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Series: Through the Bible in Eight Great Stories #2 God's Promise "Covenant & Relationship"
8 weeks through the Bible. We’ll have to leave many interesting and even important things out. But we are putting together a story line, from the beginning through the story of Christ and the church today, one I hope we’ll be able to use to understand the overall story of the Bible. Last week, we left off with Adam and Eve banished from the Garden, the consequence of using their freedom of choice to serve their own desires rather than serving God. And with God’s judgment came God’s mercy—clothing them with warm animal skins to serve as garments. And we set in place a theme: an idea of what that part of the story taught us. That God is the creator, that we are the created, and that the creator longs for relationship with the created, and to that end gave human beings this profound gift of free will, a freedom where humans may choose to love and live in relationship with God, or…they may not. The story of Adam and Eve is only the beginning of human troubles. Murder comes in the next generation, Cain, one son of Adam and Eve kills his brother Abel out of jealously. Cain, like his parents, must faces the consequences of his actions, eviction from his homeland, but also like his parents, he is the recipient of God’s mercy that protects him from retribution for his actions by others. But things get worse. God eventually becomes so disgusted with the wickedness of humankind that God decides to destroy his own creation. The world will be flooded; --yet again there is a remarkable mercy in God’s judgment. A single family would be rescued as a remnant from which things could begin again. Through it all, God yearned for a people who would recognize the binding love between Creator and created. Who would choose relationship with the One who made all things? The Bible then introduces us to a man and a woman named Abram and Sarai, later known as Abraham and Sarah. They are very important, so important in fact, that from this point forward God would make claim to be the “God of Abraham.” Then later, the “God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.” Three generations with whom God makes a special promise and a special request—a covenant, a negotiated agreement between Creator and created. A promise that will put things right, by putting them into relationship. Are you beginning to notice a thread developing? The covenant, the agreement is simple: God will be God to Abram & Sarai, and in return, they will identify as God’s people. “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” To this end, God will do several things to ensure the covenant’s success. There will be offspring. For what good is it to make such a promise with only one generation? There will be children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. Soon, Abram and Sarai’s progeny will be enough to be called a nation. And God will be their God and they will be God’s people. Second, there will be land. Not this land—Ur, it was called. Today, we call it Basra. Ring a bell? Basra, Iraq. Heard of that place lately. No—this is not the land. There is a better land. A promised land. A place to settle, to call their own. People were identified by the land they occupied. Not unlike what we do, even today. We are Americans? Why? Because of our geographical location. The Chinese, the Europeans, the Italians, the Mexicans. Why such names? Land. A place to be. A place to call home. God’s people would need such a home. And God makes a promise to provide it. To Abram and Sarai, who lived in tents and spent their lives wandering from this place to that place, there would be a place—a home—a land to call their own, a land their children and children’s children would call home. It is far away, and they will have to travel far to reach it. But it would be their own. A land of great promises. A covenant land. Where the relationship could develop, and things made right. IF—IF the people are willing to live in relationship with God—to be willing to witness to others that the God who created all things is the God who provides for them, protects them. God has chosen Abram and Sarai. And it’s an interesting choice, to say the least. Abram and Sarai were first of all, old. And what of all this talk of children? They had no children. Sarai had passed through her child-bearing years without conceiving a child. Its one thing for God to make it possible for Sarai to give birth, it is quite another to do it when the woman and the man are quite old. The idea makes them laugh. Abram laughed first when he heard the news. Later, Sarai overhears the promise and laughs too. But the last laugh is on them. We don’t have near enough time to tell all the particulars of the story, suffice it to say Sarai and Abram, now known as Sarah and Abraham attempt to take matters into their own hands, and when they give up on God’s promise, settle for a child conceived with Sarah’s servant. But God has promised a son of their own, and the son indeed is born, and wouldn’t you know it, they name him, Isaac, which means laughter. Isaac’s childhood includes an unsettling test at an altar on top of a mountain—we won’t get into that here today—but God provides, as God has and does over and over, and the boy is not sacrificed there on that mountaintop. As Isaac grows into a man, God renews the covenant with him, underscores his promise, asking that Isaac and his offspring to be his people, and promising to be their God. They are settled now in Canaan, the land of the promise. And Isaac will take as his wife Rebekkah, a woman of uncommon beauty who is literally an answer to a prayer whispered by Isaac’s servant, in search for a wife. God continues to provide. Isaac and Rebekkah have twin sons, as different from one another as night and day. The first, the oldest in the custom of the time, came out all red and hairy. They named him Esau, which means hairy. His nickname would become Edom, or “Red.” The younger brother came out grasping onto the heel of his older brother. They named him Jacob, which means “heel.” And as the heel he will come to live down to his name. Hairy, er, Esau was an outdoorsy type and loved by his father, Isaac. Heel, er, Jacob was smooth skinned and sort of a Mama’s boy. But he was smart. Esau was governed by his senses. His anger burned. His happiness bubbled. His hunger consumed him. Literally. He came in from the fields one day and his younger brother had been cooking up something. Some red bean stew. When Esau smelled it, he was filled with a desire for some of it to eat. Jacob knew his brother could be easily manipulated in such a state, and made Esau promise his birthright in exchange for the stew. Esau didn’t hesitate. What good is a birthright if I’m starving to death? Later, Jacob the heel with his mother’s help would also trick Esau out of his father’s last blessing and the inheritance that went with it. It’s a heartbreaking story. Esau left with nothing but his father’s pity, Jacob grabbing everything he could, as he had done from the day he was born. We might not see much virtue in such an unscrupulous character. But Jacob will be the next link in God’s continuing promise with the children of Abraham. Jacob will flee from his brother’s wrath, and spend many years away from the homeland in service to his Uncle Laban. He himself will be tricked by his Uncle, working as an indentured hand for seven years for the daughter he loved and wanted, only to be given instead her older sister. He would agree to work another term to win the right of Rachel, the woman he wanted from the beginning. Jacob becomes wealthy through a little shrewd management in partnership with his Uncle, and eventually decides to return home, hoping that he could send enough animals and servants ahead of him as a peace offering to his brother to smooth things over. And on the way home, he meets face to face the God who had spoken his grandfather Abraham’s name. Who had provided for his father Isaac. He grabs hold of God, wrestling in a fierce all night match that leaves him wounded and exhausted, and changed. God gives him a blessing, and a new name. Israel. Never more will he be known as a “heel.” Never again be known as the one who grabbed everything he got. From this day on, he will be known as Israel. As Israel returns home, to the land of the promise, Esau, true to his nature, has forgotten why he was angry in the first place and runs to meet his brother in a big bear hug. The past is forgotten, and the future, in God’s hands, is bright. God provides. More than any human deserves. God provides, because it is God’s nature to do so. And the people are God’s people. And God is their God. The relationship is strong. The covenant in good shape. And the created still has…that freedom God had given in the very beginning. The freedom to choose. We know this so far. God made all things. God desires relationship with human beings, and equips humans with freedom to choose that relationship or not. Through Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Rachel, the relationship is nurtured through God’s promise. And God has so far, turned out to be a surprising figure in this story. Next week, we’ll launch into the story of Jacob or Israel’s 12 strong boys who will father 12 families that will become 12 tribes and eventually 12 nations. But that’s quite a ways down the road. These boys of Israel will turn against one of their own, and the whole thing will lead the people of God into a terrible fix, and eventually enslavement in a foreign country. And God, true to God’s nature, will secure the promise, and intervene with mercy.
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