Genesis 24:34ff

Promise and Providence
 
In high school yearbooks, there is a page where students make lighthearted predictions about their classmates: “Most likely to succeed,” “most likely to travel the world,” “most likely to start a business” are among the most common ones. Recently, I saw “most likely to adopt more pets than they can handle.”
 
Seldom do they include the darker ones, but if they did Isaac might have been listed last Sunday as “most likely not to survive.”
 
His ordeal on Mount Moriah brought him to the brink of a bloody end. For God had commanded Abraham to take him, his only son, whom he loved, and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering.
 
Isaac was snatched from the jaws of death only at the last instant, when the angel of the Lord stayed his father’s hand.
 
Today he is in a very different place. He is not now on an altar; he is preparing for his wedding.
 
He who was consigned to the flames is now receiving a future. The promise of God to make Abraham a father of multitudes, beginning with Isaac, hung by a thread. Now it is quietly moving forward.
 
Let us consider for a moment what this means-- both for Isaac and for God’s people. Following the traumatic event on Mount Moriah, Isaac loses his mother Sarah. He is now deprived of a woman’s presence in his life.
 
But when Rebekah enters his life, Isaac is comforted. Rebekah gives Isaac a future and a hope after the death of his mother. As do all newlyweds, so too he and his bride can launch out on a new life together.
 
But marriage is also the promise of new life in the form of children the couple expects to have. And if Isaac and Rebekah don’t have children, then Abraham’s line ceases, and the promise God made to Abraham about offspring as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore and as the stars in the sky becomes null and void, as we have already mentioned.
 
Our lesson now turns from Isaac’s future to the one entrusted with securing it. It affords us the occasion to see the story of this marriage through the eyes of Abraham’s servant.
 
The text doesn’t disclose his name, but a very old Jewish tradition identifies him as Eliezer, Abraham’s senior steward.
 
Abraham deputized Eliezer to go to the land of Abraham’s own people and search for a wife for his son Isaac there. He made him a swear an oath. Eliezer did so and set out.
 
Our lesson begins in the middle of the action. Eliezer has already found the woman that he believes is the right one for Isaac. But he has to meet her brother, whose name is Laban.
 
Parenthetically, that remains so today. It is a familiar scenario. Families want to know who is entering their circle. They want to meet the one who has won the heart of their daughter or sister or close relative.
 
Most of the verses in this lesson consist of the report that Eliezer gives to Laban about his search.
 
So let us consider the content of this report more closely. What does it tell us about Eliezer’s experience? How does he conceive of the quest on which his master Abraham sent him? What can it teach us about how God works in the lives of his people? And what may it disclose to us about prayer and God’s providence?
 
When Laban first meets him, Eliezer states his name and declares his purpose. “I am Abraham’s servant. Abraham bound me by an oath to go to his own people and get a wife for his son.”
 
Eliezer knows who he is, and knows where he is going.
 
There's a passage in the children's book Alice in Wonderland, which contains an exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat: "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" Alice asks.
 
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
 
"I don't much care where–" said Alice.
 
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
 
"–so long as I get somewhere," Alice added. "Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
 
Until we can say where we are going, one road is as good as another, which is only to say that no road is better than the other, because we have no destination.
 
Eliezer is the opposite of Alice. Ask him which way he ought to go, and he does not say, "I don't much care where." He says, "I am Abraham's servant, sent to get a wife for his son."
 
In a single reply he names who he is and why he is there. He does not drift, because he chooses his road as soon as the destination is given to him.
 
And that clarity shapes his prayer. For what precedes and accompanies and surrounds his search is prayer. Eliezer prays to God to guide him in his search.
 
“O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if you will only make successful the way I am going!”
 
What is Eliezer doing here? He is presenting before God the object of his search, and then asking God to grant him success in his pursuit.  
 
This is a critical moment in the narrative. Eliezer does not rely on chance. Nor does he trust in his own instincts alone. He does not assume that he can accomplish his task by shrewd calculation. Rather, he brings his search before God. He names his destination, and he asks God to make the way prosper.
 
When we are in search of someone, say, a spouse, or something, say, an opportunity, or anything that our heart desires, do we bring the object of our search before God? Do we ask God for wisdom? Do we listen for God’s counsel? Do we wait for God’s guidance on whether or how to move forward?
 
If we are honest, we may answer: “not always” or “seldom” or even “not at all.” But those who refuse to bring their search before God in prayer live in worry and fear, and even anger and frustration.
 
That includes us too sometimes, insofar as none of us perfectly trusts God to provide for all our needs, to point us in the right direction in our search.
 
But we should not let our imperfect trust, even if it borders on distrust, keep us from God. We should not let a history of “doing it on our own” make us feel it’s too late for us.
 
As long as we have this present moment, it’s never too late. We can be honest before God. God won’t condemn us for our distrust. On the contrary, God will show us more and more of his goodness and power, so that we may know that he is both willing and able to reveal and make available to us the object of our search.
 
Note how specific Eliezer’s prayer is: “Let the young woman who comes out to draw, to whom I shall say, ‘Please give me a little water from your jar to drink,’ and who will say to me, ‘Drink, and I will draw for your camels also’—let her be the woman whom you have appointed for my master’s son.”
 
