PEN ART - THE LAUGHTER THAT BROUGHT US CHRISTMAS

PONDERING THE STORIES WITHIN THE STORIES
(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Don't worry - I'm still on track with these weekly lessons of COME AS A CHILD, and they will always continue to be published on THURSDAYS as usual; but today I'm posting an extra lesson for the week.  It is a lesson that we studied when we were walking through the book of Genesis.  I'm posting it today simply because I consider this particular lesson to be a great Christmas Story; and it is that time of the year!  

This is my Christmas present to you my faithful readers!  Enjoy!

A SURPRISING CHRISTMAS STORY:
(THE STORIES HIDING WITHIN THE STORIES)

Wow!  We have seen so much happen in the stories of Abraham and Sarah’s life! 

Their story is really amazing, but I’ve been a bit distracted as I've been writing about them during The Christmas Season.  My thoughts are so focused on the stories of THIS season instead of their story.  

Because my mind has been totally focused on Christmas I thought it was going to be hard to write the next lesson about Abraham and Sarah.  My mind and heart were not in their time zone.  What could two people living way before the birth of Christ have to do with Christmas?  

When I began to study the lesson, I was pleasantly surprised; and you might just experience this same epiphany yourself!   Keep reading.......

Just in time for Christmas God has really opened my eyes a bit wider.  He has begun to show me just how much Abraham and Sarah’s lives and their stories (especially during the time of the Theophany of the Lord that happened in the groves at Mamre) intersect and bring forth pictures of a prophetic visitation that would forever have a future impact on all of the world concerning the gift of a Messiah.  

Now that's a Christmas message for sure!

I had never actually related to this aspect of the story before.  In past reviews I had kept my thoughts strictly focused on the facts; remembering that there was an announcement involving the birth of Isaac and that Sarah had laughed at that announcement.  Those two things are very important; but there is SO MUCH more to see.  

As it turns out, this angelic visitation to Abraham and Sarah by three heavenly visitors was actually all about the salvation of mankind!  Is this mentioned in the story?  No.  Is it an obvious fact?  Yes, but only when you start to compare the details.

It amazed me when I realized that elements of this simple little story we all have heard so often were actually the telling of the very beginning of the story that we all long to hear every year at Christmastime.   Until today I had simply not made all the connections. 

This day of the Theophany, the day that Abraham was visited by some heavenly visitors to announce the coming birth of Isaac, happened long before the birth of Christ.  Yet it is astounding for me to discover that this particular day was actually the day that God chose to begin to lay the foundation for the Messianic story!  

Have you ever noticed how God never blurts out the truth?  

Sometimes He lets us discover things gradually and on our own.  It is much more of an adventure that way.  What a surprise to find out that this Theophany that happened with Abraham outside his tents was the beginning of the time that God chose to set everything in motion that would (over years of time) bring us Messiah!  

How unexpected to find that everything that happened here with Abraham and Sarah was a marker of The Divine pointing us toward the coming of Christ.  

I have always heard that you can see the story of the salvation of Christ in EVERY old testament story.  This revelation proved true once more.  I will never hear this story the same again.

This Christmas Season, as I put up my Jesse Tree, I wondered to myself, “Why have I not seen these things before?”  

Perhaps I wasn’t waiting correctly.  

Maybe I had not been focusing on God with a whole heart.  Maybe I had to understand the main story to get to the truth of the story within the story.

Maybe....maybe....maybe.  

So, let me start at the very beginning of the first story…..……We begin with the fact that Abraham, the man who was told by God that his descendents would one day be as many as the stars of the heavens, was only so far the father of the child of an Egyptian handmaiden!  

At this point in our story Abraham has become very humble.  He has repented of some sins of the past and turned his entire focus back to God after wondering away for a short time.  In that time Abraham had heard from God, who advised him to be circumcised along with all of his household.  Abraham had also been given a change of names, and had gone back to the tent of Sarah (who also had a new name) to wait to hear more from God. So these things took place right after Abraham had changed some of his own selfish ways through repentance, had been marked as a child of God and had been given a new name by God.   

