Yes, We Have to Talk About This Story

Genesis 22:1-3 – Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

Then God said, “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.”

We can’t talk about Abraham without talking about this awful story.  I encourage to go read the rest of Genesis 22, but the quick summary is that Abraham obeys God by taking Isaac to the appointed mountain and gets ready to sacrifice him.  God stops him at the last moment and promises him to reward him for his being willing to obey this terrible command.

There are so many troubling aspects to this story – problems that I cannot and will not explain away.  Why would God ask such a heinous thing?  Why was Abraham willing to do it (full disclosure, I wouldn’t)?  Why is God’s “reward” for Abe’s obedience the same thing that he had already promised multiple times before?  These are just some most glaring problems with digesting this story.

So you may ask, “Eric, if you have no intention of explaining this story, why the heck did you even bring it up?” 

Here’s my reply.  The reason I bring it up is to point out what Karl Barth called the “wholly otherness” of God.  God can not be fully explained and /or domesticated.  There will always be things about God that causes us to want to walk away because we cannot fit them into a neat, tidy, nicely-wrapped God package.  God is “wholly other,” meaning that we will never get God into a manageable and predictable box.  This story is one of those stories (there are many others) that remind us of that.  It creates questions that cannot be answered in this life.  It reminds us that faith, trust and obedience aren’t produced by having all our questions answered.  God can be wholly other and wholly trustworthy at the same time.  The witness of this story is that God is both – wholly other AND trustworthy.

So trust God even though there are unanswerable questions.  That’s what Abraham did.  It worked out for Abe and it will work out for you and me.  We will not always understand God, and at times, trusting God may be terrifying.  But I have found that God’s otherness has become one of the very reasons that I do trust God.   We’ll talk more about that tomorrow as we finish up our time with Abraham.

For Further reading:  read Genesis 22 – 25:11

Prayer:  God, we confess that there is much about you that confounds us, but help us to trust you anyway. Amen.

Prayer Focus:  Pray for Fathers you know with Fathers’ Day being this weekend. 

Song:  Crowder – Praise the Lord – We’ve used this one before, but it goes especially well with today’s devo.