Let’s begin with genealogy.
Adam and Eve had three sons: Cain, Abel, and Seth. One of Seth’s descendants was the famous ark-builder Noah. He also had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. One of Shem’s descendants was Terah, whose three sons were Abram, Nahor, and Haran. The rest of the Bible focuses on rivalry between pairs of brothers: Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Ephraim and Manasseh, Perez and Zerah. What’s the deal with this pattern of three sons? I don’t know.
Just as God predicted, childbearing would not be easy outside of Eden. Abram’s wife Sarai “was childless because she could not conceive.” Supposing Sarai knew about Eve’s sin, it’s not hard to imagine her anger at the woman who forfeited Eden. This infertile daughter of Eve surely had nights of frustration and humiliation thanks to a Sarai she didn’t commit. The Lord’s resounding “no” to her prayers hurt each passing year. Sarai’s neighbors saw her barren womb as a curse, a shame, perhaps even a punishment.
Out of nowhere, God makes a promise that will change her life. God told Sarai’s husband Abram that he would become a “great nation.” Imagine it! A seventy-five-year-old husband and sixty-five-year-old wife who struggled with infertility for decades. The Lord swears their tiny family will become a great nation. They had long believed Abram’s name would die and be buried with him. Now God promises Abram a “great name.”
With no deliberation or hesitation, Abram listened to the Voice. He packed up his nephew Lot with his wife Sarai and moved to the “land God would show them.” God made another promise: He would give their non-existent offspring the land of Canaan as an inheritance. Remember: they don’t have kids. They don’t rule the land. They are strangers! New in town! And yet, the same God who spoke heaven and earth into existence has plans to make them owners of this foreign land. All in due time.
As soon as they arrive, a famine hits Canaan. (I thought this place was flowing with milk and honey?) Abram and Sarah pack up their life again and head down to Egypt to the fertile land of the Nile. Aware of his wife’s beauty, Abram asks Sarah to claim to be his sister, not his wife. “Sister” in Hebrew can mean any female relative, which is, technically speaking, true. (They are half-siblings. Yikes.) Call Abram a coward, a liar, or strategic. Abram’s fear is immediately confirmed and Sarah is “taken into Pharaoh’s palace.” Pharaoh “treats Abram well for Sarah’s sake,” perhaps being gracious toward the “brother” of a new addition to Pharaoh’s harem.
The Lord punishes Pharaoh with plagues “because of Abram’s wife Sarai.” The King of Egypt asks Abram the same question God asked Adam: “What have you done?” (It’s funny that Pharaoh feels like the injured party when he “took” a man’s sister into his palace like a piece of property.) Their secret is out and Pharaoh wants the plagues to stop. Whether you call it a gift or a bribe, Abram and Sarai are sent packing with more possessions they had when they arrive in Egypt. You could say they “plundered the Egyptians.”
Back in Canaan, and perhaps with Pharaoh’s mistreatment in mind, Sarai mistreats her Egyptian slave Hagar. Not wanting to wait for God’s plan A, Sarai creates plan B. She uses Hagar as a surrogate with her husband Abram, who has no objection to this plan. After the pregnant Hagar flees Sarai, the angel of the Lord (who is also called the Lord) encounters Hagar near a well. The Lord has heard the misery of the Egyptian slave in the house of Israel, so He gives her a series of promises to bless her family. Out of gratitude, Hagar names the Lord, “You are the God who sees me” because she has seen that One who sees all. Hagar returns to Abram, gives birth to Ishmael, and they all live together. (As you can imagine, that house was full of drama.)
To fulfill His promise, God renames Abram as “Abraham” - the name that countless Jews, Muslims, and Christians revere as “father.” The Lord also renames Sarai as “Sarah.” Why? Because their family will be royalty. Sarah “will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” Abraham hears this promise and thinks God is joking. They’ve been waiting for a quarter of a century since God’s promise was originally made! He "fell down laughing” and wiping tears from his eyes wonders, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” So Abraham suggests Ishmael instead (Plan C). Abraham isn’t sure his wife would have one son, much less that she would produce multiple kings.
God agrees to bless Ishmael, but the covenant will come through Abraham’s wife. Sarah will be a biological mother, not an adoptive mother. Her son’s name "Isaac” means “laughter” because the joke is on these old folks, not God. As the psalmist later says, “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.” Imagine pushing in labor at ninety-nine years old. Imagine trying to take care of a toddler when you have ten decades under your belt. It may be dark humor, but it’s God who has the last laugh.
Unlike other conditional promises the Lord makes, this covenant with Abraham is eternal. There are no “takebacks.” Neither side can relitigate. They’re stuck with each other. God doesn’t do divorce. He says He hates it. Come what may, you can’t have God without Abraham’s family or Abraham’s family without God. Not even death can separate Abraham from the love of God.
And yet, because of Abraham’s prayer, Ishmael won’t be left out of a blessing. Like Adam, Ishmael will be “fruitful and multiply.” Like Jacob, Ishmael will have twelve sons, who will be twelve rulers. In other words, he will become a “father of twelve tribes.” Like his biological father Abraham, Ishmael will become a “great nation.” But Ishmael is not the son of the covenant, not the son of promise. Ishmael was not conceived by the power of God’s word but by the plans of a wife and a husband’s will.
Now let’s talk about Jesus and Mary. (And a little bit about Joseph.)
