Jesu Juva

“Our Isaac”

Text: Genesis 22:1-18; Mark 1:9-15; James 1:12-18

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

God has a funny way of showing His love.

First, we heard the story of Abraham. God chose him and gave him so many great and precious promises. And then said: Now go sacrifice your son! The son I promised you and gave you. The son you had to wait 25 years for. The son born to you and Sarah after you were old and had given up hope. The son through whom the promised Saviour was to come. Go and sacrifice him! And not a little. As a burnt offering. Which means first to slay your son, and then to burn him so that there is nothing left. If this is how God treats the people He chooses . . . ! Well, how does the saying go . . . With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Then we heard the story of Jesus at the beginning of His public ministry. He is baptized by John, at which time the voice of the Father resounds from heaven: You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. And then, the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness, where he was tempted by satan for forty days, and lived with the wild animals. This is how the Father treats His beloved Son? His Son, whom He brought the shepherds and wise men to see. His Son, whom Simeon took up in his arms with great joy. His Son, who spent extra time in the Temple, questioning the teachers. His Son, who was the answer to so many hopes and prayers. This is how God treats His beloved Son? Driving Him out into the wilderness and into the clutches of satan?

God has a funny way of showing His love. One that might cause us to ask: Uh, God, do you love me?

This past Wednesday, in addition to being Ash Wednesday, was Valentines Day. And our culture has developed and designated certain ways of showing love - flowers, candy, cards, special fancy meals. Maybe it’s all a conspiracy by those who sell those things and want to make money! But if those are the ways, we are told, that show love, and many think so, and maybe they do . . . But if those are the ways we show love, then by those standards, we should question God’s love. Where are the flowers, candy, and cards for Abraham and Jesus? Or even for you and me? Why are things so hard? Why is life so unfair? Why is the world the way it is? And the conclusion drawn is that God is not very loving. God is mean. God is . . . well, who knows? Unpredictable. So why bother? Why bother with a God like that?

Well, maybe we’re not thinking about love correctly. Maybe love is better reflected in what happens the other 364 - or this year, the other 365! - days of the year that aren’t February 14th. The regular days. The ordinary days. Even the days like when Jesus was baptized and then driven into the wilderness, or when Abraham was told to sacrifice his son. What do these teach us about God’s love? That’s good for us to think about and ponder, so that we do not doubt or despair of God’s love. So that we don’t think: Why bother?

This season of Lent is about struggle. Our struggle against sin. Our struggle against satan and his temptations. Temptations not just to do things called sin, but temptations to turn away from the faith. Temptations to doubt God and His love. Temptations to think God isn’t very good and loving. Temptations to think: Why bother? That’s what satan wants. For you not to bother with God. Or, at least, for God to not have a very big part in your life. And if you think that’s not you . . . this season of Lent is for us to take another look, for us to take stock, and that maybe I’m a little farther down that path than I think.

So I think one of the hardest struggles we have is to not judge God by our own standards; by what we see, by what we feel, by what seems right to us, by the way we think things should be, by our own version of right and wrong and what’s right and wrong for me in my life and situation, but to judge all things by God’s Word. Because our senses and our thinking can deceive us and mislead us. Which is why we pray in the Lord’s Prayer lead us not into temptation, which means (if you remember your catechism) that we pray that God would guard and keep us so that they devil, the world, and our [own] sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, or other great shame and vice. [That] although we are attacked by these things . . . we may finally overcome them and win the victory (Small Catechism, Lord’s Prayer, Sixth Petition). Or in other words, we pray that we remain strong and steadfast in the Word of God. For that and only that is the sure guide to know God and His love.

That we may finally overcome them . . . That word . . . overcome. That’s a struggle word. Lent is about struggle. Our Lenten disciplines are about struggle. But even here, notice how satan has twisted this away from what this struggle should be and made Lent just about losing weight, or watching less TV, or some other kind of self-improvement. Those things might be good, and if you want to achieve those things I wish you success. But those aren’t the kind of spiritual warfare Lent is about. Satan likes that kind of Lent, where the focus is on you, not God! Where the focus is on you, not on prayer, not on loving your neighbor, not on Scripture.

