Cepeda Anthology
A Faith for These Times
Last Updated (Tuesday, 02 August 2011 23:26) Written by John Walter Sunday, 20 February 2011 19:10
Translation of Raphael Cepeda
El Tiempo y las Palabras
Translated by John Walter
A Faith for these times. A message preached at graduation services at the Presbyterian
school, La Progresiva in Cárdenas, Cuba. May 14, 1955. Taken from Cuban sermons,
Havana, printed: H.C. Marón, S.A. pp 21-24
Context:
"By faith the people passed through the Red Sea"…Hebrews 11: 29
I’m going to tell an old story: Two groups, one being Israelites and the other Egyptians,
were on the same road, under the same sun, beset be the same obstacles, taking the same
turns, and finally, finding themselves at the same sea: the Red Sea. Both intended to cross it,
but that’s as far as the similarities extend. From here on, everything is different until the
adventure concludes. The Red Sea was a termination for some and a continuation for others.
The following day the Israelites sang praises to the Lord from the other shore, while t
he nauseated sea vomited the corpses of the dead Egyptians onto the sands of the beaches…
Why did the Egyptians perish and the Israelites triumph? Certainly it wasn’t due to
cultural superiority on the part of the Jews, nor to prowess in war. Weren’t they - after all -
just a horde of slaves? The Egyptians, on the other hand, were a proud and conquering race,
well versed in fighting and success in battle.
The difference was not external, rather internal. The Egyptians came to the culmination
of this crisis because they lacked faith in God, their sole objective was to recapture the fleeing
slaves. However, for the Israelites, this exodus was an adventure of faith. Theirs was not a
perfect faith, but neither did it lack for effort. Whatever degree of faith, if genuine, is capable
of the impossible, even the moving of mountains.
Nevertheless, in our times the word faith is a forgotten and abandoned word. The people
who inhabit the world now can be characterized as cynical and disillusioned: those who have
lost faith in God, in themselves, and in eternal ends can be counted by the thousands. This hour
in Cuba is a delicatessen of skepticisms and nihilisms, when the youth repeat Job’s cry, “Where
now is our hope?” (Job 17:15)
The young people, who tonight – with this symbolic act – are drawing this stage of their
lives to a close, should remember the old Spanish refrain, “Water downstream doesn’t move
the grinding wheel.”; because early on, we will need to learn that the end of one journey is
the beginning of another, and what’s ahead is more important than that which lies behind.
Tonight then we begin a new journey; we’ll make an adventure of faith of it. Faith is not
a subject that is taken or not at the election of the student, it’s obligatory and indispensable
for a truly successful graduation. It’s not a luxury, rather, an absolute necessity.
It’s a question of daring to affirm, as does the author in Letter to the Hebrews; that the
difference between a real triumph and a failure, between victory and defeat, between glory
and tragedy, is a mere question of faith. By faith they crossed the Red Sea. (Hebrews 11: 29)
That when crisis and problems appear beyond our means to resolve - our own Red Sea - neither
our ability nor our intelligence, our culture or memory, nor good luck will save us, rather
only our faith in God. In this business of living, faith is the first article of necessity.
And our author insists in asserting: Without faith it is impossible to please God.
(Hb. 11: 6) Without distorting it in any way, we read the verse again, but without the
last part, and we’ll see what it says: Without faith it is impossible. What’s impossible?
Well, everything truly constructive and worthwhile is impossible without faith.
We need faith to do anything as common as driving a car. Faith is required to believe
that by pressing a simple button a spark will ignite internal combustion and sufficient
pressure to move the wheels.
Faith is required to perform such a simple act as putting a letter in a mail box. How
ridiculous it seems to trust an important document or a great amount of money to an iron
box fixed to a post or to a wall!
Without faith all commerce and banks would fail. Without faith there would be
no scientific progress. Houses are built upon faith. There is no house that could survive
the catastrophe of a dead faith; and there is no people who unite as a nation if its
sons - in a given moment - lose faith in their historic destiny.
But there’s more than that: There is an essential faith, the faith that finishes the
incomplete verse, that without which “it is impossible to please God”, the faith which
comes to life in vertical planes.
Without this faith nothing matters. It’s possible to possess all the kingdoms of earth,
but without faith in God, everything in life is misery. He who does not have faith in
an absolutely sovereign God, owner and lord of not only life and death, but also of a
fathomless love and boundless mercy, does not know what it means to have faith.
Faith that is translated into complete independence and acceptance of the power
and dominion of God over the world and its creatures; faith which gives courage to
live this life, and the certitude of the life to come; faith which makes us rich while
surrounded by all manner of poverty, and serene in the midst of all the storms; faith
which redeems and raises us, transforms us until the day we see God’s face itself.
