A Terrible Beauty

Scripture: Genesis 22: 1-14

Sermon: A Terrible Beauty^[1]

Topics: Leaving, Terror, Beauty

Preached: November 24 am 2013 final in Abraham Series

Preamble: Genesis 21 is a remarkably hopeful chapter.

Abraham and Sarah are finally blessed with a child – laughter comes into their lives.

And right after that, Abraham seals a peace treaty with Abimelech.

All seems well. Abraham was promised descendants and land .

By the end of Genesis 21, these promises are beginning to bloom.

Then we have Genesis 22.

Genesis 22:1-14

22After these things God tested Abraham.

He said to him, ‘Abraham!’

And he said, ‘Here I am.’

²He said, ‘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 that I shall show you.’

³So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt-offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. ⁴On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away.

⁵Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.’

⁶Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.

⁷Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘Father!’

And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’

He said, ‘The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?’

⁸Abraham said, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.

9 When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill^* his son.

¹¹But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’

And he said, ‘Here I am.’

¹²He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’

¹³And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt-offering instead of his son.

¹⁴So Abraham called that place ‘The Lord will provide’;^* as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’^*

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

Fleming Rutledge notes that

whenever we open the Bible to read,

in a very real sense,

we are entering a foreign country.

We are travelling in a strange land.^[2]

Few stories in the Old Testament

feel as foreign or as strange to us

as the story we have just read.

It is a disorienting story.

It is a disturbing story.

In order to get our bearings,

in order to try make some sense of it,

we can’t help but ask all kinds of questions.

But the questions we want to ask this story,

are not necessarily the questions this story seeks to answer.

We may want to hear the language of explanation.

But this story speaks

the language of pilgrimage,

the language of faith,

the language of obedience.

LEK – LEKA

Since September we have been travelling with Abraham.

It all started in Genesis 12.

There God calls Abraham.

The Hebrew verb,

the Hebrew imperative

is Lek-Leka – You, Go….

God calls to Abraham:

You, Go….Lek Leka

leave your family

leave your home country

go to the place I will show you.

Now here, 10 chapters and 40 years later

God calls to Abraham using the same Hebrew verb,

the same imperative

Lek-Leka

These are the only two times this verb is used this way in Genesis:

in Genesis 12 and Genesis 22.

Now here, in Genesis 22 God says:

You, Go….Lek-Leka

to the region of Moriah

to the mountain I will show you

take your son

your only son

your beloved

Isaac

and offer him as a burnt sacrifice.

Here are the book-ends of Abraham’s pilgrimage of faith.

First, Lek-Leka –

“You, Go

Leave everything you know.

Cut yourself off from your past.”

Now, after finally receiving this child of promise,

this miracle baby

Abraham hears Lek-Leka again.

“You, Go

offer your son, your only son

and cut yourself off from your future.”

This is more than a family tragedy.

This is a cosmic tragedy.

The promise said that through Abraham’s son Isaac,

and the descendants of Isaac,

the whole world would be blessed.

The death of Isaac would mean the death of that blessing.

So when Abraham is asked to walk the last leg of his pilgrimage,

where is he being asked to walk?

Well, where are you when you are both cut off from your past,

and cut off from your future?

You are nowhere.

You are coming from nowhere and going to nowhere.

And where are you when you are cut off from all blessing

or hope of blessing?

You are in dark Godforsaken place.

This is where Abraham is being asked to walk —

to the wilderness of nowhere;

to the desert of God-forsakenness.

He is being asked to walk to the edge of an abyss of darkness,

and once at that edge…. to keep walking.

TERROR BEFORE BEAUTY

The Old Testament scholar, Claus Westerman, writes that this chapter is one of the most beautiful chapters in the whole Old Testament.

Beautiful?

It is hard to see the beauty because all we can see is the terror.

The philosopher Immanuel Kant thought that a loving and compassionate God would never ask anyone to kill their own child.

This was simply too terrible to even consider.

So whoever Abraham heard, it must not have been God.

This was too terrible a thing to come from God.

The philosopher-theologian Soren Kierkegaard was also disturbed by this story.

He was overwhelmed by the thought of a father agreeing to do this to his own child. This was crazy. Madness. Abraham, how could you have agreed to such a thing?

Kant and Kierkegaard have a point, don’t they?

It does look terrible for God to ask this.

It does look terrible for Abraham to agree to this.

We can’t help but wonder whether grace can live

where God’s commands

seem to totally contradict his promises?

We can’t help but wonder whether faith can live

where obedience

seems to totally snuff out its constant companions of hope and love?

We see the terror of this passage

long before we see its beauty.

BEAUTY OF ABRAHAM’S FAITH

So where is the beauty in this passage?

Well, there is beauty……there is beauty in Abraham’s faith.

He hears the Lek-Leka,

and rises early in the morning

to set his face like flint toward the abyss,

to face the death of all he holds dear.

It is a 3-day journey, sober and silent,

up, always up to the mountains of Moriah.

