Daily Devotion – March 2, 2022 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
15:2 But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
15:3 And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”
15:4 But the word of the LORD came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.”
15:5 He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
15:6 And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.
15:7 Then he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.”
15:8 But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
15:9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
15:10 He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.
15:11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
15:12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
15:17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.
15:18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates….”

Genesis 15, especially the last half of these verses, is one of my favorite texts in the Old Testament. Why? It sounds all bloody and weird, with sacrifices and with Abram in a sort of coma.

It is bloody and weird and terrifying. But look at what is happening.

Abram (God hasn’t changed his name to Abraham quite yet) asks God how he will be able to believe God when God tells him he will be the father of a great nation and the owner of a great land. “O Lord, God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” Abram wants some kind of a sealed bargain from the Lord. A contract. A covenant. And so the Lord gives him one.

The Lord makes Abram find all the usual animals sacrificed when a covenant is made – heifer, goat, ram, turtledove, and pigeon. The Lord makes Abram cut them in half and place them so that the blood makes a little river in the middle of the carcasses. When there was a war, the loser had to do these things, and then the loser had to promise never to fight against the winner again or encroach on his lands. The loser would make these animal sacrifices and then walk through the blood running between them, saying, “If I break this covenant, may the same thing be done to me as I have done to these animals.” Abram knew this ritual and got everything set up.

But when it came time to walk in between the carcasses through the blood, God caused the same kind of deep sleep to come over Abram as God has caused to come over Adam when he took a rib from him. Abram could not walk. Not at all. Instead the Lord walked between the animal halves! A smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between them. God was saying to Abram, “If this covenant is broken, I myself will shed my blood to make things right.”

And God, in Jesus, does that very thing. Jesus sheds his blood so that God’s Kingdom can come to us.

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for making promises that you always keep. Thank you for your faithfulness to Abram and to us, every day. Amen.