Abraham Buries Sarah in Canaan

Text: Genesis 23:1-20

I. Sarah Dies in the Promised Land (vv.1-2)

1. Consider this remarkable woman and her legacy: He 11:8, 11-12
   1. Sarah’s faith was as integral to bringing about the promised seed as Abraham’s!
      1. Sarah, along with Abraham, left familiar homeland and family, wandered for years holding onto God’s promises, and ultimately by faith was supernaturally empowered to conceive when both she and Abraham were ‘as good as dead’ as far as any natural  ability to conceive children was concerned.
   2. As faithful as Esther and Ruth were in the OT, and as godly as Jesus’ mother Mary was in the NT, we are not ever explicitly told to look to them as examples of faith. But not so with Abraham’s wife Sarah! Is 51:1-3, He 11, 1 Pe 3:3-6
      1. Sarah was a ‘holy woman’ who left behind her a holy, faithful legacy.
      2. No wonder the writer of Hebrews includes her in his summary description: ‘these all died in faith.’ Sarah, with Abraham, faithfully followed God, then died in a strange land, in faith.
2. Consider also then Abraham’s response to Sarah’s death: in v.2 Abraham mourned for Sarah, and wept for her.
   1. If this were a romantic comedy, or even an 18th c. Jane Austen novel, the narrative of Abraham’s life would have ended well before this point in his story.
   2. Abraham’s story does not end with him marrying the gorgeous woman Sarah, his soul-mate in every sense of the word. Nor with them finally getting to have a baby boy Isaac together. Nor does it end even with Isaac’s life being divinely saved.
      1. Ge 23, 24, & 25 will record the anti-climactic, not-always-happy final chapters of Abraham’s life—including kneeling by the death bed of his wife of over 60 yrs and crying until there aren’t any more tears.
   3. If you are a widow/widower yourself, you are not alone. No one’s story ends ‘happily ever after’ in this sin-cursed world. Others—including Abraham himself—have walked faithfully through the anti-climaxes and sorrows and losses of real life.
      1. And the same grace of God, the same spiritual faith in God’s Word, that helped Abraham get through such times will get you through as well.

II. Abraham Invests in the Promised Land (vv.3-16)

1. There is much more to this story/this chapter than just Sarah’s death.
   1. This lengthy business transaction is significant because of its place in the overall story of Abraham, who has been following God to the land God promised to give him and his descendants.
      1. We already noticed at the end of Ge 21: Abraham, after yrs of wandering, settled to spend ‘many days’/years in Beer-sheba. Now, as Abraham’s life draws toward its close, he will finally come to own his first (and only) piece of the actual Promised Land.
   2. Though this little burial plot for Sarah is all Abraham will ever personally own of the Promised Land, his willingness/insistence on purchasing a piece of it to bury his wife speaks volumes concerning Abraham’s faith in God!
      1. Abraham will not run home to bury Sarah in an old family cemetery. Nor will Abraham be content to be given a place in Canaan to bury her, though the people of the land are swift to offer him a free place of burial. But a free burial plot would mean a temporary arrangement, and Abraham is convinced his descendants are here for the long haul.
2.  So Abraham makes an investment in the Promised Land. He buys a place to bury his beloved, trusting that God will one day give their family all this land.
   1. Not only Sarah, but Abraham himself will be buried in this place. And Isaac and Rebekah; and Jacob & Leah. It is no accident that the entire book of Gen will end with Joseph giving instruction that his bones not be left in Egypt, where the people of Israel will temporarily seek refuge, but wants his bones to be brought up out of Egypt and buried in Canaan with his forefathers.
      1. This all speaks of faith. Faith that God will one day fulfill all his promises to his people, though He may take hundreds of years to bring it to pass!
   2.  Bible students almost universally agree the amount Abraham pays for this plot of land is exorbitant. Yet Abraham is willing to pay it; for him this is a sure/safe investment.
      1. Do we invest our every resource as if God’s Word will certainly come to pass, or do  we hedge our bets?

III. Abraham Buries Sarah in the Promised Land (vv.17-20)

1. In v.19 Abraham buried Sarah his wife, and in v.20 the bargaining between Abraham and the Hittites culminates with the summary: the field and the cave in it were made over to Abraham, to be Abraham’s personal property, for a burying place by the Hittites.
   1. We have a tendency to read the Bible as first being for us, rather than asking: what was the significance of this to its original reading audience?
   2. When we put it that way, it is not hard to see how important this narrative would be to the nation of Israel, who under Moses’ leadership and God’s provision had exited Egypt, and were now anticipating finally entering and possessing this very land of Canaan that Abraham had been promised by God centuries before.
      1. When we consider this historical narrative from that perspective, not only can we see its significance for Moses’ readers, but we can also gain encouragement for ourselves.
2. This historical account from Abraham’s life would be a blessing to the Israelites in Moses’ day.
   1. All they have known personally is: Egypt, and the wilderness afterward. They have always only known slavery, followed by wandering in the desert for year after year.
      1. But now they are on the verge of crossing the Jordan and entering into the Promised Land to possess it! And Moses, in Gen. 23, reminds them that—although this land may hold many mysteries for them, may be unfamiliar to them personally—this land is not in reality completely strange to them or to their people.
      2. No, in fact, they already own a piece of it! Centuries ago, Abraham had—in faith looking forward to this very day—purchased a piece of this land for his posterity.
   2. In turn, how instructive and meaningful it should be for us as NT Christians.
      1. All we have ever known is slavery to sin, followed by wandering as sojourners in this sin-cursed world that the Bible continually insists is not our actual home.
      2. When we come, then, to our own Jordan-crossing at the end of our lives as we face death, how helpful to be reminded that we are not traveling to some strange place.
   3. No, in fact, the NT is consistent and clear in its insistence that—not only have our spiritual forebears already entered this land before us—we already own a piece of this Promised Land into which we are journeying! Jn 14:1-4; 1 Pet. 1:3-4