Heavenly Father, send your Holy Spirit to open our ears to hear your preached Word. Comfort us by the promise that you have made us heirs of your kingdom. By the death and resurrection of Jesus, help us to trust your promise, even in the face of death. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
One of my confirmation students this week said something profound (I can’t remember word for word, but she said something like this): “Pastor Dan, it’s like we have to imagine what was happening to the people in the story to understand.” Exactly! Today we’re going to imagine how Abraham felt as he was cutting wood.
To recap the story: God has asked Abraham to move from the big smoke (the city of Ur in what became Babylon) to become a livestock farmer in the backwaters of Canaan. He obeys and relocates his entire family in an act of faith. God promises half a dozen times that he will make Abraham into a great family, with offspring more numerous than the stars in sky or the grains of sand in the desert. But Abraham is old. His wife Sarah is old. They laugh at the promise. They take matter into their own hands: Abraham fathers a child (Ishmael) with Sarah’s servant Hagar. But then something amazing happens: God does what he says, and Sarah becomes pregnant and gives birth to Isaac! Hagar and Ishmael are sent away (with God’s blessing). After all this mess, finally, Abraham has a child of his own. What a relief! How amazing is God?! But now in our reading we hear God command something … well … disturbing. “Take your son, your only son, whom you love — Isaac — and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Genesis 22:2).
How would have Abraham felt?
(1) Conflict. Abraham would have had an internal conflict. God has promised a child to Abraham, but now God gives a command to take away this promise. The promise is that Isaac is born, but the command is that Isaac be killed. Isaac’s death would bring an end to the family line, taking them back to square one. The entire journey has been for nothing. Abraham trusted the promise, but now it’s about to be ripped from his hands. The promise and command contradict each other, they are in conflict. Can the same God who promised life, also command death? This is illogical, irrational. Therefore we are led to confess that “God is God.” “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD (Isaiah 55:8). The LORD gives and the LORD takes away (Job 1:21). This story leads us to confess that we are not God. While God has revealed some things to us by bringing them into the light, other things are left in the dark. We can use our brains to rationally scrutinize some elements of the Christian faith e.g. we can reason that the gospels are historically reliable and trustworthy records of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But we can’t hope to wrap our minds around the inscrutable will of God that is left unrevealed, in the dark. Have you ever been confused by God? I know I have! But like Abraham, we are left with the choice to trust him or not. Can you trust a God you don’t understand? Personally, I don’t think I could ever trust a god that I completely understand! Such a god would be finite, limited, small. I only trust the God who is bigger than me, who I can’t understand, a mystery so deep that a mere human like me can’t even begin to fathom his depths.
(2) Left in the dark. Abraham has no clue what God is up to. What does God mean by asking him to sacrifice Isaac? Will God raise Isaac from the dead? (The author of Hebrews seems to suggest that Abraham reasoned God could possibly physically raise Isaac from the dead, see Hebrews 11:19). Or maybe Abraham hopes God would give him another son — if God could give Isaac, surely he could do it again?! Or perhaps Abraham believes God will provide a substitute, such as the ram in the bushes? Regardless, there is a dark side to God, a part of him we can’t know or understand. But this is faith: walking forward when everything in front is dark. As we sung today: ‘We’ll walk by faith and not by sight.’ Have you ever had an experience where God tested you by putting you in the dark? Have you ever had to walk by faith and not sight? I feel like this now, as we try to relaunch church post-COVID-19. What will the church look like now? We have no idea really. We’re in the dark. But we continue to step out in faith — we trust and obey, for there’s no other way.
