After These Things

​1st Sunday in Lent – B                                                                                               LSB #’s 424, 547, 702
Text – Genesis 22:1a
 
After these things God tested Abraham & said to him, “Abraham!” 
 
AFTER THESE THINGS
 
 
Verse one begins in an innocuous, understated manner.   Opening with similar words, we might say, “After these things we went grocery shopping.    After these things, I cleaned the cat’s litter box.  After these things, they dusted the furniture & washed the windows.” 
However, when Genesis 22 begins in such an innocuous, understated manner,    you would never guess what kind of emotional torture is coming.  Still, the words of Moses painting this picture reveal no distress on the part of Abraham at all.    Even Isaac speaks not the slightest rebellious word, nor does he make the least rebellious move. 
The contradiction between the mundane opening words & the climax of Abraham taking the knife to slaughter his son is so far beyond the normal events of life that we strain to grasp it.  People at the parade for the Kansas City football team faced a similar contradiction this past week as they were celebrating victory one moment & running for their lives the next. 
Yet, in almost all of those situations, you end up hearing someone say, “We never thought it could happen to us.”    Because of sin, life is filled with contradictions, but most of them are minor so we learn to completely ignore them.  When we are struck by a contradiction as difficult as the one in the OT reading, it can shake us right to the core. 
God had promised Abraham & Sarah a son, through whom Messiah would be brought into the world.  After that son is born, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to the Lord as a burnt offering.   And Moses begins writing about this monumental contradiction in a very understated manner, “After these things…”    So, what are those things? 
Abraham was called out of his home country to a place that God will show him.   Years
later, God promises a son for Abraham & Sarah.  Years after that promise, they grew tired of waiting & Abraham fathers a child with Sarah’s servant.  That turns into a disaster for everyone.  Next, Abraham intercedes for Sodom & Gomorrah, but not even 10 righteous people live there.  So God sends two angels to rescue Lot & his family, & the cities are destroyed by sulfur & fire.
Finally, Isaac is born after 25 long years of unfulfilled promise.  Then, Sarah tells Abraham to get rid of Hagar & Ishmael.  He does & God provides for them.  Next, Abraham makes a treaty with the Philistines & lives peaceably in their land for many days.  Things finally looked like they were settling down to a comfortable routine. 
“After these things God tested Abraham & said to him, ‘Abraham!’  And he said, ‘Here I am.’  He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, & go to the land of Moriah, & offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.’”  (Genesis 22:1-2 ESV)  Abraham’s trust is weighed in the balance against common sense & human affection. 
Though not as dramatically, God has also weighed your trust in Him against common sense & human affection.  The simplest examples involve Sunday morning.  God commands us to remember the Sabbath day & keep it holy, & He expects that we will give not just our time but also our money to God’s church. 
In both cases, our trust in God is weighed against common sense.  The latter tells us, you don’t have to go to church, & there are many other worthwhile things that can be accomplished instead of sitting here on Sunday morning.   Common sense also reminds us that giving money to God’s church means we’ll no longer be able to spend those dollars on our wants & our needs. 
 Do you trust God with your time & with your money?   If not, how can you trust God with your life?   Would you be able to trust the life of your only son to God?   In 25 years of ministry I’ve done a lot of sessions of pre-marital counseling & the couples have always been ‘in love.’  Generally speaking, the women are most always connected to a church & commonly the men are not.  As long as they are still ‘in love’ it doesn’t matter, but once the honeymoon is over, having married someone who is not committed to Jesus Christ seldom ends well.   Not trusting God with whom you marry can bring a whole lot of heartache.    We’ve all seen it. 
Just because a person says, “I believe in Jesus,” does not mean they can be trusted in a complicated & long-term relationship like marriage.  It’s helpful to test their belief in Jesus by watching to see they trust Jesus with their time, their money & their life.   If they don’t trust God with those things, they will hardly trust God with their marriage vows. 
God tells us that He loves us, & He wants us to love our neighbor as ourself.  Then the marriage relationship gets difficult, maybe health & employment issues crop up, addictions come into play.   God asks you to sacrifice your wants & desires for the needs of your spouse.  You thought marriage was about love.  Then you find out that it’s about death. 
God, who formerly seemed to be your best friend, now appears to have become an enemy & a tyrant.  It’s a similar contradiction to what Abraham faced.  He thought his relationship with his son was about love.   Then God commanded him to put that son to death.   God, who formerly seemed to be Abraham’s best friend, now appears to have become an enemy & a tyrant. 
Surprisingly, Abraham obeys the command of God.   Would you?       Do you?         Have you found that,   just when you think you’ve finally got things settled down to a comfortable routine,   God seems to come along & throw everything out of balance?   