Abraham's sins had been about moving ahead of God's plan for his life with his own plans instead of God's plan.  It was a terrible mistake!  He had repented and made a concerted effort to change his ways.  His moving back to the tent of Sarah emphasized that he had seen and understood that he was to focus solely on the pruposes that God had blessed him with and nothing else.  He was to let God make the circumstances instead of moving ahead of God.  Sarah and Abraham had taken matters into their own hands and made a mess instead of bringing about God's will.  This had caused detours in their lives that they might not have had to face had they consulted God first.  It wasn't the first time either.  Abraham finally realized his error and he turned to God and cried out that he would be willing to change.  Abraham submitted himself completely to God's soverign authority.  He did this with his whole heart.    

Finally!  

Abraham had learned to wait on God and he was on the right track and things suddenly began to happen!  

That very thought was the subject on my mind and in my heart as I was going through Advent this year.  I was pondering how to wait on God.  

Waiting isn’t always easy and Abraham had learned the hard way that it never pays to jump ahead or try to change the circumstances of God’s destiny for your life.   He must have really pondered that statement from God when God had told him: “as many as the stars from heaven.”  Over and over Abraham must have considered what that REALLY meant to him NOW. 

During this Advent season I too have caught myself waiting and thinking about the stars from heaven, just like Abraham.  I’ve especially been thinking about one special star; that brilliant star that stood shining out over Bethlehem which had led the wise men to Christ. 

God always seems to show wise men the way!  

God often uses light to show people who He is.  

I have been thinking about light a lot too, especially the miracle of the light of Hanukkah, and how that story points to Christ as The Light of The World.

What a coincidence; in this story about Abraham and Sarah, Abraham too is being visited by three wise men!

They APPEARED to be men anyway.  

Abraham looked up from the doorway of his tent where he sat under the Terrebinth trees and he saw three men approaching.  

Immediately he knew; just like the other wise men in the story that came later, that He was encountering The Presence of The Lord!  

Abraham jumped up and ran out to meet them.  

He bowed low to the ground to honor them.  

He offered them gifts of hospitality.

Hmmmmmm…….this all sounds so familiar!  The wise men visiting Jesus also came with special gifts.  

The shepherds and the angels offered their hospitality.  

These stories have many parallels!  

We hear of the stories of the wise men and the shepherds and the angels at Christmas and we learn to welcome Christ.  We can also learn how to welcome Him from this story of Our Father Abraham.  

When was the last time you knew you were in the Presence of God?   

Did you look up and see Him and run to meet Him?  

Did you bow low to honor Him?  

Abraham had been humbled!  He had learned the proper way to honor God.  We must follow and do the same in our own lives. 

Abraham brought fresh, clean water to wash their feet.  He offered them rest in the shade under the big old trees of Mamre.  He gave them his choice seats at his own table.  He told Sarah to quickly bake them three cakes of bread and to use three measures of their finest flour.  He ran to where his finest, most tender, young calves were kept and he prepared meat for them himself instead of commanding a servant to do this.  He and Sarah did all of the work for these three special guest.  They did not delegate it to their servants, although Abraham had a house full of trusted servants, and Sarah had Hagar and many others to command to help if she needed.  They wanted to prepare this feast personally.  It was their gift of hospitality.  They wanted to be personally involved in this service.

Abraham  brought milk and curds and placed them on the table before his guests.    He served them the huge helpings of hot, freshly baked bread and very tasty meat portions, cooked just the right way.  

This would have been similar in nature to the feast you might serve to your family as you celebrate Christmas Day.  It was no ordinary feast!  It was a very special time of fellowship.

It was the best and the most well prepared food that Abraham had to offer. 

As his guest ate and rested and relaxed, Abraham waited nearby under the shade of the old tree.  He desired to be close by so he could be available to tend to their every need should something arise that needed attention.  

Have you ever spent time waiting near a tree in order to serve some very special guest?

 Need I remind you?  That is exactly what most of us do on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!  We welcome our family in to sit under our tree and we serve them from the best that we have to offer.

