If you’ve ever delegated an important task to someone you will know the feeling of anxiety as the clock ticks towards the deadline. Whether it is drafting an important document, designing a key component or completing a major financial transaction, you worry whether your junior colleague will get it done on time and to an acceptable standard. Your stress levels may rise until your colleague tells you they’ve safely completed the task. You don’t want to miss an appointment, breach a contract or default on a bill because a task you delegated wasn’t completed as it ought. A lot can be at stake.
Abraham’s anxious moment
In our passage this morning we read about an occasion when Abraham delegated a task to one of his servants:
• A task so important that he delegated it, we are told, to “the most senior servant in his household”.
• A task so important that Abraham must have been very anxious until he knew it has been completed.
• A task so important, in fact, that the salvation of the world was at stake.
The scenario is described for us in verses 1 to 8 of our reading: “Abraham was now very old, and the Lord had blessed him in every way.”
The Lord had provided Abraham with land, livestock and wealth in abundance. But best of all, God had graciously given him and Sarah a son in old age, and Isaac was now a grown man.
But the problem was this. If Abraham was to be the father of a great nation, Isaac needed to become a father himself. If one of Abraham’s distant descendants was to be the Messiah, the God-given Saviour of the World, then Isaac needed to start having sons sharpish!
And so, since it ‘takes two to tango’, Abraham urgently needed to find Isaac a wife – a woman who could bear his children. But not just any woman could become Isaac’s wife. She could not be a Canaanite woman, no local girl from the area where Abraham and Isaac now lived. To marry a Canaanite woman would have tempted Isaac to accommodate himself to her faith and morals. Marrying a Canaanite girl could have corrupted Isaac’s faith and jeopardised his loyalty to the Lord. Any wife needed to be found from among Abraham’s relatives back in Mesopotamia – modern day Iraq. Otherwise Isaac could have been assimilated into Caananite society and culture. We face a similar challenge as Christians today, the challenge to remain spiritually and ethically distinct in our culture, so that we are ‘salt and light’ in our society.
What’s more, Isaac himself couldn’t go himself to search for a wife – Abraham was adamant that Isaac could not leave the land that God had promised to his family, in case he was captured abroad or tempted not to return. But Abraham was too frail to travel himself, so he sends his senior servant to find Isaac a suitable wife. Before he departs, he makes his servant swear a solemn oath: “Put your hand under my thigh” said Abraham, “I want you to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.”
The servant accepts his task and sets off, no doubt with a degree of trepidation and anxiety at the responsibility he had been given. Yet as the story unfolds we see God’s gracious provision of a bride for Abraham’s faithful servant. We see God’s remarkable ability to meet the needs of his people and witness his oversight of the details of history. Most importantly for us, this age-old story points forward to another occasion when God will graciously provides a bride for his faithful servant. A marriage made in heaven, of which we can be part – so do keep listening!
Abraham’s faithful servant
Now I’m no expert on such things, but I guess that if you were a young man today looking to meet a future wife you might go to a wine bar or a match-making website. What I doubt you would do is go to the village well and wait for a suitable young lady to come along!
But that’s exactly what Abraham’s faithful servant does into today’s passage! Listen again to verses 10-14:
“He set out for Aram Naharaim and made his way to the town of Nahor. He had the camels kneel down near the well outside the town; it was toward evening, the time the women go out to draw water. Then he prayed, “Lord, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. May it be that when I say to a young woman, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”
This servant is a remarkable individual in several respects:
• For a start, he is obedient to his master. Just as he has promised, this good servant travels by camel all the way to Abraham’s homeland to seek a wife for Isaac.
• Secondly, its clear that this faithful servant is just that – a man of great faith. He prays to the Lord, the God of Abraham, and asks for his blessing upon his match-making mission.
• And thirdly, this servant shows remarkable confidence in God’s providence. In other words, his prayer displays a remarkable belief that the Lord can bring his chosen woman to the well at the right time and put the right words on her lips. This servant has a wonderful conviction that the God of Abraham is in total control of events.
Needless to say, this faithful servant’s qualities are ones we too should seek to imitate and cultivate – especially when facing trials and temptations. Our first instinct in the face of life’s challenges ought to be to turn to the sovereign Lord in prayer, just as Abraham’s faithful servant did. We can be confident that nothing is beyond his power or control.
God’s gracious provision of a bride
As the story progresses, we see God’s instant response to the servant’s prayer. Because verse 15 says; “Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milkah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor. The woman was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever slept with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again. The servant hurried to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water from your jar.” “Drink, my lord,” she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink. After she had given him a drink, she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels too, until they have had enough to drink.”
What a wonderful answer to prayer this woman was! Rebekah met every criteria to be Isaac’s wife – and more:
• She was a relative of Abraham, his niece in fact.
• She was unmarried and beautiful.
• And she had an attractive character as well – not only did she draw water for the thirsty servant, but she also offered to draw water for his ten thirsty camels too, something that would have taken great time and effort!
The servant wastes no time in asking her family for her hand in marriage to Isaac. They see the Lord’s hand in the sequence of events and offer no objection to the proposal – and neither does Rebekah herself.
There is a lovely touch at the very end of the story, in verse 67. Rebekah was to be more than just a mother to Isaac’s children. She was a wife whom he truly loved, a woman who was a source of comfort and companionship to him after the death of his mother Sarah. Isaac and Rebekah really were a match made in heaven, a model of what married life ought to be like.
God provides a bride for his faithful Servant – Jesus
As I finish, today’s passage is a wonderful story of God’s provision of a bride for Abraham’s faithful servant. When faced with the unenviable task of finding a wife for Isaac, we’ve seen that the servant of Abraham displayed remarkable obedience, fortitude and faith. A faith that was rewarded when God sent Rebekah across his path.
But we must not miss the most important point about this passage. Because today’s story is a miniature version of another occasion when God’s has provided a bride for his faithful servant. Of another match made in heaven. Because the whole story of the New Testament could be summarised as God providing a bride for his faithful servant. In this case, the faithful servant is Christ, his own son. And the bride is you – and me – in fact, every Christian who has ever lived. Because the New Testament describes Jesus as his Father’s faithful servant. As a suffering servant who displayed perfect faith throughout his life and was obedient even unto death on the cross.
And in places like Ephesians 5 and Revelation 19, the Church is described as the “bride” of Christ. If you are a Christian his morning you are Christ’s bride. By God’s grace, you and I are being made perfect for our fiancée, just as Rebekah was the perfect partner for Isaac. Our greatest hope as Christians is to look forward to the glorious day when we will celebrate our wedding to Christ in the New Creation. A union of love, joy and peace that will never end.
So as we read about Isaac and Rebekah, remember that it is a sign and symbol of a far greater marriage that is yet to come. A marriage, of which every Christian will be part!