Sermon - Midweek Advent 1 - Mount Moriah

 

Genesis 22:1-19

If you’ve ever been to the top of a mountain, you know it’s hard to describe the experience.  I remember once going with a youth group to Pike’s Peak in Colorado, and how it almost seems like you’re on another planet as you stand there and take in the view.  There’s a reason people talk about “mountain top experiences”.  And Holy Scripture seems to key in on this, too.  Some of the most important, and also most interesting events in the Bible take place on a mountain.  Perhaps chief among these are Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary.

This Advent, for our midweek series, we’re going to survey some of the lesser-known mountains, especially of the Old Testament.  Advent is perhaps the most Old-Testament-y time of the year.  In this season, we emphasize the long-suffering patience of God’s people who awaited the fulfillment of God’s Messianic promises.  We sort of mourn in lonely exile along with them, and empathize with their eager expectation. 

So, to help us do that this year, let us go to the mountains:  Mount Moriah, Mount Nebo, and Mount Carmel, in order.  And through Abraham, Moses and Elijah, we too can get the mountain view of the coming savior.  So get your mental hiking gear ready and join me today as we climb the slopes of Mount Moriah in Genesis 22.

Abraham is one of those foundational characters of the Bible.  The first of the Patriarchs. The Father of Many Nations, and especially of the Israelites.  Some 2000 years before Christ, he answered God’s call and left his homeland for the land God had promised him.  Time and again God repeated his promises, his covenant he made with Abraham.  The land, the many offspring, and that the whole world would be blessed through him.  Abraham believed God, and God credited it to him as righteousness.  And so Abraham becomes, also, a model and example of faith - the father of all the faithful.

But he was also the father of his own son – Isaac.  And what happens in Genesis 22 is a story that might shock us at every turn.  But most of all, it points us to Christ, the fulfillment of Abraham’s faith, and of ours.

Does God really want Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son, his beloved son Isaac?  Of course we know, this was only a test.  But Abraham didn’t.  God doesn’t every tempt us to sin, but he does sometimes test our faith – and the two things can look much alike.  Abraham reasoned, we are told in Hebrews, that God would raise Isaac from the dead!  And so he proceeded to follow the instructions, step by step, even to grabbing the knife to slay his son.

Ponder, Christian:  would you and I pass such a test?  What if the Lord asked you to give up something near and dear to you?  Your beloved people or things?  Your darling?  What if Jesus tested us like he did the rich young man, “Go, sell everything you have and give it to the poor”?  Abraham was a rich man in his day, but God took what was most valuable to Abraham in this world, his son, and called him to give him up.  Jesus tells us to hate father and mother and son and daughter and follow him.  Drop you nets.  Leave your tax collector’s booth.  Follow me.  Don’t bury your father first or kiss your family goodbye.  No one who puts hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom.  Don’t let anything in this world get in the way of your love for God and your faith in him.  Not possessions, nor work, nor even family.  Abraham shows the way of faith on this one. 

But there’s more to the story here than just a test of faith and the example of Abraham.  There’s more than just the example of a man who trusted God against all appearances.  There’s a bread crumb trail that leads us to Jesus.  There are hints and glimmers of the coming fulfillment of God’s salvation.  Perhaps you’ve noticed some of this already.

Abraham was faithful to the end, trusting God would provide a resurrection if necessary.  For Isaac – it might as well have been a resurrection, as close to death as he was.  But God saved him by sending the angel, and providing a substitute.

And, of course, God does provide a true resurrection.  For us, he sends Christ – who rises from death himself and promises us a resurrection of our own. 

But there’s more Jesus yet to uncover here at Mount Moriah. 

Abraham and Isaac set out on a three day journey to Mount Moriah.  And on the third day, they arrive.  The third day might remind us of what Jesus did on the third day.  He conquered death. But there’s more.

Isaac was Abraham’s his son, his only son, his beloved.  Sure Abraham had Ishmael with the servant Hagar.  But God is quite specific here, he means Abraham’s only true son, his darling, his legitimate son and heir, Isaac.  The sacrifice will be not just any, but the highest and the best.  So too, our Lord sends and offers his beloved one, his only begotten Son, the one with whom he is well pleased, his beloved.

They were accompanied by “two young men”.  Jesus himself is often flanked by two men – whether thieves crucified with him, or two young men (angels) who attend his empty tomb, our numerous other examples from Scripture in which we always find Jesus at the center.

They went to Moriah, we don’t know exactly which mountain, but the region is the same area as Jerusalem, where Jesus accomplished our salvation.  Indeed, they even took a donkey.  Our Lord rode a donkey into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, to make a sacrifice of his own.

When they arrive, Abraham and Isaac go forward, side by side.  Some have made note how this shows Isaac’s willing participation in the whole thing.

Indeed, consider that Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice, and our Lord Jesus Christ carried his own cross.

Isaac was no dummy.  He noticed that Abraham had well prepared everything for the job – the wood, the fire, the knife.  All that was missing was the sacrifice.  He innocently asked his father, “Where is the sacrifice?” And Abraham told him, “God will provide it”. The word of his father is good enough for him, and he carries on.  The word of God was always enough for Jesus.  And even though he asked for the cup to pass from him, he nevertheless submitted to the Father’s will.

Furthermore, young Isaac could surely overpowered old Abraham, and yet, he dutifully and obediently submits to being bound and laid out on the altar.  Thus he foreshadows the humble obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was also obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

When our Lord Jesus Christ says of the Old Testament Scriptures, “These are they which testify to me”, he really means it. 

And yet there is still more.  The sacrifice of Isaac is stopped at the last minute, by the Angel of the Lord (which is really God the Son himself in Old Testament form).  And so the pre-incarnate Christ is the one who rescues and delivers and provides the substitute.

And behold!  Over there, caught in the thicket, a ram.  God provides a substitute sacrifice.  Even the horns of the ram are crowned with twisted thickets, and we are reminded of the crown of thorns worn by our Lord Jesus.  He, the true and ultimate substitute, not just for Isaac, but for you and me.  He takes your place on that altar.  He takes your place on that cross.  He sheds his innocent blood for your guilty blood.  He gives his life to spare you from death.

Faith is hard, my friends.  God calls us to give up our idols and trust in him alone.  The First Commandment is perhaps the most broken, even by us.  But rather than demand we pay for our own failings with our blood or the blood of our children – our gracious God provides a substitute, a sacrifice, in the person of his own beloved Son.  Thanks be to God who foreshadowed all this on Mount Moriah, and who accomplished it on Mount Calvary, in the person of his Son our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.