When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. – Genesis 15:17

Today's Scripture Reading (August 13, 2021): Genesis 15

Decades ago, I was sick and went to a downstairs bedroom to sleep. The room was actually an illegal bedroom, but I kind of liked it, especially when I wasn't feeling well. The bedroom was unlawful because it had no windows. But it had two doors; one led to a room with a bar and stairs that went up to the main level of the house, the second door went out to an unfinished area of the basement where the washing machine, dryer, and a lower-level washroom were. But if you closed both of the doors, it was totally black in the room, regardless of the time of day. So, it was a great place to go and lie down if you weren't feeling well.

On this day, I went into the room and quickly fell asleep. And at some point, something woke me. I have no idea what it was, but through my groggy eyes, I saw what I interpreted to be a person carrying a flashlight into the room to check on me. I saw the image, but as groggy as I was, I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. Later, I talked to the people in the house, and no one had admitted walking into the room while I was asleep. To this day, I am still unsure what it was I saw or didn't see or who it was holding the flashlight. (And yes, the story is true and as close as I can get to a ghost story told from my experiences.) I blame my experience that day on my sickness and the process that my mind goes through in waking up.

When I read this story in Genesis, it is the experience that I had in that bedroom that comes rushing back into my memory. The story says that darkness had fallen. Abram has been guarding his sacrifice all day, but with the sun setting came a deep sleep (Genesis 15:12). And it was within that sleep and sense of dread that God spoke to Abram. God's words to Abram were;

Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure (Genesis 15:13-16).

And after God has summed up the immediate future of Abram's descendants in Egypt, Abram groggily opened his eyes, and he saw a smoking firepot and a blazing torch pass between the pieces of Abram's sacrifice. The act of passing between the parts of the sacrifice symbolized the acceptance of a contract or a covenant. At this moment, God accepts the covenant for both parties as Abram watches from the sideline. And at the end of the four hundred years, when Abram's descendants returned to the land that God had promised to Abram, God would lead Abram's family back with a pillar of cloud during the day (a smoking firepot) and a pillar of fire at night (a blazing torch). It would be a vivid reminder of the covenant that God had made with Abram over six centuries earlier.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Genesis 16