in his loins, and it was through the patriarchs that God fulfilled His word. For from barren Sarah and Abraham came Isaac, then Jacob, then the twelve tribes, then the vast multitudes likened unto the stars in the sky and the sand on the shore.  Now, we also know that Abraham had other children, notably Ishmael, but God had chosen Isaac to be the son of the promise - the one through whom the blessedness of God would come and on whom the joy of God’s covenantal presence would rest.   

What marked Abraham as the Patriarch was not his ancestors - for he obeyed God and left the land of his forefathers.  He was marked by his faith in the One true God, for he went toward Canaan and obeyed the voice of the Lord.  Obeying God, loving God is a better indication of being Abraham’s children than a bloodline or trust in ancestral pride. 

Our Gospel for today is from John Chapter 8.  The setting was the time of the Feast of the Tabernacles - Jesus being present in Jerusalem - being faithful to celebrate with God’s people in obedience to the Law.  The background for all the actions in Chapter 7 and 8 is the symbolism of Christ being the true Tabernacle - a central theme in our Epistle.  The Lord Jesus Christ, the Tabernacle of God coming among His people in the flesh, dwelling among us, is the fuller expression of God’s glorious presence foreshadowed in the Old Covenant tabernacle.  

Jesus is preaching and teaching a group of Jews, whose response to the Messiah is riddled with insults and pride in themselves. They continue in bringing one of the accusations we heard a couple of weeks back, that Jesus performed his miracles through demonic power.  You may recall Jesus addressed the absurdity of the argument noting that a kingdom divided against itself falls. It will not stand.  Jesus does his Father’s will through the power of the Holy Spirit - the interpersonal harmony of all three persons of the Trinity are active here.  It is in the union of all three persons that the kingdom of Satan is being destroyed. We read earlier that they accused the Virgin Mary of unfaithfulness, of being promiscuous, by saying that Jesus was a Samaritan.  They are saying Jesus is a half-breed Jew, one without true Jewish credentials.  Jesus corrects them again and says that it is because of his Father - because of his abiding, inseparable union with the Father that he does what he does. They make much of their lineage and of their freedom as Jews. 

They said in an earlier portion of Chapter 8 that they have never been in bondage to anyone.  If anyone knows anything about the history of Israel, one must openly acknowledge this is false.  They were indeed in bondage, to idolatry that led to exile, and in bondage to Gentile empires like Babylon and Persia. More recently, the very men standing in Jesus' presence were under Roman domination and in bondage to Caesar as described in other Gospel accounts where they must submit to Caesar's taxation and Caesar’s authority.  It is most likely that they were speaking of their spiritual freedom as members of Abraham’s family and members of God’s eternal kingdom that was to come.  They viewed themselves as being whole, as those who didn’t need spiritual help like those sinners who needed the Messiah’s healing. This is why they reveled in having Abraham as their father. 

Abraham is noteworthy, he is to be honored, because of the work of God through him.  

He was obedient, he was a man of profound faith. The general trend of his life was trust and obedience. I say general trend because we remember his lying to Pharoah about Sarah being his sister.  His pragmatism led to conflict between Sarah and Hagar at the birth of Isaac.  He was a sinner like the rest of us but he grew in obedience, in fits and starts, made the journey of faith and is given to us as an example.  His example is in his willingness to obey what God had revealed about Himself. Abraham practiced painful obedience at times. The offering of Isaac as a sacrifice is the preeminent example of Abraham’s ready obedience to God’s word.  Abraham, heard the words of God, you know that he heard because he did what he was told. In fact, he “rose up early” to obey. This stands in contrast to the sons of Abraham in our Gospel, the Jews  who refuse to receive Jesus' testimony.  Indeed, as Jesus says,  He that is of God heareth God's words; ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

So, returning to the Gospel, we have to ask the question, what is meant by Our Lord’s declaration - Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad? How did Abraham see the Messiah’s coming and rejoice?   Some Rabbis believed that Abraham was given a vision of the coming Messianic age during the vision of the smoking pot in Genesis 15. Others looked at the rejoicing of Abraham in the birth of Isaac, for Isaac’s name means laughter, for in Isaac joy was coming to the entire world - through the promise of Isaac all the nations of the world will be blessed.  Abraham certainly engaged with God through the theophany of the three persons who came to him on the eve of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Gregory the Great noted - “Abraham saw the day of the Lord when he hospitably received three angels as a prefiguration of the most holy Trinity. 

