“[God] said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you’” (Genesis 22:2)
You can do a lot worse than to spend time meditating upon the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac. Christians across the ages have found within this story both opportunities for great faith – e.g. Abraham doesn’t, ultimately, have to sacrifice his son, but God the Father does – and opportunities for great doubt – e.g. why would God even ask this?!?!
Both personally and pastorally, I’m more enchanted by the former rather than the latter, but we must also admit the deep complexities and emotions this story can stir up when we take it seriously. And I do think we need to take it seriously, not because “it’s in the Bible” (there are plenty of allegories, parables, and other “fiction” in the Bible that is still holy inspite of not being historical). I think we should take it seriously because it is an AMAZING case study on how to live with and love God, even when the tasks before us seem impossible.
For surely, for Abraham who had waited for a child for soooo long, nothing could’ve seemed more impossible than wantonly sacrificing his son. In fact, Isaac was more than a son. He was a sign of God’s promise to make Abraham into a great nation. A couple of weeks ago, I preached about covenants in the Old and New Testaments and noted that every covenant came with a sign. Technically, circumcision was the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham, but surely Abraham would’ve also regarded Isaac as a sign that God was staying true to His promise. So, when God comes and asks Abraham to get rid of the sign of God’s promise, Abraham would’ve undoubtedly felt like God was also breaking His promise to Abraham.
This is our entry point into this story, I think. For all of us know that God has promised us nothing less than “thy Kingdom come” and that we would live for eternity in a glorified state with God. It is a good, holy promise that has motivated acts of big and little faith alike. Yet it is also the place where we are, therefore, the most insecure. This is always the nature of hopes and dreams. They are our greatest motivator and also our greatest insecurity.
I think what the story shows us is that God is true to His promises, even in the hardest, worst-est, most terrible, no good situations. When life is its mot abysmal, saddest, depleted of all goodness, God’s promises break through the chaos and pain and make space for a modicum a faith. Once understood, how can we exclaim anything other than “how good is our God?!?!”
Following God is most certainly about inviting sacrifice into our lives. Even something as small as faithfully responding to your alarm clock on Sunday morning in order to get to church for worship is an act of sacrifice that brings God glory and pleasure. And when we remember how good and faithful our God is to God’s promises, then we’ll find that we’ve misnamed this story. It isn’t, after all, “the sacrifice of Isaac,” for Isaac lives! No, it is “the salvation of Isaac” for salvation is always quickly behind sacrifice. Amen.
