190407 Sermon on Genesis 22:1-14 (Lent 5) April 7, 2019

190407 Sermon on Genesis 22:1-14 (Lent 5) April 7, 2019

We are children of Abraham—not genetically—but just as really and truly nevertheless.  Those who have been born again by the water and the Spirit are just as truly born as those who pass through a birth canal.  We are children of Abraham through faith.  We are truly like him if we live according to faith just as he did.

Consider the promises that Abraham believed.  He was called out of his homeland and away from his family to an unknown land where the only thing he had to rely upon was that God said that he would bless him there.  He was promised descendants who would be so numerous that it would be like counting the stars.  Our scientists even today with their high powered telescopes have been unable to number all the stars.  When God first made this promise, though, Abraham didn’t have any children.  And he and Sarah would continue to have no children for 20 years.  Sarah was by this time in her nineties.  The way of women had long since ceased, and even when she was younger she had been barren.  It is remarkable that Abraham believed that their descendants would be as numerous as the stars when they as of yet didn’t have any children at all.

Moses says in Genesis that Abraham lived by faith, and it was credited to him as righteousness.  That is a very important passage for us as his descendants, as God’s people.  It shows what is first and foremost—the fountainhead from which the rest of our life must flow.  Faith says that God is good and reliable and worthy of our trust.  Without faith it is not possible to please God because unbelief says that God is not good and unreliable.  Therefore without faith even the highest, most impressive, and most useful and beneficial works are done in rebellion against God.  On the other hand, when we live by faith our whole lives are sanctified and pleasing to God.  Even giving a cup of water to a child is a high and holy work when it is done with faith.

Abraham lived by faith, but in our Old Testament reading today, his faith was put to the test.  He was given sufficient cause to wonder whether God was good and reliable when he told Abraham to sacrifice his so long awaited son.  This is a test also for us.  What should we say about all this?  Our first impulse is to want to run away from the weirdness and the unsavory taste it leaves in our mouth.  We’d like to find some safety and security—knowing what is right from what is wrong.  Isn’t what God required of Abraham wrong?  Suppose God told one of us to sacrifice our child today?  Should we follow through with this demand?  If not, then what is it that makes us so different from Abraham?

I’m not going to fix this problem for you.  You are put on the spot here, and what are you going to say?  Is God good and reliable and worthy of your trust?  Or is your reason, common sense, and morality better and more trustworthy than God?  Which one are you going to pick?  You can’t choose both.  Either you are right or God is right.  Either you are good and moral and your wisdom is trustworthy, or all your wisdom is foolishness and God can do it better than you ever possibly could.  Faith is not child’s play.  What are you going to say about this God of Abraham that we heard about in our reading today?  Are you for him or against him?

We like to think that our times are so very different from the times of old, but the truth is that things aren’t that different.  At the time of Abraham there were people around him who said that their god was better than Abraham’s God.  Baal or Ashtoreth or some other god or goddess was stronger, wiser, and better, and therefore they were much better off than Abraham with his God.

The same thing happens today.  The world is full of people who look down upon the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  They think that he is immoral or foolish or whatever else.  These people prefer to put their trust in other things for their being blessed besides the God of the Scriptures and they believe that they are much better off for doing so.  They look down upon anyone who would believe in a God who makes the repugnant demands that he does upon Abraham. 

And make no mistake about it: this episode with Abraham is not just an isolated incidence and all the rest of Scripture is easy-peasy for reason to accept.  No.  This God also orders Joshua and the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanite people from the promised land.  In fact, he punishes the people of God for not fully carrying out his demand.  And this is not just an Old Testament problem.  Folks’s distain for Christianity can and will go right to the heart of it: People say that God’s offering up of his Son Jesus was divine child abuse.  Just go to any atheist’s website out there and you will find plenty more stuff about the Bible that people find distasteful.

To be sure the atheists are wrong about God.  God is good; end of story.  But sometimes they are actually more honest about what the Bible says than Christians are.  Christians want to believe in God—perhaps because they think it is one of the rules that have to be followed for someone to get to heaven.  So when they come across a reading like the one we have today or some other portion of Scripture that doesn’t seem to pass the test for good morals or good science or whatever else, it makes them very nervous.  The temptation, then, is to ignore what the Scriptures actually say and make up some other God to believe in that is more attractive and acceptable.  It is as though they are saying: “I believe in God, but let’s not talk about God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son.”  This has the appearance of piety, because it looks like God is being helped out of a tough spot.  People are saying mean things about God, but these champions and defenders cleverly frame the issues so that God no longer looks bad.

