Shalom
Second Week of Advent
Wednesday December 11, 2013
Read: Genesis 15:1-18
Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’ But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless’… [God] brought him outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then [God] said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.—Genesis 15:1b, 5-6
I love to sing Handel’s Messiah. It is particularly performed at both Christmas and Easter, which is most fitting. It tells of the infinite nature of God and God’s plan for us all. Much of life seems like the sopranos singing and holding for a long time those really high notes in the Messiah‘s “Halleluiah Chorus”. I am an alto and I get to sing the repeated forever and ever over and over, which are written in my vocal range. Somehow being busy makes the time pass more quickly. Abram had been holding the long notes for a lot of years and was giving up hope of ever having an offspring. God tells Abram to look at the heavens and count the stars to get the number of descendants he would have. Do you think it seemed at least a little implausible to him? It surely did to Sarah later in the story. At the close of the conversation God says, As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. (Genesis 15:15) Most of Abrams life was wrapped up in this one story that projects to 400 years after Abrams death. God clearly has a different sense of time than we have.
Shalom is based on God’s time. It has no beginning and no ending. God’s desire for the wellbeing of all God’s children is infinite. We in the 21st century somehow fit nicely into that framework. What we do today will impact the world beyond our imaginations into the future. It is time for us to set our clocks to God’s time and our purposes to God’s purposes as we progress toward the realization of the fulfillment of God’s kingdom.
Prayer: Ancient of Days, help us to get in sync with your purpose and the role we are to play in its attainment. Amen.
All scripture passages are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version.