Sacrificing the Lamb

Fr Richard Healey examines the biblical story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac, a narrative that raises difficult questions about faith and obedience. The speaker explores the emotional and moral complexities of the story, including Abraham’s potential hope for divine intervention. The episode draws connections between Isaac’s binding and Jesus’ sacrifice, emphasising the transformative power of faith and the parallels in Christian theology. The significance of Mount Moriah and the overarching theme of submission to God’s will are also discussed, inviting listeners to contemplate the depth of God’s love and the call to transformative obedience.

(00:00:00) – Well, we are certainly on holy ground with our readings today, but it’s also really bizarre ground. I mean, if you don’t think that the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, is filled with awful stories, you haven’t read it because there are so many stories of violence and abuse and hatred. And the first reading today, which is also recognized as one of the finest examples of a short story, and it was important to read the 18 verses that form this story in full, just to get the context of the background. Parents, if you heard the angel of the Lord or God himself appear to you and say, there’s something I want you to do for me and be like, sure, what is it? Take your son, your only son, the son that you love, and go and sacrifice him on a mountain that I will show you. I think that you would be saying, is there anyone else up there? Is that another kind of deity that I can kind of process this through? Are you sure the Ethics Committee have looked at this proposal of yours? Lord, have you called the child services Protection? Like, really, what is going on here? I mean, some of the rabbis, as they pondered this text have said, maybe remember, this is the same Abraham who, just a few chapters before bargained with God when the Lord was threatening to destroy the city of Sodom.

(00:01:55) – It was Abraham who said, but what if there are 50 righteous people to be found? What are the 45? What about 40? What about 30? What about 20? It’s maybe the Lord, in testing him, was just expecting that Abraham would start to bargain, to say, well, no, not Isaac, maybe Ishmael, or maybe no. He would have surely offered something. But this story is meant to disturb us. It’s meant to challenge the socks off us. And if you haven’t got socks on, put some on so that you can have those socks challenged off. That sense of what on earth is going on through the midst of this reading. There are so many parts, so many kind of features, so many images that come to mind. We’re told that there was this long journey of three days, and of course it’s three days. There’s so many images in Scripture just continue to be repeated. And it’s that Isaac is burdened with carrying the wood. So clearly the stronger of the two is the one who’s going to be given the task of carrying the wood.

(00:03:08) – And so Isaac is able to overpower his father. You know, Isaac is clearly grown up. We don’t know how old he is. The text never tells us exactly how old Isaac is at this point. It’s only just immediately before this that he’s born. But we know that some time later has come, and he’s clearly the stronger of the two, clearly old enough to be able to make these decisions. And as they make their way, as Isaac is carrying the wood, Abraham carries the rest of the requirements: the fire, the knife, the rope. We’re told that Isaac questions his father. Father, here is the wood, there is the fire. But where is the lamb of the sacrifice? And we don’t know exactly what Abraham had in mind at this point, as he’s pondering all of this, as he’s going through faithfully. But Abraham says, well, God himself will provide the lamb, and it’s because of this that all the way through the rest of the scriptures we’re longing for where is this lamb that God Himself will provide? Where is the lamb of the sacrifice? Because we know at the end of the story that it’s not a lamb that’s found in the bush, but it’s a ram.

(00:04:30) – So the lamb still hasn’t been found in Jewish tradition. This story is called the Aqedah, and it’s about the binding of Isaac. When I’ve done this in the past, I’ve had volunteers come up and tie each other up in the process of this, because it’s a strong kind of visual image, because, again, Isaac is the stronger one. He could run away. When I imagine this scene (and I think that the Jewish tradition confirms that) it’s the sense of Isaac being completely bound, kind of head to toe with the rope so that he can’t move, he can’t run away. And of course, he’s having to offer himself all through that at this point, because Isaac is not under any pretence. He knows what’s about to happen. And so as he’s slowly letting himself be bound by, I presume, the weeping father, you know, Abraham is not heartless. He’s he’s just crying and weeping and lamenting through this whole process as Isaac is slowly bound and just the submission that Isaac offers to him, and then to imagine that Isaac is, is here, lying before us, lying on the wood of the altar of sacrifice, bound head to toe with the ropes.

(00:05:52) – And then Abraham is here and he has the knife. He’s here with the knife. And a sense of Abraham is there, and he’s there, about to plunge the knife into the neck of his only son. The song that he loves. The precious sun that was the fruit of his old age. The one the sun is going to answer. The great prayer, the great longing that he had, that the Lord would be faithful to the Lord, would in fact fulfil his desire, that he would be the father of a great multitude. And he’s there, and he has no idea how this might unfold. Later reflections we read in the book of Hebrews indicated that perhaps he imagined that the Lord would raise his son from the dead. Perhaps that was the hope that he had. You can see that there’s so much pondering, so much reflecting upon this awful story. And so it’s only when he’s finally there, he’s got his hand on the knife, and he’s about to plunge it into the neck of his son, that the angel of the Lord intervenes.

(00:06:57) – Thank you for coming. And the Lord says, no, I see that you are faithful. I see that you were prepared to do this. As abhorrent as this is that he knows that this is going to be fulfilled and faithful. And so this story is really significant because it’s inviting us into a reflection on what it was like for the father to ask this of Jesus. Like Isaac, Jesus offers himself willingly. Jesus goes to the cross. He goes knowing that all of that suffering, all of that horror was not necessary to appease the father. No, none of that was necessary. It was necessary only for us so that we might trust, so that we might believe in his love, so that we would know that there was not going to be any limit to the love of Jesus, that his love for the father was so great. And the father’s love for us is so great, that he wants us to experience that fullness of his love. We read later in the second book of Chronicles that Moriah, the place where this sacrifice, the sacrifice takes place, is on Mount Moriah, which is the same place where King Solomon then built the temple.

(00:08:21) – It’s dedicated to that place because they realise that that’s where everything changes. That’s where the faithfulness of one person continuing just to say yes to God, that that’s where human history changes, just as Mary. And when she said yes to the plan that the angel Gabriel invited her into when she was able to say yes to the Lord, say, yes, I will conceive and let this child within me be the Son of God, that she’s able then to bring salvation for all of us, because Jesus becomes that life and that salvation, and so on the cross, just a short distance from the temple, Jesus offers himself for us. And so for us. Let’s remember the God is the one who is inviting us into life, not to sacrifice our children, but to let the sacrifice of his only son be for us the source of salvation be for us the source of redemption, to allow us to experience this new possibility of life with God. Let’s indeed be people that respond well to God. Let’s allow the love of God to infuse within us that desire to be changed, to be transformed, to let his love so fill us, that we naturally want to respond to his will, to his purpose, and to his plan.