Thoughts about Abraham and Isaac
Submitted by Ford Prefect on March 17 2000 19:01:25
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For about a month now, I've known I'd have to speak to the kids this weekend about the story of Abraham and Isaac. I was close to giving it amiss and concentrating only on the story of the transfiguration that is paired with it this week. It's not that I thought the story too scary, kids often seem to like the gory stuff, but that I had difficulty myself in reconciling the image of God I'd heard portrayed by other people telling this story with the image I've come to accept. Specifically, the idea that God was simply giving Abraham a hard test to be sure of his loyalty was one I couldn't really believe. Why would a supposedly omnipotent God need to be so harsh, just to "find out" if someone loved him. Sounds like a pretty insecure God to me! Rather, I think God was giving Abraham an opportunity to test Him. After all, hadn't God promised to make Abraham's descendants as numerous as the stars? How could that happen if Isaac were killed at an early age? I can imagine (and that's all I'm doing here) that Abraham was thinking, "OK God, you've done some pretty wonderful things and have fulfilled some pretty remarkable promises so far.....based on that, I'll trust you to carry out this one too, though I don't see how you can do it." Then the rest of the story falls into place (at least for me). The point now being that God fulfills his promises, even when circumstances would seem to make it seem impossible. In the transfiguration, a promise was being made more clear to both the man Jesus and to his friends. The events that took place shortly after that made the promise seem truly impossible, especially Jesus' death. And yet, the promise was still fulfilled. Jesus trusted God all the way....even though his friends were unable to....yet even they (and we) were eventually able to see God's ultimate fidelity and be emboldened by it. I think this certainly applies to us who frequent this board. Our fulfillment certainly seems impossible....yet I believe it will happen. ---Ford |
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