(3) Angry. Child sacrifice was very common in Abraham’s era, but why would God ask him to do such a horrible thing? (Later, through Moses, God will give specific instructions that forbid child sacrifice, see Leviticus 20:2). Child sacrifice raises our hackles — the hairs on the back of the neck. Isaac is Abraham’s flesh and blood. How could he put a knife to the throat of his own son? How can God even ask this?! Is God trustworthy? Can we trust a god who commands such a horrible thing? The psalmists wrestled with such problems, expressing their frustration and anger with God. In Psalm 13, which we spoke in our opening sentences, we are given permission to get angry with God: “LORD, how long must I struggle with anguish in my soul? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts? How long will I have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy have his foot on my throat? Answer me! Turn to me LORD!” (Psalm 13:1–3a, paraphrased). Have you ever been angry with God? It’s okay to be angry with God, but the key is to be angry with God. This implies a relationship; communication with God. Such psalms (mostly) end with a statement of trust, praising God for his faithfulness. Psalm 13 ends saying: “But I trust in your unfailing love” (Psalm 13:5).
(4) Serious. This story shows us how serious faith is. Faith is a matter of life-and-death. Following Jesus, trusting God, is serious business, not something to be trifled with. Faith has real consequence for your life, it’s supposed to be hard, but it’s also profound. Abraham suffered the seriousness of faith. God tested him, he asked Abraham to give him the best present he’d ever received. We don’t know why God tests people, we just know that he does. God tested Abraham. God tested Job. Jesus even teaches his disciples to pray: “Lead us not into temptation.” This is a prayer for God not to test us. Testing gets to the guts of our faith, everything else is stripped away. Such testing leads you to the simple question: “Do you trust God or not?” I know some of you have or are going through a time a testing. The chips are down. The enemy has you pinned to the ground with his foot on your throat. And you’re crying out: “Is God for me? Or is he against me?”
Jesus, the human, felt all of this. On the eve of his death, Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Father, if it’s possible, take this cup [of suffering] from me. Yet not my will, but your will be done.” (Matthew 26:38–39). Jesus felt the conflict between promise and command. His very birth had been promised for 1000’s of years. The LORD’s promised servant would bring justice to the nations; God’s Spirit would rest on him; he would proclaim good news to the poor; he would set prisoners and the oppressed free. (Luke 4:18–19). But now God commands that his servant go to his death. Three times Jesus predicts his death. “The Son of Man will be handed over, condemned to death, mocked, spat on, flogged, and killed.” (Mark 10:33–34). How can the servant accomplish his task when he’s dead?! Jesus is angry and left in the dark. Will the Father actually raise him to new life, as he promised? Darkness comes over the land as Jesus hangs on the cross. He shouts in a loud voice: “My God, my God, why? Why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). “Are you for me? Or against me?” With the death of Jesus, God the Father shows how serious faith is. Jesus is his one and only Son, the Son whom he loved (Mark 1:11). Yet the Father willingly sacrifices his only Son. He takes a knife to the throat of the Lamb of God, and pours out his blood to show us that faith is a matter of life-and-death.
Jesus’ death reveals that God is for you! God is for you! The sacrifice of Jesus shows you how serious God is about faith, in face he is full of faith, he is faith-full. In the Lord’s Prayer, before the petition “Lead us not into temptation” is another “Give us today our daily bread.” God is the Provider, always giving us what we need, our daily bread. Abraham says it himself in the central sentence of our story: “God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.” (Genesis 22:8). He calls that place “The LORD Will Provide” (in Hebrew “Yahweh Yireh,” which is sometimes rendered “Jehovah-Jireh” — Germans pronounce “j” as a “y”). God the Father provides his own Son, Jesus Christ, as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of world. And God follows through on his promise, amazingly raising Jesus from the dead, giving him a new resurrected body, using the death and resurrection to bring justice to the nations, to set the oppressed and prisoners free — like a Phoenix rising from the ashes.
So may you earnestly pray the prayer: “Lead us not into temptation.” There is a dark side to God and we don’t want to be tempted or tested. But may you also pray: “Not my will, but yours be done.” Faith is serious business, a matter of life-and-death. May you take your faith journey seriously. May your discipleship cost you something, more than one hour on a Sunday morning. And if you ever come to a point in your life, when the knife is at your throat, may you know that God is for you. God will provide. And he has provided everything you need by giving his one and only Son, Jesus. Jesus is the Lamb of God, who took the debt you owe, who poured out his blood to erase your sin, who died your death, who took your shame on his shoulders. May you know and trust God the Provider, God the faith-full for there is no greater love than this. Amen.
