God calls out to Abraham, the man that Scripture designates as God's friend, and Abraham says, "Here I am." Abraham could not have anticipated what his friend was about to do to him.

"It is impossible for us to comprehend the greatness of this trial," says Luther. The Lord God tells Abraham to take his son, Isaac, to Moriah and there to offer him as a sacrifice. On the human level, this command is revolting beyond imagination. The very thought of a father slaughtering his own son chills the very depths of the soul. Yet this is what God told Abraham to do. He was to take his only son, "the son whom you love," and offer him as a burnt offering. We cannot begin to probe the anguish that this divine command must surely have evoked within Abraham. The little boy that Abraham and Sarah had waited on for years is now sentenced to death by God Himself. And the death sentence is to be carried out by the father who loves him so dearly. This young child who had followed his dad in the fields watching him take care of the sheep is now going to trustingly follow his father to a mountain in Moriah and on that mountain he is to be sacrificed.

God's Word to Abraham not only triggered the range of human emotions, but it also put faith to the test. This Word from the Lord puts Abraham in what the Germans call Anfechtung. Everything that Abraham believed was called into question. It surely seemed that this Word of God contradicted everything which Abraham had heard from God up to this point. For God had called Abraham to leave the land of his fathers and He had promised in Genesis 12 to bless Abraham saying: "I will make of you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (12:2-3). Now Abraham must reason within himself, is not God cursing me? How can this horrible command be a blessing? This son whom Abraham is told to sacrifice is Isaac, the bearer of blessing and the child of promise. It was of him that God said to Abraham, "in Isaac your seed shall be called" (Gen. 21:12). If Isaac is sacrificed, does not the promise itself die?

God was testing Abraham. What would Abraham do. Would he curse God and blaspheme His name? Would he make an idol of Isaac and refuse to render him over to the Lord God? Or would Abraham despair? Would he listen to every instinct in mind and heart, concluding that a God who commands child sacrifice is malicious? Will he abandon faith in the promise of God? Abraham is being tested. What will be the outcome of this test? How will Abraham score? How would you do if God asked you to give up that which you love most in this life?

From Abraham's own life we know that his faith was often ambiguous at best. Yes, Abraham did listen to the Lord as He called him to leave the land of Ur and all the comforts that it offered and journey into a new land, a land which God was giving him. However, Abraham did not walk with steps of unbroken trust in the Lord. The Lord said to Abraham, "Look now toward heaven and count the stars if you are able to number them...So shall your descendants be" (Gen. 15:5). Now Abraham and Sarah were childless and the time of child-bearing had long passed for Sarah. So at Sarah's urging, Abraham sired a son by his slave-girl, Hagar. Uncertain that God could give him a son through his 90 year-old wife, Abraham looked instead to Hagar. A son, Ishmael, was born to Hagar but Ishmael was not the child of the promise. Mistrusting the Lord's covenant, Abraham had tried to secure an heir for himself according to the flesh. On another occasion, when Abraham and Sarah were entering into Gerar, Abraham lied to the King, Abimelech, saying that Sarah was his sister. These are hardly examples of trust in God.

But the focus of today's Old Testament Reading is not on Abraham's faith so much as it is on the faithfulness of God who kept His promises to Abraham and through Abraham to us. God did put Abraham to the test, but only to prove His own steadfast love and faithfulness. Abraham takes God at His Word and along with Isaac heads to Moriah.

Abraham has no other consolation than the Word and promise of His God. Martin Luther says, "Thus Abraham relies on the promise and attributes to the Divine Majesty this power, that He will restore his dead son to life; for just as he saw that Isaac was born of a worn-out womb and of a sterile mother, so he believed that he was to be raised after being buried and reduced to ashes, in order that he might have descendants, as the Epistle to the Hebrews states: ‘God is able to give life even to the dead.' Accordingly, Abraham understood the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and through it alone he resolved this contradiction, which otherwise cannot be resolved; and his faith deserves the praise it receives from the prophets and apostles. These were his thoughts: ‘Today I have a son; tomorrow I shall have nothing but ashes. I do not know how long they will lie scattered; but they will be brought to life again, whether this happens while I am still alive or a thousand years after my death. For the Word declares that I shall have descendants through Isaac, even though he has been reduced to ashes'" (AE 4:96).

Confident that somehow God would keep His Word, Abraham prepares to sacrifice Isaac. He builds an altar and arranges the wood. He binds up Isaac's hands and feet, laying him on the wood. Abraham draws the knife and is ready to slice his throat. The Angel of the Lord intervenes, "Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from Me." Abraham looks up and sees a ram caught in the bushes and he offered up that ram in the place of his son.

God provided a substitute for Isaac. It was not Isaac who died on the altar of sacrifice but a ram. Here the Lord prefigures and points to Calvary. There God does not withhold His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, but gives Him up as our Substitute. Like the ram caught in the thicket, Jesus comes into the world to be entangled not in His own sin but in our sin and, with our sin, God's wrath. He is baptized into our death and He drinks the bitter cup of suffering that was rightfully ours to consume. Jesus is the Lamb of God who goes uncomplaining forth not to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. That is what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us; He paid the price of our redemption, purchasing and winning us "from all sins, from death, and the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death." By this Lamb our sins are blotted out, our death is defeated, and our future is made secure. His Supper is the pledge and testament of our rescue. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep and guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.