God himself

Sometimes being an English major makes me seem weird to the rest of the world – OK, there are probably other reasons as well. But I love words, and how words get put together in sentences, and all the ways that words have concrete meanings but when you string them together they can imply meanings as well.

This morning, I had one of those moments, reading the account of the testing of Abraham in Genesis 22. In verses 6-8 it says this: “Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, ‘Father?’

‘Yes, my son?’ Abraham replied.

‘The fire and wood are here,’ Isaac said, ‘but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’

Abraham answered, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ And the two of them went on together.”

There’s a question and an answer here that is very familiar, because I’ve been hearing this story since I was a boy. “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” “God himself will provide.” But this morning, as I read, this is what I saw: “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” “God himself.”

Now, I’m sure in the original Hebrew those sentences had a different construction, but in English this shouted to me of Jesus. God himself will be our sacrificial lamb!

Abraham, whose heart must have been breaking, and Isaac, innocent of what was going on, seem to me to represent our walk through life. Sometimes we know good and well that there is evil around us and evil within us, and we face it with grim determination. Sometimes, though, we think things are great, we’re on a fun outing with Dad, unaware that life is about to take an abrupt 90-degree turn. 

In any circumstance, though, our great good news, our only hope, is the same thing. God himself was our lamb for the offering. That’s the only way evil loses. 

God did provide a ram for Abraham, and he provided a Lamb for the world. There is no reason or sense in despair for me, no matter what I face.