Lent Day #7

We've been looking at the story of Abram / Abraham starting with Abram's call story in Genesis 12 and then with Abraham pleading for God's grace to be expansive in Geneis 18. We're going to skip over Lot trying to protect God's visitors from the violent inhospitality of Sodomites. As the mobs near overtaking him, the visitors spare Lot and his family before destruction of Sodom. Now we're going to spend a few days working through story of the binding of Isaac in Genesis chapter 22.

GENESIS 22:1-2 (NJPS)
1 Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test. He said to him, "Abraham," and he answered, "Here I am." 2 And He said, "Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you."

If your first thought as someone living in modern times is "What kind of crazy person would even consider killing his own child?" -- you aren't alone. It is worth remembering that Abraham lived in time and place where many gods were worshipped and sacrifices were always getting bigger and you never really knew what you had to do to please the gods, but some priest would tell you and you would do it. If things went well afterward, you would offer a bigger sacrifice as thanks. If things went badly, you offered a more drastic sacrifice under the assumption that the last offering wasn't good enough. Human sacrifice was not uncommon. For a more in-depth analysis of this world, wait until Rob Bell's "The gods aren't angry tour" comes out on DVD.

I want to pull out some things that really struck me in recent study of this passage with a Hebrew Bible professor at a local seminary. First, looking at verse 2 where it says "your favored one". This is apparently far weaker in English than the original Hebrew, which gives the sense of "your own soul". Wow!

If you start poking into it, we see that Abraham's legacy is inextricably bound up with Isaac's -- he is named as the heir who will inherit God's covenant with Abraham, though both of his children will be great nations...

GENESIS 17:17-21 (NJPS)
17 Abraham threw himself on his face and laughed, as he said to himself, "Can a child be born to a man a hundred years old, or can Sarah bear a child at ninety?" 18 And Abraham said to God, "O that Ishmael might live by your favor!" 19 God said, "Nevertheless, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac; and I will maintain My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring to come. 20 As for Ishmael, I have heeded you. I hereby bless him. I will make him fertile and exceedingly numerous. He shall be the father of twelve chieftains, and I will make of him a great nation. 21 But My covenant I will maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year."

This shadows the language earlier in Genesis 17 when God makes the covenant with Abraham. Therefore, in some ways Abraham's life centers around Isaac -- it is as if his son were himself because all Abraham's hopes are riding on Isaac. (No pressure kid.) The order of the terms in Genesis 22:2 is also important -- they indicate increasing tension. Read it this way: "I want you to take your son. Not just your son, but your favored son, the one who is the core of your being. Yes, I mean Isaac -- the one you love. I want you to kill him as an offering to me." WHAM! Can't you just imagine how this takes Abraham's breath away? All this time setting up a legacy, a rightful heir born when Abraham is 100, and now God wants the kid back!

What would you do?

PRAYER FOR GRACE TO ADJUST MYSELF:
(From "My Prayer Book", Concordia 1980)

Gracious God, heavenly Father, I must confess that I am sometimes upset by the many changes that come in life. I find it difficult to make the necessary adjustments. I do not ask to understand, but help me, I pray You, always to realize that no matter what happens to me, and what changes must be made, You still love me and will make every experience work together for my good.

Give me the faith to trust Your promise, "My grace is sufficient for you." In mercy forgive all grumbling and complaining of which I have been guilty in the past. Teach me to follow the example of Jesus, my Savior and Lord, who in trial and tribulation said, "Not My will, but Thine, be done." In that spirit I shall be able to meet whatever life has in store for me. For Jesus' sake. Amen.