You Want Me to Do What!?!

Introduction

Two deaths of 20 year olds at Calvary

Asked to identify the daughter of one who had been killed. “You want me to do what?” A phone call quickly followed that said I didn’t need to go as a relative said they would go.

I wouldn’t be surprised if all of us here today could reach deep into our memories and remember someone asking us to do something that prompted the response, “You want me to do what?”

If I were Abraham I would have said that to God on a couple of occasions.

Asked to leave his home and go to a land he didn’t know.

Asked to sacrifice his son

I don’t think that I’ve ever preached on this text before. I’ve taught it in Bible classes, but I’ve avoided speaking on it in worship.

This being my last time to preach on this text at Holy Cross I thought I needed to take it on.

Transition: The text begins with the words, “after these things.” To get a fuller understanding of the importance of God is asking Abraham to do we need to go back and look at what these things were.

“After These Things” a Review of Abraham’s Life

Abraham, or Abram as he was known at the beginning, was commanded by God to leave his homeland. He was 75.

God promises to give him a descendent and that all the nations would be blessed by him.

Abraham and Sarah remain childless.

Abraham has a son, his first born son, by Sarah’s handmaid, Hagar. It is a son that he loves. However, he must send Hagar and Ishmael away after Sarah gives birth to Isaac.

When Abraham is 100 Sarah gives birth to a son and he names him Isaac.

It is after these things that God asks Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice. After pain, loss, and joy that God asks him to do the unthinkable, the totally outrageous. Kill you son as a sacrifice to me.

Transition: We need to dig deeper for a moment into the relationship of Abraham and Isaac as told in this story. It builds the tension in what God is asking Abraham to do. Let’s read again verse two. I will read the word order from the Hebrew. “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac.

The Depth of Relationship

God doesn’t simply say, Take Isaac. Tension is built in the relationship with Abraham.

At this point, Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Even though Ishmael had been banished, could it be this son that God would mean.

The term for only son means more than the only son of his mother Sarah, since Ishmael was the only son of his mother too. It is a word of endearment. It speaks of special relationship that Abraham and Isaac had with each other. He was not a young man, an only child.

The Lord says even more, whom you love. I can only think of the ways that Abraham had expressed this love for Isaac in his life.

Notice too extreme measures the author tells us about the relationship between Abraham and Isaac in verse 7, And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” and he said, “Here I am, my son.”

Then having left the two other men they walk on together. If we’re hearing this story for the first time we might be thinking there’s got to be a twist to the story that I don’t understand.

Transition: what happens next is meant to horrify us, and it does. Let’s look at it again: (Read Genesis 22:9,10)

The Depth of Pain

We need to circle back to the beginning of story and remember that Abraham has been walking with God for roughly thirty-five years. He has heard multiple times of the promise that God would make a great nation of Isaac. Isaac is the son of the fulfillment of the promise.

Does it surprise you that there is no recorded protest of Abraham? The writer to the Hebrews in the great chapter on faith says that Abraham believe that God could raise the dead.

In verse 8 Abraham responds to Isaac with the words, “God will provide the lamb.”

At this point we are left to wonder what’s going to happen. Will he kill Isaac. Will God find a way out, or better yet, will God provide the lamb. To be honest with you, most of us, if we were hearing this story for the first time would say, probably not.

I know that we like to see Abraham with the knife over his son, but that’s not the way the story goes. The scripture simply says that he took the knife. And he is stopped. We are relieved that he will not sacrifice his son.

Relief when the story is over, but anger and the questions often come down the road.

And in our questioning of the human dimension of this story, we miss the point. This is not a story about a cruel, mean God, but a God who provides.

How to Make Sense of Being Asked to Do the Impossible.

We can’t figure God out.

God did keep his promise to Abraham

God provided the substitute.

Jesus is our substitute. What’s our substitution all about.

We’re going to die. Death is a reality of this broken world we live in.

Greater than physical death is the death of our relationship with God.

The ram took the death that we expected for Isaac.

Jesus takes the death we deserve because of our sin. In saying this if feels so much like a cliche.

Story of Bob Ducett on Friday. He died, yet he dies in that hope of the resurrection.

Conclusion

Some of you might be really frustrated because the story still doesn’t make sense. Let me go a little further in the story. Did you know that Abraham didn’t die until he was 175? That means that Isaac was 75 when he along with Ishmael buried their dad. We talked about the fact that this story happened after a lot of proverbial water was under the bridge. There was still a great deal of water to flow under that bridge past this event. However, I will bet that both Abraham and Isaac talked about this story often. Both men were still known for their faith in God even after an event that they might not have been able to understand either. Amen