In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Our reading from Genesis 22:1-14 is sometimes called the “sacrifice” of Isaac. However in the Jewish tradition it is referred to more accurately as the aqedah, the “binding” of Isaac. Now at the outset of the binding, we don’t know Isaac’s age. Legions of artists have depicted him as a child, though the text suggests otherwise. Isaac himself carries the wood for the offering, which a young child couldn’t do and he is clearly capable of abstract reasoning. Once again the Jewish tradition suggests that Isaac was thirty-seven years old.

And yet in spite those textual questions, we must admit that the story is a familiar one to us. Perhaps it is too familiar, for we are too quick to break the tension of the story with the ram caught in the thicket. See everything ends happily ever after.

So why face this text?

We face it because each us have experienced those “tests” in the midst of our journey of faith. Now whether these tests were divinely inspired, in humility I cannot say. But we have known those heartbreaking dilemmas and insurmountable fears. We have known those family tragedies that are only met with questions. We have known that tension that lies between life and death. We have known those words of diagnosis that shatters dreams.

One woman who faced cancer surgery wrote;

“When I am laid out

ready for the surgeon’s knife

There will be no lamb caught in the thicket

to spare me.” Some of us are living them now.

We face this text because of its theological depth. It is a story that haunts and overwhelms us, it shatters our simple images of God if we linger for any length of time in the midst of it. It reminds us that we can be “too glib about eternal things. Meditating upon this story makes me realize that sometimes I say too much about God from too shallow a standpoint. And maybe each of us are guilty of this.

For who is this God that we speak of, who we claim to trust? His name rolls off our tongues with such ease indicating a certain level of familiarity.

Is he the nebulous higher power of the modern New Age movement?

Is he the power invoked in the name of civic religion?

Is he the God of reasonable philosophical constructs?

Last week I said that each of us have an image of God which we have constructed and give witness to by the way that we live. Speaking of God has been compared to standing outside at night and pointing to the moon. We are aware that while we can see the moon, there is also much we cannot see. We cannot see the craters and mountains, we cannot see the dark side of the moon. So who is this God which we name so easily?

The first sentence of our text proclaims; “Some time later God tested Abraham.” and then a little later the command, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering....” Further along in the text we have Abraham’s words, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” It is here in these words that we face the paradox-the mystery of God.

For God is both the author of the dark command- “sacrifice your son as a burnt offering” and the author of the high promise-”God himself will provide.” This is the God who gives and takes away. And in the midst of this tension stands Abraham- the prototype of the person of faith. 

Now to say that Abraham was tested does not mean temptation in the sense of seduction into sin. It is much deeper than that. It arises because God has shown himself differently from the way of the promise. God of the promise is now God the destroyer.

Abraham has been promised spiritual descendants as numerous as the sands on the seashore. If the promise is to be fulfilled, two conditions must be met. Abraham must persevere in faith and Isaac must survive or else there will be no descendants. Abraham then is racked with this dilemma: if he obeys the dark command of God and offers up his son, then God’s promise is null and void. If on the other hand, he second guesses God and preserves Isaac, then God’s promise is null and void since his disobedience signals lack of faith.

So what does Abraham do?

Abraham builds an altar. Abraham arranges the wood, binds his son, and lays Isaac on the altar. Then he picks up his knife and prepares to slay his son. Time stands still. Will he slay his son, will the great human hope become as deadly a destroyer as God? Would Abraham suspend the ethical and do whatever God asks? It is a leap of faith!

Perhaps at the moment of the knife’s descent God through an angel calls Abraham’s name. God has seen enough. Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice is sufficient proof of his faith in God.

Stricken by this story of Abraham and Isaac, the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard could only conclude that “faith begins where thought stops.”

It is a leap in the darkness. It is this tension that each of us face between the dark command and the high promise of God-to take that leap of faith in the darkness which is the mystery of God.

And as a body of God’s people we are living this promise-command tension right now in this very moment and time. In Matthew 10:18, Christ promises that the powers of death and hell will not prevail over the church. This is the promise that we cling to. That is in spite of whatever happens Christ will not abandon us.

Now alongside this promise is Christ’s command to proclaim the gospel throughout the nations. But the command seems to nullify the promise, preventing its fulfillment, for the church in Canada continues to dwindle numerically week by week.

In our time and context, the gospel appears too narrow in this inclusive age. Too sharply defined amongst the calls for pluralism, too specific for those who want generalities and polite opinions. It appears that as we attempt to live by the gospel, we will die by the gospel. It seems that the Gospel command is killing us.

So what are we to do?

Do we second guess God and attempt to ensure that the church will not be steamrollered? Turning to gimmicks, worship as entertainment and surefire techniques that work with other institutions.

Or like Abraham of old do we live with the tension of this paradox of the dark command and high promise. Trusting that God will fulfill his promises even if we cannot see how at the moment-walking by faith and not by sight. Even though our obedience means living in hope.

For those of us who have agonized with Abraham there is only one thing to be done; to take that leap of faith in a spirit of fear and trembling, confident that we will see, in God’s own way the reconciliation of the dark command and the high promise.

THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.