dry as a page

in the old king james version

We’re going to spend a little time with the Old Testament. Time with the Bible is always well spent. For those of us who place our trust in Jesus, though, it is especially important to to familiarize ourselves with the Old Testament. 

After all, Jesus was Jewish; he understood his mission in light of what we call the Old Testament (which, for him it was just called “the Bible”).

Of course it all begins with Eden, God’s perfect creation. Not long into the story, though, Sin rears its ugly head, and Eden is lost. The rest of the story, is the story of God repairing creation; of God getting this world back to what was intended at Eden.

To do this, God chooses a wandering Armenian; Abraham. You remember, “Father Abraham, had many sons; and many sons had father Abraham.”

It turns out that, for no reason other than the God you worship is an electing God, God chooses Abraham for the project of restoration. And to do this, God makes two promises to Abraham; property and progeny; land and children. God will make a people out of Abraham’s descendants. A people set apart, a people who, through them, God will get God’s will done. 

When that promise is made to Abraham and Sarah, you can’t help but wonder, “how.” How will God keep this promise? After all, Sarah and Abraham are getting on in years. Eventually, and unlikely, they have a child, Isaac. Isaac, meaning laughter. What else could poor old Abraham and Sarah do after being inexplicably chosen in their old age to birth a people?

Now there is just one child, but still no land.

Isaac, in turn, has two children: Esau, the eldest; and Jacob, the trickster.

Again, for no other reason than the God you worship is an electing God, God chooses the younger Jacob. Properly speaking, the birthright always goes to the eldest. All God bothers to reply to the indiscretion is, “Jacob have I loved, Esua have I hated.” 

The story follows the twists and turns of Jacob the trickster, as he lives by his whits. What is always at stake though, is how God will make good on this choice of Joseph.

Well eventually, Jacob has twelve sons. Now there is progeny, offspring; but the descendants of Abraham still have no land, they’re wandering nomads. 

Jacob’s eleventh child, as I am sure you remember, was Joseph. For no reason other than God has determined to be an electing God, God chooses Joseph. You remember him too, the technicolor dream coat. God gives Joseph the ability to interpret dreams. 

Joseph’s brothers eventually get jealous, and sell him into slavery one day. And there, you have to wonder how God will make good on this choice of Joseph. But God stays true, God is with Joseph, though, and eventually and unlikely he winds up in a position of power in the court of the Pharaoh.

There, in Egypt, the offspring of Abraham make a go of it… 

…Until, until a pharaoh who did not know Joseph comes into power. This Pharaoh makes it a policy to oppress Abraham’s decedents, the promise of offspring was creating an issue. They were too numerous, and the pharaoh feared an uprising from them. 

The people cry out in misery, and God hears their lament. God remembers that a promise has been made to Abraham’s descendants.
So God chooses unlikely Moses. Moses, a murderer, with a stuttering problem, to lead God’s people out of Egypt, to the promised land. 

Next is Exodus, the great adventure of God’s fidelity to that promise made to Abraham so long ago. Despite all that threatens this promise, God will make a people to reveal God’s good intention for the world, a people set apart. 

Then, and it’s worth noting, that part of this journey includes a stop at Mount Sinai and receive the Ten Commandments. God’s people pause before the promise is fulfilled, to hear how they will live as the people God has chosen…

There in the promised land, Israel, the people of God, undertake the task of settling into the land, of becoming the people set apart, the people God intends. 

It isn’t long, however, before they decide they want to be like everyone else, and have a king. A king, which, although subtle, is a rejection of God as their king. 

Remember a few weeks back, when the prophet Samuel gets upset that the people ask for a king; how God says to Samuel, “they have not rejected you, they have rejected me.” Remember how Samuel goes back to the people and says, “you want a king, okay, here’s what the king will do; the king will take; take your daughters, take your sons, take your livestock, take your produce.”

Finally, that brings us to David. David the great king. 

David, the one God inexplicably chooses. David the one to defeat Israel’s enemies, build the castle, shore up the walls. David, the, that’s right, “Messiah.” David the king. 

The story of David, just like the rest of the story since Eden, is a story of whether or not God’s promises can hold out. Now, at this point in the story, once God’s people are numerous and settled in the land, you’d be tempted to think, as David was, that the threat to God’s promises will come from outside; that the enemy at the door will be the one to kill the offspring and seize the land. 

But, as we hear this terrible story about David and Bathsheba, we find that the threat to God’s promises lay closer at hand; in the designs of the heart. 

We hear about King David, taking; taking just as Samuel predicted. Taking another man’s wife; taking Bathsheba, taking the life she had with Uriah, taking her body, literally taking her husband’s life.

David, the king, forgets the reason he is king; the promise get’s separated from The One who made it. The promise of property and progeny was never just to parade around as the unlikely recipients of God’s choosing, it was to be the means through which God would restore the harmony at Eden.

David, disconnected from the God who made the promises, imagines he can just take; take, free of any consequences. He is the king, after all…

So when word comes back that this daughter of Eliam is pregnant, David figures he will just cover his tracks. He bring’s Uriah from the frontline and tries to get him to go home and wash his feet, a euphemism. 

Uriah remains faithful, though, nearly echoing what we heard David say a few weeks back, ‘it isn’t right to sleep at home, while the ark of covenant is out in the wilderness.’ So David gets him drunk, trying to blur his reasoning. When that doesn’t work, either; David arranges Uriah’s death. Uriah, faithful fellow, carries the note sealing his own fate to David’s accomplice.

Right here, in this story of the promise divorced from The One who gave it; Sin rears it’s ugly head. In fact, Sin takes what was a promise, progeny; and turn it into a problem. 

Now progeny, the descendants of Abraham, will battle and kill one another to become king. In fact, one of David’s children, Absalom, will rise up against him and try to start a coup. 

It turns out, tragically, that the promise of offspring, turns into the real threat to God’s promises…

Right at the moment when the people of God have everything they’ve been promised, that the real threat to God’s promises gets to work. Separated from the one who made the promise, the people of the promise lose their way. Even though they finally made it to the promised land, they were just as lost as they ever were during those 40 years out in the wilderness.

That’s as far as we get today.

For us who live so comfortably, there are so many lessons to be learned from this point in the story of God’s promises.

We know what it’s like to have everything and lose our way, don’t we? 

Getting more than what we really need does that, doesn't it? It skews our perspective, it makes us forget.

We’re not so different from David…

When the promise gets separated from The One who makes it, just like David, we fool ourselves into thinking the threat to God’s promises are out there; that it’s our job to go out and enforce God’s will, to make it happen. 

Only, all those efforts just turn out to be just another occasion for Sin to rear its ugly head. This story, and most of our sordid Christian history too, shows all too clearly that our efforts are too often at odds with God’s will.
God has no use for all your efforts to go out there and make God’s will get done; Sin might, but not God.

God’s choosing, unlikely and unexpected though it may be, can withstand any threat. Not because we can enforce it, but because God’s faithfulness is enough.

When the promises get separated from the One who makes them, there’s not way you can trust that God’s promises can be kept. That’s the story since Eden to Revelation, the need of God’s people to stay near God.

And here’s the Good News, as the story we just went through shows, as Jesus will come, live, die and be raised promise, although we’re not good at staying near our God. Your God will make good on your election.