1.
Please pray with me.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing
in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The
message from God’s Word in our 2nd Lenten Midweek service is taken
from Psalm 96 and portions of Genesis 18 & 23, it’s entitled, “Great
Trees of Mamre near the Machpelah,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
In the fall of
2018, a shooting left a dozen people dead at a country music bar and, a day
later, a wildfire raged through this same community of Thousand Oaks,
California, forcing hundreds to evacuate. The mayor of this city, Andy Fox,
referred to what he called the strongest of trees for which his city was named
and said the people of Thousand Oaks would show their strength through their
resilience after the crises.5
3.
In
their pasts, other people have also faced violent crimes and threats from
wildfires as they lived in their wooded communities. But whether or not we’ve
faced such crimes and threats, all of us also live among the Bible’s trees,
such as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that we heard about last
week and the “oaks” of Mamre near the Machpelah that we hear about this
week, as we continue our special Lenten sermon series, “Living among the
Bible’s Trees.” Considering the
Great Trees of Mamre near the Machpelah, We Realize That, Though We Deserve to
Be Deserted by God, We Are Blessed in Abraham’s Offspring, Jesus Christ.
4.
Our text begins, “And the Lord appeared to [Abraham]
by the oaks of Mamre” (Gen 18:1). With a number of different original
Hebrew words in use, instead of “oak” trees, translators sometimes call
these trees “great trees” or “Terebinth,”6 and so we
might at least say that the trees of Mamre were known for their size. At some
point, Abraham had moved his tent by these trees of Mamre near Hebron, and as
he settled there he also built an altar to the Lord (Gen 13:18). In Genesis 18,
the Lord’s appearance to Abraham by those great trees of Mamre told us, among
other things, that the Lord repeated his promise of a son for Abraham and
Sarah, this time in Sarah’s hearing (compare Gen 17:15–21). In Genesis 23, our
second reading from Genesis, we heard of Abraham’s acquiring, in a typical
negotiation under Hittite law,7 the land just east of Mamre, with
its trees and the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham wanted for a burying place,
initially for Sarah. Later it was also used for Abraham himself (Gen 25:9–10),
their son Isaac (Gen 35:27, 29), Isaac’s wife Rebekah, their son Jacob, Jacob’s
wife Leah (Gen 49:29–32; 50:13), and maybe also Jacob’s son Joseph (Gen 50:25;
Ex 13:19; Heb 11:22; cf Josh 24:32 and Acts 7:15–16).8 In the
thousands of years since these burials, locations of both Abraham’s “oak”
and the cave of the Machpelah have been and still are thought to be known. It
was even claimed that one of the trees in that place went back all the way to
creation.9 That seems far-fetched, but historical reports and
archaeological evidence attesting to this as the site of Abraham’s cave do go
back centuries before the time of Christ.
5.
As sad as the loss of that oak or any other single tree
might be, sadder still is humanity’s loss of access to the whole garden of
trees that, in the beginning, God created for our first parents and for us. Saddest
still is the death our first parents died and we ourselves will die. You may
recall that God himself had driven out Adam and Eve and, at the east of the
Garden of Eden, God placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every
way to guard the way to the tree of life (Gen 3:24). For Abraham and his
household, the great trees of Mamre were an oasis in the desert, a relief from
the sun and heat, and a place to rest, but these trees were also a reminder of
the better garden lost through sin.10 Before the fall, there was no
heat, no need for an oasis in the desert; the warmth of the sun was always only
welcome. Much worse, in the time after Abraham, the shady oases under similar
large trees became sites of sin, especially prostitution in the fertility rites
of false worship (Is 1:29; 57:5; Ezek 6:13; Hos 4:13–14).11
6.
You and I may not participate in such prostitution as
the fertility rites of false worship, but we no doubt sin in other
ways—thoughts, words, and deeds against the Sixth and First Commandments and
against all the other Commandments, as well. Thoughts of other men or other
women. Words of jokes or suggestive comments. Deeds of spending our income in
ways that show God isn’t always first in our lives. Greater than the loss of
access to the Garden of Eden’s trees is the death our first parents died and we
ourselves will die, because of our sinful nature and of all our sin. In the
First Reading, God didn’t hide his judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah from Abraham,
and neither does God hide his judgment of others’ and our own sin from us. In
interceding for Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham confessed his own origin from dust
and destination to ashes.12 Enabled by God, we do well to do the
same: repent, at least figuratively in dust and ashes, this Lenten season and
always. For when we repent, God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin. God
forgives our sins against the Sixth and First Commandments and against all the
other Commandments. God forgives all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God
forgives us for the sake of Abraham’s greatest offspring, Jesus Christ.
7.
