Covenant and Prophecy

“Covenant and Prophecy…”
1st Sunday in Advent, 2011

Rev. Stephen E. Stults
St. Barnabas Anglican Church
Nov. 27th, 2011


Happy New Year, Christians! We bid you welcome to another new church year. This is the beginning of our annual earthly re-birth, our spiritual reawakening in Christ. Last Sunday, we head of the prophecy of the Messiah, “the Righteous Branch” who will bring salvation to all mankind. Recall that Jeremiah told us of the One who would save Israel from its sins. Recall that He would be the one to lead us to righteousness and peace.

Would it be so. Would it be so that the whole Earth would blossom forth with the Spirit of God! Would it be so that the whole Earth would break forth into song of the glories of the Lord as it proclaims another year in Christ. Why? Because this is Advent… this is the time that orthodox Christians praise their King and Creator, Jesus Christ. We recognize that this is the time to celebrate the coming of "Once and Future King", to borrow a phrase from T. H. White.

Last week, we spoke of our witness to the cycle of salvation, as mirrored in the Church Year. We spoke of how the panoply of man’s deliverance from eternal death and sin is recounted year after year, from prophecy to fulfillment. And so it is. So, welcome Christians to the opening act of mankind’s drama of deliverance. Welcome to Advent 2011!

Our Old Testament Lesson for the day is, to my mind, one of more fascinating and instructive passages in Genesis, although there are many. In it, we see a clear picture of the principle of Covenant. We see both the positive and negative sides of living in covenant with Almighty God. In other words, just as Moses would later tell the children of Israel in the book of Deuteronomy, when one lives in covenant with God, one will receive either blessings or cursings, depending on one’s behavior, actions, and attitude. All of this is contained in this little passage from Genesis that we read today.

To recount the scene, Abraham is sitting in his tent door, in the “heat of the day.” He saw three visitors coming towards his camp and he ran to meet them. As Matthew Henry says, “despite his age and gravity”, he ran and did obeisance to them. Obviously, there was something about these three “men”, or beings, that caused him to do this; yet one would like to think that a prosperous and gracious man like Abraham would have offered hospitality to any who came to him.

The Scripture, however, clearly tells us that the LORD visited Abraham that day. Three mysterious strangers suddenly showed up in his camp, and one can’t doubt there was something about them. Since the Word itself says the LORD came to Abraham, we are disposed to consider that this was a visit by the pre-incarnate Christ, accompanied by two angels. This is logical and can be supported by evidence from the text. For example, we read later in Chapter 19 that two angels came to Sodom in the evening, where they met Lot and warned him of the destruction to come. This was the same destruction of which the LORD had told Abraham, most likely earlier in the same day.

Some commentators have speculated these “three men” were actually the Holy Trinity, or a symbolic representation of it. After all, since we are told that the Lord visited Abraham and three figures appeared to him, this could be. It could also be a prefiguring of the Trinity, with Christ and the two angels representing the other two persons. Although this view is attractive to me, personally, I think the view that it was actually Christ and two angels is more likely. At any rate, of one thing we are sure: the LORD did appear unto Abraham.

Another point is that Abraham entertained the visitors courtesy and with honor. This brings to mind St Paul’s statement in Hebrews 13:2”Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” This has always been an interesting and intriguing passage for me because of the sheer mystery of it. It does remind of a road trip I took while in college. Returning to Missouri from Arkansas, where I had gone duck hunting with an old high-school friend, I found myself driving down a picturesque two-land highway. As I topped a hill, there was a young, rather pleasant looking man about my own age walking along the highway, hitchhiking. I pulled over and offered a ride. He accepted and we rode for several miles with very little conversation. He was quiet, even solemn, but in a good way.
It so happened that his stop was right along my route, so I was able to drop him close to where he needed to go. As he left the car, he turned and said, “God Bless you…” I said “Thanks” and drove off. What was curious was the atmosphere inside my car had a wonderful light “feel” to it. As I reflected on it later, I thought it was like St. Paul’s statement in 2Corinthians about Christians being “a sweet savour of Christ.” In short, it was a blessed air in the car. Later that evening, I told my mother about the experience and she said that I may very well have entertained an angel. It was a wonderful and curious experience.

The question remains, however, why did the LORD choose to visit Abraham again? After all, in Genesis 17, he had just appeared to Abraham and made a covenant with him. He told Abraham that Sarah would conceive, even though she was well into menopause, and that he must circumcise all the males in his household, including himself. He also assured Abraham that his first son, Ishmael, would not be abandoned, but would become a great nation.

Abraham was faithful to God and fulfilled his side of the covenant. He circumcised every male, and was himself circumcised when he was ninety years old. He obeyed God’s word and, as a result, received favor from God. In the plains of Mamre, during the second visitation, God again reaffirms Sarah’s coming motherhood, which she overhears. Perhaps it is a natural reaction, or simply astonishment, but she laughed when she heard the words. I don’t think it was a mocking laugh, but one that only a ninety-year-old woman might give when informed that she is about to be pregnant. She is caught in the act, but the Lord merely gently reproves her and moves on to tell Abraham about the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Here, faithful Abraham has been blessed by God. His wife will conceive and bear him a child to bring him the long-awaited heir. He has also been the confidante, if you will, of God, as God tells what He is going to do regarding the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now contrast this treatment with the coming doom of those satanic places. Those cities, which were so evil, perverted and dark that the cry of them went up into Heaven, were about to suffer the curses, or the negative side of violating covenant with God. Their fate is recorded in Genesis 19, as we read about Lot’s deliverance at the hands of the two angels who hustle him and his family out of the doomed place. Soon, fire from heaven would fall upon them, destroying them utterly.

What, then, is the lesson for us today? If we remember the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 8 for the Thanksgiving service of Morning Prayer, we hear him warning the Israelites of this exact situation. After God has led them into the Promised Land, they will prosper as long as they remain true to Him. If they will praise Him, honor Him, and worship only Him, their prosperity will continue. On the other hand, if they become willful and arrogant, ascribing to themselves
their success, their situation will change. If they forget God, they will incur curses and misfortune. Much like the Sodomites, who so turned to evil that even God could not tolerate it, Israel would violate the covenant, be judged and punished, and then turn back to God for a period. As we well know, this “sin cycle” would be repeated many times until the final destruction of Israel in 70 a.d. at the hands of the Romans. By this time, Christ had already come, ministered, died and rose again to fix the problem of man’s persistent sin. The New Testament era had well begun, and the Old Testament and Intertestimonial periods had been closed. In short, since the coming of Jesus Christ, earth had a new frame of reference on sin, repentance, and eternal salvation.

This Advent, perhaps it is time to re-evaluate our covenant with God, the Holy Trinity. It is a good time to start afresh and examine how much we hold Him first in our hearts, minds and spirits. If we look into our own spiritual treasure houses, do we find them full of the richness and bounty of God’s Grace, or do we find full of our own sinful and self-centered desires and inclinations? In short, do we love God enough to merit the bounty of his grace and love, or better said, do we reciprocate His love to us? After all, in the perfect being of the Almighty, we merit nothing but the curses of the covenant. Yet, through His overwhelming love and mercy towards us, we are able to reflect a little back to Him and to our fellow man. When we do this, we are learning to live in the fullness of God’s Covenant with us.

This Advent season, let us make us a new start. Let it be so. AMEN