People tell me that they really struggle with the Old Testament, that they just don’t know why we use it at Mass, and that it doesn’t make sense a lot of the time. This is one of the Old Testament readings that really helps us to understand just how intertwined the Old Testament is with the New Testament. It’s important to know that everything that happened in the Old Testament was part of God’s revelation to the Jewish people, preparing them so that when Christ came, they would recognize him.
In the first reading that we have of Abraham and Isaac today, we hear about this very difficult story. It should be difficult for us, of God seemingly asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son. That should disturb us, I hope. We think back to all the different cultures at the time that this happened, it wasn’t unknown for a child sacrifice. As a matter of fact, child sacrifice was fairly common. In the earliest civilizations that we know of, going back 5000 years, child sacrifice was always a part of every culture. This can seem very distant from us.
I did one summer in Guatemala. I was taking Spanish studies. We had the weekends off so we could go anywhere we wanted. One weekend I went to the Mayan Ruins, ruins that they have there in the Mayan culture. They’re just discovering what they think are small bits of it that have been completely laid under the jungle. There are more and more discoveries of these huge kingdoms and empires. I went to this Mayan ruin, and they had a number of temples and pyramids. At this temple they had a place where they performed child sacrifice. It was at the very top of the temple where they would sacrifice the child. They had what looked to be like a slide that would go all the way down the temple. At the bottom of the temple, they would build a fire. The child was sacrificed, the blood would go down into the fire of the temple, and that would be the sacrificial offering of God. I wanted to place this story, what happened with Abraham and Isaac, in that context for us to realize that it wouldn’t be uncommon for someone to think that they needed to offer their son to God or to the gods.
All of this story, as I go through it, I want you to think about Gospel parallels, specifically Jesus. Think about times in the life of Jesus that we hear these phrases come up. I’m going to go through this story and just kind of tease that out for all of us. When you hear in the first reading, when God calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he says to him, “Abraham, take your son, your only son, who you love, and bring him to me.” We think about any part in the Gospel that relates to that, “your only son, whom you love, and bring him to me.” Jesus was the only son of God, and he was also the beloved son. We heard in his baptism, “You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”
Then he says, “Take him to the heights. Take him to the mountain.” We know that the mountain that Jesus was taken to for his crucifixion with Golgotha. We’re preparing for Holy Week. He says to Abraham, “Saddle the donkeys. Gather two men to get the donkeys.” We know that Jesus rode a donkey into Bethlehem, but before he did, he said to two of his disciples, “I want two of you to go to the village and find a donkey that will be waiting for you.” So, two servants bring the donkey with Abraham, two servants get the donkey for Jesus. We hear the command from Abraham to take the wood and to lay it on his son, to allow his son to carry the wood up the mountain. We know with Jesus, that he would carry the wood of the cross up to the mountain. Abraham and Isaac went on a three-day journey until they got to the mountain. Three days should remind us of the three-day journey that Jesus made into his descent into hell and the three days it would take him until the resurrection.
They’re walking up the mountain, Abraham and Isaac are alone at this point, and Isaac has the wood that he’s carrying on his back. He looks at his father, and he’s starting to think, we’re going up there to make the sacrifice. I got the wood, we have everything that we need, Where’s the lamb? So, he says to his dad, “We’re missing something here. Where’s the lamb?” His father is kind of afraid to tell him that he’s the lamb. They continue up to the mountain and they get to the top; Isaac begins to question. We know that Jesus, as he was preparing to go to the crucifixion, he would question his father. He would say, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass, but not my will, but your will.” We know that Jesus was the Lamb of God so he was the one that would take the place of our sins and that of Isaac.
“Abraham then bound his son to prepare the sacrifice.” When Jesus was condemned the first thing the soldiers did, was they bound him and they took him off to be crucified. As Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac, a voice comes from the heavens, and God the Father speaks to him. He says to him, “Do not lay a finger upon your son.” We hear in in the gospel that God our Father did not allow Jesus to be spared. He did not withhold his only son.
All of these parallels that happen in the story of Abraham and Isaac are a foreshadowing of what would happen with Jesus, so that when people saw these things happening to Jesus they would realize, oh, this is the same story being made known in Jesus, that Jesus is the Lamb. As God stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, he says, “Do not lay a finger upon him.” It reveals that there is a lamb over in the bush and he takes that lamb to be slaughtered.
As we’re preparing for Holy Week, we are going on this journey in this Season of Lent. The same parallels that happened with Abraham and Isaac, that happened with Jesus and the Father, are happening with us, because in our Baptisms each and every one of you became Jesus for the world today. That means that in the same way we will suffer with him, and if we suffer with him and we die with him, we will also rise with him. The interesting thing is with the Resurrection and in this time period, people didn’t believe in the Resurrection. If you had only one son, the reason why that son was so important is because that’s the only way you would live on, by that son having children and grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and generation after generation. That was the only way of the Resurrection. It’s interesting because Abraham believed in the Resurrection. He believed that even if he sacrificed his only son, that his son would rise.
Just a couple of parallels now, give you three things to think about for ourselves. We’re all carrying a cross, right? Each and every one of us is given a cross to carry, but we’re also given a Simon of Cyrene. I want you to think about who is your Simon? Who is the one that helps you carry your cross?
The second question I’d like us to ponder is, what is God calling us to sacrifice? Is there anyone or any person or anything that we love more than God that we’re being called to offer to him? I have a friend whose son was killed in a car accident and when he died, she remembered being so distraught she didn’t know what to do, so she opened up her Bible. The passage that she opened up to was, “Whoever loves son or daughter or mother or father more than me is not fit for the Kingdom of God.” She realized at that moment that she had to give her son to God, and love God even above her own child. Who is it that we’re being called to offer to God during the Season of Lent?
Finally, the third question, do you believe in the Resurrection, do we really believe in the Resurrection? I have a friend that I was talking with recently. He’s dying of cancer, and he said, “I’m ready to go, but the only thing I’m really going to miss is my family and friends. I’m really going to miss them. As we were talking, I said, “We believe in the Resurrection and we believe that if we rise from the dead and we’re with Jesus and if each and every one of us receives Jesus into us when we celebrate Mass, that our loved ones are with us closer than they ever could have been here on earth.” I said, “You’ll never miss them because you’re going to be so close to them, you’re going to be with them in everything that they do.” Do we believe in the Resurrection?
Let us go forth during the Season of Lent carrying our cross but realizing that we have a Simon of Cyrene helping us carry it. Let us remember that we are called to give God everything and if there’s anything we’re holding onto too tightly, to offer it to him, to love him above all. Finally, to believe in the Resurrection that he will bring us to new life, and we’ll share in eternal life together.