The Second Person of the Trinity in human flesh
descended from Abraham; Jesus Christ is the offspring of Abraham in whom all
the nations of the earth are blessed. Jesus was born, lived, and died on the
cross in order to save every person from his or her sin, including you and me.
Out of his great love for you and for me, Jesus gives his perfect life in place
of our imperfect lives; Jesus died the death our sins deserve, so that we don’t
have to die eternally. And Jesus rose from the dead and showed his victory over
sin, death, and the power of the devil for us. Abraham’s intercession for Sodom
and Gomorrah may have led to the saving, in the end, of three lives—his nephew
Lot and Lot’s two daughters (Gen 19:15–26)—but Jesus’ intercession for us leads
to the saving of a far greater number of lives, as we repent of our sin and
receive his forgiveness through his Means of Grace.
8.
Remember in the First Reading Abraham providing
unleavened bread for the Lord and those with him? That especially points us to
the Sacrament of the Altar, where unleavened bread is the body of Christ
given for us and wine is the blood of Christ shed for us, giving us the
forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. But better than the meal Abraham
served the Lord under the great trees of Mamre, at this altar and its rail the
Lord himself serves us. Here he has fellowship with us, all of us who are
brought into his household, not by the covenant of circumcision made with hands
(cf Gen 17:1–27) but by what the divinely inspired St. Paul calls the
circumcision made without hands, the circumcision of Christ. In Holy Baptism,
we are buried with Christ and raised with him through faith (Col 2:11–12). This
house of God is the oasis in the desert of our lives, for here we have rest and
refreshment, as Abraham and the Lord had under the great trees at Mamre. Considering
the great trees of Mamre near the Machpelah, we realize that, though we deserve
to be deserted by God, we are blessed in Abraham’s offspring, Jesus Christ.
9.
The trees near the cave of the Machpelah no doubt helped
locate the cave where Sarah and the others were buried. Abraham’s purchase of
that burying place proceeded from his faith—his faith in God’s promise not only
to give the land to his descendants but also to raise the dead on the Last Day.
God similarly gives us faith to live in our callings, including our callings as
faithful spouses and relatives burying loved ones; the regard we show for the
body God has created, redeemed, and sanctified gives clear witness to the sure
and certain hope of the resurrection. God gives us faith, too, to serve in our
callings as faithful employees or students and in all of the other life
settings. God makes us to be what Isaiah referred to as “oaks of
righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified” (Is
61:3).13 And after the resurrection of the dead, our access to the
tree of life is restored in the heavenly Jerusalem that comes down out of
heaven from God (Rev 21:2; 22:1–2).
10.
Months after the shooting and fire in Thousand Oaks,
local high schools participated in a marching band event because the shooting
and fire had cut their regular marching band season short. The event was in
fact much more than a marching band showcase. For the Thousand Oaks
community, it was a commemoration of everything they had been through and a
celebration of all they could do together.14 Music is also often
part of our celebration when God brings us through everything he permits us to
face. For example, the antiphon for our Psalm today (Ps 96:12b–13a) describes
the trees of the forest as if human, singing for joy because the Lord comes to
judge the earth. While that judgment means eternal condemnation for the
unrepentant, by God’s grace for the sake of Jesus Christ, that judgment also
means eternal salvation for those of us who repent. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding
guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
5. “More Than 200
People Are Unaccounted for in California Wildfires,” National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, November 12, 2018,
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666870936/more-than-200-people-are-unaccounted-for-in-california-wildfires,
accessed December 12, 2018.
6. Herbert Wolf, “45i
Terebinth, oak,” Theological Wordbook
of the Old Testament, ed. R. Laird Harris,
Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, vol. 1 (Chicago: Moody Press,
1980), 22.
7. Victor Roland Gold,
“Machpelah,” The Interpreter’s
Dictionary of the Bible, ed. George Arthur Buttrick, vol. 3 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962),
219.
8. Gold, “Machpelah,” IDB, 3:218.
9. Gold, “Machpelah,” IDB, 3:219. See also Victor Roland Gold, “Mamre,” IDB, 3:235.
10. Allen, “1670a
Tree,” TWOT, 2:689.
11. Wolf, “45g
Terebinth, oak,” and “45h אֵלָה Terebinth,” TWOT, 1:22.
12. The Lutheran Study Bible, Genesis 18:27 textual note (St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 2009), 43.
13. Wolf, “45g
Terebinth, oak,” TWOT, 1:22.
14. Veronica Miracle,
“Thousand Oaks Community Bands Together after Mass Shooting, Woolsey Fire,”
ABC7.com, December 1, 2018, https://abc7.com/society/thousand-oaks-bands-together-after-recent-tragedies/4803770/,
accessed December 5, 2018.
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