Faith of Isaac and Abraham: Homily for Sunday, February 25, 2024

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It is probably the case that we have long gotten the story of Abraham and Isaac wrong.

Faith of Abraham and Isaac

So, this reading we get, the first reading, the story of Abraham and Isaac, is really quite an interesting one. First of all, it’s interesting because if we pay careful attention to it and know the whole story, it took Abraham and Sarah so long to have Isaac as a child in the first place.

Secondly, the way in which we hear the story is probably, or at least the way I’ve heard the story for a long time, is probably not accurate. This is not the story of the little boy Isaac and his old father going up the hill. Isaac is the one who’s carrying the wood for the sacrifice. They’re going to sacrifice, that much Isaac knows.

While there is no clarity as to exactly how old he was, he was probably a young man by this point in his life. That’s going to be important, I think, for a traditional Christian interpretation of this particular story. This story has long been seen, certainly by the Church Fathers, who are an important source of reference as to how the early church understood this story.

This has been seen, this story from Isaiah, as kind of a foreshadowing of the death of Jesus. That just as Isaac carries the wood for the sacrifice, Jesus carries the wood for the sacrifice. Isaac was the intended sacrifice. Jesus is, in fact, the sacrifice. What ultimately gets sacrificed in the story of Abraham and Isaac is a ram, a lamb. Jesus is the lamb of God.

Later we’re going to see in the Passover that it is a lamb that the Israelites sacrifice on the feast of Passover, and we know that Jesus is the lamb of God, the ultimate sacrifice. Now why does all of this foreshadowing matter? Why does it matter that we say these kinds of things?

Because first of all, Isaac would have been at the point in his life where he easily could have overpowered his father. It’s critical in this story to understand that Abraham has deep faith in what God wants, but so does Isaac. Isaac could have refused. He was big enough. He was strong enough. He carried the wood more than likely because his father at this point in his life was probably too old to do so by himself. He probably couldn’t carry it.

So it’s not the case that Isaac was the unwilling victim here, but just as Abraham trusted fully in God at this point in his life, so too does Isaac. Now it’s important because the Church Fathers, and St. Augustine is the one who kind of first said this, or at least I think he was. It may have been something he borrowed from someone else. The Old Testament is revealed in the New. The New Testament is hidden in the Old.

And these readings make sense to us this weekend only if we understand that the Bible is really about seeing the world through the eyes of faith. You know, when I was in the seminary in the mid-80s, there was a, I would say it was somewhat dangerous, but there was a tendency in Scripture studies to simply dismiss anything that was miraculous. And to simply say, “We’ve got to find a logical explanation for what happened.” So the feeding of the 5,000, for example, well, Jesus just inspired people to share.

But what if he didn’t? What if it was a miraculous event? I’m reading N.T. Wright’s book on Paul. I had to start over because it was so long since I’ve gotten about halfway through and then I put it aside, then I started over. But the question that he raises is, what if there isn’t a psychological explanation to what happened on the road to Damascus, to St. Paul? What if, in fact, it was something that was really miraculous?

You see, because if we don’t see the world that way, then it’s hard really to believe what Paul says in the second reading. If God is for us, who can be against us? If there are simply logical explanations for everything that goes on, is God really that much better or protector than any other human thing I can experience in this world?

Or is there something deeper, something better, something more wonderful? See, this is what then helps us to understand the Transfiguration, which is always the second Sunday of Lent. You get a different account of it. Because this more than likely is some really outstanding event. And why? I think it is more than likely a part where Jesus in his humanity needed some assurance he was on the right path, and the disciples too needed some assurance that Jesus was the Messiah.

There was no consensus about exactly what the Messiah would be, but there was a general understanding that it was more than likely going to be someone like King David, who was going to lead the Israelite people into battle, and he was going to restore the political rule to the Jewish people. Well, we know that that didn’t happen. In fact, just the opposite.

Things got worse, if you’re looking at mere political realities. Not only were they under the control of the Romans, ultimately they lost the Temple altogether because some tried to revolt against the Romans. It was bad. Jesus was a different kind of Temple. And this is then the ultimate point that we need to consider when we talk about what happens when we come to Mass.

See, for the Jewish people, the Temple was the place where heaven and earth came together, where they were able to see in their earthly lives the heavenly presence of God. And when the Temple was destroyed, they simply recognized that the synagogue service, their prayer, their way of life was the way in which heaven and earth came together.

For us as Christians, this is the place where heaven and earth come together. This is the place where we, every Sunday, experience the Transfiguration. This is the place where we see that the earth, while wonderful, while our lives are wonderful, this is not our final destination.

And I’m going to be honest, thanks be to God, it isn’t. Because it’s kind of a mess. Have you looked around, really? We’re fighting each other physically and violently all over the world. We still haven’t figured out how to make sure that everyone has enough to eat or a place to live. There’s still brokenness in relationships. We still cheat one another. We betray one another. If this is all there is, can we really say, if God is for us, who can be against us? Or is there something more?

And is that not the purpose of our Lenten season? Through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, is it not the place that we can say, because of what we do here, when people come to experience us, let’s say at the fish dinners, they experience something wonderful and tremendous. They’re reminded that there are people who are committed to each other and who are welcoming and who are kind in the midst of a world that is not always. But it goes even deeper than that. When we come here, we come to experience the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And that, indeed, is someone worth listening to.

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