The Sylvr Pen

Wool. Raw wool, washed, then carded.

Yarn, spun thick and strong, then fine and finer.

Yarn made thread, dyed scarlet.

 Scarlet thread, spun sometimes superfine, but strong. So strong it never broke. Not in millennia of wear and strain. The Scarlet Thread of Promise…

A figurative thread—but represented at one time by a physical thread tied around a newborn’s wrist…

Though God had promised a “seed of the woman” who would crush the deceiving serpent’s power, from Eve on down the thread of redemption so often looked just ready to break. I am considering all these events that threatened it so far, in Genesis alone:

Adam and Eve’s first son kills their second, and a hundred years pass before a third son, a child of hope appears.

As mankind multiplies after that, it grows so bad that God must purge away the evil with a flood, and nearly all mankind is lost… except the slender thread of Noah’s family.

Then runs the Promise of the Seed down to Sarah and Abraham—who reach the ages of ninety and one hundred respectively, still childless, before at last, comes Isaac.

The thread threatens snapping once again when their two grandsons—one grown earthy, caring little for the promise, the other grasping and deceitful—nearly repeat the tragic end of Cain and Abel, the one planning murder against the other…

Yet the thread spun on…  

Now, next in the Promise line: Judah, son of Jacob-renamed-Israel.

Did he realize his role? Even if he didn’t know he would be the one to carry the seed of promise, to move hope forward toward fulfillment in the One who would crush Satan’s power, surely he knew the Promise to his father and grandfather: “In your seed shall all the nations of the world be blessed.”

But Judah grew fearful and balked. Understandably…

Judah had three sons (Gen 38:1-5), three Promise possibilities. The first one, Er, married a girl named Tamar, and hope looked for an offspring. But Er was so wicked God cut him off dead. So second-born Onan was bound, if God enabled, to father a child in Er’s name, with Widow Tamar. But Onan, adverse to providing an heir for anyone but himself, threw away his seed—and, angry at this outrage, God struck him dead! (Gen 38:6-10)

Then Judah balked. He hemmed and hawed and made excuses. Afraid to lose his third son Shelah, he left the widow Tamar barren, the seed and promise lying good as dead.

It took conniving, at forfeit of her reputation, but Tamar got herself with the seed of promise by unknowing Judah himself, (Gen 38:11-15,16-19,20-23,24-26). And only that (humanly speaking) prevented the thin thread’s breaking.

Another womb in turmoil then—like the world outside it—twins discovered at birth-time, posing the question of which was “firstborn.” So, a nurse circled a scarlet thread around the tiny wrist of that first arm to shoot out into air (Gen 38:27-30).

Though it failed to tag the firstborn (Perez, who “broke out” ahead of his sibling Zerah), that blood-red line of fiber spoke of the bloodline, of the seed of Promise, advancing ever forward till God at last would give it Life Divine and Mysterious, to bless all peoples of the earth with their only hope for deliverance from sin and second death… (Rev 20:14, 21:8)

Thus began the imagery of the Scarlet Thread of Redemption (more of it to show up later): thread begun before time began, to weave unbroken through all eons, right down to The Manger, and the scarlet on a cross.

Praise God for His might and love and grace, in His unbroken redemptive thread!

*****

Seeking the Christ Child (in the Old Testament)

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I am searching for prophecies and foreshadowings of the Christ child, book by book. I plan to post (nearly) every weekday (leaving myself some margin) a short peek at some hint or promise of the coming baby who would make all the difference. Like the wise men, I’ll be Seeking the Christ Child, but in Old Testament promises and foreshadowings, and sharing what I find. I hope you’ll join me, because if it turns out as rewarding as the past spring’s pre-Easter explorations, this focus could make this one of the richest, most blessed Christmas seasons yet.

Previous posts in this series:

(1) – A Baby Gave Her Hope

(2) – A Baby Gave Him Comfort

(3) – A Baby Made Her Laugh

(4) – Wrestling Babies Lead to Christ? 

Linking to…

The things kids do—even before they’re out of the womb! Seems, so often, it hints at what they’ll be up to after they’re born.

