Mount Moriah

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death” (Hebrews 11:17-19).
In our ears, the story of God’s command to offer Isaac as a sacrifice is laced with ethical problems. How could God ask this? There's much in this story, told in Genesis 22, that will leave any thoughtful reader with questions, or that seems downright unspeakable. But the spare, skillful narrative points the way to its beating heart.
The story is structured in three cycles. Three times, there's a summons to Abraham - first by God, then by Isaac, and then by the angel of God. Three times, Abraham's tender answer: "Here I am" (Genesis 22:1, 7, 11). Three times, a response. And those three cycles have Abraham's trembling reassurance to Isaac at their rhetorical center: "God himself will provide" - literally, "God himself will see to it."
This is what the author of Hebrews draws to our attention. Isaac was the child of promise. Through him, the promise to bless the world, in fact, the promise to repair this sin-polluted creation, that promise would be fulfilled through Isaac. It was God’s word, his promise. Now Abraham is commanded to sacrifice him. A test of faith indeed. God’s promise and God’s command are diametrically opposed to each other.
Abraham is now a man of faith. This is God’s problem to solve, not his. So, he goes to the Mount with his son. When Isaac askes, “Where is the lamb?” Abraham simple responds, “God himself will provide.” After God provides a ram for the sacrifice, Abraham names that mountain: Jehovah Jireh, "The LORD will provide."
The church father, John Chrysostom noted that Genesis 22 is a "sketch ahead of time in shadow" for how God would one day provide for the putting right of God's whole world, once and for all. I think he was right. God said to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love” (Genesis 22:2). Later, at Jesus’ baptism, God speaks again saying, “This is my Son, whom I love” (Matthew 4:17). Eerily similar words - a sketch ahead of time in shadow.
This dark story, in the end, foreshadows another journey taken untold centuries later. Jesus of Nazareth - Son of Abraham, and Son of God - would walk into that same mountain range, with wood on his back, and make the dreadful three-day journey into death. These are the lengths to which the divine Love would go for the sake of the world.
Abraham’s son was spared death. But God did not spare his own son. Isaac knew not what lay ahead. Jesus did. He willingly took up his wood; he went willingly to the altar of the cross; he willingly offered himself unto death. But death could not hold him. Abraham was right - God can and will raise the dead.
Can we trust God in the face of a bleak future? Is God anywhere to be found when we're walking in darkness? Is God at all present in the horrors of human life? The empty cross and the empty tomb are the answer. The light has pierced the darkness. The promise of God is that someday, there will only be light, nor more darkness. With faith in that promise, we walk hopefully in the dark of our Mount Moriah.
As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you: wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness: protect you through the storm. May he bring you home rejoicing; at the wonders he has shown you. May he bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.