Sermon I preached on 1st Sunday of Lent--February, 2006

The Faith of Abraham
(Genesis 22:1-18)

1. Grace mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Today’s message comes from the Old Testament reading taken from Genesis 22:1-18. It’s entitled “The Faith of Abraham.” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Many of the people who attended Winston Churchill’s funeral service were in for a shock. The former Prime Minister of England, the one who led them through one of the worst wars in this world’s history, even had a sense of humor for his own funeral. Churchill ended up planning his own funeral and filled it with the promise of Easter. After the benediction, he directed that a bugle high up in the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral would play “Taps,” the bugle call that announces the end the day in the military. Churchill then directed that immediately after the playing of “Taps,” a second bugler up in the dome, would play “Reveille” a call to get up in the morning. Because after all when we as Christians die, we’ll only be asleep for a moment and then we’ll be in heaven forever with our Savior.

2. Churchill approached death with laughter, because He knew of the greater joy that awaited him in heaven to be with His Savior Jesus Christ. As we’re now in the season of Lent many of us may see this as a time of melancholy, sadness and somber reflection. It’s the time of the church year where people may give up something. My wife says that I need to give up fast food for Lent in which she’s probably right. Maybe you’ve given up eating meat on Fridays and instead eat fish. Perhaps you’ve given up on sweets altogether during these forty days. But, in today’s Old Testament lesson we hear of an even greater sacrifice that was made. Abraham had great faith in following God’s commands. He wasn’t just giving up fast food, sweets, movies, video games—He was giving up His only son—Isaac. Ironically, Isaac’s name means laughter, but this was no laughing matter. Not in the same way that Winston Churchill viewed his own funeral. God was asking Abraham in Genesis 22:1-18 to give up his one and only son. A son he’d waited for his whole life. How could this be?

3. Abraham asked no questions of God in Genesis 22. God said to him in Genesis 22:2, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” What great faith Abraham must have had. Sending Ishmael away from his camp, the son he had with Sarah’s maidservant Hagar, was hard enough. Abraham didn’t know that God was testing him. He just knew that God was commanding him to kill his only Son Isaac. This test was not for God’s benefit, but for Abraham’s spiritual benefit. For the strengthening of his faith in God’s own promises. Abraham’s fatherly love for Isaac might in time have crowded out his love for God. With this test God brought Abraham’s training in faith to a climax.

4. It’s interesting to know that Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice Isaac wasn’t so concerned with the emotional side of Abraham losing a son. Instead its focus is that this sacrifice would jeopardize the future of the covenant that God made with him. Isaac was the “laughter” of Abraham and Sarah’s old age, but he was also to be the laughter of all nations because through Him sprang the promise of redemption. If Isaac, whose name means “laughter” died, then what would become of God’s promise of Redemption through Abraham’s offspring? These questions of God’s promise with Abraham and salvation are the central part of the story in his test of faith. How ironic is it that the binding and near-death of Abraham’s son Isaac and the foreshadowing phrase in Genesis 22:8, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering my son” give early Biblical clues that eliminating evil is going to require enormous effort and sacrifice.

5. Abraham must have had a sleepless night after God had given him this command and yet he got up early the next morning. Maybe he did this so that he wouldn’t have to discuss with Sarah the gruesome assignment that lay ahead of him or for fear that she might not let him make the journey if she knew what God had commanded him to do. It’s amazing that Abraham did everything as the Lord had said. His faith led him to complete obedience, even if that meant that he must sacrifice the one thing that he’d waited for his whole life. A son of his own. Abraham had a lot of time to think about God’s command. He had a 50 mile trip ahead of him. God didn’t want his obedience to flow from a spur-of-the moment enthusiasm. No. He wanted this to be a trying time for him. Three days of traveling gave Satan plenty of time to supply a dozen logical reasons why Abraham shouldn’t take the life of his own son.

6. When Abraham reached the place he said to his servants in Genesis 22:5, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” His instructions to the servants are significant for two reasons. First, it showed that his heart belonged to God and nothing else by the fact that he was going to worship God in the midst of such emotional suffering. Second, it showed Abraham’s faith in God. The phrase “and then we will come back to you” in Hebrew expresses the determination that must have been in his voice. It hints at the answer Abraham must have reached to this awful question that was torturing him, “How can a merciful God cut off the Messianic line?” Abraham’s faith answered, “If God commands me to kill Isaac and I obey him, then God is simply going to have to bring Isaac’s ashes back to life and the two of us are going to come back down this mountain.” He knew that God would keep His promise.

7. It’s this part of the story that’s the hardest for anyone to take, especially if you’re a parent. Abraham and Isaac have finally reached the top of Mt. Moriah and Isaac notices that they don’t have a lamb to be sacrificed. Abraham answers Isaac, probably with tears in his eyes, trembling in his voice and a bowed head that God would provide the sacrifice. What faith this man had. After building an altar Abraham places his son Isaac upon it. But, just when he was about to slay Isaac with a knife an angel of the Lord stopped him. God did provide the lamb for sacrifice. What relief and joy Abraham must have felt. Probably the same relief and joy you and I feel when we know we don’t have to give up something forever during the Lenten season. I won’t always have to give up fast food. You can eat sweets after these forty days and go on watching movies or playing video games. It’s apparent that in order to obey God’s command Abraham had to disregard everything his heart and reason told him and concentrate totally on God’s promise. Hebrews 11:17-19 says, By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”

8. It’s probably apparent to all of you what this wonderful Old Testament story of faith foreshadows. An event that would happen thousands of years later when God sacrificed His one and only Son to save us from our sins. We as Christians can continue to laugh today because of what God did through His Son Jesus Christ. He became the perfect lamb so that we can have the hope and joy of eternal life in heaven someday. God has saved you and me because of His great love for us in Jesus Christ. Many people who aren’t Christians are turned off by this story about Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice Isaac. How can a loving God command a parent to kill their own child? Most people want God to be predictable. They tend to resist the notion of evil so deeply entrenched that it requires even God to go to dangerous and shocking lengths of sacrifice to root it out. This hope for a predictability in God reminds me of the classic moment in C.S. Lewis’ book, “The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe,” where one of the children asks Mr. Beaver about Aslan the Lion. “Is he quite safe? “Safe?” Mr. Beaver responds, “Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

9. None of us wants laughter to die—as a matter of fact we want the laughter without tears. We want everything to be safe and without pain. We want things to be predictable This is probably what Abraham wanted with Isaac his son. After all Isaac’s name did mean laughter. This story of Abraham and his son reminds us that God calls us to conform our thinking to His point of view of sin and salvation. The only way to heaven is through God’s own Son Jesus Christ. This is what Abraham understood, even thousands of years before Jesus was born. He understood that salvation comes through God alone. As Winston Churchill understood and Abraham as well—there’s a happy ending in death. Even Abraham knew that if Isaac was sacrificed, God would resurrect him and bring him back to life. However, they both knew that the fulfillment of the covenant doesn’t come painlessly. As we begin the painful journey of Lent may we all be reminded of the faith of Abraham that in the end there is hope. Even though we’ll go through the painful journey of our Lord Jesus Christ’s suffering, betrayal and death we know that in the end there’s laughter. Laughter in the promise of the resurrection that all of us will be with our Lord Jesus Christ eternally in heaven. It’s there we’ll have all the laughter Jesus ever promised. Amen.

Peace—Now may the peace that passes all human understanding keep your hearts deeply rooted in your faith in God so that anything that happens to you in this life will not shake you. May God give to you the power of His Holy Spirit to serve Him in all that you do.