We are staying within sight of Mount Snowdon for a family holiday in celebration of my mother’s 80th Birthday. Mountains in the Bible are often significant as places of encounter with God and I have picked some of these as the basis for our meditations this week, starting today with Mount Moriah - the testing place of Abraham (Genesis 22:1-18).
Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” Genesis 22:2 [NIV]
There is something disturbing about this story – it doesn’t fit in with what we believe about the love of God that he would ask a parent to put his only child to death in a ritual slaughter. We know how longed-for Isaac was, how many years Abraham and Sarah had been childless before they had this precious gift of a Son. Could Abraham perform such an extreme act to prove his allegiance to God?
But this was a test. It wasn’t that God wanted Abraham to kill Isaac, but he wanted to test the extent of his devotion and the extent to which Abraham believed the promises God had made him. You will remember that God renamed Abram with the name Abraham meaning “the father of many nations”. God had promised and everlasting covenant between himself and Abraham and his descendants for generations to come and promised them the land of Canaan (17:7). Just remember, this promise was made to a Babylonian emigrant, 75 years old, childless and owning nothing but his tents and animals!
Abraham and Isaac trekked for three days up the mountain – plenty of time for soul searching – which is what many of us go on mountain walks for. We have no insight into his thoughts and prayers – what would you have prayed in such circumstances?
It is with great relief we see the arrival of the angel to put an end to the testing and the substitution of a ram caught in a thicket for the sacrifice. God speaks through the angel, confirming that Abraham has passed the test – he had withheld nothing from God – and God’s covenant promise is restated that Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and that through him all nations of the earth would be blessed.
For prayer:
What promises has God made us? How can we demonstrate to God that we believe them? What do we value most in life? Could we sacrifice it for God’s sake?
Mairi Mowbray
No comments:
Post a Comment