God answers this prayer. God leads Eliezer in his search to Rebekah.
 
In an obvious sense, as she runs back and forth at the well, eagerly providing for the needs of the servant and the camels, she resembles Abraham when he welcomed the three strangers, who announced to him that his wife Sarah was going to have his son in Genesis 18.
 
One Bible student describes Rebekah as “impatient, energetic, overflowing with lovingkindness” (Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg). Just as Abraham was distinguished for his kindness in Jewish tradition, so also is Rebekah.
 
Note that prayer for Eliezer is not only petition. That is to say, it isn’t only asking God. It is also thanking God.
 
When God answered Eliezer’s prayer, Eliezer responded by bowing his head in worship and saying: “Bless the Lord, the God of Abraham, who led me by the right way to obtain Rebekah.”
 
The apostle Paul instructs us to be anxious for nothing, but by prayer and petition make our requests known to God, with thanksgiving.
 
There is one last important thing to see here. Note that after Eliezer prays, he lets go. That is, he leaves the matter entirely in the hands of God. He has prayed, he has presented his case to Laban—in short, he has done everything he can on his end.
 
He is even prepared to go home without Rebekah if Laban refuses to let her go. At the conclusion of his report, Eliezer says to Laban: “Now then, if you will deal loyally and truly with my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, so that I may turn either to the right hand or to the left.”
 
The tension in his language can almost be felt. The “if” or “if not” impresses on us both the doubt and the hope Eliezer experiences. There is a moment of suspense, for so much hangs on the outcome.
 
But when we trust in God’s provision, as did Eliezer, we can rest. When we do not, we tend to manipulate people and circumstances in the attempt to ensure the most favorable outcome for ourselves.
 
But this attempt to control circumstances leads to worry, fear, and even anger and frustration. Life then becomes a burden.
 
Jesus knows that we are prone to live this way. That is why in our gospel lesson he invites all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens to come to him and find rest for our souls.
 
We experience this rest when we exchange our heavy burdens for his yoke, which is easy, and his burden, which is light.
 
The tension in the drama is resolved when Rebekah agrees to go with Eliezer. The narrator captures the moment.
 
Isaac went out in the evening to walk in the field. An older tradition interprets the language here to mean that he went out to meditate.
 
That tradition further understood this meditation to be evening prayer. Could he be praying for Eliezer’s success? Is he praying for his own wife?
 
Looking up, Isaac sees the answer to his prayer. There are camels coming.
 
At that moment, raising her eyes, Rebekah sees Isaac. She got off the camel and said to Eliezer: who is that man walking in the field towards us?
 
And the servant said: “That’s my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself.
 
Jewish tradition tells us that Rebekah veils herself to obscure the light of her face, illuminated as it is by the sunlit world of lovingkindness that she inhabits.
 
Isaac brings her into his mother Sarah’s tent” (24:67). The Hebrew word translated here as “tent” sounds like the word for “light.”
 
“He takes her and she irradiates the darkness of his mother’s tent” (Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg). She is, and is not, like his mother. But through her his sense of his mother’s loss is healed.
 
“For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
 
This is announced at the presentation of Eve to her husband Adam in the Garden of Eden in the second chapter of Genesis, divine warrant for the institution of marriage, and it replays itself here.
 
“He took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her.”
 
Let these words sit for a moment. Today we need more now than ever to affirm the goodness of love and marriage.
 
There is a message in the meeting of Isaac and Rebekah for our current generation, in which so many young men and women are alienated from one another, and do not for that reason find one another for intimate relationships, and therefore experience confusion, bitterness, and fear of the future.
 
Writer Asa Seresin coined the term “hetero pessimism” to name what we are witnessing in culture today. The term denotes the pervasive sense of dissatisfaction and despair regarding relationships between men and women.
 
If this seems alarmist to you, you need only to go to YouTube or TikTok, where videos about the crisis in the relationship between the sexes, impacting especially gen Z, abound. 
 
Desire for one another, delight in one another—these are not concessions grudgingly permitted.
 
They are part of God’s good creation, which should evoke our praise and thanks to our Creator
 
The same Bible that gives us this marriage between Isaac and Rebekah gives us the Song of Songs, where the beloved comes leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills, and the voice cries: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
 
The giving of Rebekah to Isaac is an expression of God’s provision.
 
In our catechisms and confessions, we always find creation and providence together. God does not create and then abandon the creature. God always remains present to it, sustaining and guiding it, and providing what it needs.
 
Our God is a good and gracious and generous God. In giving to Isaac Rebekah, and later through Rebekah, Jacob, God shows himself faithful to the promise he made with Abraham, with whom he made a covenant.
 
By extension, he shows himself faithful to us, who are here today, because we have been included in this covenant and share in its blessings.
 
Every time we gather at this table, we acknowledge and celebrate this faithfulness, remembering especially the One who renewed this covenant between God and God’s people by the once for all sacrifice of himself for the sins of his people.
 
As Isaac received Rebekah, so we receive Christ. As God provided for Isaac’s future, so he provides for ours. And as the covenant moved forward through their union as man and wife, so it moves forward even here, where Christ meets his people and gives himself to them.
 
Let us come, then, trusting in our good and gracious and generous God. Let us come in gratitude to the table of the One who is faithful, who sustains and guides us, and always provides for us.