Genesis 21:1-23:20
God had promised that Sarah would become pregnant and he kept his promise. Isaac was born at the time that the angels (disguised as men – who went on to Sodom and rescued Lot) had said that he would be. Eight days old and he was circumcised. This was probably a lot easier for Isaac as he would be too young to ever remember the pain (if you have no idea what circumcision is that’s probably for the best).Oh and Abraham had had his 100th birthday by this point.
Sarah laughed after she’d given birth and said “God has made me laugh! And you know what, everyone who hears this will laugh WITH me!” And she wiped the tears of laughter away from her eyes and said “Who would have thunk? I have given my husband a son even though I am over ninety!”
The child grew and when it was finally weaned! Yay! This meant it was gonna live basically (or it seems likely that it had some significance) cos Abraham says “Ha! My son is weaned – lets have a feast!! Woo! At this feast Sarah, now proudly with her child, Isaac, looked and saw Hagar (the Egyptian who was her slave girl, but also the one whom Sarah had told Abraham to sleep with so as to get him a son). Hagar was now pretty annoyed because she knew that the son of Sarah would get better treatment than her son even though Abraham was the father of both because she was just a slave. Well Sarah sees Hagar mocking the feast in Isaac’s name and so she turns nasty.
“Honey,” she might have called to Abraham. “you see that slave woman and her son?” (She seems to forget that that son is also Abraham’s son.) “Get rid of her will you, cos I will not have that son of hers ever get anything that Isaac should get. Basically: when you die I want EVERYTHING to go to Isaac and not have it split between the two of them. So send her and him away.” Abraham is torn apart by this, because Ishmael (Hagar’s son) is also his son too and whatever happens, he still loves him and cares for him. But then God shows up again and he says “You know what? You’re over reacting. You’re getting so distressed by this, but Sarah’s right – Isaac is the one who is going to get everything. And anyway, you don’t need to worry that anything bad will happen to the servant and her son because I’ve already promised that I’ll make him into a mighty nation too. And if you’ll just turn around for a sec Abraham you will see that little boy of yours by Sarah and you’ll remember that he was also one of my promises. I keep my promises.”
So the next morning Abraham takes provisions and water and he gives them to Hagar. He helps her lift them onto her back then sends her and Ishmael off into the desert of this place called Beersheba. However a few waterskins of water (their equivalent of a bottle of water) isn’t much and soon in the heat of the desert her and the baby were dying from the lack of water. In the end Hagar puts Ishmael down under a bush and walks a little way away, because she thought, “I can’t watch my son die.”
At the thought she began to cry and she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Ishmael was crying too because he was so hot and thirsty and tired. God heard the BOY’S cries and an angel went to Hagar. The angel looked at the scene (with the crying boy under the bush and his mother a little way off sobbing) and he said to Hagar “What’s the matter with you?” Hagar looks up, sees the angel and she probably jumps out of her skin and screams because the next thing the angel says is “Woah! Hold on – you don’t need to be afraid. And you know what? God has heard Ishmael’s cries. So lift him up and take him by the hand for I will make him into a great nation.”
Then Hagar does this and God opens her eyes and she sees a well of water… That’s almost a miracle – missing a well of water when you’re dying of thirst in the middle of a desert! So she went and drank then filled the waterskins (bottles) up and gave some for Ishmael to drink too. As Ishmael grew God was with him and Ishmael became an archer. They continued to live in the desert and while they did his mum got him a wife from Egypt (she was Egyptian, presumably she had some young cousins or friends over there.)
At that time Abimelech (that’s the name of the King whom God almost killed for almost sleeping with Sarah yesterday) and the commander of his army (a guy named Phicol) came to Abraham and Abimelech (the King) said “God follows you round and when you ask him for something he does it. So swear to me, make a promise you cannot break, that you will not use this to deal falsely with my descendents. You don’t come from this country, so show my family as much kindness as I have to you by letting you stay here (you can see he might have forgotten how close he came to losing his life and how much he grovelled to Abraham afterwards.)
