“Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. 29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.” (Genesis 19 v 27-29)
Abraham went back to the place. That place was where he had pleaded for the righteous people of the two cities, if any could have been found. But the people have all gone. Judgment came. In the place of his intercession, it seems that God hadn’t listened to his cries. But then see how things change in v29.
God remembered. Who? Not Lot. That would have been what we would have written. But no, God remembered Abraham and his intercessions. God had heard Abraham. God had remembered, and God had rescued.
At this moment, Abraham doesn’t know Lot is safe. All he sees is the ruins and the smoke.
Christmas often comes to us in the same way, unexpectedly arriving in the midst of ruins. The first Christmas was not announced with fanfare to everyone. In the place of powerful empires and religion, God remembers, even when everyone had forgotten or turned their gaze away from a simple town of Bethlehem.
I have just watched the Netflix series Man v Baby, and I can recommend it. It is a modern tale of how, at first, a baby was somewhat of a nuisance, but how, in the end, it brought so many together.
This Christmas Day, we celebrate the birth of the Christ-child, born in a manger, in a story that is at first hidden from many.
We may be taken up with so many things today—fears, pain and loss. It is easy to be blinded by the smoke and the ruins. It is easy to see what has gone and not what has come.
At the start of v27, it says, “Early the next morning …” Many can see the smoke today. The smoke may be rising, but friends, so does the sun, and sometimes at the same time. We often live with partial vision. God remembered Abraham, and He remembers you also. This is the message coming out of this important day.
Christmas morning symbolises the rising of the Sun of Righteousness amidst the smoke of our broken world. The Light shines in darkness, right in the midst of it. The baby in the manger represents God’s remembrance—proof that He hasn’t forgotten us, even when we only see ruins.
Missions Paul 