Genealogy of Jesus: Abraham and Isaac

OT Lesson: Genesis 12:1-9 (CEB)

The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your land, your family, and your father’s household for the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and will bless you. I will make your name respected, and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,
those who curse you I will curse;
all the families of the earth
will be blessed because of you.”

Abram left just as the Lord told him, and Lot went with him. Now Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all of their possessions, and those who became members of their household in Haran; and they set out for the land of Canaan. When they arrived in Canaan, Abram travelled through the land as far as the sacred place at Shechem, at the oak of Moreh. The Canaanites lived in the land at that time. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I give this land to your descendants,” so Abram built an altar there to the Lord who appeared to him. From there he travelled toward the mountains east of Bethel, and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and worshipped in the Lord’s name. Then Abram set out toward the arid southern plain, making and breaking camp as he went.

NT Lesson: Matthew 1:1-2 (NRSV)

An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.

Sermon

Introduction

Happy New Year! Rosh Hashanah רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה begins tonight. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year’s Day on Hebrew calendar. In Jewish culture and in the Bible, a day is defined as from a sunset until the next sunset. So the Rosh Hashanah is from the sunset of today until the sunset of tomorrow. You may think it is interesting that a day begins from the evening or sunset rather than in the sunrise or midnight, but that is the way in the Bible. In Genesis when God was creating the universe, the Bible says each day like ‘there was evening and there was morning, the first day.’ Anyway, Rosh Hashanah is the New Year’s Day. So let us say to each other, Happy New Year. If you want to say it in Hebrew, the greeting is שנה טובה (Shanah Tovah), which means a good year.

From Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur are the Jewish High Holidays. Yom Kippur is the day of atonement and there are ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, and those ten days are the last chance to repent. So each and every new year begins with the repentance and forgiveness in Hebrew calendar. So let us also repent for the new beginning. And by the way, if you want a church licence plate, please let me know so that we can buy enough. As I wrote in the Midweek, the price is about $18.

Genealogy of Jesus

As you know, we finished the 101 series, and today we begin the new series, Genealogy of Jesus. There are two records of genealogy of Jesus, one in the gospel of Matthew and the other in the gospel of Luke. Those two records are quite similar but also different. While Luke goes all the way back to Adam, Matthew begins from Abraham, ignoring everyone between Adam and Terah, who is the father of Abraham. My plan is to have this series until Advent, and the list according to Luke is too long for that. Even Matthew’s list is too long to fit in the schedule if I go for everybody there, so I will pick several of them from the line of Jesus according to Matthew.

If you pick one most important person in the entire Bible, who might be that person? Of course that is Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Through Him, we are saved. By Him, we are redeemed. With Him, we became the heirs of heaven. Now, if you have to pick three most important persons, who might be those three? The answer is according to Matthew: Jesus, David, and Abraham.

Not Entirely Bad People

When I was talking about the tradition in the 101 series, I depicted the major patriarchs quite badly. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were mistreating their wives and families. I wasn’t lying. That was true. But they are also great people of God. They are not perfect. Like us, they are also flawed. And Bible shows the bad sides as well as good sides. And to me, that builds up the credibility of the Bible even more. In that way, the Bible is really different from all the other ancient texts. If you read the ancient writings such as of Constantine the Great, there are too much buttering. He is depicted as the perfect human being. And that is the normal writing style of the ancient world. But the Bible shows the flawed and imperfect aspects of the heroes as well. That is very uncommon in the ancient world. The Biblical style of writing, revealing the imperfect sides of the main character was regarded as malicious. But in this way, we can see those people in 3 dimension. And we, the flawed people, can relate to them because we know that they are also flawed.

So, because I showed you the bad side of Abraham and Isaac, let me show you some good sides of them as well. In one word, that is the obedience.

From Ur to Canaan

Abraham was seventy-five years old. He was born, raised, settled, and retired in Chaldean Ur. That city was in Mesopotamia—not some rural Mesopotamia but one of the core big cities there. Mesopotamia was the richest area back them, being one of the early civilisations. You all know the four major early civilisations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus river valley in India, and Yellow river in China. But among those ancient civilisations, Mesopotamia was the earliest and oldest one. And at the time of Abraham, it was the richest and most powerful place in the world. And again, he was seventy-five years old when God told him to immigrate to somewhere else. And the thing is that God didn’t really tell Abraham where to go—the destination. God simply told him, “Go, then I will show you the way.” It sounds much like the 1989 film, Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.” How many of you can do this? One day God tells you to go. “OK, God. Where do you exactly want me to go?” “Sell your house and just go, then I will show you the way.” And again, he was not in his twenties, but mid-seventies. If God tells us to move to Canada or other parts of this country, still many of us may not probably that much willing to go. Well, I went to Canada, but I was not in my seventies. I was in my twenties. When you are in your twenties, you can go anywhere, I mean literally anywhere, without any problem. But not so when you are in your seventies or older. And also God didn’t tell Abraham to go to Canada, but Canaan.

Anyway, Abraham and his family finally arrived there—Canaan. Canaan was one of the poorest place in the world. It was like moving from New York to Uganda or Congo. To make it worse, most places in Palestine are quite dry like half desert. In Palestine, rain is very rare and water is precious. In Hebrew, heaven is שָּׁמַ֖יִם (shamaim). And it means literally, ‘there is water.’ Imagine that you are a farmer in Palestine which is half desert. Every single day you are so desperate for more water, even one more drop. And one day a stranger comes to you and say, “Hey, if you go to Indiana, there is water, lots of water year round.” Then your reaction must be like, “Really? There is water? That must be like heaven.” So in Hebrew, the phrase ‘there is water’ became the word for heaven. And also of course there is water up in heaven. That is why the water drops from up there which we call rain. So water is that much precious in Palestine. Even now, Israel and Palestine kill each other over water source.