In this journey which we are about to undertake, we will receive hard blows from
either side. Do not be deceived, the world is not a valley of tears, rather an exacting
gymnasium and a difficult task-master. Nevertheless, we remember what is important
is not what which happens to us, rather what we do with it. Our reaction to the battering
we receive during the journey will largely depend on the depth and quality of our faith.
Armed with this sword, it is impossible to lose any given battle, but understand well:
it’s still necessary to fight the battle. The fact of having faith does not exempt us from
the tests that will invariably come; so then, we are not hothouse plants, rather robust
oaks seasoned by hatchet blows and storms. “Because God has not given us cowardly,
rather powerful spirits.” 2 Tim: 1-7.
We will insist on this point. There is a theological concept that is very popular but
erroneous, which divides good from bad children. The good child is he that receives
all the prizes and favors, while the bad child receives the disasters and difficulties.
But life itself quickly takes charge to dispel that falsehood: Believer or no believer,
good or bad, everyone has to cross the Red Sea. As many good as bad lose their health;
good and bad alike suffer the loss of loved ones and anguish over defeats y failures.
As such, the gloriousness in our faith in God is not found in that with exempts us
from inevitable conflict, but in that which offers us the only energy capable of
making us triumph.
I invite you young people to attempt the most difficult thing of all: to have faith
surrounded by the multitudes without it. In all the great crises, in all the grave dangers,
the best part has always favored he who hopes against all odds.
It was through faith that Leonides (1), entrusted for the salvation of Greece
with only three hundred men, confronted eight hundred thousand Persians. His
homeland had sent him to die at Thermopylae, and there he died. What he did was
not reasonable, all the possibilities were against him; but by putting the weight of his
soul in the balance, with those of the three hundred heroic dead, he conquered fate.
His death clearly was “well spent”. In sight of such a great example, Greece committed
itself to being invincible; and that same spirit of faith- I submit- faith in its own force
was the beginning of all the actions of the Persian war that assured Greek independence.
Nevertheless, even with this faith in one’s own capacity it is possible to fail; and
the moment has come when we cannot fail. Therefore the sensible thing is to depend
on a faith which is not based on man’s wisdom, rather in the power of God. We cannot
forget Jesus’ affirmation, “All power in heaven and over the earth has been given me"
Matthew 28: 18. This is the great proclamation of the church: the power and dominion
of Jesus Christ. There is nothing to worry about when faith is not founded in miraculous
waters, amulets, nor magical words or lucky streaks, but rather rests in the power of
Jesus Christ. A faith that is really worth the effort to live for is worth dying for…
To live triumphantly in these tumultuous and anxious times requires a confident
faith, like that of the Israelites who crossed the Red Sea as “though it were dry ground”.
At either side menacing waves roar and threaten to cover us, but it suffices to know
that God has given an order, and with his index finger points out the way. A faith
for these times is that which confides in men only when they are instruments of God’s
power. (emphasis JW)
The die is cast. To Jesus’ question, “You do not want to go away also, do you?”,
we will respond anew, “Lord, to whom will we go, only you have the words of eternal
life.” (John 6: 67-68) The new direction that opens for us tonight represents an
adventure in faith because it is an adventure with Christ, the source of all power;
and this basic and fundamental faith is that which engenders fervor, dreams, and
hope. It’s a poor people that don’t feed its youth with the ferment of hope!
So it is for this reason that we tonight, and every night, cling to a tried and proven
faith, and throw to the wind the oriflamme of our hope of a clear and promising future,
because if we deceive ourselves and it is something other…
Do not begin the journey
If you don’t carry even
The light of a hope;
If you don’t carry even
The light of a beautiful dream,
Don’t begin the journey…
Don’t begin the journey
If you don’t bring even
Some hidden ideal,
If you don’t even bring
A vision ignited within,
Don’t begin the journey…
Passerby and pilgrim:
The summit is not reached
Without a divine blazing. (3)
Let us pray:
Lord of wisdom and power, give us the faith we need to begin a new journey.
Give us the heart of disciples for all our lives. Make us anxious for new goals in
such a way that we never consider ourselves graduated from any discipline.
Forgive us Father for our indifference, our carelessness, our idleness during
the years of our training for this hour of service. Lord, may we forget the bitter
moments and failures. May we be constant in our fervor and fleeting in our disillusionment.
Bless us O God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with a faith that may move
mountains, and a vision of the future where only your name may be exalted and glorified.
We ask you these things in Jesus’ sake, amen.
Footnotes:
1. Leonidas I, died in 480 BC, King oof Sparta around 490-480 BC.
2. Thermopilae, narrow pass located to the southeast of the city Lamia.
During the Medical Wars 490-478, scene of Leonidas’ death and of his
1,400 men, 300 od which were Spartans attempting to stave off the Persian invasion.
3. Francisco Estrello, No te eches al camino, in his Communion with the Eternal,
4th edition, Mexico D.F., Casa Unida de publicaciones, S.A. 1987, P 148