Are You My Mother?

After the birth of Isaac, there was relational turmoil.  But within that turmoil lies promise.  The covenant given by God to His people provided a bond so strong that nothing could break it. 

We are going to continue in this story and my hopes is to walk you through how this covenant provided promise for us.  We will parallel scripture from the Old Testament and scripture from the New Testament to show the promise of covenant and how it is tied to our current salvation through Christ.

A PARTY FOR ISAAC

A party was given for baby Isaac to celebrate the day that he was weaned from his mother. Weaning from a mother is often thought of as the ending of the nursing period between mother and child.  But the weaning in the Old Testament had more significance.  The significance was the showing of independence of the child.  The time of weaning in the Old Testament times typically ranged from age 3 to 9.  We are not confident of the age of Isaac when he was weaned, but most scholars agree it was around age 3. So little Isaac is growing up and showing great promise as a Patriarch.

PARTY CRASHER

Ishmael crashes the party.  Remember that Ishmael was Abraham’s first born from his slave, Hagar. Ishmael was approximately 13 years old when Isaac was weaned. But Ishmael had a distaste for his little brother. This could be jealousy because he wanted to be Abraham’s only son. Whatever the reason, Ishmael treated Isaac with contempt.

KICKED OUT OF THE PARTY

Because of the way Ismael treated Isaac, he and his mother, Hagar, got kicked out of the party.

“’Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.’’ Genesis 21:10 NIV

There was no way in Sarah’s world that the son born to her husband and slave would get the inheritance. Abraham was an extremely wealthy man so there was a lot to inherit.  But the wealth was not the issue for God. The covenant was the issue.  God never designed nor desired for the covenant for His people to be passed on through Ishmael.

Being distressed as a father and not wanting to lose his son, God comforted Abraham.

“’Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring.’” Genesis 21:12, 13 NIV

God promises to take care of Ishmael. If you read the next several verses, you will see how that promise was threatened.  But God kept His promise and did make Ishmael a nation with 12 sons. To this day, the Islamic nation traces their origin back to the son of Abraham, Ishmael. But this promise, this tribe, this nation was not God’s promise to save His creation.  That promise came through the covenant made with Abraham and now with Isaac.

ARE YOU MY MOTHER?

We are going to pause here and take a deeper look into the significance of these two moms. I challenge you to ask yourself which mother you belong to.

Two moms…Hagar and Sarah.

              Two sons…Ishmael and Isaac.

                           Two nations…nation of Ishmael and nation of Isaac.

                                         Two covenants…one of slavery and one of freedom.

Huh? (insert confused look!)

The story of these two moms has a much deeper significance. Follow along with me…

In the New Testament, the apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church of Galatia. The context of this letter was his fight for their faith. They had been a faithful church standing by the apostle Paul in one his greatest struggles of life.  But now their faith was waning. They were feeling pressure from sources to lean back into the structure of the law of Moses rather than the freedom of the covenant of Jesus. Do you see the parallel here?   

So, in Paul’s attempt to pull them back towards the covenant of Jesus, he uses the lives of these two moms, Sarah and Hagar, as his rope of persuasion.

“Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says?” Galations 4:21 NIV

He does not understand why these people who had experienced freedom through Jesus Christ would choose to return to the bondage of the law. In his reasoning, it was a choice to be free or to be enslaved once again. I agree with his confusion of their choice.

Here is his parallel to the two moms…

“For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as a result of a divine promise.” Galatians 4:23 NIV

We have two competing influences here…flesh and divine promise. Let me explain.  Or shall I say, let the apostle Paul explain?

Using the story of these two women as a metaphor, he explains how their lives represent the two covenants.  

“The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai (Moses) and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sanai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.” Galatians 4:24-26 NIV

Paul is reminding the church of Galatia who their mother is.

Remember Hagar and Sarah.

•  Hagar was an Egyptian slave. She was the slave of Sarah and Abraham. Her life was spent in bondage to rules and regulations forced on her by those who owned her. She lived under the law and her justification was by the works she performed.
• Sarah was free. She spent her life making her own choices and decisions. She was born of the Spirit of God. She lived under grace and was justified by faith alone in God.

GET RID OF HER

“’Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son. (this is almost a direct quote from the book of Genesis). Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.’” Galatians 4:30, 31 NIV

Remember that this is simply a metaphor given by Paul and no where meant to put Sarah’s value as a person over the value of Hagar. He uses this metaphor to plead with the people for them to choose freedom in Christ over the bondage to the law or works.

So, what does this mean to you and me? A LOT!

Bondage or freedom? Simple choice…obvious choice! I choose…FREEDOM! But do I really?

Every time I listen to my religion over Jesus, I choose bondage.  Bondage is my default choice.  Being raised in a strict religious environment, the bondage to rules is my simple choice.  Bondage allows me to control life around me. It gives me security because it can be written on a piece of paper and checked off as a list. It also provides me the judgement that I have learned to carry so beautifully so I can judge those around me within my bondage.

But when I am free in Jesus, the rules in which bind me get released. I walk in the simplicity of my faith and love for Him. Every choice that I make is sifted through the grace He has given me not through the throne of rules in which I was raised. But sometimes that freedom can be scary. There are no confines or restraints. There is no list of rules in which I can measure my actions. What if I make the wrong choice in my freedom? Wrong choices in freedom requires grace. And grace comes only through the freedom in Christ. When others make choices not to follow those rules, I can see them through the lens of Jesus and His grace.  I can point them to Jesus simply because of His grace.

For so much of us, rules give us a sense of control. We become slave to rules in our lives because it can be measured. They are familiar. They can be written in black and white. We can have pride when we have followed the rules and judge others when they don’t.

But grace…well, that’s different. I can’t see it; I can’t touch it and I can’t measure it.  I walk in grace simply in faith and faith alone.

The church of Galatia was moving back towards the measurement of the law…bondage…slavery because it is what they knew. But Paul pleaded with them to choose Sarah as their mother.

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.” Galatians 4:31 NIV

Who do you choose today as your mother? Slave to the law because it is familiar or freedom in Christ because it is grace?