Little did Abraham know that this waiting he was participating in was the very first step in the plan to bring about a bloodline of mankind from which a Savior would be born.  Abraham was simply acting in faith, giving the best he had for the God that he loved.  He knew nothing of the holy mission of these heavenly men yet.  Still we see that Abraham stayed close, under the tree, in order to make sure they had everything they needed or desired. He was simply honored to have heavenly guests in his presence and abiding at his home.  For Abraham, this would have been enough, even without all the blessings to come.  He considered it a pleasure and a privilege to serve such a Holy God. 

Do you have a heart like Abraham?  

Are you welcoming the three special guests (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) into your home during this special season?

It is easy to see that all of the things Abraham offered to his guest in this story are so symbolic of God’s relationship with His Church.  

The milk and the meat are so indicative of The Word of God.  

The three loaves of bread made from three measures of fine flour bring to mind the parable that Jesus told in Matthew Chapter 13 where a woman hid leaven in three measures of meal.  The scripture reads “The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used making bread.”   Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.  This makes us think of the apostles and prophets preaching and teaching the gospel story that is just coming to life right here at the table of Abraham as he serves bread to his special guests from heaven.  

We realize that this very humble beginning  of the gospel story (like the leaven hidden in the dough) will begin to grow and spread throughout the whole earth bringing salvation to all of mankind.  You see; the stories all started right back there in the tents of Abraham and Sarah.  That is how they first went out into the world.  They proclaimed the coming of Messiah even before there WAS Messiah.  They lived and breathed the definition of true faith.  They knew and believed the message about Emmanuel even BEFORE He came to be One of us!  You could truly say that Abraham and Sarah were the very first disciples of Jesus.
 

There is one slight difference in this story though, the dough that Abraham had Sarah prepare was not leavened.  Sarah wasn't expecting these guests and she did not have time to let the dough rise in order to get it to the table of her guests for their special meal.  It was unleavened bread that she served, and that unleavened bread represented the purity of the gospel and the truth of salvation.  It stood for the very humble beginnings of God's Kingdom on this earth, the word of God that came to humble men, those who were not proud or puffed up with the superficial ways of the world.  

This feast of Abraham and Sarah was a foretaste of what God would later give to the descendants of Abraham in the wilderness.  Abraham's descendants would later come to share in this feast of unleavened bread that would be called Manna, or The Bread from Heaven.  

This heavenly bread was the same as the unleavened bread that would be given by Christ to his disciples at The Lord’s Supper at the Passover meal just before He died for our sins on a cross.

It was the same as the bread that the Israelites ate as they crossed the wilderness in flight from Pharaoh because they did not have time for their dough to rise.  In order to fulfil their destiny the Israelites had to act in haste; and it was the same with Sarah.

Do we ever act in haste when we know we have a mission from God?  

Do we hurry to fulfill our calling to the things that are holy and true?

Sarah and Abraham did.  They received their guests with the hospitality that comes from a heart full and overflowing with love.  

Do you ever think about this when your special guests are arriving at Christmas time?  Can you show them the heart of Abraham in your own home?

This unleavened bread served by Abraham and Sarah stood for all the Passovers of all times, throughout the history of the story of God and mankind.  It was the foretelling symbolism of many, many miracles of God that were to come.

This hardly even noticed unleavened bread was so very significant to the beginning foundations of the gospel as it was being laid down in honor and respect for the guests from Heaven there at the table of Abraham. 

So we see that Abraham, after he had become humble and allowed God to circumcise his heart was approached by The Lord and angels and that they walked right up to his door.  It reminds us of a scripture passage found in Revelation 3:20 where God says:  “Behold I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with Me. “  

This time of fellowship, of a man having a meal with God, is a picture of The Lord as He uses the gifts and talents of human beings in His kingdom.  Any time we are able to partake of a meal with God we are given the gift of entering into fellowship with The Heart of Christ. 

So we see The Lord came to Abraham in answer to the promise of God, to start the process of fulfilling His desire to be what He was always meant to be – A Savior!  The Savior seeking to save that which had been lost had come to begin to give and show compassion to all human needs. 

Miracle of miracles, He allows Abraham to minister to Him, and we know that Abraham by the witness of his actions, had at least a glimpse of how HUGE this was.  Just as Christ allowed Abraham to serve him in this story; He also allows us to do the same.  His very words when hearing Abraham's greeting were “Do as you say.” 

