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Morning Devotion for the Season of Epiphany

January 26, 2024

The Invitatory

I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading: Genesis 17:15-19

God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.’ Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, ‘O that Ishmael might live in your sight!’ God said, ‘No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac.

Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones

Think of all the women who have tried so many techniques to become pregnant. In modern terms we call this infertility. Barrenness seems a more disheartening, if not condemning condition. The barren wife is one of the Bible’s strongest images that calls up lifelessness; moreover it strongly suggests that God’s redemptive blessing is absent. How unsettling this would be to the action of God’s forming a covenant with his people if not addressed early on. How deeply comforting it is that God does.

I have always been a lover of grammar. So it is thrilling to see how we may misunderstand God’s words in this passage. In this instance the translator’s use of shall when God addresses Abraham indicates definite action that Abraham will take. God’s use of will, however, is a more powerful use than human beings tend to ascribe to it. We might say, for example, I will be there on Tuesday, meaning that the action is a future one. When God says to Abraham that God “will bless her” and “I will give you a son,” God is making a promise, not proposing some future activity or suggesting a future inclination. This is in keeping with his past words. God has made a series of promises in Genesis that renew the covenant God has made. Here is Sarah, thought to be beyond childbearing years and God promises to her that she will bear a son. What a contrast between the techniques and procedures of modern medicine and the unfailing constancy of God’s promise, his words that become reality and truth.

But this is not by any means the most important aspect of God’s promise to Sarah. What is striking about the promise that God makes to Sarah is that Sarah now is also a participant in God’s promises. a promise is made to her in her own right. There is a certain dignity accorded to her. Perhaps the most striking point of newness is that Sarah is made a joint participant in the divine promise regarding a son and his descendants. She has a promise in her own right, not simply through Abraham.

The promises to Abraham and Sarah are unilaterally declared by God, with no prior conditions stipulated. To speak of unconditional promise is not to claim that the human response is irrelevant. While one’s faith and gratitude are the appropriate responses to a gift from God, the word from God is not necessarily followed or obeyed. People may remove themselves from the effect of promise, but God does not withdraw from humankind at the first signs of resistance. The promises will never be made null and void as far as God is concerned, and are always available for the faithful to cling to or be drawn back into. This is both hopeful and good news.

It is very interesting that highly improbable pregnancies and births occur early in both Old and New Testaments. God is the creator, responsible for every character in the story. God continues to act to undergird the promises that he has made to his people. This is hopeful, enduring and trustworthy good news.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those

who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.