A Tomb in the Land of Promise

REFLECTION QUOTES

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…”

~Janis Joplin, “Me and Bobby McGee”

“If what we do now is to make no difference in the end, then all the seriousness of life is done a way with.”

~Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Austrian-British philosopher

“Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.”

~Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), French existentialist philosopher

“The ultimate apologetic is to a dying man…. the news that ‘Christ is risen!’ really is Good News for one kind of person: The person who is dying. If Christianity is not a dying word to dying men, it is not the message of the Bible that gives hope now.”

~Michael Spencer (1956-2010), internet blogger

“I know a place, ain’t nobody cryin’, ain’t nobody worried.
Ain’t no smilin’ faces, mmm, no, no, lyin’ to the races.”

~“I’ll Take You There”, The Staple Singers (1972)



“It is the secular whose longing for perfection has grown so intense as to lead them to imagine that paradise might be realized on this earth after just a few more years of financial growth and medical research. With no evident awareness of the contradiction they may, in the same breath, gruffly dismiss a belief in angels while sincerely trusting that the combined powers of the IMF, the medical research establishment, Silicon Valley, and democratic politics could together cure the ills of mankind.”

~Alain de Botton, Swiss-born writer and television producer

“Too many Americans have twisted the sensible right to pursue happiness into the delusion that we are entitled to a guarantee of happiness. If we don’t get exactly what we want, we assume someone must be violating our rights.”

~Susan Jacoby, American public intellectual and author

“Definition of a wanderer: A guy who’s always looking beyond.”

~Stephen King (1947-present), in Wolves of the Calla

SERMON PASSAGE

Genesis 23 (ESV)

1 Sarah lived 127 years; these were the years of the life of Sarah. 2 And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. 3 And Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, 4 “I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” 5 The Hittites answered Abraham, 6 “Hear us, my lord; you are a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead.” 7 Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land. 8 And he said to them, “If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat for me Ephron the son of Zohar, 9 that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns; it is at the end of his field. For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place.”

10 Now Ephron was sitting among the Hittites, and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, of all who went in at the gate of his city, 11 “No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the sight of the sons of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead.” 12 Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. 13 And he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, “But if you will, hear me: I give the price of the field. Accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.” 14 Ephron answered Abraham, 15 “My lord, listen to me: a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that between you and me? Bury your dead.” 16 Abraham listened to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants.

17 So the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field, throughout its whole area, was made over 18 to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites, before all who went in at the gate of his city. 19 After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah east of Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. 20 The field and the cave that is in it were made over to Abraham as property for a burying place by the Hittites.