The Sacrifice of Isaac by Marc Chagall.
The story of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac (Genesis 22:1-14) has baffled Bible students and scholars probably since it was recorded. It’s a terrible story, but an important one. Here’s my take on what the story means, why God asked Abraham to do such a barbaric thing, and how it foreshadows what God ultimately did in Christ. Here’s the link to the audio —
On the last Sunday of Lent, I preached from John 12:20-33. It’s the story of Jesus after his entry into Jerusalem, and this passage involves three things. First, there were those who wanted to see Jesus; secondly, Jesus warned that those who loved life in this world would lose theirs; and, finally, Jesus described what following him really meant. I used three phrases to capture these three points: focusing on Jesus, forsaking the world system, and following faithfully. Here’s the podcast of the sermon:
The Bible features several accounts of mothers, but my favorite Old Testament story about mothers is the story of Hannah and Samuel. Found in 1 Samuel 1, Hannah’s story recounts her willingness to give her son, Samuel, back to the Lord. Samuel, in turn, heard the voice of God calling him. As a result Samuel became the spiritual leader of Israel, speaking to the people on behalf of God. Samuel would be used of God to anoint Saul as king. Then, when Saul failed to serve God, Samuel anointed David as king of all Israel. My point is that the sacrifice of those who shape our lives, including mothers, demands that we respond in faithfulness to God. Here’s the link to the message I preached on Mothers’ Day 2012 at Chatham Baptist Church — http://traffic.libsyn.com/chuckwarnock/03_A_Mothers_Sacrifice.mp3
On Mothers’ Day, I delivered the chapel message at Hargrave Military Academy. The 800-seat chapel was filled with cadets and their families on a beautiful Sunday morning.
Sacrifice Demands Responsibility
1 Samuel 1:27-28 NIV
27 I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. 28 So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.
Mothers In The Bible
The Bible, as I’m sure you know, contains the stories of several mothers. First, there is Eve, whose name literally means “mother of all living.” Then there was Sarah, wife of Abraham. Moms, how would you like to have God’s messenger tell you at the age of 90, that you were going to have a baby? That’s what happened to Sarah, and she became the mother of Isaac.
Isaac married a beautiful girl named Rebekah, who eventually gave birth to twin sons – Jacob and Esau. To make a long story short, Rebekah’s favorite was Jacob, and she helped her son trick his aging father out of the birthright that really belonged to his brother, Esau. After that, Esau was pretty unhappy, so Jacob left home for a long time. And people say the Bible isn’t realistic. Here we have one of the first completely dysfunctional families, with a lot of drama and intrigue. Think “Survivor” but with relatives. Anyway, things finally work out for all of them, Jacob included.
Then we have the mother of Moses, Jochebed. You remember the story of how the evil Pharaoh wanted to kill all the Hebrew boy babies. Moses’ mother put him in a waterproof basket, and set it in the Nile near where Pharaoh’s daughter would bathe. Pharaoh’s daughter appears, sees the baby in the basket and takes him as her own. Moses’s sister, Miriam, is hiding in the reeds there, and pops up just in time to offer to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the child. She, of course, finds Jochebed who gets to raise her own son, until he moves into Pharaoh’s palace. Mothers, even in the Bible, are always looking out for their children.
Of course, the most famous mother in the Bible is Mary, the mother of Jesus. We know that Mary loved her son, marveled at the work God had in store for Jesus, and suffered at his death. We know that Jesus loved his mother, Mary, because as he hangs on the cross dying, Jesus entrusts his mother into the care of his close disciple, John.
But for all the stories of mothers in the Bible, I think the one I like best is in the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel. You heard part of that story in the text today, but let me fill you in on the whole story.
The Story of Hannah and Elkanah
This story happened about 3,000 years ago. Elkanah was a kind man who was married to two women, which I would not recommend today, but 3,000 years ago things were different. Hannah and Penninah were his wives, and Penninah had given birth to children but Hannah had not. In those days, children were the equivalent of Social Security today, and parents needed children to help them, and to provide for them in their old age.
Because Penninah had children and Hannah did not, Penninah picked on Hannah mercilessly. Elkanah, caught in the middle, (which is why you shouldn’t have two wives), tried to make it up to Hannah by giving her his attention, and a double portion of meat to offer when the went up to Shiloh to make a sacrifice. As well-meaning as Elkanah was, I don’t think an extra chunk of meat made Hannah feel better.
