God spoke to Abram, with a command and a promise. “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).

Abram was already 75 years old when he got this message (12:4). We will learn in tomorrow’s reading that Abram was ten years older than his wife Sarai (17:17). So this couple with no children, Abram and Sarai – Abraham and Sarah, as their names came to be known – uprooted themselves from their families of origin, and set out to see how God would direct their lives. They did this just because God said so.

The promise to Abram included a heritage of a great nation that would be descended from him and Sarai, and a land in which that great nation would live. That must have been hard to figure: at age 75 and 65, we would have to guess they had been married for fifty years or so, say from when they were 25 and 15. In all that time they had never had children. How, then, would they become the parents of a great nation?

And even beyond that, Abram and Sarai would be part of God’s plan for changing the world. “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (12:3). From the descendants of Abram and Sarai, someone would be born to redeem the world.

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Jesus, debating with Jewish religious leaders: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. … Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:56, 58).

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We believe in you, O Lord, but it is hard for us to hear your call, and harder still to follow it. That’s how you do it, isn’t it: you call us to do things we can scarcely imagine. Grant us the courage to listen, and to trust in you: and to step forward to do the challenging things you have for us.

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