But this is not the way that the Scriptures go about things.  Not at all!  I’d like you to show me where anybody in the Scriptures is praised for apologizing for God.  Where in the Scriptures is being embarrassed about God shown to be a virtue?  On the other hand there are a great many examples of God’s people praising him just the way that he is.  This praise often speaks about God overcoming his enemies who think that he is evil, weak, foolish, or whatever else.  It doesn’t matter if these critics are billionaires or presidents or PhDs—he will bind their kings in chains and their nobles with links of iron.  That is from one of the Psalms—a Psalm that says over and over again, “Praise the Lord!”  “Praise the Lord!  He is going to vindicate his righteousness against those who think otherwise of him.”

One of the reasons why we have been given the Psalms is to teach us how to pray, praise, and give thanks.  But—as I’ve pointed out to you on many occasions—the Psalms are kind of a closed book for us.  I used to think that it was because they are poetry and we’re not so used to poetry, but I don’t think that’s the main reason anymore.  I think it is because the way that the Psalmists think is so different from the way that we think.  The Psalmists take sides, for example.  They are on God’s side and whoever is not on God’s side is their enemy.  There is no neutrality. 

This is different from the way that even the most faithful Christians think today.  The way that we think is that we are each our own person and the masters of our own destinies.  Because we are Christians we tend to lean towards the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but we don’t go so far as to tie ourselves to him completely.  If he says or does something that we don’t particularly like, then we reserve the right to go our own way.

This is where Abraham’s example stands in sharp contrast to the way that we go about our faith.  He went “all in.”  There could be no half-measures here, or partial obedience, because otherwise he simply wouldn’t have been willing to do it.  Some people would like to criticize Abraham’s actions, but that is only because they believe in the superiority of other gods.  Abraham believed that God was going to keep his promises.  That’s why before he goes up the mountain he says to the hired men whom he leaves behind that both he and the boy will come back to them again.  The book of Hebrews says that Abraham believed that even if he should kill his son, that God would resurrect Isaac again.  Abraham’s descendants were going to be through this boy Isaac, and his descendants were going to be like the stars, and so it is impossible to Abraham’s godly way of thinking that the boy should not be alive at the end of this test.

And God did not disappoint.  God usually likes to work through more ordinary means, but here he sends the Angel of the Lord to stay Abraham’s hand with the knife.  If there is no other way around it God will indeed send his angels to help you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.  And caught in the thicket was a ram, to be offered in Isaac’s place.  With what joy Abraham must have offered that ram to God instead of his son.  All of this foreshadows so wonderfully the way that Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, will be offered in our place.  In our Gospel reading Jesus says that Abraham “saw Jesus’s day and was glad.”  I wonder if Jesus might be referring to Mt. Moriah where the Lord provided a ram that redeemed his son Isaac.

And so Abraham lost nothing by his faith in the one true God.  He received his son back from the dead, figuratively speaking, and knew that great things were in store for him and his descendants.  God was his and he was God’s, and there was nothing that was going to get in between them.

You also are invited to have this faith of Abraham.  You might think that there is nothing so dramatic and difficult in your life as what Abraham had to go through, and that is partly true.  But it is partly untrue too.

Your faith is put to the test when people want to belittle God or scoff and fight against his teachings.  To stand up against that is going to cost you some friendships, and you might get a reputation.  There are a great many tests where remaining faithful to God might bring about hardship with your business or work.  Abraham’s was an extraordinary test, but ordinary tests are still tests of our faith.  Will we pass them?

And there is also the dramatic test of faith that has to do with life and death for each of us.  What shall we say to that last enemy to be destroyed—death—when it comes knocking at our door?  Will we say, “Well, everybody’s got to go sometime.  I’m glad I had a nice life,” or will we say, “Death, I defy you!  Christ has defeated you and so you cannot defeat me.  Christ is risen from the dead and so I will rise also.  I know that my Redeemer lives!  What comfort this sweet sentence gives!” 

What are you going to hold onto at that hour?  Will you hold onto popular opinions and philosophies about death, or are you going to go “all in” with Jesus Christ?  If you go with the God of the Scriptures then you can be so bold as to mock death: “O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?  You think you are so tough?  Well evidently you have forgotten about my Lord and God Jesus Christ.”

We are given a difficult lesson today with Abraham’s faith.  It is difficult because it doesn’t match up with what we learn elsewhere.  You are not going to learn about this faith by studying anything except the Scriptures.  But it is an important lesson, because faith is at the heart of who we are and what we hope for.  We are children of Abraham, following his example.  He believed and it was credited to him as righteousness—the same is true when we believe.  Nobody is saved from our enemies—from sin, death, and the devil—except through faith.  For it is faith that receives and holds onto the power of God for our salvation—the things that God has done in Jesus Christ to redeem us.