As a matter of fact, one day when they were all at the tabernacle in Shiloh, Hannah was so distraught that she began to pray. As she prayed, she wept so hard that she could not speak. Moving her lips in silent agony, Eli, the old priest at Shiloh, thought she must be drunk.
Eli accused her of being drunk, but Hannah protested that she was only praying out of her grief because she did not have a child. Eli understood, and pronounced a blessing on her, saying, “Go in peace and may the God of Israel grand you what you have asked of him.”
Of course, what she had asked was for a son, and in her asking Hannah had promised that if God would give her a son, she would give him back to the Lord’s service.
She prayed, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life.”
Hannah Brings Samuel To The Tabernacle
Of course, God hears Hannah’s prayer, and Samuel is born. Perhaps three years pass until Hannah is ready to keep her promise to God. So, on the appointed day, she and Samuel, who is probably 3 or 4 at this time, appear at the Tabernacle in front of the old priest, Eli.
There Hannah gives Samuel into Eli’s care, with these words –
“I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.”
So that’s the story of how Hannah prayed for a son, and then trusted him to God for the rest of his life.
A Story We Can Live
But this is more than a Bible story, even though it certainly is that. This story has the ring of authenticity. Here’s a woman, Hannah, who wanted more than anything to have a baby. Her prayer to God wasn’t a negotiating ploy, but a revelation of her own faith in God.
Hannah trusted God with her deepest desire, and with her future son. Hannah believed that if God allowed her to bear a child, that child would be so special that God would have great things planned for him.
Like Hannah, those of us gathered here today believe our children are special gifts from God. Our prayer may not have been the agonizing prayer of Hannah’s, but in some way each of us has prayed for our children.
If at your house, your children were happy accidents, as they were at ours, you may not have prayed for them to come. But as soon as you knew they were on the way, your heart was filled with concern, with love, with hope, and with a kind of desperate desire that God would bring them into this world safely. And, your on-going prayer, is that God keep them safe, guide them carefully, and help them reach their potential.
There is another way in which you moms and grandmothers, and others gathered here today are like Hannah, though. Like Hannah, you trusted your child to others at a young age. Okay, maybe not three, but at 12 or 13, I’m sure you weren’t ready for your son to leave the safety and security of your home.
Yet, because you love your son, you have entrusted his safety, his education, and his future potential to Hargrave Military Academy. Like Hannah, last fall, or several falls ago, you delivered your son to this campus, to give him into the care of the faculty and staff here at this historic institution.
Why did you do that? Because you believed, like Hannah, that your son deserved the best. That your son would benefit from attending school here at Hargrave, an institution founded upon Christian values.
I can’t imagine the sacrifice that this must take on your part. For some of you, that sacrifice is financial. But for all of you, there is a bigger sacrifice that you as mothers and grandmothers have made.
Now, I don’t want to make any of you cry, but I do want to salute your sacrifice. When you sent your son to Hargrave, you realized that the back door would no longer bang loudly at 3:30 PM each day when school was over, because your son is here. You realized that you would miss out on that whirlwind of endless soccer practices, football games, drama club presentations, and all of the other afterschool activities kids are involved in.
When you sent your son to Hargrave, I’m sure you realized that when he got hurt, you would no longer be there to put a band-aid on his scraped knee like you did when he was six. (By the way, don’t do that now because he’ll be really embarrassed!)
You and your family have missed seeing him compete at swim meets, or on the baseball field, or in the science fair because you made the sacrifice to send your son here instead of keeping him at home.
You made these sacrifices because just like Hannah, you believe that your son is special, that God gave him to you and your family. Because you believe in your son, and his future, like Hannah, you have entrusted him to others to shape his life, strengthen his character, and send him home as a responsible, mature young man.
So, on this Mothers’ Day, I commend your sacrifice, your love, and your dreams for your son.
Sacrifice Demands Responsibility
But, before I finish here today, I have a word for your sons, for these cadets whom you have entrusted to this institution.
The sacrifices that your mother, and your family have made need to be acknowledged and repaid.
Let me tell you what happened to Samuel after his mother left his at the Tabernacle in Eli’s care. As a young boy, Samuel was sleeping one night, when he heard a voice calling him. “Samuel, Samuel” the voice said.
Thinking it was old Eli calling, because young Samuel was now old enough to be Eli’s helper, Samuel went to the old priest’s room. “Did you call me?” Samuel asked Eli.
