First Lesson: Genesis 22: 1-14 Responsive Reading: Psalm 13 Second Lesson: Romans 6: 12-23 Gospel Lesson: Matthew 10: 40-42 Grace and Peace from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
The following is a modern re-telling of one of the Old Testament’s most confounding stories in the Story of Abraham and the near-sacrifice of his long awaited son Isaac. I want to tell you the story of Mark and April. Mark and April met at the state university. They connected both being farm-kids with similar values. April was attracted to Mark’s brains and personal steadiness. Mark was attracted to April for being such a free-spirit, April was the life of the party wherever she went. Mark and April both graduated college, got married, and ended up with good paying jobs. They settled not in a town, not unlike this one. Mark worked as a Nuclear Engineer while April worked as a Fourth Grade Teacher. Mark and April soon then joined the local Lutheran church Saint Gerhard’s in town where they quickly became active. Mark and April seemed to have it all, they seemed to be an example of a perfect couple, but they wished for their family to be complete. Mark and April tried to conceive a child for one year without nay luck. Mark and April then went to see a Doctor who would test for their fertility levels. April was discovered to be infertile. Mark and April spent nights trying to think about the next step. They prayed nightly as they considered their options. After months and emotional turmoil and soul-searching, they decided to begin pursuing the adoption process. Right when Mark and April began their paperwork, April wasn’t feeling right. April was constantly tired, and nauseous when she woke up in the morning. Mark and April went to the doctor to be checked out. A miracle had occurred! April was pregnant! Mark and April were determined to be the best parents they could be. During the months of April’s pregnancy, they read every book that they possibly could. Nine months later a son was born. Mark and April named their son “Isaac” which means laughter. They named their son Isaac because of the long-odds of Isaac’s birth, remembering how the pregnancy announcement of the doctor caught April so off-guard that she laughed in a state of shock. Isaac went through the next several years of his life as the apple of Mark and April’s eye. Isaac was a greatly spoiled child because of Mark and April’s means. Isaac was the All-American child with blonde hair, blue eyes, along with being a good student in school. Mark and April seemingly finally had it all! Then one day Mark and April were put to a great test. One day when Isaac was out running around on the soccer field, he collapsed, Isaac was soon taken to the local discovered that Isaac had an enlarged heart. Isaac was going to need a heart transplant to live. The only problem with this scenario is that due to Isaac’s age it was going to be tough to find a donor heart for Isaac’s body. The doctors told Mark and April without a heart transplant they feared that Isaac only had weeks to live. Mark felt like his heart had been ripped in two at the moment of the doctor’s pronouncement. Mark and April’s friends couldn’t help but look on at this whole affair with the belief that God was cruel taking a child so young. Isaac’s defect after Mark and April waited so long for his arrival was nothing more than God’s harshest jokes. The next few weeks were a tremendous struggle for Mark and April were barely sleeping as they pondered all of the ifs about Isaac’s condition? They wondered why them? They wondered why faithful people such as them deserved this fate? Mark and April began to cope with the situation of Isaac’s illness differently. Mark was furious at God. Mark vowed to stop going to church because of Isaac’s condition. Mark would spend the night shouting at God, cursing at God. April’s response to Isaac’s diagnosis though was the exact opposite of Mark’s. April’s days were spent breaking down crying then praying. April would sneak out to the garage to cry when she thought Mark couldn’t stand to hear her cry anymore. On Sundays and Wednesday nights, April would stay around forever after church to just talk to whoever would listen about what her family and young Isaac were going through. As April kept thinking about God’s role in this all, she had what would have seemed like a very strange feeling in the back of her head. April thought that God would work all things for good even if it led to the tragic loss of their son Isaac. April believed that even if Issac shall die before he gets a new heart then God shall be able to raise their son from the dead. April thought back to the times when God answered her and Mark’s prayer for a child of their own, even as their doctors deemed it to be impossible. April believed that God could bring a blessing in the midst of what seemed like the most unforgiving of curses. Through it all, April didn’t get angry with God, April didn’t argue with God, April didn’t seek out an explanation as to why God would seek to take Isaac’s life so soon. Whereas some people would look at April