Who but You?

Jerusalem – Tower of David, Israel photo by Jehonatan Leurer

Good morning, beloved,

Lent begins this week, friends. I can hardly believe we are about to walk the path to Gethsemane. Spring is coming. My family is in charge, the next three weeks, with shepherding and teaching the little kids in our church. We have looked at the material and we have the privilege of introducing the children to the idea of covenant.  My brain went nuts with this news. I was getting so excited until I realized the story we get to help them understand is Genesis 15. Please don’t get me wrong, you know I love talking through His word. However, trying to help children understand in their terms, their level why God chose to make this promise with Abram this way, this bloody, this harsh.

So, kids, lets see what this covenant says, Abram will have more descendants than stars of the universe. (We could show them…)

Stars High Mountain Sky photo by ForestWander

Very pretty. and amazing. Abram’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. He was going to have that many descendants. However, he was old and no kids were on the horizon yet. So…

⁸ But Abram said, “Lord God, how can I ·be sure [^Lknow] that I will ·own this land [possess/inherit it]?”

⁹ ·The Lord [^LHe] said to Abram, “Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old ·male sheep [ram], a ·dove [turtledove], and a young pigeon.”

¹⁰ Abram brought them all to God. Then Abram ·killed the animals and cut each of them into two pieces [^Lsplit them down the middle], laying each half opposite the other half. But he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ Later, ·large birds [or birds of prey]flew down to eat the ·animals [^Lcarcasses], but Abram chased them away [^Cperhaps representing later enemies of Israel].

That is a lot of blood.

¹⁷ After the sun went down, it was very dark. Suddenly a smoking firepot and a blazing torch [^Cfire and smoke often represent God] passed between the ·halves of the dead animals [^Lpieces; ^Ca self-curse ritual; by passing between the pieces of the sacrifice, one vowed to keep an agreement or suffer the same fate as the animals]. ¹⁸ So on that day the Lord ·made an agreement [^Lcut a covenant/treaty; 6:18] with Abram and said, “I will give to your ·descendants [^Lseed] the land between the river of Egypt and the great river Euphrates. Genesis 15 EXB

God was doing something extraordinary with mankind. He was binding Himself to a covenant. The blood of the innocent animals brought images to each of the importance of keeping the covenant. If one side did not keep the covenant, it would be death. You would not enter into a covenant lightly, or without thinking. However, God was the one making the covenant. Abram was asleep. He watched, he remembered his dream.

Should be an interesting morning at children’s church. However, this morning as I work it through in my mind, lo and behold, my first reading for Lent is Matthew 1. God reminds me, everything He does points to Jesus, to His redemption plan.

This is the ·family history [record of the ancestors; genealogy; ^Lbook of the offspring/family; ^Cperhaps a title for the entire book] of Jesus ·Christ [the Messiah]. ·He came from the family of David, and David came from the family of Abraham [^L…the son of David, the son of Abraham; ^C“son” can mean descendant].