“God Will Provide the Lamb”
Genesis 22:1-14
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Genesis 22:8 And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Abraham is a man for whom life could easily have seemed to be a cruel joke. Years before the event in today’s Old Testament reading, God had told Abraham to leave his homeland and travel far away to the land of Canaan, which later came to be the land of Israel. God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation and that in fact all nations would be blessed through the Messiah who would be one of his descendants. And the elderly, childless Abraham obeyed God and left home with his elderly wife Sarah and his servants for this strange land, trusting that the Lord was able to keep His promises to him.
Twenty five years later, miraculously, Sarah did have her first and only child, a son named Isaac. After much waiting, God had kept His promise to Abraham, even though it seemed impossible at the time. How overjoyed Abraham must have been! How this must have bolstered his faith in God! This son was the fulfillment of God’s promise. This son was just the beginning of a great nation of Abraham’s descendants to come. Through this son of the promise, God had shown Himself to be trustworthy and true.
But a few years later, God came to Abraham another time and said: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering.” Wait, what? God causes Abraham to wait 25 years for this promised son – the son through whom the lineage to the Messiah would come – and now He tells Abraham to kill him? That makes no sense! What kind of God is this?
What do you do when you find yourself in a seemingly senseless and messed up situation? What do you do when reality and life go toe-to-toe with God’s Word? The temptation, of course, is for you to doubt the goodness of God and to turn away from Him. This was a real test for Abraham: whom did He love more, God or his son? Where did his loyalty lie?
When life seems confusing and senseless we often respond in one of two ways. The first is this: we simply try to ignore the bad stuff, shut down our emotions, try to think positively, roll with whatever life sends our way, and don’t ask why. But that usually ends up in despair and depression, where we merely trudge through life day by day.
Or, we do the opposite; we live for the moment. Who knows what is just around the corner? Of course, you cannot answer the “why” questions. There is no use getting all upset about it, so eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow we may die.
But neither of those ways can ever really satisfy us. And to embrace either one of them fully is ultimately sinning against God, for then we make Him out to be unloving or unfair, or at best, irrelevant.
In the Old Testament reading we hear Isaac trying to make sense out of this confusing situation. Abraham had obeyed God and made the trip to Mount Moriah. The two servants he brought with him were left behind, and Isaac and his father were proceeding up the mountain to which God had directed them, the same mountain on which the city of Jerusalem was later built. Isaac had certainly worshiped and made sacrifices with his father before. But this time it was different. Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and asked the very poignant question, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Maybe he thought his dad had just forgotten. Perhaps he sensed something terribly different about his father’s mood. We just don’t know. As it turns out, quite surprisingly, this passage says nothing about either Isaac or his father’s feelings through this whole situation.
And that very fact shows us that we should not be directing our attention to the incredible turmoil which Abraham and Isaac must have been going through, especially as Isaac was laid on the altar. Our attention is on the Word of God, first and foremost, and the great example of trust in the Lord which Abraham displayed. For that is how God also desires that we deal with senseless or confusing situations – not with apathy, not with despair, not with living for the day, but with bold and confident trust in Him and His Word no matter what the situation looks like or however little sense it seems to make.
When God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, it is written that early the next morning, Abraham got up to prepare for that task. He did not hesitate, he did not question; he simply trusted. When Abraham and his son left the servants who were with them, he said, “We will worship and then we will come back to you.” God had made a promise concerning his son which Abraham would not let go of, even though the present situation seemed completely contradictory to that promise and impossible to justify.
This levitra in india is due to the hard erection maintenance. On the contrary, read in class, go to seminars. cheapest tadalafil india However, generic cialis deeprootsmag.org it is advised that you should only purchase prescription Kamagra as there are lots of substitutes for Kamagra which can cause side effects and complications. And by view of having a close relative with the order cialis online deeprootsmag.org condition, such as a hectic or stressful lifestyle or a physical illness or condition.
