November 9, Genesis 23
"I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight."
- Genesis 23:4
Have you ever been responsible for making funeral arrangements for a loved one who's died? I've been there with several families who asked me to be with them through the years. I’ve also had the honor and responsibility of making final arrangements for both my parents. It's solemn business. In both cases when I made arrangements for my dad when I was 34 and for Mom when I was 64, I was blessed to be assisted by good, trusted friends in the business. I was not pressured or manipulated in any way, and I was treated with honesty and fairness. That has not always been the case with people who've had that responsibility before. There have been (as in most any profession) unscrupulous people who would not hesitate to take advantage of tender emotions to sell folks things they could not afford.
I thought about all these things while preparing to write these lines for Chapter 23. I'm not sure Abraham got a good deal from the Hittites when he bought the field and the cave of Machpelah as a burial ground for his dear Sarah. He wanted to buy the cave; he readily agreed to buy the whole field. He did not make a counter offer; he paid what Ephron the son of Zohar announced as the price. He did it in the public square, making the transaction legal and public. He conducted himself with the dignity befitting the "great prince of God" his Hittite neighbors knew him to be.
Sarah was a great woman. She was the first woman whose death was recorded in Scripture. Her amazing pregnancy was empowered by a strong faith in God that trusted God's word more than her knowledge of her own body. She stands with Mother Eve to whom the first promise of the Redeemer was given, and the Virgin Mary to whom that Redeemer was born thousands of years later. Sarah's link in that chain is indisputably important. Her own miracle baby was the first child born in a long line of Abraham’s descendants that would lead to God's promise being fulfilled and his plan realized.
In the New Testament, Paul celebrated Sarah, making her life an allegory of the Jerusalem from above while casting Hagar as the allegorical representation of earthly Jerusalem. He drew that word picture to contrast the true "Israel" of God in Christ to fleshly, earthly Israel who rejected Jesus as the Christ. Sarah and her son represent the promised blessings of the gospel. Hagar and her son represent the curse of the law. Peter held Sarah up as an example for all godly women to follow to honor their husbands.
After Abraham had wept for his wife, he did what those of us who've had to make such arrangements well understand. At some point, it becomes necessary to rise up from mourning before our dead and take care of the business that must be done. Whether we are the ones who literally make the arrangements or not, there are matters to attend, and life to be lived beyond the mourning.
Our text reminds us of Abraham's status among these Hittites in Canaan. He was a resident alien, neither a landowner nor a native of the place. He was a stranger in a strange land, a pilgrim. God promised him the whole land would belong to his descendants. But as Stephen pointed out in his Acts 7 sermon, the great patriarch owned no property in the land that God promised to give him, except that which he purchased in this transaction.
The day I began studying and thinking about this chapter I did something I've put off doing for a long time: I called the man in charge of the cemetery where my wife and I plan to be buried someday to find out how much the lots will cost. I haven't selected them or purchased them just yet, but I have taken that first step. I thought about how Abraham handled himself with dignity and honor as he conducted this dark business. I want to live and die with confident faith that I am a sojourner and foreigner in this fallen place. I do not think of those burial plots as our "final resting place,” as they are sometimes called. God had far more for Father Abraham than his life here. He has the same kind of eternal plans beyond this world for you and me. Let’s trust him about that.
Copyright © 2021 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—November 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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