Jesus is the new Isaac, the Son of promise, “not of human decision or a husband’s will.” He is the Son of God who came into the world by divine decision and a woman’s fiat. Like Isaac who carried the wood up Moriah for the burnt offering, Jesus carried the wood of the cross to Calvary for His sacrifice. If Mount Moriah and Mount Zion are connected, then in the same spot where Isaac was bound, the Greater Isaac was nailed to the cross.
Isaac and Jesus are both called “one and only” sons. Both are given their names by God through an angel. Both were “bound” before their offerings and were accompanied by two men on their way to be sacrificed. In my opinion, both were willing to be sacrificed, even though Isaac’s was halted. The Lord provided a ram to Abraham instead of Isaac. Jesus is simultaneously the Lamb of God and the Lord who provides.
Unlike infertile Sarah, Mary was able to conceive, not even married to her fiance. Like Sarah, Mary was childless when God approached her with the news of her Son. As with their ancestors, God seems to show up “out of the blue” with no warning. Mary was minding her own business and - bam! - the archangel Gabriel is in front of her. God’s news comes with a mission: Mary and her husband will have a lot of traveling to do. They went to Bethlehem for Christ’s birth. Just like Abram and Sarai, they went to Egypt when they were in danger. They traveled to the north and settled in Nazareth.
God loves the word, “Go!” Mary is a daughter of Abraham because she responds with “the obedience of faith.” With their feet, both Abraham and Mary say, “Let it be unto me according to thy word.”
In retrospect, it’s funny to imagine the early years of the Holy Family. They have God incarnate with them, and like his forefather Abraham, Joseph kept getting instructions to pack up and move to a new place. This tiny family was embarking on the holiest procession in Israel, but there were no crowds to adore Jesus.
Just like the Ark of the Old Covenant, Mary went from town to town, blessing the places she went. Mary was like a pioneer, rambling all over God’s creation, laying down a trail for Her Son to do the same thing three decades later. Both Christ and His mother were peripatetics. No wonder John’s gospel refers to Jesus as a “tabernacle” among us. Unlike temples, the New Greater Tabernacle was always on the move.
Abraham and Jesus are connected, too. Abraham trusted God’s word that His offspring would inherit this land. The Word of God became Abraham’s offspring and walked on the same territory. The God who spoke creation into existence and called Abram without warning became a Son of Abraham to fulfill His promise and bless the Gentile nations. God said Abraham’s descendants would be like the sand on the seashore and Abraham’s seed, Jesus of Nazareth, loved walking on the shore of Galilee, teaching Abraham’s children.
That’s why Jesus was able to pass on the inheritance in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the land.”
As soon as Jesus was born in Bethlehem, he was threatened by Herod. Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt for protection. Unlike Abraham and Sarah, they found shelter in the land that enslaved their ancestors for centuries. We don’t know how long the Holy Family was in Egypt. Was it months? Was it years? Regardless, imagine how much bravery it took for a poor laborer like Joseph to take his little family to a foreign country. Perhaps God “treated Joseph well for Mary’s sake.”
Both couples were able to leave Egypt having escaped imminent danger. As God once promised Eve, there would be enmity between the Serpent and the Woman. In Abram’s case, the serpent was a Pharaoh. In Joseph’s case, it was Herod. Either way, God delivers the Seed of the Woman out of the clutches of the Enemy. Mary is the New Sarah who escapes the clutches of the New Pharaoh.
We don’t have many words from the mouths of Joseph or Mary. But after all of these timely warnings, I can imagine them using the name Hagar invented: “Lahai Roi” or “the living God who sees.” Just like Hagar, the Holy Family was stuck between Canaan and Egypt in need of a word from God. Like a well in the desert, God’s word blessed them. Joseph and Mary may have directed their praise up to heaven, or they may have looked at the infant in their arms. The same God who saved Hagar now has the eyes of this Child who knows them as mother and father. The same Lord has always had His eyes on Israel and Egypt, Abraham and Sarah and Hagar, Joseph and Mary and Jesus.
Gabriel gave the name “Jesus” to the son of Mary and his foster father Joseph. The name means, “YHWH saves.” In Hebrew, His name is Joshua, the Conqueror of the Promise Land. Just like His ancestor, Jesus will defeat the enemies of Israel. This time, the Enemies are worse than ever. They are named Sin, Death, and Satan. Through His crucifixion and death, He will conquer them, ascend into heaven, and sit at the right hand of God. He will be the King of Kings, and the ancient promise to Sarah will be fulfilled in Him. Sarah was told she “will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” Not only did kings like David and Solomon come from Sarah, but the King of all Kings was Sarah’s descendant. Through Jesus, Sarah is “the mother of nations.” She’s not just a matriarch of the Jews, but a mother to us all.
Abraham thought God’s promise was a joke, but God got the last laugh. Through Jesus, both Israelites and Ishmaelites are welcome in the Church. The battles between the families of Ishmael and Israel have been tragic, but the New Covenant is the ultimate joke, the surprise that turns all tragedies into comedies. Ishmael was not the son of the Abrahamic covenant like Isaac, but his descendants can still be adopted into the family of Abraham.
How can this be? Paul explains in Galatians. All Christians, Jewish and Gentile, are like Isaac, children of promise. If we have faith, we are no longer children of the slave woman anymore. We are children of the free woman, Sarah, the mother of all Christians by trust in the New Isaac, Jesus Christ.