Monday, April 26, 2021

Genesis and Matthew XXVI: Return

 First Published Saturday, April 23, 2011

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He (Ishmael) shall be a wild-ass of a man, his hand against all, hand of all against him, yet in the presence of all his brothers shall he dwell.


What did you go out to the desert to see? . . . A prophet? Yes, I tell you, a prophet and more . . . 

There is a wild man at the beginning of each testament. In the old, it is Ishmael, first son of Abraham, father of the Arab nation. In the New Testament, it is John the Immerser, Jesus' cousin. John was a child sent from God's promise, born to a woman too old to have children, as was Ishmael's half-brother, Isaac.

Promises abound, and so often it has to do with miraculous births.

Ishmael was not a child of promise. But he grew to be a great nation. He represents the Old Testament. Clans, nations, tribes are everything in the Old Testament. Warfare was the primary mode of building kingdoms. It was, basically, the way the world did things. Yet God operated and worked His will in this context. Today, the descendants of Ishmael are still known for their adherence to this Old Testament way of doing things: rigid laws, heavily male-dominated, use of warfare and its ancient rules (you are to wipe out every trace of life of your enemies).

John comes along, in the days of Christ. Both he and Jesus were born according to a promise. John is the wild man of the New Covenant. He has cast off all worldliness. He does not seek, or need, a "job." He just proclaims the word of God. This is the most important thing. He is not worried about having a son to carry on his name. In the New Testament, to be "wild" means to have nothing to do with the world and its trappings.

Sons in the Old Testament (including Ishmael) were made holy via circumcision. But in the New, all people are made holy by way of belief, demonstrated in the act of immersion first made essential to the church, by John the Immerser.

We become part of a New Family.

Ishmael's nation was blessed, and continues to be so, today, in terms of the multiplying of its population. The messenger of God told Ishmael's mother, to return back to the tent of Abraham, to her family, regardless of how she had been treated.

He calls all of us today, to return back to our families, through Christ.

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