I want to dedicate only two chapters to this posting, namely Genesis 22 and 23. It records the highest and lowest moments in Abraham’s life.
God roused the great
man one night and instructed him to take his son, his only son to a place He
would show him and to sacrifice him on an altar.
There is no record of
him telling his wife, but what sane man would do that. The emotional storm
would have been intolerable for God, let alone men.
A three day journey
My book “Dead Reckoning”,
traces the three ensuing days, which start with brokenness and culminate with
hope, with language like, “he lifted his head, saw the place afar off and “for
God has provided Himself a lamb””.
The third statement
was an immense declaration of hope with prophetic undertones. At the base of
Mount Moriah, the mount on which the temple now
stands and where Jesus also died, Abraham took the wood for offering and strapped it to Isaac’s back.
It is a metaphor for the
wood that Jesus would carry up that same hill, centuries later, yet not to be
saved at the last moment as Isaac experienced. Isaac provoked Abraham’s answer
by saying, “We have the wood, but where is the offering?”
His response reflected
a deep sense in Abraham, not yet fully formed, that God had a better way, that He
would intervene and yet even more than that, that God would substitute himself
for Isaac. In Hebrews 11:9 we find that Abraham believed that God would raise up Isaac, as by implication He, with us, believed that God would raise His own son from the dead.
Abraham had reason to
believe that and the second day of his trial must have reflected on the fact that
when God did articulate His covenant with Abraham, he cast the old man into a
deep sleep and covenanted on his behalf. All that Abraham still had to do was
add the signature of faith.
Abraham also spent the
second day reasoning. He realized that for Isaac, himself or any other force of
nature to ensure the successful outcome of a covenant that would stand for the rest
of time, involved a big stretch of his imagination.
He also realized that where
he saw “his boy”, God saw, “a nation” and where Abraham saw “an heir” God saw a
destiny. All of that reconciled him enough to let go and lay down his own
personal ambitions or dreams regarding Isaac, in favor of God’s higher purpose.
Thus, in exchange for
his son, God gave Him a people who still stand today.
So, when they reached
the peak and the father, having lashed his son to the wood, prepared to end his
life, an angel stepped in and stopped it. In that timeless moment, a lamb
bleated and God’s provision was revealed to them. A different sacrifice ensued.
God did provide – and then some
Yet the pinnacle
moment of Abraham’s life still seemed quite underwhelming. No great speeches,
no fanfare, just a simple intervention and a very ordinary lamb, followed by a
very routine sacrifice.
It wasn’t the ritual
that made it so poignant, but what it symbolized. That had eternal significance
and it ended Abraham’s struggle for identity. He won a significant blessing.
I will be controversial
here but never dogmatic. Reference your bible and your own church for clarity,
but at least consider my argument.
As a sensible father
applies discipline that is relevant and
as close in time to the causative offence, so God tends to apply His discipline
to fit our crimes. That obliged me to ask, why was this couple denied children?
What is God subtly pointing to?
They grew up in Ur, a
pagan stronghold. Is it possible, in the melting
pot of emerging cultures, that Abram and Sarai either consented to something
regretful or even participated therein? Did his search for God briefly lead him
astray? Or maybe his concept of God was just distorted by that period, the way our upbringings have influenced us?
I don’t know, and in
deep reverence for the great man, I reserve judgment, but whatever it was,
Abraham was haunted by a past that God knew but which the great man could not lay
down.
His moment on Moriah
brought him face-to-face with his greatest regrets and fears, not the least
being his deep fear that God might, after all, be no different to the gods he had
left behind. Yet, he found the mercy of God where he most expected wrath.
This facing of the past to confront our imagine dragons, also happened to David, the Jews at Jericho, Paul during his exile to Tarsus and so on.
This facing of the past to confront our imagine dragons, also happened to David, the Jews at Jericho, Paul during his exile to Tarsus and so on.
Abraham returned home
with his son none the worse for wear, but the words of God continued to reverberate
in his mind and his people: By myself have I sworn, said the LORD, for
because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son,
that in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed
as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and
your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies for in your seed seed shall all
the nations of the earth be blessed; because you obeyed my voice.
That marked a beginning and an end
Sarah was one-hundred
and twenty-seven when she breathed her last. Abraham bathed her frail body in
his tears and held her close until she was gone. In her final moments he told
her what had happened at Moriah and it resolved many unanswered questions.
Then Abraham
negotiated a burial site from Ephron and buried his beloved, lifelong partner
and the mother of peoples, in the cave of Machpelah. Ephron saluted Abraham as a great man, which he was, but that great man still insisted on paying for his wife's burial ground.
What a profound
romance? What an astonishing couple? By any measure for any age, they were a
truly great couple who stood absolutely alone, as the only remnant of a Godly
legacy, to carry the baton of truth to a world yet to be.
The words spoken by the
angel are confirmed in Galatians 3:16 where Paul confirmed that “Your seed”
refers to one not many, notably Jesus: Abraham’s greatest son. The angel also
confirmed that God swore by Himself, because He could swear by no greater
(Hebrews 6:13).
The power of what is
described in these two chapters, represents one of the cornerstones of the Jewish
and Christian worldviews. When I get to heaven, I will join a long, long queue
to pay my deepest respect to that astonishing couple. All I can do right now
though, is offer my tears.
(c) Peter Missing at Bethelstone.com
(c) Peter Missing at Bethelstone.com
