“If I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—for this is why you have come to your servant.” (Genesis 18:3–5)
If you get a sense of déjà vu as you read Genesis 18:1–15, which is the next story in our series on Genesis, it is for a good reason: In chapter 17 of Genesis, covered in the previous article in the series, God had already come to Abram (renaming him Abraham) and predicted that his wife Sarai (renamed Sarah) would have a son in her old age. The first time around it was Abraham who laughed, rather than Sarah, to think that he would have a son at the age of a hundred, and his wife at the age of ninety. And it was from this laughter that their son Isaac got his name: in Hebrew, “Isaac” means “laughter.”
Now, in chapter 18, God appears to Abraham again to deliver the same message, but this time Sarah is listening in.
Some Biblical scholars might say that, similar to the two different Creation stories in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, God appeared to Abraham only once, but two different versions of the event were passed down through oral history, and when it came time to write it down, the ancient scribes preserved both versions in the narrative. Others would say that the narrative describes events as they happened, and that if two stories of God appearing to Abraham are told, it is because God delivered the message twice.
I am quite content to leave that debate to the scholars. Whatever may have happened in southern Palestine four thousand years ago, the stories in the Bible are given, not to tell us about ancient family history, but to tell us about the Lord, and about our own spiritual growth and journey. If we look at these two stories with a spiritual eye, we find that they are not merely repetitious, but that each has its own distinct story to tell—and that one builds upon the other.
A sacred meal
The key is in what happens surrounding God’s message about the birth of Isaac. In chapter 17, that message is placed in the matrix of God establishing the covenant of circumcision with Abraham, his household, and his descendants.
In chapter 18, however, the message is delivered in the context of a meal. Abraham receives the Lord in the guise of three visitors, and serves his honored guests a meal. It is during this meal that the Lord, through three angels filled with the Lord’s presence (as Emanuel Swedenborg says), delivers the message of the miraculous birth of Isaac, while Sarah, the elderly mother-to-be, listens, laughing, in the entrance of the tent behind them.
In short, the first prediction of Isaac’s birth is accompanied by circumcision, and the second by a sacred meal. This may ring vague bells for some readers. Let me make those bells ring louder and more distinctly.
Circumcision, as I mentioned in the previous article, was seen as a ritual of purification. In fact, it came to represent all the rituals of purification commanded to the Israelites in the Old Testament. In the New Testament it is frequently used in this way, especially by the Apostle Paul.
Christians are no longer required to practice circumcision. However, Jesus gave us a ritual that we do practice to represent all the rituals of purification commanded in the Old Testament. That ritual is baptism. The water of baptism is symbolic of God’s truth, which, when we accept it into our lives, cleanses us from the dirt and grime of all our false, selfish, and materialistic ways of thinking. In a Christian context, the first announcement of Isaac’s birth can be thought of as related to baptism: our initiation into a spiritual life through purification.
For Christians, the bells should now be ringing loud and clear about the second announcement. As the three visitors sat down to the meal that Abraham and Sarah served them, they shared with Abraham and his household the same thing that Christians share with the Lord each time they celebrate the Holy Supper. Having been ritually cleansed through the covenant of circumcision, Abraham’s family was now ready to commune with God around the table of divine love and wisdom, represented in its various aspects by the bread and curds, milk and meat that Abraham set before his guests.
Jesus’ process of cleansing
It was the same for the Lord Jesus as he moved toward full union with the Divine Being from whom he had come. Jesus, too, had to first go through a process of cleansing, represented by circumcision in the Old Testament, and baptism in the New Testament, before he could experience the sacred meal of inner union with his own divine soul.
You see, though Jesus was born sinless and remained sinless, he was not born spotless from an immaculately conceived mother, as held in traditional Catholic doctrine. On the contrary, Jesus was born with all the evil tendencies from his mother that we ordinary humans inherit from our parents. And like us, he had to fight against those evil tendencies and overcome them to achieve union with his divine Father.
Evil is like filthy waste clogging the arteries through which God’s love and wisdom would flow to us. As long as our hearts and minds are filled with selfish, materialistic thoughts and feelings, there is hardly any room for God to squeeze through and fill our lives with heavenly and spiritual thoughts and feelings. We must first clear away the blockages within our own mind and heart. As we do, the Lord will flow into us more and more strongly.
Jesus faced the same obstacles to the Divine presence in him. He, too, had to fight against and overcome all the evil tendencies that he inherited from his human mother, and against the evil that pressed in on him both from the human society around him and from the spiritual realm that influenced him—as it influences us—from within. It was only by going through this spiritual “ritual of purification” that the promise of Isaac’s birth—a promise of new spiritual birth and growth—could be delivered and brought to fruition in the Lord Jesus’ life. And so, in the Bible story, the covenant of circumcision had to come before the sacred sharing of the meal of holy communion with God.
