Title: Infertile Dreams
Author: Christopher B. Harbin
Text: Genesis 25:19-34
What are our greatest hopes and dreams? What are our highest expectations? Are they worthy of our emotional investment? Do they make sense? How have they changed over the years? Are they truly what we should hope for? Are they worth clinging to in light of their actual outcomes? When we place our hopes and dreams in God's hands, would we expect God to bring them to fulfillment? Should we?
Fertility was a really big deal in the ancient world. Fertility meant life. It meant food. It meant survival. It meant hope for future existence. The fertility of crops, stock animals, and human beings were looked upon as tenuous for if anything went wrong, survival was in question. In a subsistence economy, a bad crop year or a bad breeding year put lives in real danger. While the creation narratives in Genesis assure us that God created a world that it intrinsically fertile, experiences of infertility showed up as a counterpoint, leading to fears of insufficiency and undermining trust in Yahweh.
In terms of human fertility, its presence or absence was linked directly to divine action in an even deeper way. The birth and survival of children meant not simply the survival of humanity, it was also a matter of how one's life could be expected to extend into the future. We may talk disparagingly about parents living vicariously through their children. Ancient peoples like the Hebrews understood that it was essentially through our children that we have any permanence in this world beyond death. The worst punishment that might be given to someone, was not simply to kill them, but wipe out all of their progeny, as well, effectively erasing their very names from the world.
It is in this context that we found Abraham and Sarah struggling with infertility until very late in their lives. It is in this same context that we find Isaac and Rebekah dealing with an apparent lack of their own fertility. As Abra ...
Author: Christopher B. Harbin
Text: Genesis 25:19-34
What are our greatest hopes and dreams? What are our highest expectations? Are they worthy of our emotional investment? Do they make sense? How have they changed over the years? Are they truly what we should hope for? Are they worth clinging to in light of their actual outcomes? When we place our hopes and dreams in God's hands, would we expect God to bring them to fulfillment? Should we?
Fertility was a really big deal in the ancient world. Fertility meant life. It meant food. It meant survival. It meant hope for future existence. The fertility of crops, stock animals, and human beings were looked upon as tenuous for if anything went wrong, survival was in question. In a subsistence economy, a bad crop year or a bad breeding year put lives in real danger. While the creation narratives in Genesis assure us that God created a world that it intrinsically fertile, experiences of infertility showed up as a counterpoint, leading to fears of insufficiency and undermining trust in Yahweh.
In terms of human fertility, its presence or absence was linked directly to divine action in an even deeper way. The birth and survival of children meant not simply the survival of humanity, it was also a matter of how one's life could be expected to extend into the future. We may talk disparagingly about parents living vicariously through their children. Ancient peoples like the Hebrews understood that it was essentially through our children that we have any permanence in this world beyond death. The worst punishment that might be given to someone, was not simply to kill them, but wipe out all of their progeny, as well, effectively erasing their very names from the world.
It is in this context that we found Abraham and Sarah struggling with infertility until very late in their lives. It is in this same context that we find Isaac and Rebekah dealing with an apparent lack of their own fertility. As Abra ...
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