It won’t be an exaggeration to say that this weekend’s first reading is one of my personal Old Testament favourites of all time. Every time I read the story of God asking Abraham to give his son up, I find a personal relevance to the story and find myself more and more convinced that my confirmation name (Isaac, which I picked for quite a shallow reason) was indeed meant for me.
But I think, in the context of our journey together this Lent, reflecting about Abraham is likely to be more relevant than thinking about Isaac. After all, Isaac, a type of Jesus the true sacrificial Lamb, did not really have a choice to live or die; Jesus had the choice, but willingly laid down His life.
Abraham was the one with the difficult decision to make.
What makes a challenge... challenging
Mind you, God was not giving a deliberate demand of Abraham. The Hebrew wording for the text actually implies God asking in a very gentle manner, sort of like, “Please take your son…”. If you ask me, for us who are genuinely seeking to please God, I think that might be a more difficult situation than if God had given a command – “Do this or else!” Abraham would not be punished if he had refused.
He was asked to give up something good for something better, and he agreed. To take your son “whom you love” (Gn 22:2) and offer him as a burnt offering must have been the most difficult thing in the world. And to do it not knowing why he was asked to do this ridiculous thing, and not knowing what good it would bring out, it must be like dying itself. That’s why it was such a “test” – Abraham had to choose: Do your duty as a father by protecting your son, or do your duty as a son by obeying the Father.
God understood that position. He also had to give up His Son, make Him the sacrificial offering. The difference is that unlike Abraham, God knew the outcome. Clearing the sins of the world would not remove all future sin. He knew that a couple of thousand years later, we’d still be rejecting His love and His sacrifice for us. But God still gave Himself to us.
The one Absolute
This was a severe obstacle in Abraham’s faith. And he passed his test. He willingly gave up what was good for what was best. He didn’t know why, he didn’t know the result. All Abraham knew was that if God asked for it, God must know what He’s doing. That alone was good enough.
That's what God is asking of us: to take your favourite snack, your favourite TV shows, favourite everything - things we "love" and to offer them up as sacrifice (burnt offerings?). God's test for us is similar to His test for Abraham - do you love Me more than the things in your life?
If you’re still struggling to give up 15 minutes of your time for the Lord, if you’re fighting to spend a few minutes three times a day in honest prayer, if you’re still tempted to eat more than you need, and to eat meat on Friday, and to forget about saving money for the poor, consider Abraham. He didn’t give up his son because it was demanded of him. He gave up His son because He wanted to please God.
God is the absolute. And because He is absolute wealth, because He is absolute fulfillment and satisfaction and because He is absolute contentment, He is worth us giving up a day worth of meat, or our hard-earned money, or the food that we love.
Your efforts mean something
Part of why we are so blessed today is in part due to Abraham’s act of faith. “Because you have not refused me your son, your only son,” God told Abraham, “I will shower blessings on you … [and] all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants, as a reward for your obedience” (vv. 16, 18).
Know and trust that by our sacrifice and willingness to put God above all our desires, God can and will bless others. Today, by our training our souls to live “on every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Deut 8:3), and by training our souls to depend on God for happiness rather than material things, we become better people living as Christ wants of us – selfless and God-full.
As God promised to bless all nations because of Abraham’s faith, He will bless the world by our actions. If we try whole-heartedly, if we honestly put in effort to be more selfless and Christ-centred, we will become more like Christ. And by becoming more like Christ, we will be Christ to those around us, we will be the blessing to the rest of the world. All that we need is simply to act. Now.
Thanks for sharing. :) I really like this passage too because whenever I read it, I always imagine what I would do if I were Abraham. I admire how he had total trust in God and surrendered his happiness to Him. Honestly, I would probably would have just said no to God. But Abraham's act of faith is consolation that having that type of faith is possiblt by human standards.
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