Mother Sarah

This week’s reading:

Chayei Sarai

Torah Reading: Genesis 23:1-25:18
Haphtarah Reading: 1 Kings 1:1-31
Gospel Reading: Matthew 11-12


We’re looking for these titles of Messiah:

The Sent One
The Servant


Some thoughts:
This passage begins with the death of Sarah... Let’s stop and reflect: It’s with great love that Abraham buries his beloved wife. He was told to go...so he has to bargain for land. He was well esteemed by the Hittites. Ephron is willing to give him the land, but Abraham must pay for it. Isn’t amazing that Abraham is a military leader? He went into the battle already and now he’s dealing with another leader. Sarah has a place to rest (as Abraham will in short measure).

Because he’s getting older, Abraham needs a bride for his young son. He sends out Eliezer to find someone. Then the rest of the story here describes the servant’s fulfilling of this mission. He is sent...the word is shaliach, which would be apostolos in Greek. Apostle...Eliezer is an apostle for his master. That is too obvious to comment on.


Rebecca and the bride of Christ
A story of Evangelism and connections to Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

Anyway...his faith is great when he stumbles upon a well and finds Rebekah, the young woman who is kind enough to offer water to camels. His faith is great in the Lord and in his master:

“ 26 Then the man bowed down and worshiped the LORD, 27 saying, "Praise be to the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master. As for me, the LORD has led me on the journey to the house of my master's relatives.”

And Rebekah goes...she leaves with a blessing (after an exchange of hospitality and kindness between Eleizer and the family.) What great faith our forebears had. And she marries this greiving mama’s boy.

Who....as it turns out, prefigures the Messiah.

So Rebecca prefigures the church? This is a story of Evangelism? The notes sure seem to talk about this. I’ll fill this in more later.

But the author of our study guide notes the parallels between Rebecca at the well and the Samaritan Woman. Rebecca is a young, kind virgin from the right family and the woman at the well has had five husbands and she’s from the hated class of women. Yet Jesus talks to her and tells her of his mission. (At Jacob’s well now less. That’s Rebecca’s son.)

Listen to this story of faith:

“  19"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
 21Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
 25The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
 26Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."”

And the Samaritan woman believes...and so to many others.
“  39Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41And because of his words many more became believers.
 42They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."”
What wonderful messianic terms are used here.
(Chapter 25 is just messy...it talks about all of Abraham's other sons. I think the writer is more concerned with Isaac, so there’s not much ink spent of these sons).