After he had received them, he spoke to the three as to one, since although there are three persons in the Trinity, the nature of the divinity is one”  Indeed, “Abraham…saw in the Spirit the day of the Lord’s coming and the dispensation of his suffering through whom both he himself and all who trust in God would be saved, following the example of his faith. Since he saw this, he rejoiced exceedingly. The Lord, therefore, was not unknown to Abraham whose day he desired to see.”

One could see in the sacrifice of Isaac the theme of Abraham looking beyond the present circumstances and challenges to the God who would keep His word.  Abraham looked forward in some sense to the sacrifice of Christ through the lens of the Ram caught in the thicket.  

Whatever the lens, whatever was meant, we are told Abraham looked forward to Christ coming.  Jesus could speak to the expectations of Abraham because he was there - Jesus is the eternal I AM.  The eternal Son, who was with the Father and the Holy Spirit before time was also present in making the covenant with Abraham, the eternal I Am was there, for the rejoicing in Isaac and the willingness to offer Isaac, along with Isaac’s willing self-sacrifice on Mount Moriah.  He was there, he was prefigured in the ram caught in the thicket. God was preparing the ultimate sacrifice and here we find Abraham’s physical descendants were profaning the Messiah’s coming. Truly, these Jews may have been physical descendants of Abraham but as it has been said, “They are aliens from Abraham if they grieve over what he rejoiced in. By this day perhaps He means the day of the cross, which Abraham prefigured by the offering up of Isaac and the ram: intimating hereby that He did not come to His passion unwillingly.”  The joy of Abraham is seeing God’s provision through Christ’s righteousness. 

St. Paul expounds the nature of Christ’s work for us - the person and righteousness that Abraham delighted in.  It is important to learn from our Lord’s detractors in the Gospel and make sure we are looking to the proper grounds for our acceptance before God.  Christians are covenant people like the Jews.  As they entered the covenant through circumcision to join the people of God, we are brought into the Christian covenant through baptism. Baptism is an act of God’s grace, his chosen way for us to be included in His covenant.  It is a participation in some sense in His sacrifice, for all who are baptized have died in Christ and are raised in Christ’s resurrection. 

Our Epistle is about the greater work of sacrifice performed by Jesus - the theme for the next two weeks - what we call Passiontide, which is a sub-season of Lent. Passion refers to the suffering of Jesus.

 Jesus suffering for our sins is more comprehensive, more oppressive as hard as it may be to believe, than his death by crucifixion.  He is the High Priest who offers himself as the willing sacrifice for sin, through the tabernacle of His Incarnate flesh.  Do you remember what happened when Jesus gave up His Spirit?  The temple veil was rent.  The tearing of the veil of mortality by his death and entering into the Holy of Holies by His resurrected life was a work only Jesus could accomplish.  Indeed, up to that point, faith in God commingled with appointed sacrifices accomplished a measure of cleansing, sanctification and purification. We must remember the sacrificial system was instituted by God to please His justice until the ultimate sacrifice was made.  How much more acceptable is that perfect sacrifice, that beautiful life of complete obedience to God interwoven into the willing sacrifice of the Son of God who loved his Father completely, who trusted Him without reservation.  His perfectly obedient life and willing sacrifice accomplished our redemption. 

 He is the mediator of a new covenant, expanding the promises under the Old Covenant to include all who are united to Him by baptism, by faith and repentance.  Abraham’s delight in Jesus’s coming was that God’s promise to bless all the nations through Abraham were being fulfilled. That hope of eternal inheritance was known more clearly in the human frame of Jesus of Nazareth, but Abraham could see salvation coming through the fulfilled promise of his son Isaac. 

As we enter Passiontide, we will head toward Jerusalem with Our Lord.  As we walk in Jesus’ steps, let us remember the love of God for us sinners.  In his love, in his willing sacrifice, Jesus, as the perfectly obedient son was obedient unto death, even death on the cross. Read the Gospels and rejoice that in the fullness of time Christ came, and all the long expectation of the Patriarchs and Prophets was fulfilled.  In the coming weeks, we will read the Passion narratives.  

Take the time away from your busy life to attend as many services as you can so that we may walk together through Jesus’ passion.  This is a time to embrace Jesus as the suffering servant   who lovingly gives Himself to be a sacrifice for sin.  The more we appreciate His suffering, the more precious His sacrifice on our behalf becomes and the more glorious our celebration of His resurrection.  Beloved, let us not be afraid to mourn our sin, because Jesus suffered and died for it.  Let us enter willingly into the shadow of death, for Easter is coming. Amen.