Abraham was asked to do something that no one else was ever asked to do, precisely in order to demonstrate to the whole world what hope in God really means. We look upon Abraham's three-day journey with solemn awe. We are amazed by his faith in the God whose promise he had trusted for decades, his obedience to the God with whom he had walked --- the God whose gifts and promises are manifestations of pure grace, to be received from his hand in total submission to the One whose will, whether in light or in shadow, is always perfect.
And so, the very moment that we avert our eyes in unspeakable horror, God acts;
Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife, to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said (again), "Here I am." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him: for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns, and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place "the Lord will provide." (22:10-14)
So Abraham received this son back again from the dead. To "believe in" God, to "fear" God, is to trust him totally and to put oneself in his hands totally, even when the road leads out into God-forsakenness, even when the fulfilment of God's promises seem to have receded into impossibility. Our father Abraham, through his three days agony, has taught us how to be believers. God knew that Abraham would be faithful; the purpose of the "test" was not for God to gain new knowledge, but for Abraham to bequeath to his posterity a heroic, unparalleled example of steadfast loyalty to God throughout the journey into apparently hopeless night.
Unparalleled, that is, until the day when God's own Son, His only Son, whom God loved, cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" For Isaac, there was a substitute --- Abraham found a ram in the bush. "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." But when Jesus was brought to the cross--- the Lamb of God who would bear the sin of the world into fathomless darkness, God did not withhold his Son, His only Son, whom He loved. It is no accident that this story is read during Lent, and also on Good Friday. God the Father and God the Son together, with a single will, offered the perfect sacrifice once for all. What Abraham at the last moment did not have to do, God did.
And what this means for you and for me is that there is nothing so unspeakable that God has not already thought of, and nothing so evil that God is not victorious over it, however long the journey may be, however indefinitely the fulfilment of the promises may seem to be postponed. What this means is that you and I, as children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have received our lives from God as pure gift, sustained by his hand, according to his purpose, destined for the completion of his plan, living solely by his grace, and that is the impetus for all resistance --- All resistance to the use of nuclear arms and every other form of evil. In the life of faith lived by Christians, we bear witness to the biblical testimony that nothing --- nothing at all --- can destroy the promised future, because the promised future belongs to our God.
Quoted from the book "And God spoke to Abraham" by Fleming Rutledge.
No comments :
Post a Comment