Eli replied, “No, I didn’t call you, go back to bed.”
This happened again. A voice calls “Samuel, Samuel” but when Samuel went to Eli’s room, Eli said, “I didn’t call you, go back to bed.”
Well, the third time this happened, Eli figured out what was going on. “God is speaking to you. The next time you hear the voice call your name, say ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant hears you.”
Samuel did just that, and God called Samuel to be one of the great Old Testament leaders. Samuel would become the spokesman for God, God’s representative to the nation of Israel. When Israel clamored for a king, Samuel would anoint Saul, and when Saul failed, Samuel would anoint King David to be King over Israel. Samuel took his mother’s sacrifice seriously, and lived up to the opportunity given him as Eli’s helper, and then as the spiritual leader of Israel.
Let me tell you a story about a young man who responded to his mother’s sacrifice. Peng Si is from Guangzhou, China. About four years’ ago, his family scraped together enough money for him to attend college in the United States. Peng Si enrolled in the University of Northern Colorado, and graduated in May 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting.
During the three years it took Peng Si to complete his degree, he was very careful with his expenses. His family had already sacrificed over $75,000 to give him an education in the United States, so Peng Si did not even travel home to see his mother and father during his entire three years of study. He did not want to spend a penny more of his parents’ money, than he had to.
After graduation, Peng Si planned to start a master’s program. But word came from China that his mother was gravely ill with hepatitis. Her only hope was a partial-liver transplant. Peng Si’s twin sister volunteered to donate a part of her liver, but doctors said she was too thin to survive the surgery.
Against his mother’s wishes, Peng Si volunteered to donate 60% of his liver to his ailing mother. The surgery took place on July 22 last year. Both mother and son came through the surgery well.
The Chinese press picked up this story of mother and son. He was called a “shining example for all his peers all over China to follow” by the doctor who performed the surgery.
But the reason Peng Si gave for his act of love was interesting. He said, “Everyone at my US university was very proactive about getting involved in charity and social justice causes,” he said. “It really focused my outlook on what I need to do to help other people, not just to take care of myself.”
I hope you never are faced with a situation like Peng Si and his mother were, but you can still honor the sacrifice your mother and family have made by sending you to Hargrave.
You can listen for the voice of God in your life, maybe not like Samuel did, but God’s voice just the same. That inner voice that tells you to rise above the crowd, to distinguish yourself in your studies, your sports activities, and your relationships.
Several weeks ago, the news media carried the story of 11 Secret Servicemen. These men thought that because they had a privileged position — guarding the President of the United States — that they were exempt from the rules of decency and self-respect. That’s a mistake that is often made by those who enjoy special privileges.
What these 11 men failed to understand is that their special privilege demanded a higher level of accountability and conduct than would be demanded of most people. They made the mistake of thinking their privilege was a license to do as they pleased, when really their privilege was the opportunity to excel. Instead they embarrassed themselves, humiliated their families, and brought shame and ridicule on the United States.
Character counts. The decisions we make matter. You can’t just take care of yourself. Sacrifice demands responsibility. Honor your mothers today by exceeding expectations, overcoming obstacles, and demonstrating character. That is your mom’s hope for you. Give her the gift of your best on this Mothers’ Day.
This is the sermon I’m preaching Sunday, August 3, 2008, from Romans 9:1-5. And, check out Holy Fools, by Matthew Woodley — I quote from Matthew’s new book in this sermon, and I think you will find the book helpful and encouraging.
Good News for the Jews…and Us, Too!
Romans 9:1-5
1 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
I Would Give Anything
As a pastor I have sat with families who are grieving the loss of a beloved member of their family. I have heard husbands and fathers, wives and mothers say the same thing, “I would give anything if it could have been me.” Those words are especially poignant at the death of a child or young person. Parental love is so great, and grief so overwhelming, that the desire to take the place of someone we love to save them from death is a common desire.
Paul expresses a similar thought here, when he says,
“For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel.”
Paul is not saying this lightly or carelessly, and he has the credentials as a Jew to back up his statement. In Philippians 3:4-7, he says:
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ (the Messiah).
