Are any of the saints here this morning fans of science fiction? Recently I was looking at a list of the greatest 100 sci-fi movies. In the top twenty were movies like Wall-E, Back to the Future, Robo Cop, and Aliens. The top three Sci-fi movies were Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back at 3, Blade Runner 1982 with Harrison Ford, and number one, 2001 A Space Odyssey from 1968. I took my younger brothers to see that movie and they all fell asleep on me.
I raise this question to make a point from the Bible. If you take the Bible at face value, it far surpasses all science fiction put together. For in the Bible, you have a Figure, Jesus, Who is not only everywhere at every place in history, but Who is everywhere in the universe. He is LORD of time and space. He is the One through whom comes grace.
Today our text takes us back to 1900 B.C. It takes us to a Mountain called Moriah. In time Mt. Moriah becomes Jerusalem, Mt. Zion. It is the very place where Jesus will be crucified for the sins of the world. As God's Son, Jesus will do what He spared Abraham from doing. He, Jesus, will permit Himself to be the Isaac once-for-all-sacrifice for the sins of the world. The battle on Mt. Moriah Jesus will engage in shall surpass all the star war battles, infinitely more so, so that we might gain insight into His infinite love for us, His power, His majesty, His glory.
Admittedly, this mountain top chapter in Genesis 22, is a difficult mountain to climb. It is so challenging that we do not put it into our Sunday school curriculum. It is meat, not milk. It makes us wrestle with God as we scale Mt. Moriah only to descend in the valley of the shadow once we get there.
The chapter begins with the voice of Jesus and the Father calling out to Abraham, "Abraham." Abraham knows that voice. He loves that voice. It is that voice that called him out of darkness into God's marvelous light. It is the voice that has comforted Abraham for fifty plus years. It is the voice that promised him and Sarah a miracle child and carried out that promise to the very day. Now, that voice that Abraham trusts so dearly, will ask of Abraham to do the unthinkable.
"Take your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the country of Mt. Moriah, and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the hills I will point out to you."
On the surface this request which has the nuance, "Abraham, would you please be so kind to take your only son Isaac, whom you love to Mt. Moriah to be sacrificed." God is not bellowing a drill sergeant command but giving a most difficult assignment with utmost feeling, sympathy, and empathy. Abraham hears the love in this voice but the content of the request had to baffle him, confuse him, shake him to the core.
On the surface it seems absurd. "What? Sacrifice the son of the promise? How will billions of descendants come forth from Isaac if he is sacrificed at Moriah?"
Note well. Jesus bids Abraham over 50 years after their walk together since Jesus called Abraham out of pagan religion where he once worshipped little gods of all sorts. For fifty plus years Abraham has seen time and time again how God fulfills His promises--often strangely--often not right away--in surprise fashion. Had Jesus asked Abraham to do this after only three, or twenty, or forty years of faith, Abraham would not have had the tall timber to scale Mt. Moriah. To "let God be God" at Moriah required a thoroughly tested faith in the gymnasium of trials to trust God with his greatest gift--his son, his only son.
Early the next morning Abraham harnessed his donkey to ride into Jerusalem, that is Moriah. He took two of his servants and his son Isaac. He took wood with him to make a cross-like altar for the burnt-offering. The writer in the New Testament book of Hebrews tells us that Abraham actually believed that not only would Jesus raise Isaac up but would raise him up from the ashes.
Interesting, it was a three day walk to the future place where Jesus would be crucified, Moriah. On the third day Abraham tells the two servants that he and Isaac will journey alone the final stretch to their "Good Friday" destination. Then, Abraham makes a soaring statement of faith, "Stay here with the donkey--a Psalm Sunday picture of sorts--and I and the boy will go over there and worship. Then we'll come back to you." That is Easter language. That is resurrection language. That is a theology of hope.
Abraham and Isaac walk together. Isaac observes that they have everything they need for the sacrifice, except the lamb. Abraham with his heart breaking simply said, "God will provide Himself with a sheep for the burnt offering, my son." Isaac trusted his father. Abraham trusted his heavenly Father and Jesus. Abraham is willing to give up his greatest gift from God.
When they came to the place God had mentioned, Abraham built an altar. He arranged the wood. Then he began to bind his son Isaac who amazingly submits to his father's alien actions. Isaac, mind you, is likely around 30 years old, perhaps even 33 years old according to Biblical chronology. The tones of Good Friday are coming out at every turn. A loving father, an obedient son, a body being spread out in a cross like form--the flames of fire about to be lit.
Abraham lays hold of his knife. He stretches forth his hand ready to sacrifice his son. At the last moment the Messenger of the LORD, Jesus, called to him from heaven, "Abraham, Abraham!" "Yes," he answered. "Don't lay your hands on the boy," Jesus said, "and don't do anything to him. Now I know you fear God; you didn't refuse to give Me your only son."
Jesus, who will die on this very mountain, saves Isaac and spares Abraham from doing what He and the Father will do on this very mountain on another Good Friday. The plan for Good Friday has been spread out on the canvass of Mt. Moriah, Mt. Calvary. God knows the end from the beginning.
Yet the temporary sacrifice must take place. Jesus provides Abraham a ram in the thicket--in the thorny crown of a thicket--another fore-shadowing of Good Friday. Jesus, the Lamb, provides a ram, to accomplish what is necessary... for now.
"If in life you have a sticky-wicket, think of the ram in the thicket." God will provide--often in strange ways at unlikely times to us.
Abraham rejoiced to hear the voice of Jesus at this critical moment. Jesus would tell religious leaders two thousand years later how Abraham found joy in His presence throughout his life. The religious leaders with dull minds could not grasp the reality of the Jesus in front of them being at Mt. Moriah guiding Abraham. Jesus walked with and talked with Abraham just as He walked with His disciples and went to Mt. Moriah for the whole world. Now He walks with us for He has made our bodies His temple.
Jesus is Lord. He is ruler over all things. He is ruler over sin, death, and the devil. Here is a mountaintop story we should have at the forefront of our minds as often as possible for our comfort, perspective, and grasping Jesus present as God and man with us. May God remove dullness from our minds and replace it with a childlike faith--a faith that knows the Savior at Moriah, the Savior at Calvary, is the Savior who is truly with us today--even closer for we have been baptized into His body. Amen.
