Richard Davenport

February 18, 2024 – First Sunday in Lent

Genesis 22:1-18

                The Old Testament reading for today contains one of the most difficult passages in the Bible.  There are other Bible passages that are difficult, such as those found in Revelation, that are difficult because we have trouble understanding the “what”.  What does any of this mean?  Is it the future?  Is it the past?  What does any of it have to do with the church?  This passage is different.  We understand very clearly what is happening.  The difficulty is understanding “why”.

                I’ve read the musings and wranglings of a number of Jewish people, who have wrestled with this passage.  There just isn’t any way to get around what’s happening here. Abraham isn’t given a suggestion. It’s a blunt command.  Abraham has already sent away Hagar and the son he had with her, Ishmael.  In Abraham’s mind, Ishmael may be safe and sound, but he certainly isn’t a part of Abraham’s life.  The promise God made that he’d have a son and be the father of many nations could maybe have meant Ishmael at one point, but God clarified, “No, you’ll have a son with Sarah.” 

                Now that son is here.  He’s grown up some.  Luther thinks Isaac is about 20.  Jewish traditions pin him at 37.  The text doesn’t really indicate, but it does make some things clear.  He’s old enough to venture up a mountain with a father who is well over 100 years old and he’s strong enough to carry the wood and other things necessary for what was to happen.  He isn’t a baby who just doesn’t understand.  Isaac knows how this sort of thing usually goes and even asks about the sacrificial animal.  As Abraham ties him up and lays him on the wood, the realization has to be there that he’s the one and his father is about to kill him.

                Abraham too, understands full well what he has been ordered to do.  God doesn’t reveal the end of the story to him ahead of time.  There’s no secret whispering, “Just take Isaac up there and make like you’re going to sacrifice him and at the last minute you can shout, ‘Haha, I got you!  This was all a prank!  Then I’ll send you an animal to sacrifice instead and we can all have a good laugh over beers.” The story starts out sounding like that’s what this is supposed to be, just a big prank.  But, if it is, no one’s in on the joke except God.

                What kind of God does this kind of thing?  If you watch crime dramas on tv, occasionally you’ll find people doing things along these lines.  They come up in the show precisely because they are sociopaths and serial killers.  They inflict a lot of damage, both physical and emotional, on a lot of different people and for all of that they are rightly arrested.  But who has the authority to arrest God?  If God starts going off the rails, who is going to stop him?

                That’s what makes the “Binding of Isaac” as this passage is usually known, especially troublesome.  Since Abraham is the patriarch of all Israel, Jews can’t avoid dealing with it.  So what do you do with it?  Well, you can’t very well go and accuse God of being a sociopath.  Even if you’re trying to hold the moral high ground in a situation like this, getting God angry with you is a sure way to a quick and fiery demise.  There has to be another answer. 

                Now you might think this sacrifice had something to do with sin.  After all, sacrifices often do.  But the passage doesn’t say anything like that.  Not only that, the laws for sacrifices wouldn’t come out until Moses meets with God on Mt. Sinai, which wouldn’t happen for centuries yet.  From Abraham and Isaac’s perspective, there is no theology going on here except that God commanded and so they must follow his command.

In that case, if we want to find any possible explanation to all of this we will jump on the message of the angel.  It was all a test.  God never wanted Abraham to kill Isaac at all.  He just wanted Abraham to demonstrate his faith.  Many Jews now believe that this was to have far-reaching effects.  Since the destruction of the temple in 70AD, no sacrifices have been able to be offered to God.  The faith of Abraham here covers all of those sacrifices.  His was enough to cover the requirement of the Law over the last almost two thousand years.

Why would God do it this way?  Well, better to just trust God and not ask.  Don’t question God, he knows best.  That’s what the rabbis say.  God knew what was best for Abraham and for Israel.  If anything, he knew they would need a sacrifice necessary to cover their inability to offer one.  So he set this up in advance.  That’s all you need to know.  Don’t question it any further or you’ll start to think God really is a sociopath and then you’ve got real trouble.

Except people who wonder about this aren’t stupid.  What if God really is a sociopath?  Avoiding the question doesn’t actually solve anything.  Saying, “Just trust God,” when I’m walking into a place I really don’t want to go is going to make me think about this passage.  Did it turn out alright in the end?  Yeah, I guess, sort of.  God still made Abraham and Isaac go through this terrible thing and he didn’t tell them it would be ok.  He just said to do it.  What if he decides that this time he wants an actual human sacrifice and that human is me?

This sort of thing doesn’t inspire a lot of trust, I think.  It inspires horror and revulsion.  For a lot of people who read the Bible, this passage is just too much.  Any God who would do that to people he claims to love is not worth my time and I don’t want any part of him.  They read this passage and leave him behind altogether.

