Thursday, February 2, 2023

 

Thursday, February 2, 2023


Psalm 77

Genesis 21

Luke 3:1-14


Observance: The Presentation of Christ in the Temple


And God heard the voice of the boy.


There are babies just flying out everywhere today! Abraham and Sarah have finally seen the promises of God fulfilled in Isaac; Abraham’s son by Hagar is playing with his baby brother; the miracle child John the Baptist has entered into his manhood and calling; and he is preparing the way for his cousin, the Lord Jesus, who we have seen grow from newborn to adolescent to grown man all too quickly.


Abraham and Sarah’s neuroticism over the baby Ishmael is, for us with the wisdom of time, embarrassing, to say the least. What began as the couples’ only hope turned into a point of contention and eventually a criminal act of banishment.


When John the Baptist comes along, he preaches to the crowds, exhorting them to repent and return to God. Their response is that they already have God’s favour by virtue of being one of Abraham’s sons (we assume they mean legitimately, through Isaac). John laughs in their face: he has read Genesis more closely than they. “God can raise descendants of Abraham from these rocks!” he retorts, reminding all of us of two important aspects of God’s character that He revealed to us when dealing with Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, and Ishmael.


First is the reminder that any favour we receive from God is not by our own virtue, but His grace. God didn’t have to select Abraham to be the father of many nations; nor did He need to wait to perform the miracle birth of Isaac in order to fulfil His promise. No, God was right in the thick of things, performing miracles, making and fulfilling the wildest of promises, letting gifts of grace fall out wherever He moved.


Secondly is the reminder that whatever God may have said to someone else, He wants us to deal with Him personally, on an individual, case-by-case basis. Take Hagar, for example. What kind of mental trauma must she have experienced, being raised from slave girl to mother of the covenant, only to be abused and thrown back down to slavery, and eventually banished. She loved her son so much she couldn’t bear to hear his death rattle, and there was nothing she could do to save him from the punishing desert heat. But while God had made His covenant with Abraham, that didn’t mean His ears were shut to Hagar. He pulled her out of her valley of death and raised her son to be the father of who we now describe as Arabs.


God hears our voice: He has no concern for family lineage, or class, or physical beauty, or ethnicity, or how many hours we have put in at the community centre. He wants you, the core of what makes you you, the essence, the stuff you are made of. He wants you to know Him completely, and to trust Him, and to perform miraculous deeds through you. Try praying now, and think of these words: “and God heard”.

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