Readings for the week of Pentecost 8

Gen. 18:1-14                     

Col. 1:21-29        

Luke 10:38-42

Passages for Meditation: “Then the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Will I really have a child, now that I am old?'  Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son."” Genesis 18:13-14 

Devotion: There are times in our lives when all external factors seem to be against us and the reality of our situations seem so impossible as to ever change.  Debt that mounts.  Fear of future events.  Regret over past actions. Concern for aging parents.  Worry over troubled teens.  Illness and failing health.  The list could go on.  This is the reality of living in a world cursed by sin.  We can see the junk in life as if it is the absolute and final word on our existence.

But it’s not.  The good news in this brief account of Abraham and Sarah is that God himself comes to visit with them and even more to make a promise to them that flew in the face of their present reality.  God was confirming his promise to Abraham to make him a great nation and that all nations would be blessed through him.  This promise comes to an elderly couple beyond childbearing age.  That’s their impossible reality.  In spite of that, the LORD makes good on His promise.  He creates a new reality for Abraham and Sarah.

With God there is no change.  He comes to us today to visit with his people.  He comes to us in the middle of our impossible realities and keeps the promise that he made to Abraham, namely to bless all nations through him.  The Lord kept this promise in sending his own Son in the flesh to create a new reality for His creation- one in which the curse of sin is undone on account of Christ’s work on the cross.  Through Christ and His Word and Sacraments, God continues to forgive sin and  to visit with us in the midst of all our debts, worries and fears.  He does not promise to take away all the current troubles of this world, but calls us to take heart in Christ, for HE has overcome the world.  The junk in life is not the absolute and final word on our existence.  God’s promise is.