The Long Season

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-17

Lent is a long season. Lent is the forty days between Ash Wednesday and Easter, not counting the Sundays. The religious answer for not counting Sundays in the total is because Sunday is the day to remember the resurrection of Jesus. But maybe it’s also so that Lent won’t seem so long. When you’re waiting with expectation and hope, forty looks better on paper than forty-seven. Lent is a whole lot longer than the other religious periods we mark: Advent, a real joyous time is only four weeks; Pentecost is normally thought of as just a day. But Lent, oh Lent, it goes on…and on. If you want to make it through Lent spiritually in one piece … because of all the awareness-of-our-sin-stuff…you really need to fix your gaze on the hope of the resurrection.

Our text today fits perfectly in the Lenten season. If anyone knows about patience, perseverance, and keeping their eye on the spiritual ball, it’s Abraham. Genesis 17 is smack-dab in the center of the Abraham-Sarah narrative. At the beginning of their story, Sarah is barren (Genesis 11:30), Abraham is summoned and promised land and a great name (Genesis 12:2), and an heir (Genesis 15:4-5). At the conclusion of this narrative, the son is given (Genesis 21:1-7), and almost lost (Genesis 22:1-14). The shape of this story moves from the promise of an heir to the birth of an heir. And right in the middle of this story we find Abraham and Sarah in that long uncertain season before fulfillment, where faith in the promise wrestles with loss of confidence in the promise.[1] We know the promise is fulfilled in Isaac, but let’s pretend we don’t know for a few moments. If you were Abraham, would you have given up?

What’s the last promise you gave up on? Is there one from your spouse about doing something around the house? Are you waiting on one from your parents to take you somewhere or buy you a set of wheels? Churches can be notoriously slow movers in getting some things done. Are you waiting on a promise from your church…or your pastor? It’s hard isn’t it to wait on a promise. There was a movie a few years ago starring Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick, Jr. entitled, “Hope Floats,” but you know what? Hope also sinks! We only have to ask Abraham about that.

Abraham was seventy-five years old[2] when God told him, “Go to the land I will show you.”[3] Now, at the beginning of our text today, Abraham is ninety-nine. Twenty-four years have passed since he received the promise. He’s old in everyone’s book. The book of Hebrews puts it a little more bluntly. Hebrews 11:12 says he was “…as good as dead.” So what do you think was going through Abraham’s mind when God comes again and says, “…I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous”[4]? Do you think Abraham was saying under his breath, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, God. Yada, yada, yada. Covenant-schmovenant. I’ve heard all this before.” It says in verse 3 that Abraham fell on his face but it doesn’t really say why. Abraham may not have been the sharpest pencil in the box but he knew the odds were not in his favor for having kids anymore.

Diane took the kids last week to see their Great Grandmother Janssen. Great Grandma Janssen is not ninety-nine yet, but she’s getting up there and she wouldn’t have a prayer in trying to keep up with Eli. Yet, here we have God giving a promise to old, dried up, ninety-nine-year-old Abraham that he is going to father a son by old, dried up, ninety-year-old Sarah. If Abraham’s faith in God’s promise was wrestling with Abraham’s loss of confidence in that promise, I think I know who was winning – don’t you?

What’s our response when we consider the odds God’s up against in our lives? Can God break the grip of addictions? Can God soften hardened hearts in strained family relationships even after waiting for years for reconciliation? Can those who swear there is no God suddenly have a divine epiphany and become the strongest of the faithful? Can churches withering away suddenly sprout new life? We could all name some seemingly impossible odds in our lives where it’s hard to keep hope and faith from sinking. How will you handle the long season you’re in right now?

No matter how you’re currently handling your long season right now, you need to hear one thing: this is an Easter text and we are called to live Easter lives. The God who brought Sarah’s womb to life also brought Jesus to life on Easter morning. And if God can do those things, then we can experience new life too.[5] Whatever odds are stacked against you can be overcome. Whatever seems dead and dried up can be made alive.

Sarah and Abraham get new names in our text. These new names signal a transformation to a new reality. Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah. But God doesn’t stop there. In the Gospels, Cephas becomes Peter – the rock upon which the Church will be built. In Acts, Saul becomes Paul so he can more closely identify with Gentiles. And each of us, in our baptism, is called by a new name: child of the covenant…Christian.[6] In the long seasons of our sin, waiting, and disappointment, God claims us and overcomes the odds.

One of the early Church fathers spoke of Easter as the joke God played on the devil. Don’t give up. God has more surprises and blessings to pour out on the Church. Abraham waited a lifetime for his offspring. And he realized his promise from God in Isaac…which remember means “laughter.” Most of us are waiting for offspring too. And some of us have all but given up. Our offspring may not be physical children like Abraham and Sarah, but some of our hopes and promises need to be taken off life support and allowed to stand on their own through faith.

In his book, God on the Witness Stand, Daniel Hans writes about a grandfather whose faith in God’s promises helped him through his own long season. This grandfather had the unfortunate experience of having a 3-year-old granddaughter die from cancer. This grandfather wrote these words in a letter to his deceased granddaughter: “It is impossible to try to explain or understand why God allowed this to happen to such a wonderful little girl. Some day we will know. Until that day I will live in joyful anticipation of seeing you again, when separation and tears give way to unending joy. As a grandfather, I have the advantage over most people, because I will see you sooner.”[7]

In whatever long season you’re in, don’t lose hope. God can overcome the odds and sometimes it’s in how we look at things.

Amen.

[1] Walter Brueggemann, “Expository Articles: Genesis 17:1-22,” Interpretation Journal, Volume 45, January 1991, p. 55.

[5] Keith F. Nickle, “Let’s Make a Deal,” Journal for Preachers, Lent 1997, p. 35.

[6] Keith F. Nickle, “Let’s Make a Deal,” Journal for Preachers, Lent 1997, p. 34.

[7] Daniel T. Hans, God on the Witness Stand: Questions Christians Ask in Personal Tragedy (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1989).