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Tuesday 3 December
A Son Promised to Abraham and Sara
Genesis 18.1-15
Waiting. Waiting. Like we do in Advent.
What are you waiting for? A parcel to be delivered or the results of a medical test? A bus into town or a lover to propose...? Not all waiting is equal.
Abraham had been waiting for 25 long years–he’d received a promise, a word from God that the world would be blessed through his seed. But here he was, in his dotage, still waiting. Wandering and waiting.
Then there was Sarah. Waiting her whole life to feel a baby leap in her womb, to hold a precious new life in her arms. Month by month, longing and waiting – until there was just the dull ache of disappointment left at her core.
But here’s the thing with waiting. Life continues. Day by day, moment by moment, waking, washing, eating, working, socialising and sleeping, over and over again.
Thus it was with Abraham and Sarah. Hospitality, socialising, the stuff of the everyday. Three more strangers, passing through, in need of refreshment. Feed them bread, serve them meat, send them on their way.
But then that conversation. Such an awkward conversation. A stirring of distant hope, of unfulfilled promises and a reminder of present pain.
‘Your wife Sarah will have a son’.
She laughs.
The purposes of God for all of humankind, conceived in an inappropriate, unlikely female...?
Impossible.
We wait together this Advent. Waiting for the promised Messiah.
Waiting to tell again the story of God’s purposes fulfilled in unlikely people and forgotten places.
We hold the impossible in the light of the immortal as we stand with Sarah, laughing at the eternity in her midst.
Come, O long-expected Jesus,Born to set your people free;From our fears and sins release usBy your death on Calvary.Born your people to deliver,Born a child and yet a king;Born to reign in us forever,Now your gracious kingdom bring.===========================
Genesis 18.1-15
The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day.
He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, ‘My lord, if I find favour with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.’
So they said, ‘Do as you have said.’
And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, ‘Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.’ Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.
They said to him, ‘Where is your wife Sarah?’ And he said, ‘There, in the tent.’
Then one said, ‘I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.’ And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?’
The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.’ But Sarah denied, saying, ‘I did not laugh’; for she was afraid. He said, ‘Oh yes, you did laugh.’