Paul was an outstanding Jew, an aggressive Pharisee, and scrupulously righteous, but he scrapped all of that when he met the risen Jesus on the Damascus road. Paul’s fierce devotion to Pharisaic Judaism was quickly overshadowed by his new-found commitment to Jesus, the Messiah of God. Amazingly the one event that all Jews looked forward to was the coming of the Anointed One, the Messiah of God, in Greek known as Christos, or the Christ. So, Paul is not relinquishing his Jewishness when he encounters the Messiah, he is actually finding fulfillment as a Jew.
For Paul to say then, “I would gladly be considered accursed for my people the Jews,” is profound. And, to make his point unmistakably clear, Paul explains that to be accursed is to be cut off from the Messiah. Paul is willing to give up his own knowledge of Christ if the Jews could then discover Christ. Paul is convinced that Jesus is God’s Messiah and he wants his people to be convinced as well.
When Others Don’t Share Our Passions
Have you ever had this experience? You’ve read a book or seen a movie or heard a song that you just love. In your enthusiasm you tell your family, your friends, your co-workers — anybody that will listen. And when you do, you say things like –
Seldom does our enthusiasm for the book or movie or song transfer easily or quickly to others. And when our friends and family and co-workers just look at us and say nonchalantly, “Okay, if I have time,” we are crestfallen, crushed by their inability to see how wonderful the book, movie, or song really is.
Several years ago, Debbie and I saw the movie, Moulin Rouge with Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. The movie is a quirky, fun, dramatic, musical, comedic one-of-a-kind film. It was nominated for Best Picture, but didn’t win. And, I loved the movie! I liked it so much, Debbie gave me the DVD, we had friends over to see it, and I raved about the story line, cinematography, and cleverness of the film. I liked it so much, that on a trip to Shanghai, I found a bootleg copy of it at the DVD knock-off store across the street from my hotel, and watched it again in Shanghai. Which beat watching the Chinese warrior movies on CCTV. Unfortunately, outside of Debbie, few shared my enthusiasm for the movie. I was a frustrated fan of a really great movie.
Paul felt a similar frustration. He said he was in “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” because the Jews don’t get it about Jesus. Few other Jews, other than the original disciples, were as enthusiastic about Jesus being the Messiah as Paul was. So, why didn’t the Jews get it?
The same reason that our family and friends and co-workers don’t share our enthusiasm for a book or movie or political candidate: they don’t see it the way we do. Paul, you remember, encountered the risen, living Jesus in a blinding light on his way to Damascus to persecute followers of Jesus. The encounter was not a vision or an apparition or a hallucination — Paul’s experience was a real face-to-face meetup (to use the modern jargon) with a man thought to be a failed revolutionary, put to death by the Romans, buried in a borrowed grave, and relegated to the refuse heap of history. But Jesus was alive! He was a living, breathing, talking person who appeared to Paul a couple of years after everyone in Paul’s Pharisee circle thought they had put an end to the self-proclaimed son of God. Paul was on a mission to rub out the few remaining disciples of this dead, false prophet, when he met Jesus face-to-face. Up close and in person.
Fear eventually gave way to wonder, and Paul realized with the help of others that God was at work, and that this Jesus whom he had despised, whose followers he had killed and terrorized, was God’s Anointed One, the Messiah promised to the Jews. Now, Paul wanted everyone else to see it, to understand it, to follow this Jesus, too. But, they didn’t get it, couldn’t see it, were closed just as he had been.
So Paul wishes that if it took his being cut off from Christ to bring the Jews to Christ, he was willing to do it.
The New Based on the Old
Paul begins to make a case for why the Jews should embrace Jesus as the Messiah –
And so there it is — a chronological, historical, rational walk through the history of the Jews to prove why the Jews should get it about Jesus.
Too often, Christians have given the impression that we are the new thing God is doing, and the Jews were about the old thing. We even refer to the two divisions of the Bible as The Old Testament and The New Testament. We have believed that Jesus came to save the world, and when the Jews rejected Him, He moved on to the Gentiles. We are as blind to our connection to the Jews, as many of them are to the Messiahship of Jesus.
But, if we read Scripture with seeing eyes, we read, not two stories, but one. Not two ways that God dealt with people, but one. Not two means to salvation, but one. Not two promises for the future, but one. All bound up in the plan of God for all people — Jew and non-Jew alike.
Let’s look more closely at what the Jews have going for them:
When Paul says that “the adoption as children” belongs to the Jews, he reminds us that God called Abraham out of paganism, adopted him as a father adopts a son, and promised to make him the father of a great nation.
