Sing Servant

Only a Donkey
by Eleanor van der Merwe

On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."
Genesis 22:4,5

Abraham makes a great statement of faith: "We will come back to you." Plural. His two servants don't understand everything, but they believe him. They don't go with. They have to stay with the donkey. But they see everything happening in the distance.

How can they know that their seed will one-day watch from afar a cross, a cross planted at Golgotha, on that same Mount Moriah? They are just there to watch the donkey, the donkey whose seed may one day carry the Son up the mountain. "This is my beloved Son."

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Cut Branch
by Eleanor van der Merwe

"Give me my wives and children, for whom I have served you, and I will be on my way. You know how much I have done for you."
Genesis 30:26

Fourteen years he slaves for his father-in-law, and counts every day. Only his love for a beautiful woman keeps him going.

Deceiver, yes, that's what his name means. He starts life by grabbing his twin-brother's heel at birth. He is too strong. An angel has to break him. Jacob becomes Israel, crippled, but changed forever.

He summarizes his life to Pharaoh as a short and difficult pilgrimage. But he is the father of twelve tribes and from the seed of his son Judah, Jesus is born. Born to crush the head of Satan, though himself mortally wounded. Born to be saviour of the world.

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