After the Abraham and Abimilech story we looked at last week, Genesis 21 returns us to the unfolding of some major events in Abraham’s life.
There is good news: Sarah gives birth to Isaac – the son of God’s promise and proof that nothing is too hard for the Lord. Then there is bad news – Abraham must send away his son Ishmael, trusting God to provide the care he would prefer to bestow as the boy’s father.
In contrast, the balance of the chapter seems mundane – Abraham negotiates well rights with Abimelech.
But the main thing that happens to Abraham is not recorded directly in the narrative. Instead, we learn from Genesis 22 that Abraham’s faith has taken a giant leap forward.
Genesis 22 is the story of the “binding of Isaac” – the “test” that God gives Abraham that measures for the Patriarch – but mostly for us – how far his trust in the Lord has come.
To us, the test is unthinkable. God asks Abraham to make a burnt offering of his son Isaac – the son of the Lord’s own promise. The behest makes no sense to us on several levels. Why would God ask Abraham to undo what had taken so much of God’s mightiness to accomplish? Moreover, why would the Lord instruct Abraham to commit such a reprehensible act?
Abraham is not so far removed from our sensibilities that these thoughts didn’t occur to him.
But he also had a longstanding relationship with the Lord that had prepared him for God’s unpredictable, out-of-the-box solutions to seemingly impossible problems.
So, he gets up early in the morning of the next day and begins to carry out the Lord’s bidding. When they arrive at the place God has chosen, he tells the servants, “Wait here, until we return” (Genesis 22:3-5).
When Isaac queries him about the animal for the sacrifice, he answers, “God will provide a sheep” (Genesis 22:8).
And God does. Though Abraham has bound his son and lifted a knife to his throat, an angel interrupts and delivers a ram to take Isaac’s place.
In the Garden of Eden, the Man and Woman do not get in trouble with God merely because they broke a rule. Rather, they knowingly rebelled against God – thinking they could be their own gods. Abraham here demonstrates the reversal of that divine rejection – not because he is blindly obedient to God’s commands but because he trusts that following the Lord will lead to the best possible result.*
It’s what happens when we let God be our Lord, and we embrace our own role as beloved human.
Our trust in God must cover for the times when life doesn’t make sense, when we’re called to make scary and costly sacrifices in order to give God room to act. Faith believes that no matter what the circumstances look like, God wants what’s best for us and can orchestrate an outcome better than any we could ever dream up (Jeremiah 29:11).
* The author of Hebrews supposed that Abraham had surmised that God (for whom nothing is too hard) would have raised Isaac from the dead, if Abraham had killed him (Hebrews 11:19).
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