After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’2He said, ‘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 that I shall show you.’3So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt-offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him (Genesis 22:1-3).
Abraham's
faith is anguished. Here we see that faith is serious business. Abraham not
only has to trust God that God will fulfill his promise to make of Abraham a
great nation, even though the one through whom the promise will be fulfilled
(Isaac) will be killed. As I mentioned on several occasions Abraham and Sarah
tried to take matters into their own hands and fulfill the promise themselves
because they were too impatient to wait on God and perhaps didn't even believe
God would keep his word at certain times in their lives. Now Abraham has to
trust that God will keep his promise even without Isaac, and continue to have
faith even in the midst of indescribable grief as he mourns the death of his
son.
Just as Abraham is about to do what God commands, God speaks and
tells him to relent, "But 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; for now I know
that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from
me.' And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns.
Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt-offering instead of
his son. 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'
(22:11-14).
There
is a kind of pop theology in certain churches which believes that if we have
faith and are faithful, things will always go well in life. So when things go
wrong, these folks wonder if God is punishing them or they don't understand why
God is allowing them to go through their anguish. We come to believe that the
"normal" life is the "ideal" life.
Perhaps we even come to believe that somehow we have a right to a life without
risk, and life without disappointment. Perhaps that view is revealed in our
societies' propensity toward frivolous lawsuits. Perhaps we feel if something
unfortunate happens to us, someone else must always be to blame.
But nowhere does the Bible ever tell us that
faith will always mean smooth sailing. In fact, the biblical writers warn us of
the opposite. They remind us that happenings and events will come our way that
will test our faith. The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that in life there
is a time for everything. We may not want to mourn, but at some point we
inevitably will. We may not want to die, but that too will come our way. We
place our trust in God, not so we will avoid the tough times, but so we can get
through the tough times. And we have to learn to trust God when, like Abraham,
the moments of life make no sense.
.___
From Allan R. Bevere, The Character of Our Discontent: Old Testament Portraits for Contemporary Times (Gonzalez, FL: Energion, 2010).
1 comment:
It is not simply "pop theology" that gives this simple input=output message, as I'm sure you know. It is a strong thread of biblical thought, seen in the Levitical codes and much of the wisdom literature (especially Proverbs and some Psalms). Scripture also has an astounding way of being self-critical though, in the prophets, some of the Psalms (especially lament), and especially in Job and Ecclesiastes.
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