Lent 5 – March 12/13, 2016 – John 8:42-59 (and Genesis 22)
In the Name of Christ the Crucified +
Isaac
was Abraham’s only son, the only son whom God had given to Abraham
and his wife Sarah in extremely old age. And now God speaks again,
the Word of the Lord comes to Abraham – “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 which I will tell you.”
Imagine, just for a moment, what must have been running through
Abraham’s mind there. God spells out in the command just how much
Abraham loves Isaac, and now, offer him as a burnt offering. And
yet, Abraham goes. He takes Isaac and a few servants and starts out
to Moriah, doesn’t tell them what precisely is going on.
Eventually Abraham and Isaac leave the servants behind, and they head
on their way by themselves, carrying all the supplies needed for a
sacrifice. Well, almost.
Young
Isaac is not stupid – Behold the fire and
the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering.
Abraham has raised his boy well. Isaac
knows how these offerings are done – he’s probably helped his
father before. Where is the lamb, dad? And so, Abraham, walking to
go and sacrifice his own son, hears this question from the son. And
he trudges onward. God will provide for
Himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.
And then they get to the place, and they
build the altar – and then, the father grabs and binds his son –
and Isaac is placed on the altar, and Abraham even has the knife in
his hand to kill Isaac – and then something happens. The
Angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham,
Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay
your hand on the boy or do anything to him.”
Now, imagine what must be going through Abraham’s mind. All the
angst, all the tension, all the strain – gone. Isaac will live –
for there will be another sacrifice. And then Abraham looks up, sees
a ram caught in a thicket – and so Abraham sacrifices it – Isaac
lives, Isaac who was going to die walks down from the mountain along
with his father, knowing the God Himself preserved his life.
Now,
dear friends, do you see and understand why Jesus today could say,
“Your father
Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day, He saw it and was glad.”
Jesus had been in the middle of an interesting discussion with
certain Jewish leaders – and these leaders were getting quite
agitated. They didn’t like what they were hearing from this Jesus.
He had been pointing out their flaws, their sins. He had been
making claims about who He was, He claimed that the one who kept His
Word would never taste death. The leaders thought this was
ridiculous – everyone dies – what is this young foolish Jesus
talking about? And on top of this – Jesus ends up saying that they
are liars, and that in reality, they don’t even know God. You
people today, you are nothing like your father Abraham – Abraham
would have been rejoicing if He saw Me here – I know, because He
rejoiced when He saw me in the past. Abraham rejoiced when I, Christ
Jesus, the Angel of the Lord spoke from heaven and told him to spare
his son Isaac, also your father. You folks here live because I
stopped the sacrifice of Isaac. And the leaders don’t quite get it
yet – they don’t quite piece it together. So Jesus lays it all
out – you don’t know God, because you don’t know Me – Truly,
truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.
I AM. God’s name that He revealed to
Moses from the burning bush – Jesus declares that He is true God,
begotten of the Father from all eternity – and certainly before
Abraham and Isaac were around. And the people listening, they want
nothing to do with this – they take up stones to put Jesus to death
– but Jesus leaves – oh, Jesus will die, but not by a hail of
stones.
They
should have known and seen, these Jewish leaders. Abraham knew –
and they all knew the story of Abraham and Isaac. I bet every one of
them could have quoted Genesis 22 backwards and forwards. What do we
see and learn from Genesis? We learn the consequences of sin. The
wages of sin is death. There is not a one of us here who is
innocent, who is free from sin – from the oldest of us here even to
the youngest. And because of sin, we deserve death.
We kind of
skip over that fact sometimes, don’t we? We think of sin in terms
of not being nice, of making things a bit rougher in our lives and if
we only listened to God and did things his way, the kids would behave
and our jobs would be better and our neighbors would like us better.
Well, that gets part of it – but the wages of sin is death. Each
and every one of us here deserves death – we have sinned against
God Almighty, we have rebelled against Him – and that means we
deserve to die. Isaac – he was a sinful human being, he deserved
to die. God was completely justified in demanding his death. And we
don’t like thinking along those lines – we like to downplay the
consequences of sin – but sin demands death. Isaac’s death would
have been his just deserts – just as ours would be.
But then
the amazing thing. Christ intervenes. Abraham is right when he says
that God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering. God
jumps in, says wait – wait Abraham. I’m not going to require
Isaac’s life of him – I’m not going to take your son. Rather
this – God the Father will provide the Lamb – the Father will
provide His Son, Christ Jesus, and He will with His death take up the
death that every son and daughter of Adam ever, all of them, Christ
Jesus will with His death will take up the death they deserve.
This
is what Jesus is on His way to do when He has this discussion with
these Jewish leaders. He is on His way to the Cross, ready to suffer
and die – ready to be put on a wooden altar of His own, but this
time the Father would not stay His hand – and the Son would die –
the Son would die that you will live. Note something profound –
Your father Abraham rejoiced that He would
see my day. Abraham
knew that Christ would come, would be the one, true sacrifice for all
sin. Because of this, Abraham had what Christ said –
Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone
keeps My Word, he will never see death.
This is our hope – for we know that for us
who have been called by Christ Jesus into His Church, into His family
– death isn’t our end, it isn’t where we end up. Christ died
for us – and so we know that we, on account of Christ, truly have
life – that all of this, all the trials and pains and sorrows we
face in this life – they will yield unto not just the joys of
heaven – but to the joys of the last day when we all shall rise
again, and in our bodies restored – as true human beings, as living
human beings, body and soul united again, we shall have eternity in
the New Heavens and New Earth that we have been promised.
This
is the promise Christ Jesus has sworn to you – this is the vow He
made to you at the moment of your Baptism. Hear Romans Chapter 6; we
cannot hear these verses often enough – Do
you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
have been baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him
by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of
life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we
shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.
There it is, the entire hope of the Christian faith – that because
Christ Jesus died in my stead and rose again – you are forgiven for
His sake, and you too shall rise again and live forever with God.
Promised, signed, sealed and delivered to each of you in the waters
of Holy Baptism.
The wonder of this is
that all of this comes from what God does. We aren’t defined, we
aren’t made Christians by what we sacrifice. Abraham wasn’t
defined by what he sacrificed – rather, God intervenes and gives
Abraham his son back as a simple, free gift. We aren’t defined by
what we do for God. Now, do we do many things for God? Indeed –
whenever we show love to our neighbor, that is done for God. That’s
what Christians do – but that isn’t what makes us Christians.
What makes us Christians is this – that Jesus Christ does what is
required – that God Himself has decided to be your Savior, that He
has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light – that He
will win for you pardon and peace from all your sins. And nothing
will stop Him. Throughout lent His march to the cross has been
unstoppable – Satan will not tempt Him off course, whining
disciples will not prevent Him from showing love, demons hinder Him
not, nor crowds wanting only bread, nor leaders wanting to stone Him
– none of this stops Jesus – He goes to the Cross to win you your
salvation. Because that is who He is – because He is the God who
loves you, the God who would rather suffer in your place, be
sacrificed Himself so that He can claim you for all eternity.
Lent is
drawing towards a close. Next week is Palm Sunday – we will see
our Lord enter Jerusalem to start the service, and in the Gospel
lesson we will hear His passion. Know and learn and remember what
this is. God Almighty is taking your place and going to the cross in
your stead, so that you would have life in His Name. This is His
gift to you, this is His love for you, this is the salvation He wins
for you. In the Name of Christ the Crucified + Amen.
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