We have the wrong image in mind

if we see this wrinkled-old Abraham

climbing that mountain as

“the little-old-patriarch-that-could –

With each step saying, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…”

Abraham’s faith is not in himself or his own strength.

He has no strength, but he walks in God’s strength.

He can see no hope, but he walks on in hope nevertheless.

because he believes in

the God who makes possible the impossible,

the God who calls into existence things that do not exist,

the God who can raise the dead.

We see glimmers of that hope when he leaves the servants behind,

And says to them

“Stay here with the donkey.

The boy and I will go over there;

We will worship;

Then we ….we will come back to you.”

We see glimmers of that hope when Abraham then laid the wood on his son’s back.

Isaac said: “Father”

“Here I am”

“The fire and the wood we have, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

And Abraham replied

“I can’t see it.

You can’t see it.

But God will see to it.

God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.”

The faith of Abraham is a beautiful thing —

His faith is the assurance of things hoped for,

the conviction of things not seen.

This faith is a beautiful thing that anchored Abraham to his God.

DEEPER BEAUTY OF GOD’S PROVIDENCE

But there is an even deeper beauty in this passage.

At first, we can’t help but be put off by God asking this of Abraham.

But anyone who knows the Bible knows that redemption comes at a price –

and the price throughout the Old Testament is the price of the first-born.

Here it is the first-born Isaac on the altar —

and at the last moment God provides a substitute:

A ram.

In Egypt, the first-born of Israel are on the altar –

and at the last moment God provides a substitute:

A passover lamb from each family.

In the wilderness, the first-born was again asked for –

and again, God provides a substitute:

the tribe of Levi.

In the Temple, the redemption price is asked for –

and again and again and again

bulls, goats, lambs, turtledoves, pigeons,

all are offered as substitutes.

Until …..until at last.

God said to his own Son,

His only Son,

His beloved Son,

Lek-Leka — You, Go.

And God’s Son went,

down from the fertile firmament above

to the wilderness here below,

to set his face like flint to Jerusalem

to carry the wood on his back

to be bound to a cross

and finally,

to enter that God-forsaken territory,

that abyss of darkness and death.

This time there was no voice from heaven crying, “Stop!”

This time there was no substitute for the Son.

This time he was the substitute for us.

How could God the Father allow this to happen to his own Son?

The philosopher John Thiel writes that a God who would allow

the crucifixion of his own Son

cannot be a just and loving God.

It is just too scandalous!

Yes. It is scandalous.

But that is the scandal of the gospel.

The cross is terrible.

And yet, it is a terrible beauty.

DANNY DEVRIES

One of my first funerals was for a 16 year old boy named Danny.

At age 5, Danny was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

For the next 10 years he lived a life of surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy.

Then at age 15, there was nothing more they could do.

The cancer was too strong.

His body was too weak.

That is when I met Danny.

I visited with him almost every other week for a year and a half.

Those visits made a deep impression on me.

What do you say on visits like this

when you both know Danny is on a road with no future..

He is on a path leading into a territory of emptiness, nothingness, death.

How can you love God,

when it feels like God is trying to kill you?

And yet…. yet Danny walked on.

Just weeks before his death,

Danny came to church in his wheelchair.

With the little strength he had, this 80 pound boy

insisted on standing up and answering questions in front of the whole church:

Do you believe the Bible is the Word of God?

I do.

Do you believe Jesus Christ is your Savior?

I do.

Do you accept the gracious promises sealed to you in your baptism?

I do.

Do you promise to do all that you can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to deepen your commitment to Christ.

I do.

To any visitor in church that day,

it would have seemed strange to see this frail boy

spending one of his last remaining days coming to church

and spending some of his last remaining energy standing up to answer these questions.

But Danny was there to face the precipice,

to face the abyss,

to express a hope that he could not see

and to keep walking in a strength that he did not have.

CONCLUSION

People of God,

Children of Abraham

whether we are 16 or 60

whether we are healthy or frail,

whether we are strong believers or struggling believers,

Eventually our path will also lead to a dead-end.

There will be nothing to go back to.

There will be nothing to go forward to.

There will be nothing but an abyss before us.

When we arrive there,

how will we know —

how will we know not simply in our minds

but know and feel in our guts

that God loves us,

that when all other helpers fail,

when all other comforts flee

that God will be there to hold us, to carry us?

How will we know?

We will know because

of the terrible beauty of the cross.

We will know because

of the one and only beloved Son,

the Father did not spare,

but gave as an atoning sacrifice

for us,

for us.

When our own journey takes us to just such a dark and difficult place

remember

God has provided….God has provided…

1. Title from the W.B. Yeats Poem “Easter 1916” which repeats the phrase, “a terrible beauty is born.” ↑

2. Appreciation is given to Fleming Rutledge’s sermon “The Future of God” for her insights on this passage Genesis 22. See also Arie Leder’s “Bound to the Altar” in Calvin Theological Journal 51 (2016). ↑