This story, the near sacrifice of Isaac, was just another story until I had children of my own; and then it grabbed me by the throat.
There are two main characters in the story, Abraham, the father, and Isaac the son, a little boy. The story begins with the perspective that this is a test for Abraham. God tested Abraham, the first verse says.
Isaac and Abraham walk together three days into their future. As far as the little boy is concerned it may be a camping trip, for all he know. He held his father’s hand as they went-along, the hand which had lifted him up when he had fallen in his childhood. He looked at those strong arms of Abraham that had cradled him as an" infant and child and went happily on his way talking about all those innumerable things that children chatter about to their parents without waiting for any answer or response.
Abraham was quiet during those three days. He knew what lay in the future. Grief was twisting in his heart to the breaking point. His tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, his sorrow was so palpable. He walked with slower steps than usual, he was an old man by now you remember, and he walked even more slowly hoping maybe he would never find the place where the act was to take place.
There’s no mention of Sarah in the story. Isaac’s mother was at home. We can only imagine what she was going through, how the tears must have been flooding her bed at the knowledge that she would never again see this son, her only child, this gift of God’s promise. She would no longer hold him, cool his fevered brow when he was sick, prepare his meals, kiss his skinned knee. That was all in the past and she was so consumed by grief that she became physically ill.
Abraham and Isaac went to the place of sacrificed, and just as Abraham was about to take the life of his son he is stayed from that horrible act.
Another way is given to complete this ceremonial act of commitment to God. God provides another, an animal, which becomes the sacrifice.
What’s going on here? What do you make of this story?
It may help some to understand that the foundation for this story lies early in the history of human civilization as human sacrifice to propitiate the gods was given up for animal sacrifice. That may be the grounding out of which this story is told.
But why is it here in the Bible? What is its meaning? Surely it does not mean that fathers are to murder their children. Or that God wills the loss of one innocent life.
Work with the story and think it not from the point of view of history or sociology or psychology but ask the question, “What is this teaching us about our relationship with God now, today?” It seems to me there are two insights that emerge from the story.
The first is that FAITH IS A RADICAL COMMITMENT. This was not just any boy. It was not just their only son, but Isaac was the sign of God’s covenant which God had established with Abraham and Sarah decades earlier. It was the sign of the saving relationship between God and that family, and Abraham was asked to give up this sign of the promise.
Isaac was the only evidence they had that God would be good on the promise that had been made. Abraham and Sarah could say to their neighbors, “You see, we waited all this time and God finally did come through. You can trust this God, look at this boy and trust God.” And now they were asked to give up that physical evidence of the sign of God’s love. Faith is a radical commitment.
The point is that our hope is not in the evidence of God’s promise, but in the promise.
Health, thank you God for health. I believe in You, I know You are good because You have delivered me from my illness. Well, thank you God. I am prosperous, for at least I can care for my family. I know that You are good because You give me enough. Thank you God for family and friends and success and all the good things that are a part of my life. I praise You because I know you have delivered to me what I need.
But what if they’re removed? What if we lose them, then what happens? Is faith dependent upon the evidence of a promise or is our faith dependent upon the promise itself that God’s claim has been laid upon our lives and God reigns?
I think of those Jewish people who through the years of the Second World War in the time of the Holocaust as six million, of course there were Christians, there were Gypsy’s, there were others who were destroyed by the Nazi regime, but six million Jews were killed because they were Jews. Evidence of God’s love and mercy for them was almost wiped off the face of the earth. How could any one of them then or now trust or believe in God?
Do you know how many six million are? Can you think of what it would be for six million children, women, men to walk in front of you one by one? How long would that take? The rest of your life? I admire their faith, I admire the Jewish people who could say in the midst of that horrendous loss, “Still our faith is in God.”
The commitment of faith is a radical commitment. We’re asked to make it not because our stomachs are full or we have a beautiful new coat or car or wonderful home to live in, we’re asked to make it because God asks us to make it. To trust God in the absence of proof.
Which leads us to the second truth, in the eighth and fourteenth verses. From the fourteenth verse, “So Abraham called that place ’The Lord will provide,” as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided."’
For those who are able to cast their faith completely and wholly on God with a radical commitment, the Lord will provide. Maybe not how we expect it but the Lord will provide. God who calls us to live in faith will not disappoint us in the end.
Remember the story of Job? Job had everything; family and friends, crops and wealth. He was a successful man and everyone praised him and he thanked God; but it was all swept away. Then what happened? When it was all gone what did Job say? He said, “Nevertheless I will maintain my faith in God.”
Didn’t Jesus know what that was like? With the love of God in his heart, work to do, a mission which was changing the world, but one night, which we call Good Friday today, it was taken from Him. On that cross, even though he felt he was absolutely alone, he knew that his life, his future was in God’s keeping.
Joni Earesckon, we’ve talked about her before, the young girl tragically injured in a diving accident was paralyzed from the neck down. For eighteen months she was in a hospital. I can’t keep quiet for five minutes so I can’t imagine what it would like to be in a hospital for eighteen months. As she struggled with the evidence of God’s love for her swept away in that accident. She made many spiritual discoveries during that time. She said, “I finally reached a point when I could once more be grateful, and then I learned how truly blessed I was.”
