Imagine for a moment that you were born in the year 1557 in London, England. And that somehow you were frozen on your 30th birthday, kept in storage until the year 2006 when you were found, shipped to America, thawed out, and revived.
You would have no choice then but to acclimate to your surroundings if you wished to survive. Think about the barriers.
First of all the Language.
You speak perfectly good Elizabethan English, and many of your words correspond with modern American English, however words like, data, television, Kleenex, automobile, telephone, are new too you. And some meanings have changed. The words Battery , nunnery, abuse have changed…and then there are words that arent' understood today at all by every day people like, Bodikin, Popinjay, tilth, and the ever popular Roisting.
While some things would seem familiar to you most of life would be foreign and alien to you. In order to understand your surroundings and the people in it you would have to change your language, cultural context, your continuing education opportunities would be endless.
Science would have replaced much if not all of what you perceived was science but was in fact, superstition…
We still use leeches…but blood letting is out….electricity brings light to our nights and space flight is old news… and television…well you should probably stay clear especially if you have cable.
There would be a great divide between your 16th century perception and understanding and the 21st century reality.
We need to keep this kind of cultural and linguistic distance, difference in mind when we consider the Old Testament Reading. We also need to try to understand that we think in Earthly, finite terms, and God's understanding and wisdom are infinite and eternal and many times beyond our comprehension.
I personally cannot think too long on the horror of the story of Abraham's near sacrifice of his first born son. With my 21st century, wisdom and compassion, how can I love a God who would ask something like that of his servant?
The good news is that I do…I do love him and even greater than that bit of news… he loves me…the same way he loved Isaac in today's reading.
Let's take a look at this disturbing part of our Judeo-Christian Heritage.
Abraham had been chosen…chosen by God to father the nation of Isreal. He was chosen because he was a righteous man. He and Sarai his wife of many many years were blessed with a son…a son who came after years of infertility and great age… Abraham was 100 years old….they were so far from child bearing that Sarah laughed when she heard the knews… And God gave them Issac who….on the top of a mountain, bound as a sacrifice…with Abraham poised to take his life and give it to God, gave us a glimpse at the grace, love and mercy of God .
Although it is not popular in today's world to say that God would test someone to this extreme that is, in fact, what happened. Having Abraham follow such a difficult command was a test…just as Job's time of sadness and destitution and misery, was a test, God wanted the people of Isreal, as He wants his church today to witness the faithfulness of the man who had been chosen as our most important forefather…
What is it that we witness?
We witness Abraham following the will of God without question. We witness the event of near sacrifice finding that Abraham trusted God so much that he believed that even such a tragedy would bring about good somehow….I hold on to this after events like the Tsunami or Katrina…or even the death of a loved one.
· God's will is perfect, but it is not always painless.
We also witness, and I think more importantly, the grace of God. At the point at which we think that there is no turning back….at the point of greatest apprehension, tension, and terror…. Abraham, with knife raised to Isaac, we hear present God's words …" Abraham, Abraham, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him….I know now that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.
And God the Father allowed Abraham to continue in his worship be providing a ram to be sacrificed instead…. a worthy replacement…so much less to ask for…but enough for God…that is grace.
God wanted us to see and know that we will never have to sacrifice our own or even our selves to gain redemption…to gain salvation…for that is God's job.
We also see later that God the Father, knowing what we know now about the emotional agony, that even the thought of that kind of sacrifice brings to his people… that God would do for us what he wouldn't ask of us…. for us…his Son would become a sacrifice in our places….What I still have trouble with…is that even his disciples could not make the connection, not even when they heard it from Jesus' own lips.
I'm going to Jerusalem, they're going to kill me and three days later…I'll return…
His disciples had heard this before….Jesus had been preparing them…by telling them the truth by the way….for weeks now.
My ministry is almost over, I'll die soon at the hands of those in Jerusalem and then in 3 days I'll return….
