Groaned and Delivered

Rock Star #1: Uhh . . . is Chas on vacation? Who's that drivin' the limo?

Rock Star #2: Dunno apparently he ain't shy of cameras.

Rock Star #3: I want my Ma(g)Ma!

Rock Star #4: EEEEEE!!




















speaking of taking apart and putting together, even the land seems about half-dead these days . . . the thirsting Southwest, lost Texas, teetering California, the bereft Eastern seaboard . . .

darksome as the hour is -- and it's ugly uptown and down, me droogies -- little dynamo feels good about the future ("the" future, not his future, lol)

one of the few things dynamo has grocked about the god-stuff (and definitely the coolest thing) was that My Belief Is Not Required

LOL!

ennyway here's a worthy sentiment from Egg Salad Annie's blog today:

Doing what we do comes from a deep love, care, and concern for the Earth and the inhabitants therein. We do what we do, write what we do, and push the limits as we do also from a deep sense of mission to others, based on our belief in a God of Love, who entrusted us to be proper custodians of the bounty we've been given.


not much to argue there, except of course dynamo's no "believer" -- rather an overgrown child requiring ongoing miracles to stave off casual (but persistent!) doubt

... he does respect, tho, those of you that sincerely pull off the faith-thing -- now that is a real mystery .. .unlike Babylon

:O)



And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.

And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.

And he said, LORD God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?

And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.

And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.

And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away.

And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.

But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.

(Gen. 15)


Paul Duggan's Breaking and Dividing: Covenental Sacramentology spelunks this passage, making clear especially the simultaneous restoration of the servants of god ("Israel" or the "seed of Abram") and the land (the physical Earth including the spiritually and corporeally dead):

The furnace is a sign of God's glory shining through in the midst of darkness and terror. The glory passes between the pieces in the form of a furnace, prophetic of the furnace of affliction which Israel will experience (1 Kings 8:51). God's burning glory is a promise of resurrection.

Commentators take note that no indication that the animals are consumed by the fire is given, so we may understand this as parallel with the burning bush, symbolizing God's personal presence with Israel as a purifying fire that does not consume or destroy. Here with Abram, God's glory is comes to meet the need of separated dead animals, and is predominantly promissory of re-creation and resurrection.

The prophetic aspects of the passage (which are not dwelt on by Robertson) can help us to interpret the rite. God is providing two co-relative revelations, one verbal, the other pictorial. This is what is indicated in Hebrews 6:18 about the promise God makes to Abram two immutable things, God's verbal promise and the covenant oath He makes.

Deep sleep is the time in which God reveals oracles to men, and in this vision God predicts in detail the future history of Abram's descendants, that they will be oppressed in Egypt for 400 years, but that they will come out again and will return to the land.

These animals do not primarily represent God and what will happen to Him, but rather Abram's seed and the land they are to inherit. The five animals specified are those used in the sacrificial system of Leviticus. These animals were to be used as substitutes by the Israelites, each animal symbolizing a different stratum of society. The bull was for the priests, sheep and goats for most of the people, and doves ane very poor (Leviticus 4-5).

The division of the animals points to the alienation of man from the land. Man is created from the soil, having been originally divided off from it by God's own word. With the advent of sin, a curse is on the land, and man is estranged from it. What should have been distinct but united, are threatened by external oppressors (the birds) and lie dead and severed in horrible darkness.

Abram is alienated and estranged from the land of promise, though God has said that he will inherit it. God says that this alienation continues for a time: Abram's seed will sojourn in a strange land for many years. In the end they will return and enter the land, and God's personal presence will bring them in. His own glory will be the binding agent between Abram and the Land, granting him "resurrection" out of darkness and deep sleep (John 11:9-11). As James Jordan writes:

In the context of Genesis 1 and 6-8 we can see God again de-creating and re-creating the world Just as the Flood returned the world to a condition of formlessness and emptiness, which God refilled, so in the vision of Abram the world returns to the primeval darkness of Genesis 1:2, before God established the covenantal separation-union of day and night.

Abram himself is in "deep sleep," the same condition as Adam was in Genesis 2:21 when God separated Eve from him and established a covenant separation-union between the man and the woman. Here the purpose is to reestablish the connection between man and the 'erets [land]. The false and perverted relationship between man and land, which came in with the fall, is undone by de-creation; but before the birds can descend to destroy matters utterly, the covenant order is re-created by God Himself becoming the unbreakable binding force connecting the two. Abram is as likely not to posses the land as God is likely to perish.



oathkeeper, arkmaker, healing fire, sorrowbreaker

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