Dear
Friends,
It would be
easy to skip the story of Abraham and Isaac that is linked with the Transfiguration
of Jesus this Lent. In one of the hardest of the Old Testament readings,
Abraham is told by God to go up Mount Moriah to sacrifice his son Isaac. Yet, Abraham
had been promised that he would be the father of a great nation. Isaac was the only means by which this promise
was to be fulfilled.
Still, Abraham prepared to do the unthinkable. To
paraphrase a thought from the 20th century Lutheran theologian,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Abraham “did not withhold himself.” In the end, what was
given to Abraham by God once was given to him again: the promise and his son. But
the journey up the mountain was torturous.
We too are
called to relinquish the Isaacs of our lives, perhaps a person, event,
situation dear to us. Our Isaac could be a goal we have set for ourselves or a
relationship that doesn't work out. The real or anticipated loss of our own
personal Isaac has the power to tear us up. We may want to cry out:
“You ask
too much, God.” Courage and faith are needed to say; “I believe, God.”
Yet, God
says to us as God said to Abraham, whose knife was raised over Isaac: “Do not
lay your hands on him!” Only with the honesty of prayer do we know which Isaacs
to sacrifice and when to refrain.
God
shepherds us through human tragedy, injustice and meaningless suffering. We can
depend on it.
In the
Gospel, Jesus had begun his journey to Jerusalem and death, when he stopped and experienced the transfiguration.
Jesus shows
us that there will be such moments in the midst of our own hard times, but
beyond the moment, we will have to go on trusting that the apparent end is not
the end, after all.
What is
remarkable in the Gospel is that God, who would not permit the slaying of
Isaac, does not withhold his own son. It is on his way to being handed over,
that Jesus is transfigured, so that he and his disciples would not lose heart
as the journey to death and darkness moved on to its climax. In the end Isaac
was not killed. Jesus was. Who would have thought that the end was not the end
for Jesus and that the Risen One would
give new meaning to all the Isaacs we sacrifice for the good.