When Paul says that “the divine glory” belongs to the Jews, he paints mind-pictures of the shekinah glory of God leading the nation of Israel with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night, the presence of God settling over Mount Sinai, the manifestation of God over the Tabernacle, and the glory of God inhabiting the Temple.
When Paul says that “the covenants” belong to the Jews, he means God’s first agreements with his people — with Adam and Eve in the garden, with Noah and the flood, with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob. And always, the covenant was the same — God promises to be their God, and he asks that they promise to be His people. God always keeps the covenant, even when his people break it. God always repairs the covenant, even when the breach is the act of His rebellious children.
When Paul recounts that “the receiving of the Law” belongs to the Jews, he conjures up memories of Moses on Mount Sinai, receiving stone tablets engraved by the finger of God. Those stone tablets became the emblem for how God’s people would be different from all other people. How God’s people would love, worship, and obey the one true God; and, how they would treat others. The Law, God’s Law, was a radical way to live. God outlawed idolatry, invoking the deity’s name in vain, working on the day set aside to honor God, disobeying parents, coveting the relationships and possessions of others, taking human life, violating marital commitments, and so on. Radical laws that set God’s people apart from the “do whatever it takes to survive” culture in which they lived.
When Paul says “the Temple worship” is theirs, every Jew instantly sees the image of the magnificent temple in Jerusalem. Gleaming white stone, the glistening solid-gold cluster of grapes hanging over the massive entrance, the crowds at Passover, the priests that ministered in the Temple, the Court of the Gentiles, the Court of the Women, and the Holy Place and Holy of Holies. Jews would know the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Lights, the ritual, the ceremony, the bustlel of temple stalls and vendors, and the calls to prayer three times a day. This was truly God’s house, the place where heaven and earth met. The Temple of the One True God, YHWH, the God of the Jews. There was no other building like the Temple, there was no other worship experience that came close, and every Jew who did not live in Jerusalem, and could not get there for Passover, said, “Next year in Jerusalem.”
Theirs are the promises, Paul also says. Promises for what? Promises contained in the covenant God made with his people, but promises that God continued to fulfill. Promises to Abraham to make him father of a great nation. The promise to Moses to take the nation back to the land of promise. The promise of prosperity, if God’s people would obey and observe God’s law. The promise to be their God. The promise of forgiveness and atonement for sin. The promise of relationship. But, ultimately the promise to send One who would make everything right. The promise of the Messiah. The ultimate promise, the promise to end all promises, not because God was tired of dealing with his people, but because the Messiah would stand between God and nation, between Perfection and imperfection, and make all things new.
And the patriarchs. The “fathers of the nation.” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Abraham who followed God. Isaac who became the child of promise. Jacob who wrestled with God for his blessing. Not perfect men, but real men who struggled in their obedience, failed in their humanity, and most of all, loved God passionately. These were the forebears, the examples, the inspiration, the first triad of generations that forged the familial bonds between God and his people.
And finally, the Jews are the family from which Jesus, the Messiah, comes. Jesus is no stranger, no foreigner brought in from the outside. This is and has been God’s plan all along. This is why God called Abraham. This is why God spared Isaac’s life as Father Abraham was about to sacrifice him to God. This is why Jacob was allowed to wrestle with God. This Jesus is the root of Jesse, the likeness of King David, the wisdom of Solomon, the power of the prophets, the simplicity of the shepherds, the strength of a Samson, the gentleness of a child, and the salvation of his people, and God’s creation. How could the Jews miss this? Were they too close to Jesus? Was his hometown of Nazareth too plain a place? Did they expect something else?
Whatever the reasons, Paul is amazed that the Jews don’t get it, and he’s will to give up that for which he has “counted all things loss” in order that the Jews might know Jesus as their Messiah.
What Is It That We Don’t Understand?
Okay, so we all know that as a people, the Jews to this day still don’t accept Jesus as their Messiah. And, because of that, Christians have said a lot of unkind and outrageous things about the Jews.
Next week we’re going to discover that God isn’t finished with the Jews. That God hasn’t cancelled his covenant with the Jews. And, that even the disobedience of the Jews becomes the occasion for God’s mercy toward them and the rest of the world. But, that’s for next week.
This week, however, we have to put ourselves in Paul’s place for a moment. And, we have to ask ourselves,
The point of Matthew Woodley’s Holy Fools is summed up in a quote from Soren Kierkegarrd –
ChuckWarnock.com 
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