2nd Sunday of Lent

On this Second Sunday of Lent, we are presented with some very powerful and thought provoking readings.  I would like to look especially at that first reading from Genesis because I think it is so perplexing.

Abraham is asked by God to take his own beloved son up the mountain to offer him in sacrifice.  Backing up a little, we need to remember that this son, Isaac, is the son that God promised to Abraham.  This is the son, through whom God promised to make of Abraham “a great nation.”  This is the son that Abraham thought he could never have because Sarah was barren for so long and was now too old to have a child. 

So, how could God now ask Abraham to offer this son of his in sacrifice?  I think it is good for us to think of this story from Genesis not as a story about a capricious God who one day lets a barren woman conceive a son, and the next day decides to take his life—but as a story of unshakeable faith.  God is looking for faith in Abraham; to see if Abraham places absolute trust in Him.  And so, God “tests” Abraham, as the text says, by asking him to give up the person he loves most in the world, the person on whom he has pinned all his hopes for a progeny, his own son.  This is in order to establish that God occupies the “number one spot” in Abraham’s heart.  It is a kind of preparation for that first and greatest commandment that will eventually be given to God’s people through Moses:  “I am the Lord your God; you shall not have other God’s before me.”

Abraham does not disappoint.  Abraham, who first trusted God in leaving his homeland and who trusted God again in believing that God would make of him a great nation, trusts God yet again.  And God does not let Abraham down.  Seeing Abraham’s absolute faith—not even withholding that which was most precious to him—God sends an angel to intervene before any harm can come to the boy, and through this messenger declares, “Because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your beloved son, I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky.”

I recall a commentary on this passage that surmised that this promise to make Abraham’s descendants as “countless as the stars of the sky” would have been made in broad daylight, that is, precisely when none of those stars would have been visible.  And so, Abraham, without seeing, would have had to take this on faith as well.  Of course, we understand that it was not physical descendants that were promised to Abraham in such great numbers, but spiritual descendants, among whom we ourselves are numbered.  We even refer to Abraham as “our father in faith.”      

In a way, though, this story is not so much about Abraham’s fidelity to God as God’s fidelity to us.  In time, we will see that God Himself will give up His only Son for us.  In fact, some interpreters of this passage have commented that, in a sense, God could not allow Abraham to offer up Isaac because He had not yet offered up His Son (Jesus)—and God is never outdone or preceded in generosity. 

In the story, the angel says to Abraham:  “I know now how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.”  In a way we could apply this to God and say: “God, I know now how devoted you are to us, since you did not withhold from us your own beloved Son.”  Saint Paul seems to pick up on this very idea in our second reading, when he says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?”

So, yes, God asks us to be faithful, like Abraham, to place our trust completely in Him.  But he does not “leave us out to dry.”  God is faithful to us in return and even more so; He is completely worthy of our trust.  And this, I think, is the real lesson of Abraham’s testing.

Wearing my “other hat” for a moment, as Vocation Director for the Diocese, it is hard for me not to see this story through the lens of that ministry.  As I think of this reading from Genesis and Abraham’s absolute trust in God, and God’s utter fidelity to Abraham and his spiritual descendants in faith—I cannot help but think of the many young men and women – even among our students here at Saint Ambrose – who are, perhaps, afraid to really trust God with their lives.  Perhaps more specifically, some are afraid to answer a call to the priesthood, diaconate, or religious life because they are afraid that maybe somehow God will not reciprocate their fidelity—that He will “leave them out to dry.”  They are afraid that they will not be successful, that it will be too hard, that they will not be happy, that it will demand too much of them.  And for that matter, there are many lay people called either to single life or to marriage, who are timid about living their Christian lives more deliberately, more vibrantly, because they are afraid of what it might cost them. 

It is our task as the Church—the community of believers—to encourage and build up our sisters and brothers so that they never fear to trust God completely with their lives.  And if they make this commitment to God—that is, if we make this commitment to God, placing our absolute trust in Him—He will not be outdone in His fidelity or in His generosity toward us.  How will God, “who did not spare His own Son,” not also give us everything else besides?

Turning just for a moment to the Gospel, we find, I think, an interesting juxtaposition with that first reading from Genesis.  Abraham cannot see how this request of God to sacrifice is own son will play out, but proceeds nonetheless.  And even when his hand is stayed from going through with it and God promises him descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky, he cannot see those stars.  But Peter, James and John do see.  They Jesus in all His majesty.  They are given a glimpse of the glory to come, but still they question, not sure what this “rising from the dead” means.  And, of course, we know that even having witnessed this and heard the voice of the Father, their faith will be shaken.   I think the lesson here is that we can have faith even when we don’t see, and we can be unbelieving (or at least questioning) even when we do.  The choice is ours.  Faith is an act of the will, not merely the assent of the intellect.  In other words, it’s not merely believing in some truth, but entrusting oneself to that truth.    

As we continue on our Lenten journey – even as we do not always see, even as we question – let us pray for a faith like Abraham’s, a faith that allows us to entrust ourselves entirely to God’s care.  Then, in time, we will see the fulfillment of our hope.