That was not Abraham or Jesus’ Lent. I know, there wasn’t a season of Lent back in those days. But these were their Lenten seasons all the same. Their seasons of struggle. Of attack. Of temptation. Of prayer. Of relying on the Word of God. Of fear, love, and trust in God above all things (Small Catechism, First Commandment). Above what I think, or want, or even love.

And if we are to judge all things by God’s Word . . . what do the Scriptures tell us? That God disciplines those He loves (Deuteronomy 8; Hebrews 12). In that light, think of Abraham’s story again, and especially those days leading up to the story we heard today. Did Abraham love his son, his son of old age, his son born to Sarah, more than God? Did Abraham trust more in the fact of having a son than in God’s promise? What did Abraham fear most: God, or losing his son? We don’t know the answers to those questions; the Scriptures don’t tell us. But if Abraham’s faith was perhaps being put in the wrong places . . . then wouldn’t a merciful and loving God want to do something about that? Even if it was with a struggle like this? A struggle, I dare say, greater than any of us have had to endure.

Now, none of us has been told to do this, sacrifice a son. For none of us have had the promise that through our son would come the Saviour! Abraham and his struggle was unique. But what does God want you to do? And what do you not want to do? Where is the struggle in your own life? What do you fear, love, and trust? Where are you turning for the good you need? Where is your struggle? Maybe that’s exactly where God is being merciful and loving to you. Causing you to struggle where you need it the most.

And how ya’ doing with that? With your struggles? With your temptations? Are you the person spoken of in James, the one who has remained steadfast under trial? Or have you fallen short? I know the answer. Because I know my answer. So this season of Lent we are called to repent, but even more than that, to see the one who IS steadfast until trial. The one who IS blessed. The one who did receive the crown of life. And who did it all for you. To give it all to you.

And so after He is baptized, immediately Jesus is driven out into the wilderness with the wild animals, the wildest of all being satan. And Jesus is tempted there for forty days. Mark doesn’t tell us what those temptations were, like some of the other Gospels do. For Mark, that’s not the point. For Mark, it’s not Jesus as example, how to fight; it’s Jesus as the one who came to fight for us and win. It’s Jesus as the one who remained steadfast under trial. And not just in the wilderness, but then especially on the cross. On the cross as our Isaac. When the Father, God the Father, did not withhold His only Son from us, but led Him up Mt. Calvary and offered Him there as the Lamb of God. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Who takes away the guilt of our unsteadfastness. Who takes away the guilt of our failure to fear, love, and trust God above all things. Who takes away the guilt of our thinking we know better than God. Who takes away the guilt of our doubting God and His love. Who takes away the guilt of our judging God. Who takes away the guilt of our putting other persons or things above God. Who takes away our guilt of all that, of all that which deserves not a crown of life but the dust of death. He bore all that sin and guilt on the cross in our place, to give us the crown of life He earned, in His place. The crown we could never earn for ourselves, but is the gift of His grace.

And then after those 40 days, and after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Repent, yes. But even more, believe. Believe the gospel. Believe this Gospel. That Jesus has come to do this for you. To have the knife and fire of God’s wrath against all the sin of all the world come down upon Him as the burnt offering, but then to rise from the dust and ashes of death to life again. That we who lie in the dust and ashes of death, have life again, too. Abraham believed that God could do that for his Isaac, if it had to be. And Abraham was right. God the Father, in fact, did it for His Isaac, the substitute for Abraham’s Isaac, and the substitute for all of us, too.

And Abraham called the name of that place,“The Lord will provide.” And God did. For, Scripture tells us, the place where Abraham and Isaac went for this sacrifice is the place where the Temple was built for the sacrifices and is the place where Jesus was crucified and sacrificed.

And it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” And it is. For from that mount, from that cross, the life of Christ has been provided for us. The life that we will again receive this morning as we eat and drink that same Body and Blood that once hung on the cross and bore the sin of the world. That same Body and Blood that is now given for the life of the world. That eating and drinking, we receive the strength for this struggle that we are in.

So maybe God’s way of showing His love isn’t the same as how the world does it. And maybe that’s good. That we learn what love really is. And that it’s not just for a day, or 365 days, but for eternity. So a little struggle now, for an eternity of love? That seems worth it to me.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.