There she is: Granddaughter, her little legs obviously just a-kicking away, like her mommy said you could see happening continually all through her sonogram. And since she left her warm, safe starting place, those legs have been going, going, for over four years now, running, leaping, hopping, bouncing, dancing, and ballerina kicking enough to make you winded just watching.

I once read how music conductor Boris Bott learned the cello parts of symphonies in the womb, by no one’s intention. Seems his expectant mother’s cello practice helped shape what he became as an adult. He got a musical head start in his amniotic first home.

Then there are the Bible examples. Fascinating. I love the account of John, the baptizer-to-be who will joyfully go before the Lord Jesus to point others to Him. Before he’s born into the world he’s leaping for joy as the Messiah approaches, carried in Mary’s womb! (Lk 1:39-42).

But we’re talking Old Testament times here in this series. We’ve been seeking the Christ child, by following the line that God said would produce Him. Which brings us to a set of twins… who wrestled in the womb!

Does sibling rivalry begin that soon? Evidently. And though not clear yet at this early stage in their story, the promise of the Seed in whom all nations would be blessed hung poised there, ready to pass on to one of them. But which?…

Another barren woman, Isaac’s wife Rebekah—another descendant of Shem, like him: desperately desiring a child, as her parents-in-law had, Abraham and Sarah. Isaac fervently praying. The result? Not one, but two babies to bless them (and pain them, as life on earth would play out)—struggling in utero. Seemingly jockeying for position already.

It troubled Rebekah. So she consulted God. And He explained, revealing to her His prophecy about those two: Two nations were struggling in there! The “older” would end up serving the “younger” (Gen 25:22-26). (Older meaning whoever gets out first!)

The rest of the prophesy, about the Seed of Promise, comes later in Bible text (Gen 26:1-5), but she still may have understood it as part of the birthright this “younger” son should receive.

Should? Or would? If God says it will happen, it will! But when you’re human and activist like Rebekah, and the tide seems rolling counter to God’s will, you think it’s your duty to get in there and fix things so they happen His prophesied way.

Thus she pushed her favored son into committing all that deceit (Gen 27:5-10). Thus her resulting separation from him thereafter (Gen 27:34,41-43). And such a mess of hurt, resentment, murderous intent, fear, and agony! 

Nevertheless, on the road to exile, the LORD appears to Jacob and seals the deal: His (Jacob’s) is the heritage; his “seed” it is in whom “all the families of earth will be blessed” (Gen 28:12-17). And then God doubly seals it, on Jacob’s way back home, years later, when the baby wrestler, now grown with babies of his own, wrestles the angel of the LORD and won’t let go till He blesses him, and leaves with a limp and a new personage: Israel, “prince of God” (Gen 32:24-28,31).

Hardly a picture of the faultless Christ to come, nevertheless the receiver of the Promise – not just for land, and a nation of multitudes, but for that special promised Seed of deliverance, down his family line.

What strikes me in all this is how God works out His specific predetermined will of rescue and redemption even through the stupid, twisted actions of humans doing it all wrong because that’s just they way they, as individuals, (wrongly) “tick.”  That is grace, big GRACE. And big love.

*****

Seeking the Christ Child (in the Old Testament):

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I am searching for prophecies and foreshadowings of the Christ child, book by book. I plan to post (nearly) every weekday (leaving myself some margin) a short peek at some hint or promise of the coming baby who would make all the difference. Like the wise men, I’ll be Seeking the Christ Child, but in Old Testament promises and foreshadowings, and sharing what I find. I hope you’ll join me, because if it turns out as rewarding as the past spring’s pre-Easter explorations, this focus could make this one of the richest, most blessed Christmas seasons yet.

Previous posts in this series:

(1) – A Baby Gave Her Hope

(2) – A Baby Gave Him Comfort

(3) – A Baby Made Her Laugh

She laughed. Wild laughter that cut loose from inner moorings, escaping to outside. It must have. Because the man turned, looked face into her face, intent, piercing, and said it like an accusation: “She laughed.”

Fearsome, somehow, that accusation. And so, reflexively she denied. No! She had not laughed!

