Sherlock Holmes and his friend Watson went on a camping trip. After hiking through the mountains they were tired and they put up a tent to sleep at night. After they went to sleep, Homes woke up suddenly and looking up at the sky and called Watson and said, "My dear Watson, look up at the sky. What do you see?" And Watson woke up and said, "I see stars, thousands of them." "And my dear Watson, what does that mean to you?" Watson replied, "Well, I guess it means that we are going to have a pretty good day tomorrow." He asked, "Holmes, what does it mean to you?" "Oh my dear Watson, to me it means that someone has stolen our tent." Sometimes we feel like the things we take for granted have been taken away from us. Our tent pegs have been pulled up and roofs stolen while we were under there peacefully resting, and we didn’t know it.
Genesis 27 tells the story of a stolen blessing from a blind father. Abraham and Sarah had a promised son Isaac. He grew up as a God-fearing man who saw God at work all his life. He was raised in a Godly family of faith. Many times he had heard the story of how he was his parent’s “miracle child,” since he was born long after there was any human chance of them having any children. When he was perhaps in his young years as a child, he himself witnessed a most dramatic miracle of life when he was taken to a sacrifice by his father. That not only saved his life, but also served as further proof of the Lord’s amazing faithfulness. God provided a lamb to spare his life. He knew God as “Jehovah Jireh: The Lord Who Provides.”
Isaac grew up, got married and had twin sons. During their birth, Esau came out first followed by Jacob who was holding on to the heel of his brother. That would have be an interesting scene for the midwives. When both of them grew up, Esau became an expert hunter and Jacob stayed at home. (Genesis 25:27). When Isaac became old, he lost his eye sight. (Genesis 27). He had to trust others and his senses to gather information. It is difficult when you are in your old age and close to death to discern many things as our memories and senses fail. Getting old is not easy. We become more living on faith than living on sight. Then comes the inheritance struggles. When your priority is to get through one day at at time, the ones around you have their priorities fixed on the property, inheritance and so on.
Isaac wanted a great dinner for his last enjoyment just before his death. He asked Esau to go hunting and make some pottage for him and he could give his last blessings on him. Isaac apparently liked a non-veg delicacy. It sounds like Esau who sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage (Genesis 25) inherited his craving from his father. Some things run in the family!! Both the father and the son were willing to trade away spiritual blessings for some food which was what Adam and Eve did in the garden. Because Isaac lived by sight and not by faith until then, it was only natural for him to think that the oldest son would receive the birth right and the blessing. Isaac was trying to ignore or deny the prophecy that the Lord gave that Jacob would become the chosen one. We would like to deny unwelcome things that are painful or disheartening. Either we try to forget those or deny that it has not or will not happen.
On hearing this, Jacob and his mother Rebekah comes up with a plan to steal the blessing. Jacob dressed up like Esau, and cooked the dinner and went to the blind father and he received Esau's blessings. Bible scholar Gordon Wenham says, "There is probably no more pathetic episode in Genesis than Jacob's deception of Isaac to gain his father's blessing." When Esau came back with his dinner, he found out what happened and gets angry with Jacob and threatened to kill him. Isaac could not believe what was happening here. He was shaken with trembling. Here’s Isaac, an old man, who until now has been quietly reclining and resting after a meal, and now he’s shaking like a leaf in a hurricane! God has stirred him in the past, but now he’s being shaken by the Lord. When Isaac learned that Jacob had received the blessing intended for Esau, he made no attempt to revoke it; rather he confirmed it; “Yes, and he shall be blessed.” (Gen. 27:33)
Isaac suddenly saw God’s promise and by faith he blessed Jacob. We read in Hebrews 11:20, “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.” ‘Isaac, like his father, believed God, and his faith too was an “assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not yet seen.” The blind Issac now was seeing everything by faith! Isaac realizes that he is not in control over future events, and that God’s sovereign purposes will win out every time! We see God’s Spirit triumphing over the human plans. As people of faith, "we walk by faith, not by sight." (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Comments
Post a Comment