Tag Archives: Isaac

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God’s timing

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 16-minute message. Or watch the video here on Facebook (the message starts about 25 minutes into the recording). Or read the text summary below.

Psalm 119:105 is a key text for Christian living: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, and a light on my path.” Not only does this verse point us to Scripture – the Word of God – as the source of light in life, but it also tells us something important about how God reveals Godself to us: in small increments.

We think of a lamp or light as a torch, providing a beam of light to shine up a path to see ahead to where we’re going. But the lamp the Psalmist writes about creates just a puddle of light around us – enough to see only the next step. To translate this verse into contemporary times, think of pointing your flashlight down at your feet rather than beaming ahead several meters.

Today’s world is premised on knowing the future and planning strategically and systematically. This is not bad – I do this all the time. But it is not the way God engages with humanity. God points us to a destination but typically does not provide us with the steps.

Let’s look, for example, at the story of Abraham and his descendants. In Genesis 12, God promises that he will make Abraham into a great nation and a blessing to all people. This promise is renewed several times over Abraham’s life. But he has his first child, Isaac, only around the age of 100 years! That’s a long time to wait for the most critical next step to becoming a great nation.

Then Isaac married only at age 40 and had his first son, Esau, at 60. And after Esau sold his birthright to Jacob, Jacob only had his first son, Reuben, at around 80 years. (Making up for lost time, Jacob had his other 11 sons within about half as many years!)

The point here is that there was little sign of God’s promise fulfilled across three generations from God’s promise to Abraham, covering perhaps 200 years. Where are the descents as many as stars in the sky and sand on the seashores? Abraham was given a destination, but he saw only a few steps of this over a very long time. Yet, throughout this time, Abraham was renowned for his deep faith that God was working out God’s purposes in him.

My journey to ordination is not as dramatic as Abraham’s, but it too was long in coming. I became a Christian at age 16, in 1984. Soon after, I began to feel a calling to become a minister. Though it persisted, I ignored it for nearly 20 years. In 2004, the call appeared again with an irresistible insistence. The following year, I started my BTh at TEEC and was licensed to preach. 12 years later, after much adversity, I was ordained deacon and the next year priest. Three years later, in 2021, I was appointed Rector at St Stephen’s. In total, the journey took around 35 years. That’s quite a long time to be journeying towards the fulfilment of a call to pastor a congregation. I knew the destination, but God took God’s good time to make it happen.

Jesus’ parable in Matthew 13 about the seeds sown in different soils tells a similar story. The fruitful crop emerged from seeds scattered on good earth. These seeds had to grow deep roots in healthy, nutritious soil to produce an abundant harvest. It takes time. Plant radishes if you want something quick, though most of us don’t like how they taste! Those who grow fruit trees or olives will know that farming is a long-term investment.

The lesson from these three readings (Genesis, Psalms and Matthew) seems to be that while we may have insight into God’s will for us, for our destination, the path from here to there is often long and opaque. We have to trust God – to trust his Word – that he will do what he says. But we should not expect quick answers.

Romans 8 reminds us that our minds must be governed by the Spirit and that we live in the realm of the Spirit. We do not live on the internet superhighway. We live our lives in the eternal life space of God. And that means being patient and faithful while God takes God’s good time to work out God’s purpose in our lives.

And so, dear ones, as we surrender the whole of ourselves to God, I encourage you to be patient with God and to have faith in God. Give God the space to do what God does best. Remember that the Lord says, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

Featured image from https://antiquesknowhow.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Branded-Antique-Pocket-Watches-1024×864.jpg

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Abraham’s example

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 28-minute message. Or watch the video here on Facebook (the message starts about 28 minutes into the recording). Or read the text summary below.

In last week’s sermon, ‘Hard words’, from Matthew 10:24-39, we heard almost impossible words from Jesus regarding his expectations of how we should live our lives. In particular:

37 Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me;
anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me
is not worthy of me;
38 whoever does not take up their cross and follow me
is not worthy of me.

Despite these words, the take-home message from last week was (1) that God loves us deeply and with great attention to the detail of our lives, and (2) that God wants the whole of us and not just small pieces of us.

Genesis 22:1-18, our reading for today, illustrates what we spoke about last time. Abraham gets an unthinkable instruction from God:

“Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

I wonder what we would do if we got such an instruction from God. Honestly, I would say ‘no’. Just, ‘no’.

We must remember, though, that we know much more about God’s character today than Abraham did. God only began revealing himself to the world in Genesis 12, when he selected Abraham to be his ambassador and to bring God’s blessings to all nations. Abraham was just getting to know God and had little to go on 10 chapters later. But we have the rest of the entire First Testament, plus the Gospels and all the writings of the early church. We have a much greater grasp of who God is and what God would or would not demand of us.

Still, Abraham is committed and so obeys God’s command. He and his only son Isaac start the journey towards Isaac’s sacrifice. Isaac may be a child, but he’s not stupid. He notices that everything for the sacrifice is there except the lamb. Where is the lamb? he asks his father. And Abraham answers, God will provide.

They continue on to the site God had selected. Abraham establishes the altar, lays his son on the wood, and gets ready to kill him with a knife before burning his body as a sacrifice to God. In that final moment, God stops him and affirms his faith. And provides a ram (not just a lamb) to be sacrificed in Isaac’s place. And God renews his original promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 in Genesis 22:15-18.

It is in many ways an unthinkable, dreadful story!

The only real comparison is Jesus’ death on the cross – also a sacrifice on our behalf. But there are major differences between Jesus’ sacrifice and Isaac’s. Jesus was a full and equal partner with God the Father and God the Spirit in working out the plan for his sacrifice of himself on the cross. Jesus went in knowing what he was doing and fully agreeing to it. And he knew the outcome it would produce. Isaac, on the other hand, was kept in the dark about all of this.

I said to my congregation in the sermon that if they believe God is instructing them sacrifice a member of their family, they should come and talk with me first. Seriously! This narrative in Genesis 22 is not the norm.

But it does illustrate the kind of whole-hearted and willing-to-go-to-the-very-end commitment that Jesus spoke about in Matthew 10 last week. Sometimes, God does call us to do something unimaginable, extraordinary, risky, and extravagant. And often, that is precisely what we should do. God does want our whole selves – every piece of us.

Featured image from the 4th Sorrowful Mystery Chapel in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. (https://www.nationalshrine.org/blog/why-did-god-ask-abraham-to-sacrifice-isaac/)