These mysterious guests were The Lord and two angels.  They had no real need for food, or rest, or refreshing, but they said to Abraham “Do as you say.”  They welcomed his service to them. 

Do those words sound even faintly familiar as we go through this Christmas season and ponder all the miracles that happened to The Holy Family at the birth of Christ?  

These words have the same ring, the same tone, the same likeness of the answer that Mary gave to Gabriel as he greeted her with the glad tidings that she would carry The Son of God in her womb.  Her words were “Let it be done unto me as you have said.”   With these much the same words Mary, like Abraham, came to know the destiny that God had planned for her life.  She joyfully accepted it and allowed God to use her as a servant to His will. 

How could a man like Abraham have possibly known the wonder of all of this?  

How can we as mere human beings even begin to conceive all that is hidden in this Theophany?  

You can read it a million times and see something new every time.  And it was just the beginning of so many, many wonderful miracles that God would do. 

So the guest enjoyed their meal.  They ate and did not ask for more.  Then one of them looked up and inquired about Sarah.  

“Where is she?”

Abraham told them she was inside the tent.  Then the greatest words ever came from the guest from Heaven:  “I will surely return to you at this time next year, and behold, your wife Sarah will have a son.”

Once again this beautiful story of Abraham parallels the wonderful story of the birth of Christ.  Abraham was told by an angel that Sarah would have a son.  It seems a heavenly pattern that when a woman is married and a miracle is about to happen, her husband will be spoken to first by an angel and she will learn the news from him after the angel delivers it.  This was the case with Zachariah and Elizabeth.  They too, like Abraham and Sarah were old and past the age of bearing children when the angel came to the temple and told Zechariah he would have a son.  In the case of Mary, she was just engaged to Joseph, not yet officially married and not living with him yet when she received the glad tidings; even though in the Hebrew way of thinking when a girl accepts engagement, she is considered at that point to be legally married. 

In this incident from the stories of Abraham, Sarah was more like Zachariah than Mary.  She was hiding behind the tent and listening to the conversations.  When she heard what the angel said she laughed out loud; thinking that she and Abraham were much too old to be bearing children.

That laughter of Sarah was the laughter that eventually brought the miracle of Christmas to us!  

Just like the story of Zechariah that would happen later, the angel confronted Sarah with her lack of respect.  She lied and said she did not laugh.  She did this out of fear.  The angel corrected her statement and repeated the fact that she DID laugh.  She was not punished as Zechariah would be later, perhaps because she had regretted the laughing and had showed a holy fear for the one bearing the announcement.  

Mary, however; many years later was the one who responded so well with the most pleasing answer of all:  “Let it be done to me as you have said.”

And all of these women from each of the stories went on to fulfill their destiny determined by God; to give birth and bring salvation to the world.  

Sarah by giving birth to Isaac brought the beginning of The Nation of Israel from which would come John the Baptist, who would herald the coming of Messiah, and then; Mary would give birth to Jesus – the greatest gift ever given to all of mankind.

Consider the fact that each of these births were a miracle of God!

In each situation the birth of a child seemed totally impossible, but with God all things are possible.

And this Theophany which took place so many years ago at the tents of Abraham around his table and under the tree at Mamre was just the beginning of God’s pouring out His heart to save mankind. 

May we be ever grateful for this miracle!  May we never forget how God brought about a son who would bring about a nation who would bring about The Messiah!   

As we approach the wonder of Christmas let us remember ALL of the stories and all the stories within the stories.  

Let us consider with wonder just how many years of miracles God granted to us in bringing the Child of God to earth!  

Let us ponder how important the faith of one man and one woman played into this story, and let us go carefully about God's business in fulfilling our own destiny in His Kingdom.  Each man and each woman will have their own special part to play.  We are all a part of HIS story!

Let us all be humble servants of the LORD, welcoming Him joyfully into our hearts and our homes with the same great hospitality and honor that Abraham showed to his heavenly visitors on that great day so long ago.

May your heart be filled with the stories and joy of Christmas this season!

For unto us a child is born!