Communion with the Divine
And Jesus yearned intensely for that communion with the Divine! Mark 1:35–39 speaks of Jesus rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, to pray in a solitary place. He sought out a place where he could be alone with God—away, for a time, from the press of human needs that constantly swirled around him. Even as he went about an active life of preaching, teaching, and healing the people, he longed for an inner connection and union with his own divine soul. And he regularly took solitary time for himself to seek out and experience that soul-renewing communion.
In Genesis 18, Abraham’s eagerness to welcome, honor, and serve his divine guests tells the whole story of the Lord’s deep desire for communion with God.
The story says that Abraham was “near the oak trees of Mamre” when the Lord appeared to him. Being among trees, spiritually, is being among our lofty thoughts—the principles of good living that we have developed through long experience and growth. The Lord, too, was in a deeply reflective mood when he sought out this communion with God.
Abraham was also “sitting at the entrance to his tent”—representing a sense of sacredness, as expressed by the Tabernacle: a tent built for the worship of God. Jesus, too, was feeling a sense of the sacred presence of the Divine.
And finally, it says that this took place “in the heat of the day.” Heat, or warmth, represents love. Jesus was not in a coldly intellectual state of contemplation. Rather, he felt the warm burning of love in his heart.
Communion with our fellow humans
This love prompted him not only to desire union with his own inner soul, which was God, but also to seek communion with the sea of human beings around him. Notice that in Mark 1:35–39 (linked above), as soon as Simon Peter and his companions roused him from his prayer, Jesus immediately expressed a desire to go to the nearby villages where he had not been yet, and to preach there as well. He then “traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.”
This is a crucial point both in the Lord’s life and in our own spiritual life. Though we may approach and even touch God with our minds as we sit in prayer and contemplation of the divine nature, we are never truly united with God until our heart is filled with love both for God and for our fellow human beings. We never feel true communion with God until God’s love has found a place in our heart, and from that love we go out into the world to love and serve the people around us.
The scholar, the philosopher, the theologian, even the sage, does not commune with God through lofty thoughts. There is no intellectual pathway to union with God. Rather, you and I and all the philosophers, theologians, and sages the world has ever known have the same access to God. That access comes when we open up our hearts to God’s love, and feel the same mercy and compassion for our neighbors here on earth that God feels for each one of us.
Becoming aware of God’s presence
Just as Abraham saw the three visitors “in the heat of the day,” Jesus became aware of the Divine presence with him when his heart was filled with love. And notice that there is no mention of those visitors traveling to where Abraham was. It simply says Abraham “looked up and saw three men standing nearby.” This is the same thing that happens to us when we spiritually “look up”—when we lift our thoughts above the cares and concerns of this world, and direct our minds toward heaven, and toward God. When we finally look up, we notice that the Lord is standing right there with us.
Perhaps those three men had been standing there for months or years, just waiting for Abraham to “look up.” Perhaps the Lord is standing right next to each one of us right now, just waiting for us to lift up our minds, to open our spiritual eyes and notice the Lord’s presence. Perhaps, once we feel that deep yearning in our heart for communion with Jesus, we will find that he has been there all along, just waiting for us to notice, to welcome him in, and to share a spiritual meal with him.
Deeper realities
The Lord Jesus desired this communion with God more deeply than any of us ever has or ever will. Our minds tend to be scattered and divided. We are concerned about so many things here on earth. Just getting along each day, making sure we have a roof over our heads and food on our tables, can sometimes feel like an all-consuming task. We fritter away much of our life chasing after material things that will be gone and forgotten almost as soon as we acquire them.
Jesus saw more deeply than we do the fleeting and temporary nature of everything here on earth. He saw more clearly than we do the deeper and more substantial spiritual realities that will not wither, fade, and disappear, but will last to eternity. And he knew that the deepest and most substantial reality is God: the Infinite Divine Love and Wisdom from which everything else in the universe comes. Jesus intensely desired to know that Love and Wisdom; to be that Love and Wisdom.
Each one of us can know that Love and Wisdom as well. Each one of us can find the communion with God that is the only true peace of our soul. Each one of us can open our hearts and minds, and share in the sacred meal of God’s love and wisdom.
(Note: This post is a revised version of a talk originally delivered on March 28, 2004. To start at the beginning of the series, please go to the article, “What Child Is This?”)
For further reading:
- The Meaning and Power of Baptism
- Eat My Flesh, Drink My Blood
- What Does it Mean that Jesus was “Glorified”?
- How do I Love God with my Whole Heart?
- How does Jesus Appear to Us? Can We See God Face to Face?
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
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