Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-january-2-2025
Genesis 12:1-7
1Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-12
1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. 3By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
8By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. 9By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11By faith he was enabled to become a father, even though he was too old — and Sarah herself was barren — because he considered him faithful who had promised. 12Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”
Our daily Bible Reflections are almost always based on one of the lectionary readings for the day, but today we are looking at two passages. That’s because these passages are related. The passage from the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews actually comments on the passage from the Old Testament book of Genesis. Both passages deal with Abraham’s faith in the promises of God, and the relationship between that faith and the covenant God made with the people who became the people of Israel.
But before we begin, we might take a moment to note that in the text of the book of Genesis when the word LORD appears, it’s printed in all caps in many versions of the Old Testament. That’s a way of noting that the original word in the Hebrew text was the Hebrew name of God “YHWH.” But because in Hebrew tradition that name was not to be spoken or written, it is printed in some English bibles with the upper case letters we see in our text for today.
Now, back to the story of Abraham. The way his story is told in the book of Genesis Abraham was originally a resident of the Mesopotamian city of Ur. According to many historians, that city was one of the most advanced in the ancient world and may even have been the city in which writing was used for the first time. But Abraham and the rest of his family were called by God to leave that city and to wander off into the deserts of the Middle East. They first settled in the town of Haran and lived there for a number of years. But then after his father Terah died, Abraham was called by God to leave Haran and wander off even deeper into the Mideastern desert. He would live as a nomad for the remainder of his adult life.
The Genesis passage repeats the promises God had made to bless Abraham and his family, and to make them the basis of a new people. Abraham and his wife Sarah were beyond childbearing age, but God promised that they would bear a son. They had to wait for decades before that child was born, and although their faith wavered at times, they continued to believe in God’s promises. Those promises were fulfilled when Abraham was 100 years old.
The passage from the Letter to the Hebrews points out that Abraham’s faith in the promises of God was what enabled him and Sarah to keep going over the decades until the birth of their son Isaac.
We tend to think it’s obedience to the commandments of God that marks a person as righteous in God’s eyes. And in a sense, Abraham did obey God’s command to leave his way of life and wander off into the desert. But it’s important to remember that the commandments we think of when we hear that word – like the ten commandments – were still centuries in the future. It wasn’t ‘being good,’ as we understand that phrase, that made Abraham righteous in God’s eyes. It was his faith that God would keep his promises.
The passage from Hebrews begins with the author’s definition of faith. The author writes that faith is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” In the case of Abraham, it was the trust that God would keep his promise of offspring, and certainty that God’s promises could be trusted.
This seems to me to represent a challenge for those of us who live 4000 years later. God has made promises to his people throughout history, and some of those promises are yet to be fully fulfilled. So the question for us is whether we believe those promises — like the fulfillment of a Kingdom in which God’s peace will be made known to all people. That’s a promise that we thought about and even sang about during the Christmas season that’s just passing.
It seems to me that faith – as Abraham exemplifies it – isn’t just believing without doubt. It’s believing in the face of doubt. The story of Abraham seems to include a number of occasions when his faith – and the faith of his wife Sarah – can be seen to waver. But they continued to cling to the promises of God and to believe that they would be fulfilled in God’s own time. That, it seems to me is the kind of faith God looks for from each of us.
We remember that God promised Abraham descendants, and that he promised Abraham a land those descendants would possess as their own. But it seems to me we often forget the third promise of the covenant — the promise that through Abraham and his family, all the peoples of the earth would be blessed. When we look at human history, that promise has certainly come true. Almost half of humanity embraces one of the faith traditions that’s grown out of God’s promises to Abraham. And one of those faith traditions — that of the followers of Jesus — has been more of a blessing to humankind than any movement in human history.
So when we read the story of Abraham and his faith in the promises of God, it seems to me our own faith should be strengthened, and we should be renewed in our determination to play our part in the continuing fulfillment of those promises in the life of the world.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the example of your servant Abraham, for his faith in your promises, and for his willingness to leave behind the life he had known to play a part in your great plan for the world. Inspire each of us to believe in your promises for our lives and to be willing to lay aside the lives we have always known to play our part in that plan today. Amen.
Grace and peace,
Henry
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