we will come back

Sunday June 26th, Genesis 22: 2 The LORD said, "Go get Isaac, your only son, the one you dearly love! Take him to the land of Moriah, and I will show you a mountain where you must sacrifice him to me on the fires of an altar." 3 So Abraham got up early the next morning and chopped wood for the fire. He put a saddle on his donkey and left with Isaac and two servants for the place where God had told him to go. 4 Three days later Abraham looked off in the distance and saw the place. 5 He told his servants, "Stay here with the donkey, while my son and I go over there to worship. We will come back." Isaac was the progenitor of the Hebrew people who were called to bring the message of God and God’s love to the world. He was the manifestation of God’s promise to Abraham. It starts with Isaac being brought to sacrifice in the land of Moriah. Some think that Moriah has something to do with the temple mount or the foundation of Solomon’s temple, but many dispute this. Human sacrifice in worship was not out of the question at the time in history, and if a god was really God, well then, the price had to be paid to this greatness. So when Abraham is asked to do this, the deed is not really questioned, and Abraham did what a mighty powerful god would ask of his devoted subjects. There are many parallels with the story of the crucifixion of Jesus, the only son, the reference accepted by some of Moriah being in Jerusalem, the ride in on a donkey, the servants staying behind, the early morning and the three days. In both stories, the unexpected happens and instead of the story being life denying, it is life affirming. God is always moving humanity toward life affirming experiences rather than life denying experiences. We on the other hand tend to put our energies into building bombs and other life denying projects. What do you support in this world, life affirming or life denying? As the children of God we are always called toward the life affirming and living on the edge of miracles.