Giving the Ending Away--March 6, 2026

Giving the Ending Away--March 6, 2026

The LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

Barely twelve chapters into the entire Bible (page nine out of more than a thousand in my Bible), and God has already given away the ending of the whole saga: all the families of the earth shall be blessed, through what God is about to do beginning with childless and elderly Abram and Sarai.

These are, in fact, the very first words we get from God's mouth to Abram (who will soon enough get a revised name, "Abraham," from the same God). And even though the future father-of-many-nations doesn't get so much as a proper How-de-doo from the Holy One, God tips the divine hand from the get-go and says, "The thread of your whole life story is part of a bigger, wider, and much longer tapestry that will end up bringing blessing for every family, every tribe, every nation, and every people." How about that for an introduction?

Mind you, Abram wasn't looking for God at this point.  He wasn't seeking the true deity amidst all the idols and false gods of his culture (in fact, as Joshua 24:2-3 reminds us, Abraham and his parents "lived beyond the Euphrates River and served other gods") when God got a hold of him.  Abram doesn't have much going for him at this point in his story, honestly.  He's already more than a septuagenarian, and his wife had also just recently qualified for Social Security as well. They don't have children to provide for their needs in their golden years yet. And Abram doesn't own any particular plot of land he can live off of. (Yes, it is noteworthy, too, that even when he first sojourns to the "promised land," Abram does not a legal right to any of it, never has "legal" status to be there, and only ever purchases one small plot of land near the end of his life when he buys a cave to bury Sarah after her death.) Abe has no track record of being particularly virtuous or noble, and it will be centuries before the rules and regulations of The Law are given, so he doesn't even have the opportunity to be a good and obedient commandment keeper as a feather in his cap.

So, with basically no positive accomplishments or assets to list on his resume, out of nowhere, God calls Abram and says, "Hey, Abe--you don't know me yet, but we're going to be friends.  I'm going to do good for you, with descendants and a place for them to life, and eventually my plan is going to result in blessing for every family in the whole world."  A lot of the middle steps and chapters of the story are still unclear to Abraham, but God absolutely gives away the ending from the start.  This story is going to result in blessedness for the whole human family, because (as God is reminding us) God loves the whole human family--and indeed, the whole world.  And that means that Abraham's story isn't strictly just his own personal story, but really it is an entry point into the world's story.  For Christians, we eventually trace the family tree of Abraham and Sarah not just to his son Isaac (and Abraham's other, firstborn son, Ishmael) or to Jacob and his progeny who become the tribes of Israel, but eventually to include Jesus, the One through whom we confess God has indeed brought salvation to the whole world.

And as the very first memories of the early church will attest (see the book of Acts, for example), the community of Jesus' followers has understood that it was meant to include all peoples, all nations, and all families of the earth.  Christianity has never (at least when it's been faithful to our Story) been a matter of one people group against another, one nation against another, or one tribe against any others.  We have always been meant to be a community in whom the world gets a glimpse of that promise to Abraham of blessing for all peoples.  The world, in other words, is meant to see a preview of how the whole story of the world concludes--with blessing for all peoples--because they have seen in us the foreshadowing of that kind of community.  Our very existence as a found family with members from all places, languages, and backgrounds is a sort of "spoiler" that gives away the ending of the whole thing.

We do profound harm to our witness to Christ when we allow our faith to become a weapon for perpetuating "us-versus-them" hostilities, or when we let it be co-opted to sound like saying God is on one side of a war against the other side. God's promise to Abram, made the very first time God spoke to the future-patriarch, reminds us that God has always intended to bless all families, all nations, and all peoples, precisely through the covenant that originally set Abram and his family apart in the first place.  The goal was always to bless and redeem the whole world, through the unfolding promise of God that was first spoken to this particular person, Abram.

When you know that a story is going to have a good and happy ending, it gives you the courage and hope to keep plodding along through the sad and scary parts.  The same is true, it turns out, with the way we live out the story of the world.  Because God has given away the ending already, and we know that God's intention is to bless all the families of the earth through the work God began in Abram and Sarai's family, we can continue to live out our lives now seeking the good of all people, and knowing that's where God's will is oriented. 

At the end of the world's story is blessing, all around.  How will you live your live today knowing that is true?

Lord God, enable us to face the world in all of its pain and violence, knowing you intend to bless and heal every family, tribe, and people.