Where do you fall in all of this?  How firm is your faith?  Could you do this?  This is another one of those passages that I’d like to think my faith was strong enough, but if I were in the moment I’m not sure how I’d react.  Perhaps, thankfully, the text doesn’t tell us everything.  Did Abraham question God?  Did he doubt? Did he argue?  Did Isaac question his father’s sanity?  We don’t really know.  All we are given is the outcome as they arrive at the top of the mountain. Whether Abraham questioned or not, he ended up right where God commanded him to be and he was ready to bring the knife down on his son.

If we’re honest, we’ll probably admit we’d have some reservations in this sort of situation.  Questions and doubts would probably come to mind.  God might have to do some heavy convincing to get us to go along with this.  That’s…not good.  Especially for people who claim to trust God.  But, the issue we’re concerned with isn’t so much the doubts and the questions, as it is God himself.  Why would a loving God do this kind of thing?  He knows we doubt all the time.  He knows we question him and argue with him.  Why would he torture anyone with such a terrible command?

It all generally comes down to the same problem.  In instances like these we don’t do much better than the Jews.  We don’t stop to consider the bigger picture. We don’t see the whole of history and of the future.  In situations such as these, all we see is the “now” and we are afraid.

Hebrews 11 puts this scene into perspective, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.”  God made a promise.  Not just any son of yours.  Not Ishmael. Not anyone else.  This son.  Isaac. He will be the one who will carry on my promise of making you the father of many nations.  He will be the one to whom the savior will eventually be born. My promise goes to you and through you to him.

Abraham knew this.  He may have had doubts and questions, but deep down he knew this promise.  Isaac, even he were sacrificed, was connected to something much bigger, a God who had staked his own name and reputation on the promise he had given.  If that meant Isaac would die and be raised again, then so be it. 

Jews have to chalk the whole thing up to one of those questions you simply don’t ask.  God will do what he’s going to do and that’s that.  They do that because that’s all they can do.  They have nothing else to go on.  We have more.  We have the end of the story.  We know what it’s all leading up to and what it all means. 

If we keep our focus narrow.  If we just look at this passage, it all looks like torture and cruelty.  If we broaden our focus and take in the rest of Scripture, we see how God was proving himself to Abraham and Isaac.  It was God asking the question, “Do you believe I’ll stand by my promise, no matter what?”  God would stand by his promise, regardless of what Abraham did.  Nothing would change there.  God will always do what he says he going to do.  But, life will go a lot better for Abraham if he trusts God to do what he promised, if he could let go of his doubts and know that God will always do what is best for him.

God was indeed foreshadowing something, but it wasn’t that Abraham was making a sacrifice on behalf of all of Israel so they could avoid the consequences for not following that part of the law.  Rather, he was showing that God would hold to his promise, no matter what, even if that promise meant a loving Father had to sacrifice an innocent Son. In spite of that sacrifice, however, God’s promise would still hold.  Payment for sins would be made and life eternal given.  That sacrificial Son always was and always would be the Savior and he would live again.  God had promised.

That’s the point of all of this.  God’s promises will always come to pass because God himself stands behind what he says.  His name and reputation are on the line.  If he can’t hold up his end of the bargain, then there’s no reason to trust anything he says.  But he does. All the time, every time.  That means his promises are just as valid and true for you as they were for Abraham and Isaac.  If God said he gave his Son as a sacrifice for your sins.  Then he did.  If he said all who trust in him, all whose sins have been wiped away, will live again.  Then they will.  Even if some crazy circumstance should come about that you end up in some similar situation to Abraham, the promise still holds true.  Young or old, it doesn’t matter.  All who trust in him will live again.  He promised. 

We began the season of Lent just a few days ago.  Though Jesus has explained his mission and the goal of his ministry, the disciples have been blithely ignoring all of that.  For them, everything is perfectly normal and they expect it will probably go on like that for the foreseeable future. 

Soon that won’t be the case.  Soon it will be trials and beatings, insults and blood, a cross and a tomb.  Where is God?  How could he torture us like that?  What kind of terrible God would do such a terrible thing?  The disciples forget the promise.  This truly is the savior.  He has to be sacrificed, but also has to live.  God promised.  Had they looked back to Abraham, perhaps they would have avoided all of the fear and doubts. Had they remembered the promise, they never would have felt the need to hide for their lives.  The savior would live again.  Even if they did die, that promise would still hold true.  They would live again.

This passage is the assurance that God has everything well in hand.  He never makes a promise lightly.  But he does make them and he will fulfill them no matter the cost.  Hear God and trust in him.  He has proven himself time and time again.  He doesn’t want you to live in fear.  He doesn’t want you to worry or doubt.  So he shares this with you to show you what he is going to do and how you have nothing to fear, no matter how bleak things look.  He will carry out his promise.  Everything he has promised you will happen, no matter what, even if he has to bring you back to life so you can live with him forever.