Abraham ...

Wednesday, Sept 11, 2013. One of the central individuals of the bible is Abraham (originally “Abram”), the patriarch, the great believer. Later, he will be treated as a template of faith, used by Jesus himself and by the apostles as key example of trust and belief in the Lord. Let us look into the beginnings as described in the book of Genesis, Chapters 11 and 12:

From Ur to Palestine …

27 Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered

Abram

, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. 28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29 And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. 31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32 The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. The town of Haran is usually identified with the ancient city “Harran”, which is located north of Iraq in the south of Turkey. Thus, the track of Terah was along the trading route of that time, along the fertile rivers and regions, and not straight through the huge desert. It is interesting, that the goal here was Canaan already. This piece of land will play a major role for the further biblical history - and it is a key part of world history until today! 1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. The Covenant …**

It is a great covenant between the Lord himself and Abram, which we witness in these passages. It is a covenant which the Lord initiates. He approaches Abram, and takes up the original goal of his family to move to Canaan. It is a covenant which is set by the Lord, and Abram agrees to it by his choice to trust the Lord and follow him. It is a covenant based on a promise and on trust, a word of the Lord and the faith to follow.

We will learn in the New Testament, thousands of years later, that this story is indeed the template of life. We hear about Christ Jesus, a child coming into the world, a saviour, which finds his death at the cross - and the invitation to believe that God bridges the great rift by this death and the resurrection, which followed on the third day. As for Noah, and as for Abram, it is God who approaches man, and man who is asked to trust the Lord. It is trust and trust again, which is in the focus of the Lord.

Heaven is not the place, which the people of Babel tried to reach with their tower. Heaven is where one can trust one another. It is one of the characteristics of the Lord to be truth and love, to be trustworthyness and faith. This is reflected in all these biblical stories, where Lord searches for people and chooses people who are willing to trust him - and he promises his full support and blessing for any of those. By Abram (Abraham), he even chooses to bless the whole mankind through him. This is taken up by numerous parts of the New Testament, and leads us to the salvation through Jesus. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts