Categories: uncategorized
Date: 11 January 2011 15:02:09
After all the angst I got to what is probably my fave bit of the bible, (excluding Jesus rising again), yesterday. OT reading was Gen 21:1 - 23:20. This includes the story of Hagar and Ishmael in the desert. For those not familiar the story goes like this Sarah gets well jealous of Ishmael and is worried that he will get some of the inheritence intended for Isaac and so tells Abraham, "get rid of that slave woman and her son for that woman's son will never share your inheritence."
Abraham is extremely upset at this but gives into his wife and casts Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness with just a few days provisions. Unsuprisingly the stress of all this means that by the time the provisions run out Hagar is suicidal and her lowest ebb. She leaves Ishmael, walking away because she can't bear to watch her son die. Ishmael does what kids do when mums lose the plot, he starts crying....and so God shows up in this single mums time of greatest dispair and need.
After encountering God and having her immeadiate needs met by him she pulls herself together and rebuilds her life, nurturing a very able child. She then becomes the strong, intelligent woman she actually is, rather than the wreck who God met and in the end gets her son a wife from her people.
It might be a v. old story and originally contextually v. different but in many ways it is so contemporary and overlaps with aspects of my own story. Hagar is, after Jesus, my biggest biblical hero.
Further on I got to the story of Abraham offering Isaac for sacrifice. Reading through I was struck, as I once heard in a sermon, that Isaac wasn't a little kid when this happened. Therefore, in the mist of this sacrificial episode he actually would have had a choice. This young man who would have caught on to what was happening could have overpowered his dad if he hadn't been willing to go through with it. Isaac effectively had a choice in the matter, it was to do with his faith aswell as his fathers.
NT was Matt 8:23 - 9:13. In this Jesus calmed the storm after being woken up...you wonder how shattered and physically exhausted he must have been. I find some of the healing stuff scary as I've realised that the whole area has huge issues around it in terms of how we relate it to contemporary people. This article in the Guardian today outlines the extent of mental health problems amongst women. Yet, these verses include ones which have to be handled carefully. Exorcisms are not the answer to mental health issues, but healing is....which may well involve traditional medicine. I think that from these verses we need to focus on the fact that Jesus comes to meet and heal those who need him.
Both the Hagar story and the healing power of Jesus indicate he is there for everybody and has a proven history of meeting those who are vulnerable in society or who may be outcasts. We have an amazing gospel to share with people. We have something to say, as Christians, that is relevant to single parents and to those who have suffered from mental health issues. We need to think through how we put this and engage with people but we have an amazing message to share. God is there for us!!! I think those of us with testimonys to share to show this is as relevant now as it was then should not be afraid to do so. Um....stopping this before I go off on some rant about my life and what Jesus has done in it you've all heard so many times it's boring.
Also read Psalm 7:10-17....more judgement, etc. Decided I don't like split Psalms. Thought except for the really long ones I was dealing with whole ones.
Leaving you with Robin Mark's version of Wonderous Story which sums it up for me....[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8mkP24wDkU[/youtube]