We all know that without water, you cannot grow crops. Now let’s imagine that you are in heaven, I mean in Indiana. And you are a big farmer. Here in Indiana, we have enough rain and plenty of water. One day God tells you to move to somewhere else, “In the new place I will bless you and make you super rich through farming and agriculture.” So you sell all your land and you depart. You arrive and realise that the new place is actually in the middle of a desert. That is the situation in where Abraham found himself. And yet he obeyed the word of God, and moved into the uncertain future just holding the promise of God.

Sacrificing Isaac

Fast forward to chapter 22, Abraham had his biggest trial in his life. Moving to a whole new country at the age of seventy-five must have been a big deal. And now God asks Abraham to sacrifice, that is to kill, his only legitimate son, Isaac. Abraham was one hundred years old when Isaac was born. And actually this command from God contradicts God’s own previous words. God already promised Abraham many times that God will make Abraham a great people and nation through this very specific son from Sarah, and Sarah had only one son. If he kills Isaac who is not yet married and had no offspring, how can it be possible to make a great people and nation through him? If I were Abraham, I would have said to God like, “God, are You listening to Yourself? You said that my son will have children, and many grandchildren. If I kill him now, how can he have grandchildren, let alone his own children? Can you please come back to senses?”

But Abraham didn’t even say a word back to God. He simply obeyed the word of God which sounds not only cruel but stupid. The next day Abraham woke up early in the morning and left the journey with his son Isaac. One interesting thing linguistically is that the phrase ‘wake up early in the morning’ is six words in English but in Hebrew just one word (שָׁכַם). Hebrew language has two separate words for ‘wake up’ and for ‘wake up early in the morning.’ That is because it is really important for the farmers and shepherds to wake up early in the morning. But the question is why Abraham had to wake up early in the morning like 3 or 4AM, instead of 7AM. Is it because the journey is too far? Maybe. It was three days’ journey. But if that is multiple days’ journey, you don’t really have to get up 3 in the morning. 3AM or 7AM, there is no real difference in the long run. It is my speculation that the real reason was Abraham was afraid of Sarah.

In the patriarchal society where every man is a macho man, we may assume that Abraham was like, ‘I am the husband and head of the household! Woman, be quiet and listen to me!’ Well, most men were like that. But in that family, Sarah was actually dominant. When Sarah says to him ‘Do it!’ then he was like always timidly, ‘Yes ma’am,’ and does it. When I say it for the first time, nobody believes me but I am not making it up. In the Bible, one day Sarah told Abraham, ‘You, go and sleep with that young girl!’ He said, ‘Yes, Ma’am!’ But when the girl had a son, Sarah said to him again, ‘You, expel that woman and your son, I mean her son, to the desert so that they can die of thirst!’ Abraham again said, ‘Yes, ma’am…’ So Abraham was obedient not only to God but also to his wife. So the moral of today’s sermon is this: Husbands, obey to your wife!

Anyway, Abraham obeyed even to sacrifice his own son. And that obedience came out of his faith. He believed the promise of God that through Isaac, God will make him a great people and nation. And thus he believed even if he kills his son, he will rise again. And in this way, Isaac represents the Saviour of the world to come in future, thousands of years later—the sacrificial Lamb to rise again from the dead. And all this was possible because of Abraham’s obedience.

Isaac’s Obedience

Let us now switch our viewpoint from Abraham’s eyes to Isaac’s eyes. How old do you think Abraham was when he tried to sacrifice his son? The Bible does not specify his age, but for sure way over one hundred years old because Isaac was born when Abraham was one hundred years old. Now, how old do you think Isaac was when his father tried to kill him? Most the Biblical movies or the pictorial Bibles show us a little child holding a hand of an old man, like preschool or kinder age. Again, the Bible does not specify the age of Isaac as well. We have a few clues in Genesis 22. Isaac asked his father in verse 7: ‘Father, the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?’ So Isaac was old enough to notice things and to reason logically. But that can be any age above five or six. But then we can see in verse six that Isaac was carrying a large pile of wood for the burnt-offering while climbing up on a mountain. Wood enough for a burnt sacrifice is fairly heavy, I mean really heavy. It is not something a child or a young boy can carry. So Isaac must have been college age, or at least high school age.

Now imagine the scene: one hundred and twenty year old man is trying with a knife to kill a college boy. Is that really possible? Not really. Well, only when the young man lets the old man. And Isaac did. He could have pushed one hundred and twenty year old man away with great ease. Maybe he didn’t even need to push but just blow some air like a big bad wolf, then Abraham could have been knocked down backward. Or maybe he didn’t even need to huff and puff. Isaac could have just verbally shock his father, “Are you crazy? Are you getting dementia because you are too old now?” Then Abraham could have a heart attack or a stroke to death. But Isaac obeyed his father and had let him bind himself and waited until the knife came to his throat. It was God who stopped it, not Isaac. I said earlier that Isaac represents Jesus in this moment. I have a few more to say. Jesus didn’t open his mouth like a lamb being brought to slaughter,1 and so was Isaac. Jesus was obedient to the point of death,2 and so was Isaac. Through obedience, Jesus rose again from the dead. Through obedience, Isaac avoided the death.

Conclusion

God said through the mouth of prophet Samuel, “To obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams.”3 To obey is the best way to please God. Abraham and Isaac became the fathers of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world because they obeyed. Isaiah says that if we are willing and obedient, we shall eat the good of the land.4 So friends, let us obey God. Then we shall eat the good of the land here on earth and will inherit the everlasting kingdom of heaven. Amen.