Notice the sequence, gratitude precedes an awareness of blessing. Her whole future had been transformed. She learned to be grateful and then she saw the blessings in her life.
“I am grateful for the opportunity God has given me to share with others the grateful heart that God cultivated in me.” She saw it was God working in her heart to give her new life. Now she paints with paintbrush held in her mouth to share with others the joy which she has.
Alexander Solzenitsyn, the Russian author from the gulag in Siberia experienced a transformation in his life when all that had been precious to him had been taken away; he said after that, "Bless you, prison, for it was there that I discovered that the meaning of life lies in the development of the soul.1
God will provide for those who walk to the edge: God will provide. For those who will commit their future, though it is radically changed, into God’s keeping. God will provide.
We normally think of Thanksgiving as a time to give thanks for what we have received. For a good harvest and food and health. But can we see a way to give thanks to God beyond all of that, for the claim of God’s love on our lives, for the invitation to live in relationship with the creator of all the universe. The relationship of love and service and caring for other people.
Can we shift a bit our Thanksgiving from the past, the Pilgrims and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and all those things? Can we shift our Thanksgiving to the future tense to give thanks to God for whatever future comes our way?
Several years ago the “New Yorker,” in one of the Talk of the Town columns, featured an essay by a man reflecting upon his preparing Thanksgiving dinner for friends. He said, “Though I may sometimes feel a lack, I am also thankful. I feel thankful almost every day.” He goes on, “What I really lack in my life is reverence. I am affectionate, admiring and even thankful but I lack reverence. We Methodists were steeped in reverence. The Baptists were good at feeling miserable. The Episcopalians excelled in worship settings and ritual. But we Methodists were people who could stand and look at God’s world and feel a proper awe and sense such love and generosity in the universe as to put it beyond admiring, to require reverence…”
I remember bonfires at Methodist summer youth camps. With the sparks flying up into the stars over the lake when one by one with a little prodding from the counselors we would rise and take a burning stick from the fire and holding up our torch testify to God’s goodness to us and his place in our lives - sometimes with sobs and tears from even the most reluctant adolescent boy. It was a scary and thrilling moment when we put aside the normal teenage business such as rebellion, satire and lust and spoke to what was deepest in us…
"Now, that this year’s (Thanksgiving) dinner is almost ready, I want to pause and give a prayer over it as we watch the sparks rise to the stars, and feel grateful and confess that life is good, even when it is confused, it is good.2
I know that on Thanksgiving day I will be thankful for food and for the beauty of the earth. For my family, for you, for the many signs which I have that God has blessed me, and the world I live in. But I also hope that I will have some degree of reverence for that claim of God, that radical faith, that even if it were all swept away, “God will provide.” And that will be the foundation which will give me hope.
Let us pray…
1. Thanks to Don Shelby for these two illustrations.
2. Don Shelby
Loving God, Abundant Provider, you bless us with the gifts from the earth and you spread out goodness enough for all to share. On this day we join in public thanksgiving for the many blessings we enjoy even as we are mindful of the times when we stray, thinking we can go it alone and handle things ourselves. But in our emptiness, you call us home, celebrate and rejoice at our return and surround us with a grace that knows no limits.
You, O God, are the source of all good gifts. It is to you that we lift our prayers of grateful thanksgiving and our prayers of concern. We give thanks for this country and for all those who have gone before and labored to bring us the freedoms we enjoy. May our leaders today have the same vision to work for human dignity in all decisions that are made. In your mercy, Lord, hear our prayers.
We give thanks for family and friends and especially we thank you for those persons who have stood by us in our difficult times. We lift prayers for those who come to this holiday season grieving the loss of a loved one, even as we give thanks for the memories that sustain us in our loss. In your mercy, Lord, hear our prayers.
We give thanks for the laughter of children, for the joy we feel as we delight in your created world. We celebrate the wonder and mystery of the earth to plant, the sky to watch, the flowers to smell, and the trees that provide shelter and beauty. Forgive us for not working harder to protect these precious gifts. In your mercy, Lord, hear our prayers.
We give thanks for the opportunity for education and employment even as we lift up those persons who face economic uncertainty in an uncertain world. Ease their anxiety with the peace of your presence. In your mercy, Lord, hear our prayers.
We give thanks for the gift of our physical bodies, for the exhilaration of exercise and the benefits of health. We thank you for healing HC at Redwood Terrace Rehab, LF at Kaiser SW soon to be home, continued healing for JC, KM and EP home from hospital stays. But we also lift up those persons who struggle with pain and illness, MB continuing in critical care at Palomar, CB, MG, DU under Hospice care and all others on our hearts and minds. Ease their burdens and bring healing of mind, body, spirit, and relationships. In your mercy, Lord, hear our prayers.
With the gifts you give us help us to find where and how we can serve you, we pray in Christ’s name…