When Isaac asked “Where is the lamb?”, Abraham did not know what the future held at all. And yet his response showed that whatever was about to happen, he was certain that God knew what He was doing. Abraham spoke reassuringly to Isaac, “God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.” That is simple and profound trust. Isaac had carried the wood up the mountain. Abraham bound his son and laid him on the altar on the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. Trust.
This is what it means to have faith in God. It is not just believing in Him when everything is going well. It is not trusting in your feelings. It is not trusting your circumstances or experiences. It is trusting in God quite frankly in spite of your feelings. It is having confidence in Him and His Word even when it seems as if He is your enemy and that He cares nothing for you. It is looking to Him for all good things even when only bad things seem to be coming your way. It is relying on Him even when everything in life seems to be turned against you and you have nothing left to hold on to but His words and promises.
And that is exactly what Abraham did; he clung to God’s promises regarding his son. And that is also what we are to do, to cling to God’s promises regarding His Son, Jesus Christ, and never, ever, ever let go.
Now you see how this whole account points us to Christ. This entire event is a picture and a prophecy of what our Lord Jesus would do for us on this very same mountain. For remember, Abraham was stopped from carrying out the sacrifice of Isaac; the time to sacrifice the Son had not yet come and would not come until Good Friday.
Consider what is being beautifully and mysteriously foreshadowed here. Isaac was the only son, the beloved son of Abraham, conceived in a miraculous way. So also, God the Father gave His only begotten and beloved Son, miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Blessed Virgin, to deliver us from the power of sin and Satan and the grave. It was a donkey that carried Abraham’s supplies to Moriah, even as it was a donkey that carried our Lord into Jerusalem. When Abraham had come to Moriah on the 3rd day, he said, “We will worship and then we will come back to you.” And speaking of His dying and rising again, Jesus said to His disciples, “In a little while you will see Me no more, and then after a little while, you will see Me” (Jn 16:16). In essence, “I will go away and then I will come back to you in the power of the resurrection on the third day.”
Abraham laid the wood on Isaac his son, who carried it to the top of the mountain. Even so the Father laid the wood of the cross on His Son Jesus, and it was carried to the top of Mt. Calvary, the place of sacrifice. Just as Isaac was laid on the wood and bound, so Jesus was bound to the cross and cried out to His Father, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” (Mt 27:46)
After God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son, he looked up and saw a male sheep, a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. Abraham offered it in place of his son. Even so, Jesus has offered up Himself in your place so that you would be set free from the judgment of death. He purposely caught Himself in the thorny thicket of your sin so that you would be released from your spiritual bondage to the powers of hell and so that you might have everlasting life.
He who wore the crown of thorns on His head is that Lamb of God who was sacrificed as your substitute, to take away your sin and the sin of the world. In Christ the words of Abraham are fulfilled for you, “God Himself will provide the Lamb.” Abraham named that place, “The Lord will Provide.” For on that holy mountain God provided for your salvation in His only Son, Jesus.
God tested Abraham; and He will also test you from time to time. But He does so for a reason, for your spiritual well-being, to prove and improve and strengthen your faith in Him, even as gold is tested and purified by fire. So, even in the testing, you must see the hand of a loving and merciful God who works what is good for you. For Christ has taken all the pain and meaninglessness and suffering and evil and randomness and sin of life into His body and has suffered it to death for you to redeem you from it.
Isaac cried out, “Where is the lamb?” And there will be troubling or difficult times when you also may cry out, “Where is God?” Dear friends, learn from this reading that He is present with you baptized believers and that He will never, ever forsake you, even when everything has been turned upside down in your life.
For God, who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, has promised that there is nothing in all creation that can separate you from His love. He will work all things together for the ultimate good of those who love Him, to you who are the called according to His purpose.
What that means is that you have greater promises than Abraham. For you even have the living presence of Christ in His true body and blood given for your forgiveness, for your comfort, and to assure you of God’s favor. When little in your life seems to make much sense, look to Christ the crucified; look to His words and promises. For He gives meaning and purpose and even joy to living in an otherwise senseless world. The Lord will provide. Trust Him. He is your Savior. You are His.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