But she had. Inside at least she had laughed—and laughed. Crazy laughter, cynicism-tinged, whose bitter edge the years of blundering, wandering, slave acquiring had produced. The Seed of Abram, of Abraham, the angel had said. Abraham, not Sarah.* And so, her hope expiring over time, she’d relinquished the motherhood right, to slave so undeserving, only to bear reproach on its account.*

But now, now, this One was saying, no, it would be she, the daughter of Shem’s Promise line, to bear the son, the seed in whom all nations would be blessed!*

The very thought! That this bent body, withered womb, could produce a baby, fresh alive, all new with hope—old hope.

Yes, old hope. Hope passed down from Eve, from Adam. Hope that died a thousand deaths in floods of judgment, back in Noah’s time. Great-great-(nine-greats) Grandfather Noah. Himself a child with hope attached, promised in his father’s prophetic proclamation: “This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed.”

But Lamach didn’t live to see it, died before (or in?) that flood, and left was Shem’s and Ham’s and Japheth’s lines, that’s all, and those last two cast in far-flung places (Gen 11:1,4,8), and Ham’s line cursed, to top it off.*

But Shem… Shem’s line. What did Father Noah say? “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem…” Not of Shem and Ham and Japheth. Of Shem (Gen 9:24-26).

And so of Abram, Abraham. And of her, Sarai, Sarah (Gen 11:10-11,26-29). Down that twisting genealogy to idol times and places, from which God had called them out, out into a desert, barren as her womb.

And here, in the barren desert, here from the barren womb, the place of greatest improbability—no, impossibility, a child was to come forth.

And so he did. Just as God said. Just when God said. And Sarah laughed again, again. So they named him Laughter. Isaac, Laughter.

And she laughed some more.

And God blessed her—and took her from the earth before time would reveal the disappointment: that this was not the One, not yet. Still not yet! No, just a very earthy man, who loved the earthy savors and would twist the promise of the LORD to mesh with them. But that’s another baby story…

[To read, hover your cursor:

Genesis 12:1-3; 15:1-6; 16:1-5;18:1-2,9-15; 21:1-3, 6-7.]

*****

Seeking the Christ Child (in the Old Testament):

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I am searching for prophecies and foreshadowings of the Christ child, book by book. I plan to post (nearly) every weekday (leaving myself some margin) a short peek at some hint or promise of the coming baby who would make all the difference. Like the wise men, I’ll be Seeking the Christ Child, but in Old Testament promises and foreshadowings, and sharing what I find. I hope you’ll join me, because if it turns out as rewarding as the past spring’s pre-Easter explorations, this focus could make this one of the richest, most blessed Christmas seasons yet.

Previous posts in this series:

(1) – A Baby Gave Her Hope

(2) – A Baby Gave Him Comfort

*****

Linked to…

They multiplied. And multiplied. Babies. Multi-multiplied babies. And that would have been fine. Except they weren’t (fine). They grew to adults, men and women, who “corrupted their way,” chose their own wisdom, instead of His.*

And the sons of God found the women, daughters of man, fair, and multiplied more babies and more false-godhood and sin. Until it shrieked its violence up to the heavens.*

And God Himself, torn hard with their state of depravity, the corruption all mankind had proved to be, stood ready to bring the next thing.

It was time.

Time for sweeping away all the grime and blood and violence. Washing it away. Great baptism of earth. All plunged beneath the roiling, into death. But no reaching down came yet, to pull them up, to resurrect them from judgment’s flood.

Still, that time produced a baby of promise.

His father Lamech named him Noah. “This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed,” he said.*

Was Lamech a prophet? Or was he thinking of, hoping for, the Child of Promise that God had spoken of to Eve (“He shall bruise the serpent’s head”)? Perhaps. Adam had lived long enough for Lamech’s father to be his contemporary. They could even have known each other and talked together, much. And what Baby Noah became certainly seems rare for his time. Amid the depravity and violence, he  “was a just man, and perfect in his ways. He found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”*

He was a picture of what the Child of promise would someday be: One Who would carry a remnant to safe deliverance. The Christ Child would provide passage across the deep between Earth and Heaven as no mere man could. And Noah would picture this passage as he made it with his family over the deep that would cover all the earth.

His faithful obedience to God’s instruction saved the human race from extinction. And within the loins of one of those passengers was “the seed of the woman” – or, at least, the seed of the seed – the line of promise still held.