Peter could not take this…it was too much for him…even after seeing the glory and mystery of the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain…even after his short stint as a water walker…even after all of the miracles and healings he's seen Jesus do he could not hear all of what Jesus was telling his 12.
\n \nI\'m going to have to die….and 3 days later I\'m coming back.\n \nPeter could only hear the human part of that sentence. \nHe\'s going to die…what we have here is over…my friend, my teacher is going to die….no I won\'t have it…\n \nJesus I won\'t let you go!\n \nAfter all…the messiah had work to do. The Hebrew understanding of the Christ was that He would vanquish the oppressors (in this case, the Roman Empire) and set \nIsrael up on high. The understanding of all of the messianic prophecies did not involve the shameful execution of the savior next to two criminals… it did not include short ministry… and humiliation.\n The glory they expected was not the Glory that Jesus had in store for them. \n \nHuman understanding of what Jesus should do and Heavenly understanding of what triumph really is are sometimes at odds with eachother.\n Thankfully our creator will winout when we falls short.\n",1]
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I'm going to have to die….and 3 days later I'm coming back.
Peter could only hear the human part of that sentence. He's going to die…what we have here is over…my friend, my teacher is going to die….no I won't have it…
Jesus I won't let you go!
After all…the messiah had work to do. The Hebrew understanding of the Christ was that He would vanquish the oppressors (in this case, the Roman Empire) and set Israel up on high. The understanding of all of the messianic prophecies did not involve the shameful execution of the savior next to two criminals… it did not include short ministry… and humiliation. The glory they expected was not the Glory that Jesus had in store for them.
Human understanding of what Jesus should do and Heavenly understanding of what triumph really is are sometimes at odds with each other. Thankfully our creator will win out when we falls short.
Poor St. Peter had a worldly understanding of Jesus' mission, even with constant exposure to His teachings. Jesus told his disciples over and over what was what, what would happen, what God expected and how death would not hold him…but until he walked into the upper room, fully resurrected…Peter could not see the light. Peter was like you and like me.
We understand why Jesus had to die… We have 2000 years of hindsight, church teaching and our 3rd grad Sunday school class to assure us of Jesus' mission in this world.
And we may look to Abraham and Isaac and this very disturbing story with concern… with confusion….until we understand the message waiting for us in the entire word of God, the whole Bible.
God the Father, was not willing to let Isaac die to atone for sin, because Humanity can never hope to bring about its own salvation…it takes more than who we are. It takes someone from outside of the limitations of this world. It takes the hand of the one who made us in the first place.
Abraham knew that, he trusted in God's will. Peter was slower to get on that bus…like many of us…God's reality seemed to impossible…too mysterious…too much unlike what we would plan for.
The lesson of Abraham and Isaac is the lesson of Grace…a lesson that leads us straight to Jesus.
That despite our inability to grasp the vastness of God's plan, OUR sins our washed clean if we but believe on him and repent. By faith in Christ it is OUR debt that is paid andthat OUR eternal futures that are secure. Isaac didn't have to die.
God provided as substitute ram for Issac. We don't have to die…God provided his son as our savior, as our replacement to die for us and wipe clean our falleness and sin.
That is the message of the Gospel…that is what St. Paul made sure he told the Christian church in Rome…. that in Christ there is no separation from God….the gap is bridged. No sacrifice is needed, only faith. No extreme penitential behavior or act is required to save us…only faith in Jesus Christ who was the lamb that was slain… because God was For Abraham…He was For Isaac.. He is For Us…He wants us with him!
And Paul continues, "If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
And he goes on to bless us by saying For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In our own Lenten devotion, it is important to keep that connection…that bridge through Christ to the Father in mind. For it is not our Lenten behavior that connects us to heaven. It is not our Lenten sacrifices that save us. It is our Lenten devotion to Christ that allows Him to connect us, to forgive us, and to bless us.
The sacrifice has been made for us….we just have to say Yes Lord, I believe You are the Son of God and we leap the chasm...
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