as an example of faith, just as many people would have dismissed April’s attitude as that of a crazy person. The longer the test of Isaac’s illness went on, the more strain that it seemed to put on Mark and April’s marriage. Isaac had grown weary of seeing Mom and Dad fight as his body grew weaker and weaker. Isaac’s condition was growing scarier. Then one day a miracle happened. It was almost as if God shouted down from the heavens yelling out, “Do not harm this boy." A donor heart had been found to give to Isaac. The transplant took place. Isaac would go onto have kids, and grand-kids whose stories are worth telling another time. Mark’s attitude about Isaac’s ordeal began to change after Isaac’s successful heart transplant. Mark understood that he would never know God’s angle in the whole thing. Mark could merely think back to his own relationship with his father from years before. Mark remembered getting so mad when his Dad would set boundaries upon Mark’s whims and wishes, yet it was only years later when Mark became a father on his own that his Dad’s words from a generation before made any sense. Mark realized he would never quite understand God’s challenges presented upon him in the form of Isaac. As Mark was at church one day, the preacher said something that made quite a bit of sense to Mark. The Preacher said “What the Resurrection ultimately proves is that God wants his people to live rather than die, regardless of whatever conflicting messages that this life might throw at them. How God wants to rescue people with his grace and mercy, rather than condemn them with fire and judgment. How we can never judge God’s angle through any one incident, we can merely judge him by what we know from the cross. Now back to Mark and April. They slowly began to work out their issues to the point of reconciliation to their differing grief over Issac’s situation. One night talking about Isaac’s illness they talked about how plenty of people had gone through what Mark and April had endured. Situations of the impossibly tragic; many people had wondered why their own seemingly innocent children have been taken away from them for no good reason. They discussed why God might have intervened in Isaac’s case, but not in the case of other children. Abraham had been made the father of a great nation on account of his trial; Mark and April were apparently rewarded with nothing more than life experience, if Mark and April’s ordeal were a test, they couldn’t know whether they passed or failed it. Mark apparently failed the test with his anger at both God and the church through Isaac’s ordeal. Whereas all April did to respond to test of faith was cry and cry some more, perhaps the reason that April kept with her faith in the midst of her tears was because her tears were a representation of April’s own powerlessness. The tears served as a reminder that April’s answers did not lie within herself. April before Isaac’s illness thought her faith was supposed to make her strong, yet as she worried about her baby boy, she would quickly discover that her faith made her anything but strong. As April and Mark struggled with God’s role in Isaac’s illness, they were reminded that our Gospel never promises unto us that life shall never be a struggle. It is rare to come across a person whose life ends up exactly the way they wanted it. Perhaps the reason that we enter into our own Garden of Gethsemane as a way to prepare for being put to death on our eventual crosses is because this would seem to be the only path to redemption. As Mark and April looked back on the tale of Isaac’s trial the only thing, they could take from it was that God was present even at those moments when it seemed like he wasn’t. What Mark and April had gone through was the strangest of contradictions how through even the worst of times, they still saw God’s love operating on some level. God stood by April and Mark even as they were brought to the brink of destruction. We cannot imagine what Abraham went through as he was asked to sacrifice his only son “Isaac” upon Mount Moriah. Where we can identify with Abraham is that each of us has undergone tests at points within our life. The testing might have come in the form of cancer, heart attack, grief, hunger, financial difficulties, or martial troubles. The thing about tests and the reason we dread them so much is because they seem to attack us at our weakest points whether they be greed, power, sex, pride, or gluttony. Perhaps what Abraham went through with Isaac hits us closer to home than we often imagine. What the ultimate point of the story of Abraham is at the moment when Abraham is crying over the impending death of his son, this is the time when God responds over the sorrow of his children. Hope would be revealed in the years between Abraham, Mark and April when God gave his own son for the sake of the world. How God felt pain, so that ours may one day go away. How even if Mark and April had lost Isaac there was always going to be a resurrection in their future. Amen Comments are closed.
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