God is Planning to Save us

The war in Ukraine is raging while nations debate and strategize how to save a people under siege. That part is not new in the history of humanity, unfortunately. While it is true that humanity has been at war against itself since Cain murdered Abel, God has never once taken His eye off our salvation. We may, or may not, be able to stop Putin for destroying Ukraine, but we should focus on what we can do. We can trust in God’s plan for salvation.

If God is for us, who can be against us. (Romans 8.31) Today’s reading from Genesis expresses God’s mercy in the midst of our human sinfulness. While our human ancestors were preoccupied with wickedness and adultery, God was planning to save us. While Jerusalem was under siege, God was planning to save us. Take a few minutes to read today’s readings from Genesis and Isaiah.

After Noah was five hundred years old, Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. When men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose. Then the LORD said, “My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. – Genesis 5.32-6.8

In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but they could not conquer it. When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with Ephraim,” his heart and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind. And the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go forth to meet Ahaz, you and Shearjashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field, and say to him, ‘Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you, saying, “Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,” thus says the Lord GOD: It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. (Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken to pieces so that it will no longer be a people.) And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.'” Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, “Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.” And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. – Isaiah 7.1-14

As Orthodox Christians we read the Old Testament through the lens of the Resurrected Christ. We read the story knowing that God has already saved us. We read knowing the rest of the story. We know that Noah and his family were saved, so that the Messiah would have a righteous lineage. We know that Jerusalem was protected, so that Christ would be known to the world. We know that God, as He reminds us in today’s reading has always planned to save us.

Is that enough incentive to fast and pray and take care of the poor? God has done His part. Will we do our part? As the second week of the Great Fast comes to a closer, allow the promise of God to inspire you and bring you comfort. We fast as an offering to God, but there are those today in Ukraine who are offering their actual blood in war.

God will save them and us. Let’s not lose sight of the rest of the story. Life isn’t about earthly kingdoms, but about heaven with God.