OK, Advent anyway! That's definitely happening or else we won't have Christmas, so it's an adventure that we're tying to find. Advent is the beginning of the church's year and today is the first day of Advent, so a good time to start the adventure. This season takes us through a whistle-stop tour of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New as we lead up to Jesus' birthday on 25th December. We look at the patriarchs, the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist and Mary, Jesus' mother.
So, we start with the patriarchs and, in case you were asking, the strict definition is Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Sometimes people use the term to include all Abraham's ancestral line back to Adam. Joseph, Jacob's son, is also sometimes referred to as a patriarch; Job seems to have lived around this time as well. For now, though, three is enough to be getting on with.
Abram
Today's patriarch will be Abraham, the great man of faith who was turned by God into a father of many nations with descendants as numerous as the stars, and who messed up on multiple occasions by taking matters into his own hands. His story can be found in Genesis, from chapter 11, verse 27 to chapter 25, verse 11. He was brought up as Abram in Ur, a major city in what is now Iraq. It was originally on the coast of the Persian Gulf, near the mouth of the river Euphrates, although the coastline has now moved south, leaving the site on the south bank of the river, several miles inland. His father, Terah, set off to take his family to Canaan, but ended up settling partway along the route, at Haran, in modern day Turkey. just north of the Syrian border - a long way off target! It seems that while there, Abram married a woman called Sarai, who was in some way or other his sister - we don't know if that was a step-sister, or adopted sister, or actually a daughter of his own mother and father.
Eventually Abraham was called by God to continue the journey and he made his way to Canaan with Sarai and his nephew, Lot. They had no particular destination in mind, but when they had entered the land, God confirmed to Abram that this would be where he would leave his inheritance for his children. However, a famine arose and so Abram took Sarai and Lot further on and into Egypt, were there was food. Here, Abram started to make his first mistake. Sarai was very beautiful and so he told the Egyptians that she was just his sister, not his wife, so that he wouldn't be killed by someone wanting to take her for himself. Eventually the Pharaoh (king of Egypt) noticed her and so God intervened and made Pharaoh and his household ill. When Pharaoh found out that that was because Sarai was Abram's wife, he wasn't pleased and sent them packing.
Despite Abraham's several big mistakes, God was more interested in his heart than his actions. When God found faith there, he knew that Abraham was a righteous man.
They went back to Canaan and Lot left Abram to settle in the Jordan valley, while Abram and Sarai went to the hill country, where God confirmed again that this would become the ancestral home for their children. Abram, who had now accumulated vast numbers of cattle, had various adventures and meetings with God, and eventually God told him that he would still have an heir and many offspring, even though he was getting quite old, 85 by now. Since Sarai was also barren, they decided that the way for Abram to have children was for Sarai to let him sleep with her maid, Hagar. That worked well, Hagar became pregnant, Sarai became jealous, Hagar ran away and God had to send her back home! Taking matters into our own hands is generally not a good idea when God has his own plans.
Abraham
Thirteen years later, God appeared to Abram again and reiterated that he and Sarai would have a son and should call him Isaac, changing their names at that point to Abraham (Father of Many Nations) and Sarah (Princess), in preparation. A few years later God came back and said that Isaac would be born the next year, and Sarah just laughed - she was well over 90 by then - and God wasn't too impressed. They had more adventures, moved to a place called Gerar, told the locals that Sarah was Abraham's sister (again), got into trouble when the local king, Abimelech, took a fancy to Sarah (again) and were sent away (again), at least amicably this time. Eventually Sarah became pregnant and nine months later bore a son, Isaac.
So God had been right all along - perhaps not a surprise, but it's not always easy to hear clearly and then stop ourselves from overinterpreting (or under-interpreting) what he says. The bottom line is that they hadn't needed to lie about Sarah being Abraham's wife (twice), and they hadn't needed to suggest that Abraham perform an adulterous act with Hagar in order to have a son. It was all going to work out OK in God's way, despite appearances being to the contrary. And then, a few years later God told Abraham to kill Isaac as a sacrifice to him.
What!!? Has God actually gone crazy? After all this time and all the messages and waiting? Is Isaac going to have to die and then Sarah become pregnant again? Is Isaac going to die and that's it, the end of their dreams - dreams that they had only because God kept telling them that was how it was going to be? Or was God going to bring Isaac back from the dead? Anyway, Abraham decided to obey and at the last moment God intervened to save Isaac. God wasn't crazy or cruel after all, but had severely tested Abraham and Isaac. In the end, Abraham was obedient in the most difficult of situations. He showed that he did indeed have great faith in God, and God declared that because of that he saw Abraham as a righteous man, in spite of his various earlier failings. That's an encouragement for us all, and a thought that we need to hold onto until we meet Jesus' story in 24 days time.
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