Sermon NL binding of Issac

Genisis, the beginning.  The beginning of creation last week and this week the beginning of our relationship with God.  We read this week about the binding of Issac, the middle of the story of God’s covenant with Abram the Hebrew.  This is a very important story, the story of how God made a promise with Abraham…a covenant, one which still holds firm thousands of years later and one which, through Jesus, we share a part in.

Our reading today is just one moment in the beginning of that relationship, but a pivotal moment, one might say a defining moment, but to understand the ‘binding of Isaac’ we need to hear a bit more of the story.

Now once upon a time, a long, long time ago there was a good man named Abram.  Abram was a very wealthy man with many slaves, livestock and a lot of land …what he did not have was any children of his own to pass on his legacy on to. 

One day the Lord came to Abram in a vision promising to protect Abram and to reward him with many things.  But Abram protested, the only thing I need, I do not have, children to carry on my line, if fact Abram lamented the heir to my house is one of my slaves!  But the Lord promised Abram, none but your very own child shall be your heir.   Look to the stars and count them if you can, so shall the number of your descendants be.  Abram believed, and the Lord knew him to be a righteous man.

But time passed, a decade passed, and Abram’s wife Sarai grew anxious in her old age. How could the Lord fulfill his promise to Abram if she was past childbearing age?  So, Sarai hatched a plan with her husband and decided that Abram and the slave Hagar should lay together until Hagar bore a child whom Sarai and Abram could then adopt.

So, Hagar was forced to bear Abram’s child but when Hagar did become pregnant, Sarai became jealous and treated Hagar harshly, however in time Hagar bore Abram a son and his name was Ismael.

Years passed, and Abram was 99 years old when the Lord returned to him and said. “I am God Almighty;[a] walk before me, and be blameless. 2 , 4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be Abram,[b] but your name shall be Abraham,[c] for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you….“As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her and also give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”

And what was the faithful response of this good and righteous man?  A very human one; we read:

17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”

Abraham did not believe God’s could do the impossible and asked God if Ismael might be his heir instead, a far more likely scenario. But the Lord repeated his promise that Abraham and Sarah would have a child of their own.  Still Abraham and Sarah kept Ismael as their heir. 

Once again time passed and Sarah did not conceive.  Sarah was 90 years old and Abraham 99 when at long last angels came to announce that in due time Sarah would bear a son and we read that this time it was Sarah who laughed and who could blame her.  Could God make a seed sprout in the desert?  Unlikely.

Yet, the Lord did as he promised and Sarah conceived and bore a son and named him Issac.  God had provided an heir for the future of his people.

We know now of how vast and how important that plan was, of how Abraham was indeed the ancestor of a people whose culture and faith continue to this day.  We know, looking back, that it was Abram’s faith that the Lord would provide and fulfill his promises that would eventually lead to our gathering here today. 

So, much relied on Abraham’s faith, but although he was called righteous we that he was not always trusting in God’s ability to fulfill his end of the covenant.  There are several times when Abraham or Sarah believed that they had better ideas, that although the Lord said he would provide, Abraham and Sarah got anxious and made other plans.

Still, the so much rested on Abraham faith and on his descendants  so after all these doubts and promises fulfilled.  God provided a test for Abraham, which is where our reading takes us today.  “take your son, you ONLY son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering”

Everything in our sensibilities rebels at this statement.  The very idea of child sacrifice…and by God’s command!  It offends everything we know about God and our faith…we are predisposed to hate the story and we struggle to comprehend it’s purpose.

But I can only imagine that Abraham was just as confused.  After all child sacrifice was not practiced among his people, animals yes, but humans? Children? No!  And why would God call Abraham to sacrifice Issac, the promised son they waited and struggled decades for!  This was the child that God had promised would be the father of multitudes after Abraham. Surely God would not go back on his promise now? 

So what happened?

Abraham, Isaac and two others went out to as commanded by God…a three day journey.  What turmoil must Abraham have been in.  Abraham the righteous, the man of the covenant, chosen by God to fulfil God’s plan…Abraham who trusted God in theory, but whom we can read hadn’t really believed that God would do the impossible and provide him a son.

But that was then, and now…now that Isaac was healthy and grown did Abraham have the faith that God would keep his covenant, even in impossible circumstances?  Did Abraham have the faith on which the foundation of a nation could be build.  That God would provide for his people?

 In the many stories since that first encounter with God, God had provided for Abraham and Sarah, but time and again they would create a plan b…just in case.  Time and again, God proved it wasn’t needed.  God would and did provide…even unto a son born to a couple who were a century old. 

God will provide.  Abraham had to believe that, had to teach that and ensure that faith was passed from generation to generation.  So that each generation the covenant would be maintained and the people of God would survive the trials of millennia, after all as we said, Genesis is just the beginning.

So we read…

 

 

 

On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.”    

It sounds to me as if after all this time, Abrham is finally trusting God.  Maybe he didn’t know what was happening, or how this would turn out, but Abraham trusted that the Lord would provide for his people. 

the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.”    

Abraham trusts….we will both come back.

Abraham remembered what God had promised, and had experienced God’s faithfulness to him and so Abraham believed.

Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together.

God will provide, even amidst the impossible God will provide.  So, Abraham went, not in blind obedience, but in trust and laid out his only son on the altar before the Lord.

How far would Abraham have gone? Would he have plunged in the knife? Killed his own son? We will never know, because God did not intend Isaac to die.  Abraham had passed the test, he had no plan b.  Nothing but the faith that he and his beloved son would come out of this together, as he told the servants they would.  Nothing but trust that God would provide a lamb to be slain.  Nothing but trust in the covenant that God had made with him., and a story to demonstrate that you can trust in God in the most impossible and desperate of circumstances and God will provide what is needed.

This is a story which has been passed down from generation to generation, millennia in the telling.  The story of the unwavering faith and trust of Abraham the righteous.  A story to inspire the people of God in the most impossible of circumstances, that God has covenanted to walk with us and to be our God.   And we, we as a people promise to be a people of God.  Trusting, faithful and righteous.  Knowing that God will provide what is needed.  Always.

And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

 14 So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide,”[b] as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided

Amen