But Abraham is godly and says “I swear it, I make a promise I cannot break that I will show the same kindness.” But then he says, “But I have something to talk to you about: YOUR SERVANTS have stolen MY well, my source of water and continued well-living”
Abimelech dodges the accusation (that he, the King, had told his servants to do that) by saying: “I don’t know who did that! You did not tell me, I’ve only just heard about it today.”
Abraham brought sheep and cattle to give to Abimelech because that was how they signed contracts in those days. Then Abraham did something rather strange. He took seven of his female sheep (ewes) and he set them apart from the rest of the flock. Abimelech was confused so he asked “Er.. Abraham… what’s this all about?” And Abraham replies “I’ve not forgotten your servants have stolen MY well – but I’ll give you these seven ewes if you’ll get your servant away and let me keep my well.”
Abimelech looks at the sheep and he must have said “Deal.” because the next thing we know the place is being given a name because ‘an unbreakable promise was made there’. After that Abimelech returns to his house along with the commander of his army and Abraham plants a tree and called upon the name of the Lord… why not? Abraham stayed a long time at that place (the land of the Philistines.)
After a lot of time had passed God called out and said “Abraham!” And Abraham, just like a godly man answered: “Here I am.” But this time God isn’t making promises. He says to Abraham: “Isaac is a man now. You love him. He is your ONLY son. Go to the place called Moriah and I’ll direct you to a hill. Climb up the hill and sacrifice your SON to me…” … Abraham is probably in shock. God is asking to KILL the son that God had given to him. There seems to be no sense in it.
But the next morning Abraham gets a donkey ready, he cuts enough wood to make the sacrifice, takes his son and tells him “We have a journey to make. We go to sacrifice to the Lord.” So they left and three days later Abraham can see the place that God has told him that Isaac is to be sacrificed. They leave the donkey there with some nameless servants they had taken with them and Abraham puts the wood on Isaac. Then the two of them headed off. On the way up Isaac says “Dad…?”
“Yes MY son,” replies Abraham, and you get the sense he says it with a heavy heart for it is coming closer to the time when he, Abraham, would lift the knife and kill Isaac.
“But hey, there is nothing to sacrifice,” said Isaac. “We have wood, we have all we need to make fire, but no lamb to sacrifice.”
“God is providing the sacrifice,” said Abraham and they kept walking.
At the top Abraham builds the altar and tells Isaac “Son. God has said that you’re to be the sacrifice.”
Isaac must comply because he wasn’t bound.
Abraham looks to God. Lifts up his hand. And then…
“Abraham!”
“Er… yes God. Now’s not really a good time… I’d like not to draw this out too much, it’s tearing my heart apart.”
“Don’t you dare kill him!” (You can imagine Abraham being like “What.. but you said.. you SAID!!!”.. or maybe he just broke down into tears and dropped the knife at the relief.) “Now I know that you are willing to do WHATEVER I ask, even to kill your only son,” said God. Then Abraham heard some bleating, looked up and saw that there was a lamb stuck in a thicket.. perfect to make the sacrifice with. So he sacrificed the lamb instead of Isaac. And the mountain was then called “on the mountain of the Lord it will be provided”.
Then an angel of the Lord spoke for the Lord and said “God says that he makes an unbreakable promise upon himself (the strongest promise anyone can make) that because you would have killed Isaac to obey me I will bless you and make sure that your descendants number as many as the stars in the sky. Everyone will be blessed because of your descendants.”
Then Abraham and Isaac returned home.
Abraham had a brother and he heard that his brother had married a woman called Milcah and had many sons, one of whom became the father of Rebekah.
Sarah lived until she was one hundred and twenty seven and then died. Abraham went to the people who owned all the land and said “My wife is dead. Sell me some land that I can bury her in. The men he spoke to said “You’re a famous celebrity! Take the best tombs we have and none of us shall say ‘no’ to you.” But Abraham said politely “If that is what you say go speak to the man called Ephron cos he owns a cave where I would pick to bury my wife. I will pay the full price for it.”
