The end? or Looking Forward (Gen 23, 25)

We come to the end of our youth series on the life of Abraham. In this series, I reflected on all the crazy topics we touched on and then wondered if parents are happy about this. I mean, my own kids have a Bible with all these stories in it, including husbands lying about their wives so people in power take them, taking a servant to be a surrogate, circumcision, child sacrifice, Sodom and the rapey men etc.. (we did skip over the incest of Lot). On one level it is all really crazy that we look at these type of stories, on another, I wonder what you would think if we studied the stories in our online news feed.

This series did help me see us in new categories. We put people in categories like "good" and "bad" based on their decisions and actions, but we see with Abraham and Lot that they make some good and bad decisions, and yet there is this new category of "righteousness". And this last category isn't about being "good" or "bad" but about how God sees you, based on your faith.

Below is the last talk I gave in this series.

When I was in about year 10 I learned about Lay-by. You know this, in some shops you can pick something off the shelves and get them to store it for you and you can then slowly pay it off. The first thing I remember lay buying was the special edition VHS box set of Star Wars. I would go in every fortnight and put some more money down and eventually, over time, I could take it out of the store and bring it home. In exchange for every payment, I made I got a little receipt that would say how much I added and how much I had left. The receipt wasn’t the Star Wars videos, but it was a little sign that I was going to get it.

Burying Sarah in the promised land

We come to the end of both Abraham and Sarah’s story, which naturally ends with their deaths. Sarah dies first at 127 and then 38 years later Abraham dies after her. In both these stories we see something of the hint of God’s promise, but not it is fulfilment. It is like a little receipt with a remaining total still left.

Sarah dies in Canaan and so Abraham seeks to bury her in this land. This is significant as family burial grounds were important back then. Families identity were connected to where they were from, with a much stronger force than we have today.

My Dad is from Malta. He has gone back for a holiday, he has some cousins over there, but when he dies, there is no real plan to bury him in Malta, and there defiantly isn’t plans for me to be buried there. I like what I hear of Malta, but I do not feel attached to the island in some physical way.

It was very different back then. Joseph who dies in Egypt at the end of Genesis doesn’t get buried till Joshua chapter 24, over 400 years later, after the exodus, because he wanted to be buried in the promised land.

This is why it is quite interesting that Abraham calls himself a foreigner and stranger in this land and yet this is where he wants to bury his wife. He is wanting to start his family’s connection here; he has an affinity for the land. This will be the start of his new family’s burial ground. He isn’t planning on going anywhere else, he is more than just setting up camp here. He is setting up tombstones here.

And we know why this is. Abraham was called by God to leave his family and his land. He was told to go to this land and God would make him a great nation. That he would be blessed by God and be a blessing to others. That his descendants will take possession of the land. In this story, it has been 62 years since God made those promises to Abraham, and here we see Abraham, though all of his journeys, committing his family to be buried here. He and his household would live and die in the promises of God.

So Abraham pays full price for this land. Like the well last week, this is another small part of the promised land that Abraham got to own.

The story continues after Sarah, chapter 24 is how Isaac marries Rebekah, and then in chapter 25, we have a summary of Abraham life after this. Abraham has other children who he gave large gifts to while he was alive, but it was only to Isaac who received an inheritance from Abraham.

Just a glimpse of the promises

At Abraham’s death, Isaac and Ishmael bury him in the same cave he bought for Sarah. This cave becomes their family burial ground. Later Rebecca would be buried there, and then Isaac. Isaac has two sons, Jacob and Esau, and Jacob, who’s name changes to Israel is also buried in this cave.

Time moved on from Abraham, and the rest of Genesis shows how Abrahams, Isaac and Jacob continued in the land, clinging to the promises that God had made. In their clinging on, we see God’s promises, slowly, in tiny steps becoming more and more realised.

Although it does seem very tiny. God promised the whole land, and here we have maybe a well in Beersheba and a cave in a field. God promised that a great nation would come from Abraham, but we don’t see that, and 400 years later, this nation is one of slaves. These promises are slow, painstakingly slow to be realised. And yet Abraha, Isaac and Jacob slowly, with their ups and downs, continued on in the promises of God, even if they couldn’t see it. Like watching counties shift on their tectonic plates, it is hard to measurable on our normal scales.

Since Genesis 12, there is not much to see with these great grand promises. Yes, Isaac was a direct fulfilment of a promise and he has grown up and married, but the great nation and the blessing to the world, we aren’t seeing that.

Hebrews 11[:1-2] tells us

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

These ancients were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Hebrews goes on to say [11:13-16]

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Can you see what Hebrews does which these guys in Genesis? If they wanted to go home they could have. They could have stopped being foreigners and strangers, they had a lifetime to go back to their old family, to the old country; but they didn’t because they were looking for a better country, one that was promised to them by God.

Looking forward to a better place

We too are looking forward to something we can not see at the moment. We are looking forward to a better place that has been promised to us.

John 14[:1-6] we have Jesus saying

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus makes a way for us to be with the Father, to be with God forever. He is the only way to get to God. Jesus has gone ahead to prepare a place for us, but he will return and then we will be with him and the Father forever. To be where God is, sounds like a better country to be in.

We can’t see this right now. But, if you are a Christian, let me tell you, you can have confidence and assurance in what we can’t see right now. Jesus’ resurrection, the gift of the Holy Spirit, God’s written word, 1 John in particular, the church with fellow Christians to help encourage you along the way, the reminder of communion, these things help us to have faith, this help give us assurance and reminders of the things to come.

At the end of it all, when it is your time to leave this life, what country will you be attached to? What promises will you be holding on to, putting your hope in, as those ones will reflect in how you live your life now.