Whatever the problem is, whatever the test may be, Satan comes along with, “This cannot be God’s will!”   You need to bail out, jump ship.   Take Sunday mornings to get the work done around the house.    Church will go on without you.   Spend that church offering on new car tires instead.     Divorce is no fault now, just like car insurance!   And what makes us so agreeable to Satan’s temptations is that we just cannot fathom how corrupted we are by sin.  You & I have never known anyone who was holy.  We have no experience to compare our sinfulness to except that of other sinful creatures.  
That’s why so many people have trouble with the confession of sins we spoke earlier, “I, a poor, miserable sinner…”  While we’re saying those words, hasn’t the thought occurred to you, “Well, I’m not all that bad.”?     You see, even in the very act of publicly confessing our sinfulness, we still cannot really fathom how corrupted we are by sin. 
That corruption is hidden deep in the depths of our heart & soul.  Sin is part of the very fabric of our being.  Sin is not just something we do.  Sinful is what we are.   And once the Holy Spirit creates that saintly nature within us, then we are 100% saint & 100% sinner.  By definition all Christians are a contradiction in terms. 
If all God does is give you good things you will rot in your sinfulness.  So God tests me in order to reveal to myself what is hidden in my heart – the depths & the depravity of my soul.  God tests all of us in order to crush the head of the serpent within us.    That is complicated,   painful, & even frightening as we come face to face with that poor, miserable sinner within. 
But there, by God’s grace, we also see the depths of Christ’s love for us, & what our heavenly Father was willing to sacrifice in order to redeem us.   Jesus has purchased & won you from all sins, from death & from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood, & with His innocent suffering & death, that you may be His own. 
“After these things… Abraham reached out his hand & took the knife to slaughter his son.”  (Genesis 22:1a, 10 ESV)  But there, by God’s grace, “…the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven & said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know
that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”  (Genesis
22:11-12 ESV)   The trials of Abraham have been set before us that we may be encouraged in our own trials.  Just as it was for Abraham & Isaac, no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard, no mind has ever conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.  (1 Corinthians 2:9)  Yahweh does not test us out of cruelty, but out of love, that we might be purified for heaven. 
As James wrote in the Epistle reading, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him.”  (1:12 ESV) 
When tested by God we are confronted with this question.  Do we regard our Creator as a convenient means to fulfill our wishes,   or are committed to let God’s will be done   in full confidence that it is a good & gracious will?  That applies to our actions on Sunday morning & our actions every other day of the week. 
Satan convinced Adam & Eve that God’s will was not good because He was withholding from them the tree of the knowledge of good & evil.   On the other hand, when confronted with God’s command to offer his only son Isaac as a sacrifice, Abraham trusted completely that God’s will was good.  In Hebrews 11:17-19, the Holy Spirit gives us some perfect insight:
“By faith Abraham,  when he was tested,  offered up Isaac,  & he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’  He considered that God was able   even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” 
In that belief, to Abraham, Isaac was a type of Christ whom God would sacrifice & then raise from the dead to pay the price of our rebellion against Him.  And the ram that had its horns caught in the thicket, was provided by Yahweh that Abraham & Isaac might complete the sacrifice there.  That ram too was a forerunner of the true “…Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”  (John 1:29 ESV)    All of creation, from the smallest virus or bacterium, to the largest galaxy or black hole, is suffering the effects of sin.  Romans 8:22-23 offers this insight:
“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” 
As a child of God, you see & feel the contradictions caused by sin   every day of your lives, even if you’re oblivious to the minor ways in which they are revealed to you.  However, as us older folk can confirm, there’s a point at which the human body no longer ages well.  That reality is in direct contradiction, & we feel it every day, to the words of 2 Corinthians 5:17:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”   Even when I wake up from a perfect night’s sleep, I never feel new anymore.  I suspect the same is true for many of you.  There is a contradiction between what God tells us & the reality we experience in this sinful world. 
Faith in Jesus as Savior involves trusting God’s reality even though for now we cannot see it or feel it.   That applies to old age.   It applies to being in God’s house & giving our money back to our Lord.  It applies to the guilt we feel for the sins we’ve committed.  It applies to the wounds we carry from harm done to us in our past.  “Behold, the new has come.” 
One day in heaven, we’ll be having a conversation & someone will say, “After these things, I ended up here, & life has been absolutely perfect ever since.”  Amen. 
 
The Lamb, the Lamb,   O Father, where’s the sacrifice?   Faith sees, believes God will provide the Lamb of price!     The Lamb, the Lamb,  as wayward sheep the shepherd kill  so still,  His will  on our behalf the Law to fill.     He sighs, He dies, He takes my sin & wretchedness.   He lives, forgives, He gives me His own righteousness.    Worthy is the Lamb   whose death makes me His own!   The Lamb is reigning on His throne!     He rose, He rose, my heart with thanks now overflows.  His song prolong till every heart to Him belong.    Worthy is the Lamb   whose death makes me His own!   The Lamb is reigning on His throne!  Amen.  LSB 547:1, 3-5.