Ephron was there among the men and he spoke up and said “I’ll give it to you free!” But Abraham insisted and paid the full amount for it. Everything on the land was legally then Abraham’s and he buried Sarah in it.
Matthew 8:23-9:13
So Jesus and his disciples were all in a boat and were crossing a large lake (to get to the other side.) but FROM NOWHERE a storm suddenly rose up with fierce winds and massive waves that went over the boat. The disciples were wrestling with the boat to keep it upright.. but Jesus was sleeping… yes, SLEEPING!!! Well the disciples go up to him and over the wind and rain and waves they shout “Lord!!!! Save us!! We’re going down!!!!!!!!! We’re going to die! We’re too young to die!!”
Jesus wakes up at this noise and, from the bottom of the boat looks up at the disciples who look completely scared out of their minds and he says “What’s up guys? Why are you so afraid? Don’t you have ANY faith?” Then he sighs when he sees they still look scared, picks himself up, looks over the sea and says “Alright, enough. Stop!” And it did… The disciples stood there on the perfectly calm sea and their jaws dropped open. “Woa” they said. “This guy can tell the seas what to do!”
They got to the other side of the lake and got out. There were two men who lived in the area that were possessed by demons. They became so fierce that the local villagers wouldn’t go anywhere near them. They came out from their homes in the tombs and headed straight at Jesus.
“Oi!” They shouted to attract his attention. “What do you want? You’re God’s son. We know that. But there is a time appointed when we’re to be tortured… have you come to torture us before that time?” Jesus approaches them. Their attitude changes “At least send us into those pgs that are over there,” they plead piteously. Jesus looks at the pigs disdainfully and says “Go on then. Shoo!” So the demons left the men and went into the pigs. The pigs promptly went and ran into a lake and drowned.
The people who had been looking after the pigs ran into the town and told everyone what had happened. Then the town went and begged Jesus to leave the region they lived in.
So Jesus goes back to the boat, they all pile in again and they go back to the other side of the lake until they came to Jesus’ own town. There some people brought a man who was completely paralysed. Jesus looks at him and says “don’t worry mate… your sins are forgiven!” Well that seems helpful for a paralysed man.
In the crowd are some of the priests and they look at each other and thought, “how can anyone but God forgive someone’s sins? That’s pretending to be God! That’s a crime punishable by death!” but Jesus knew their thoughts and so he said “Why do you think these evil things? Is it easier to say that his sins are forgiven or to tell him to get up and walk? Surely if I can do the harder one I can do the easier one right? So I’ll prove that I can forgive his sins by telling him to get up and walk! Get up and walk!” The man suddenly got up. the crowd began cheering wildly and were filled with amazement. Then they praised God.
They moved along from there and Jesus saw a tax-collector (hated as were all tax colelctor’s by the people because they were Jews who enforced Roman laws.) Jesus walks up to him and says “Follow me. I think you’ve got what it takes to become like me.” Understandably the tax-collector (called Matthew) gets up immediately and begins to follow Jesus.
They eat at Matthews house that night and there are many of Matthews fellow tax collectors and other ‘sinners’ eating with them. They had a bit of a party. So some priests come up to the disciples of Jesus and ask them “Why does Jesus party with sinners?” jesus hears this though, comes over and says “Hey, the healthy don’t need a doctor. I’m like the doctor, I go to those who are sick! There is a verse in the Old Testament which says ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’ – go learn what that REALLY means! I’ve come for the sinners.”
Psalm 7:10-17
God is my shield!
Those who act in a good way he saves!
God is a perfect judge,
He shows his anger every day
He sharpens his sword to cut flesh better.
He will ebnd and string his bow to be more powerful
He IS preparing his weapons for war
His flaming arrows are ready to set fire to the world
Anyone who is giving birth to evil
Anyone who makes trouble makes people disillusioned
He who digs a hole to set a trap falls in it himself.
The trouble comes back like a boomerang
And hits him on the head
God is perfect so I will give thanks
I will sing him praises.
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