bruce feiler: abraham

One of my "new" favorite authors is Bruce Feiler. A little over a year ago I picked up his book Walking the Bible and was really taken by his insights and personal spiritual journey. I am not concerned that he does not express "faith" as it classically might be understood, and I am not threatened by the musings about the discussion about how our understanding of God may have developed as a cultural phenomenon over time (I actually think that God has revealed himself over time and in the midst of relationships and culture). Having never journeyed the lands of the Middle East myself I particularly enjoyed Bruce's adventure. In fact, I ended up buying the PBS documentary Walking the Bible as well, along with the picture book.

I continue to enjoy Bruce's work, and picked up Abraham : A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths this week. I was immediately glad I picked the book up because Bruce quickly makes an observation that I had never heard or read before about Abraham. You see, I believe God is in the business of life. He made life, sustains life, redeems life, and will eventually restore life into the fullness of what it was meant to be.

What Bruce notices about the story of Abraham is that we first meet him as someone unable to continue life. It was ten generations from Adam to Noah, and ten generations from Noah to Abraham. The Bible has meticulously recounted the generations as multiple genealogies. The classic "so an so begat so and so." When we meet Abraham (Abram at the time), he is in his 70's and unable to bear a child. Life will end with him for this generational tree. Here, in the midst of no life enters God. This is what he does. He brings life to the lifeless. And he will bring life to Abraham. Before there will be a child for Abraham there is a journey of faith and trust, there is the challenge of mistakes, and there is the gauntlet of spiritual testing. But I am beginning to see these things as God bringing Abraham himself back to life before he restores the chain of life through Isaac. (I choose to not see Ishmael as a part of God's promise, since he embodies Abraham's struggle to trust God. Though God is still in the business of giving life, and so protects and blesses Ishmael.)

I am grateful to Bruce for this observation. It solidified, again, that the good news of the Scriptures, the gospel, is that God is about bringing dead things to life. As he has done for Abraham, so he will do for us.