Even when things didn't make any sense, Abraham had faith.
Not “I believe because–” but simply “I believe.”
Go to the mountain that I will show you. Take your son. Take firewood. Take a knife.
Not as happy a portent though entirely as strange as when the command was, Go to a land that I will show you and I will make you the ancestor of nations. And all nations will find their blessing in you.
Not as happy but at least as strange. What did Sarah think as she waved goodbye to her husband and son? She had seen him send Hagar and Ishmael away. What was he doing with Isaac?
We are going to a distant mountain, that God will show me.
Trust me, I’ll be back? We will be back? He could make no such promise. Just, trust me. I have to go. I have to do this thing, I have to do what God commands.
And what is required of thee O man? To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God? And how does this fit into that?
Perhaps, we hopefully conjecture, God simply wants to show the progress of mankind from human sacrifice to the sacrifice of other animals. After all, they did it in the Iliad. Why not us? Though come to think of it, those soldiers mostly feasted on what they put to the knife. We can hardly expect Abraham - and Sarah? - to do that.
No, this is beyond that, beyond human comprehension. It does not make sense, really, not in any human way. The command is absolute: ultimate and strange.
And Abraham sets out.
He takes the boy, and the wood, and the knife. And he goes to the far mountain.
There he stretches out his hand, takes the knife - and …
And what? An angel, a messenger of God, stays his hand. Wait, look around you. There is an alternative. God provides.
Perhaps the message is this: have faith, God provides.
God provides. Over and over in this passage that message is repeated. And it fits what has gone before. And what continues. From the moment of departure from the land of his family, Abraham has put his faith in God and God provides.
Abraham travels a strange way, a long way, a journey down and up again from Mesopotamia through Syria and down through Canaan to Egypt and back at last to the land of promise. Indeed, the place Abraham lands at last is called Beer-sheba, in Hebrew, well of the oath. Promise fulfilled. Oath kept.
So was his faith well-placed? Was it worth it?
So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”
The story continues in Genesis 22:15-19: The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.” So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beer-sheba, and Abraham lived at Beer-sheba.
And they all lived happily ever after. Was it worth it?
Certainly when they got back to camp, Sarah, who now goes unmentioned until she is dead and buried, and mourned by father and son, must have been relieved to see them. What ever had they been up to? Did they tell her? What would Isaac have said to her?
And what did he think, all along? Kierkegaard says that he lost his faith on the mountain. I don’t read it that way, but he does seem to have played the innocent. And not only here: at the end of his life he will be bamboozled into giving Jacob his blessing.
Okay, Dad, I’m coming. Wow.
No wonder he missed his mother. Even though Abraham gave all he had to Isaac --except for the gifts he gave the sons of his concubines as he sent them away (25:5, 6).
***
Abraham had faith, even when the promise no longer made any sense.
He was old, and his wife was old. Thinking perhaps that it was the way to keep the promise, he had a son by Hagar. But that’s not it. Sarah bore him a son, in her old age. But that’s not it. That is not enough. He must sacrifice that son, the only son he loved. God commands.
God commands. Abraham obeys. Abraham trusts. He keeps the faith. God provides.
Somehow there will be a way through this.
No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
Maybe that’s it?
Maybe not.
Maybe it is as radical as it claims to be. It is beyond reason that faith begins.
And sometimes, we admit, life does not make sense. Things happen to us, awful things.
But here is something unreasonable that happens, not just to us, but because of us.
Abraham obeys. And he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3) And he became the ancestor of all who believe – and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them (Romans 4:11b).
Obedience.
Beyond obedience with any hope for himself was this sacrifice. For Abraham it was giving up what he held most dear, what he loved more than his own life itself.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
Is that what is happening here? Is Abraham becoming the ancestor of nations by giving up his right to be a father on his own terms?
He gives up. And God gives.
Not gives back. Don’t throw your car keys in the collection plate, hoping for a Ferrari in return.
God provides. First, last, always. Can we trust that?
Perhaps only as we become children of Abraham, children of the faith of Abraham. He becomes the father of faith, the first ancestor of all people of many nations who have faith.
We find righteousness, our right place in the universe, by receiving God’s providence.
Not by works, lest anyone should boast. But just by trust. By faith. Incomprehensible, and all comprehending.
***
“So, either there exists a paradox, that the single individual, as the single individual, stands in absolute relation to the absolute, or Abraham is lost.” – Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (1843). Bruce H. Kirmme, trans. New York: Liveright, 2022. 145.
JRL+
28 June 2026
Fifth Sunday after PentecostProper 8
| Track 1 | ||
| Genesis 22:1-14 Psalm 13 Romans 6:12-23 Matthew 10:40-42 Even when things didn't make any sense, Abraham had faith. |
