5th Sunday in Lent (Judica) – March 17th, 2024
Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas
Rev. Joshua Woelmer
Text: Genesis 22:1–14
“The Faith of Abraham and Isaac”
Theme: Christ is both the willing son who goes to the altar with faith in God and the ram who dies on the behalf of the innocent.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Promises are a big deal for humanity and for civilization. In fact, I don’t think you can have something called civilization without promises that are in some way enforced. Almost every aspect of our public life is controlled by promises. Presidents and representatives from county to nation make oaths of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. If you go to work for someone, you promise to do work, and the boss promises to pay you. Businesses make similar agreements with each other, and lawyers and courts get involved when promises are broken. Marriages are also founded upon the promise that a man and a woman make to each other.
God’s relationship to his people is based on promises. This is important to recognize as you read the Bible and as you reflect on your life. What promises does God make? To whom does he make them?
In the Old Testament, God promises Adam and Eve that He will send a savior. God promises to Abraham that he will be the father of many nations. This is a particularly important promise, because Abraham and Sarah were not able to have children for much of their life. Yet God fulfilled his promise to them by giving the Isaac, even past their child-bearing years.
What faith does is to trust in God’s promises. Faith is not just some intellectual knowledge about God. The devil knows a lot about God and his promises, but he doesn’t trust in God. Many unbelievers know the Bible quite well, but they misread it. Faith is also not works, for works flow from faith. Faith is trust in God and His promises. Abraham especially demonstrates strong faith as he follows God. He does make mistakes from time to time, having a child through a concubine because he didn’t think that God would make good on his promise for a son. Our Old Testament passage demonstrates great faith for both Abraham and Isaac, and it points us forward to the faith of Jesus as well.
First, what promises did God make to Abraham? Let’s focus on one in particular, “Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him” (Gen 17:19). Not only will his barren wife have a son, but that son will have offspring as well. Abraham laughed initially at this, but he indeed was given a son by Sarah.
The second part of that promise was yet to come. And then, Abraham gets a command that would seem to destroy all of this. God says, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you” (2). What? Didn’t God just give this boy to Abraham? Why is he telling Abram to kill that son?
Here we have what seems to be a conflict between the promise of God and the command of God. God is commanding something that seems to go against his promise. How can a dead boy bring forth offspring? Now, yes, this is a test for Abraham. It’s not a test to actually kill his son though. It’s a test to see what his faith is in something greater: a resurrection.
We get the interpretation for this conundrum from the book of Hebrews: “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Heb 11:17–19).
Basically, Abraham believed that even if Isaac was killed and sacrificed, God must raise him up from the dead to fulfill his previous promise. Now that is some faith. Maybe it can inspire some faith in us for our own resurrection when we are on our deathbed, right?
Abraham’s faith is one thing. Now imagine Isaac’s faith. Because here’s the thing: Isaac was probably about a teenager. The Hebrew word implies a young man before marriageable age, not a little boy. Abraham, by the way, was 100 years old. Let’s just assume that Abraham still had *some* vigor at that age, but still, teenaged boys would take that bet any day of the week, at least to run away, right? Isaac isn’t dumb, of course. He asks, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” (7). Abraham dodges that question: “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (8).
This whole section seems to slow down timewise, like Abraham is waiting for God to interrupt him. He builds the altar and lays the wood in order and binds Isaac and lays him on the altar, on top of the wood. We don’t know when Isaac was told. We don’t know the conversation between him and Abraham about the belief in the resurrection. But it’s clear to me that Isaac is willing to go through it. He allows himself to be bound like an animal. He goes willingly to his death, expecting death and then somehow a resurrection.
If you don’t see echoes of Jesus here, I don’t know what to say. The Bible is just begging you to see these connections. Both Isaac and Jesus are only sons who are beloved. God the Father says as much for Jesus at his Baptism and Transfiguration. Both God the Father and Abraham are willing to sacrifice their sons because of a command, the command of the law. Abraham gets out of it because he is interrupted by an angel of God. God the Father allows his Son to go through with it.
Jesus is a better Isaac in this way because he actually goes through death. But Jesus also knew that he would be resurrected; he prophesied as such three times to his disciples. The knife did not fall for Isaac, but figuratively speaking, it did for Jesus. The law commanded that a perfect sacrifice die for the sin of the people, and Jesus willingly took our place under God’s wrath.
There’s one more image of Jesus. Don’t forget about the ram that was caught in the thicket. On the one hand, he was not as willing as Isaac. He had to be caught by his horns. But he was offered up instead of Isaac. Jesus was offered up instead of you. When you come here on Good Friday and here of Jesus’s suffering and death, know that he took your place. You should suffer the physical anguish that he did. You should suffer the spiritual isolation and condemnation that he did.
We confess as such when we admit in the Confession of sins from Divine Service III: “I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and justly deserve your temporal and eternal punishment.” Temporal punishment is punishment in this life; eternal is in the life to come. But we pray that God “of his boundless mercy and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.”
God is merciful to you and forgives you because of what Jesus has done. Jesus was faithful to Him and the plan of salvation. He, like Abraham and Isaac, approached death knowing what lay beyond. So now you too can do the same. You can approach each day of your life as well as your death knowing what the future holds. Even though you lose loved ones—even though you yourself may be staring at death—you know what’s coming. You will be resurrected. You will see Jesus with your own eyes one day. Faith knows that. It trusts in Him and his promises. What had Jesus promised you? “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). b. He has promised that he loves you. Everyone knows John 3:16, but do you know 1 John 3:16? “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us.”
It’s sometimes a comfort doing something that someone else has done. It’s very hard to be the first one to climb Mount Everest, but how many people have done it since Sir Edmund Hillary accomplished it in 1953? Millions at this point. What about the promises that we make? Many have made the same promises before us, and we all share in that social bond. What about death and resurrection? Many have gone before us who have died. But very few have returned from death to give us hope. Our Jesus has. He invites you to follow him, in life, in death, and yes, in the resurrection of the flesh. Come, let us follow him now and always.
Now may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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