The child of promise was still to come…

*[To read, hover your cursor:

Genesis 5:28-29; 6:1-2,5-8,11-14; 7:1; 9:1]

*****

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I am searching for prophecies and foreshadowings of the Christ child, book by book. I plan to post (nearly) every weekday (leaving myself some margin) a short peek at some hint or promise of the coming baby who would make all the difference. Like the wise men, I’ll be Seeking the Christ Child, but in the Old Testament, and sharing what I find. I hope you’ll join me, because if it turns out as rewarding as the past spring’s pre-Easter explorations, this focus could help make this one of the richest, most blessed Christmas seasons yet.

Yesterday began the series, with Seeking the Christ Child (1) – A Baby Gave Her Hope

…..

Linking to this Blog Hop:

Death shadows her face, her mouth caverns anguish. Its silent howl echoes down, down through millennia: the agony of the ages. Palpable in the painting. Ever throbbing on earth.

One “mistake.” Our own wisdom, instead of His. Our own godhood*…

Deceived and broken, ruined forever.

Or…(could it be?)…

Maybe not forever? Because…

Because there was that promise—

about her “seed”—

that he would crush the deceiver’s head.*

In her seed, her offspring, lies the promise. He said that. And now, later, here in her arms lies this baby, warm fruit of her own body, born in pain and sorrow, just as He said.*

She names him Cain (Acquired). And hopes. Hopes she’s achieved it. And says, “I have acquired a man from the LORD.”

Man.

Man child.

Child of hope?

Child of disappointment!

She conceives and bears a second son. Abel. A a more hopeful son?

Cut off by death!*

Pain cutting off aspiration like a knife! Pain worse on her heart than that hard wounding that laid Abel dead, the second son.

One son, cut off in exile, promise cut off. Second son, possibility of promise, buried lifeless under cursed ground. Anguish upon anguish!

Yet out of the anguish, out of the slaughtered dreams, after a hundred years pass by (Gen 5:3)… yet another son. And praise to God: this time, full credit’s given where it’s due.

The first time: “I have acquired…”

Now: “God has appointed another son for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.”*

“God has given…”

Yes, unto her a child is born, a son is given, and for all she knows, he could be it, after all the disappointment…

More time… Years. Hundreds of them.

But no. Seth was not that son of promise, either. He, like her, lives and dies, and that is all. 

…..

There came more years, hundreds more. And the howl for hope wailed through them all, and beyond—into dim and dark millennia so long that people lost Eve’s hope and spoke their searing cynicism: “Where is the promise of His coming?”

Then suddenly, amid times unpromising, it happened! The Child of Promise did arrive!

Eve sought hope in a baby’s birth. Wrong baby—once, twice, thrice. But not wrong hope. Hope rang down through the ages, in remnant believing hearts, right up till His appearing, that true Child of hope—His first appearing, as an infant.

Hope waits again, for His second coming, as the white-horse-riding deliverer…*

Two thousand years have passed since His first advent, since He said He would return,* and there are those who say, “Where is the promise of His coming…?”*

Hold hard to Eve’s hope.

*[To read, hover your cursor:

Gen 2:16-17; 3:1-7,13-19,22-24; 4:1-2,8-12,16,25;

Is 9:6;

2 Pet 3:2-4;

John 14:2-3;

Rev 19:11-16;

Rom 8:20-25.]

 *****

I have decided, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, to search for prophecies and foreshadowings of the Christ child, book by book. I plan to post (nearly) each weekday (leaving myself some margin) a short peek at some hint or promise of the coming baby who would make all the difference. Like the wise men, I’ll be Seeking the Christ Child, but in the Old Testament, and sharing what I find. I hope you’ll join me, because if it turns out as rewarding as the past spring’s pre-Easter explorations, this focus could help make this one of the richest, most blessed Christmas seasons yet! 

*****

Naming gifts with Ann VosKamp (having lost count long ago!)…

~The gift of the Christ child, Who came to die on that cross for the sins of such as Eve and I.

~That blessed hope of His return, when He will make all well and right and joyous.

~The Bible’s prophecies of His coming, making the word of its reality more sure.

~The stack of different Bibles I can pick up any time, freely, and consult.

~The shelf of reference tools to help.

~Quiet early morning hours, like today’s, to sit and read these things, and contemplate…