4 By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That’s what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.
Hebrews 11:4 (The Message)
Paul, interestingly, starts his list of heroes and heroines of the faith with Cain and Abel, not their parents Adam and Eve. Cain was the eldest and Abel the younger. We read in Genesis 4 that Cain was more like a farmer working with the soil and Abel worked with animals. There is obviously missing facts, a need to read between the lines, between Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve are driven from the Garden of Eden and Genesis 4 when “sacrifices” were brought to God. I like the way The Message translates it because it makes clear that the situation reflected the condition of the brothers’ hearts and the problem was not the nature of the gifts. Later in the Old Testament when the sacraficial system was set up, grain sacrifices were for fellowship and blood/animal sacrifices were for sin. We could certainly read a lot into this connection today as we reflect on how we seek to establish relationship with God. Are we looking for fellowship, a grain offering, a friendly relationship OR are we looking for restoration of a broken relationship with God because we have sinned by what we have done and what we have left undone? Usually it is a bit of both.
As we kneel at the communion table and receive the bread and the wine, we go through the ritual “in rememberance” but we also hear the words “for the forgiveness of sin.” God noticed the conditions of the brothers’ hearts and approved Abel’s as righteous. As we come before God with our prayers today, let us check our hearts and remind ourselves that we are blessed to be able to talk to the God of the universe. May we never forget that we sometimes are guilty of wrong and sometimes guilty of forgetting to do right. Thank you Lord for forgivess and for relationship!
On the Way to Wonder 