Second Sunday of Lent
Have you ever been at a movie theater, you’ve got your popcorn and pop that you’re enjoying during the movie, and then, at what you know will be a key part of the movie, you feel like you have to go to the bathroom? You squirm a little, hoping you can remain in the theater until the end. But then sometimes you just can’t wait. So you leave the movie, only to get back, and you wonder, “What did I miss?!?”
Well, today’s first reading leaves some very important parts out, and if we didn’t read the whole thing, we might miss what the Word of God is trying to tell us in this passage. So, let me fill in some of the blanks. Abraham and Isaac are about to go up the mountain where, unbeknownst to Isaac, Abraham has been given a command to sacrifice Isaac (a command which sounds very weird to us, but to the people of Abraham’s time was sadly not uncommon). It reads,
Thereupon Abraham took the wood for the holocaust and laid it on his son Isaac’s shoulders…As the two walked on together, Isaac spoke to his father Abraham: “Father!” he said. “Yes son,” he replied. Isaac continued, “Here…[is] the wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?” “Son,” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.” […]When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there an arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up his son Isaac, and put him on top of the wood on the altar.
Then our passage continues, when the angel stops Abraham from killing Isaac. Now, a lot is going on in this passage. This is the great test of Abraham’s faith, as St. Paul recalls in the Letter to the Romans, and by which Abraham was justified, or made right in the eyes of God. But, listen to the details again, this time paraphrased: We have a father who sends his son, his beloved son, up Mount Moriah, carrying wood on his back that will be used for the sacrifice of that same son. The son is then fastened to the wood for the sacrifice to begin.
This should remind us of Jesus’ sacrifice. Jesus, the Beloved Son of the Father takes the wood of the cross, the instrument of His one, salvific sacrifice, upon His back, carries it up Mount Calvary, and is fastened to the wood of the cross for the sacrifice. Except this time, instead of being stopped by an angel, Jesus dies on the cross, of His own free will, and brings us salvation. We cannot miss this point of the passage, and we need to read this passage in light of Jesus’ sacrifice. Otherwise, we end up thinking that God can command us to do some horrible things. And, as Pope Benedict commented in his first year as pope when trying to dialogue with the Muslim community, God cannot command us to do that which is evil. Did God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? Yes, we have that in Scripture. But seeing that Abraham’s faith was so strong that it would even be willing to sacrifice his son, God stopped Abraham before it actually happened, because God never wants us to kill an innocent person, either someone else or ourselves, especially not in His Name. Instead, God used the sacred author to communicate in this story that God loves us so much, that He prefigures in this passage the death of His own Beloved Son, who was not prevented from dying, as was Isaac, but freely chose to give Himself over “for us men and for our salvation,” using the words of our Creed.
But the darkness of the cross which looms over this story for us for whom the veil has been lifted, is not the end. Isaac was saved from death, and found life. Jesus, though He truly died, was also saved from death through the resurrection, and given a glorified body. And it was a foretaste of that glory which Peter, James, and John saw on another mountain, Mount Tabor. On that mountain, God the Father reaffirms what was said at Jesus’ baptism, that Jesus is the Beloved Son, and Jesus gives those three chosen apostles the great gift of seeing what was in store for Jesus and all His faithful disciples after death. But, of course, Peter, James, and John didn’t understand what was going on, and it wasn’t until after the resurrection that they understood what a great gift Jesus had given them in letting them see the end of the story with the effects of the resurrection.
But, to get to that glory of which Jesus gives us a foretaste in the Transfiguration, we cannot escape the sacrifice and death that comes before. Resurrection is only possible for those who have died. The glory of Mount Tabor is only available to those who are willing to sacrifice all on Mount Moriah. So, the question for us is, what are we willing to give up? What is God asking us to sacrifice? Now, again, God is not asking us to sacrifice our children or any other innocent. But God does ask us to give our best to Him, just as He gave His best, His Only-Begotten, Beloved Son, for us.
I can hear you thinking, “Oh great! Here comes the money talk again! Time for Fr. Anthony to tell us to give of our time, talent, and treasure, but especially our treasure!” And, with this being our DSA kickoff weekend, I certainly do want to encourage you to prayerfully consider how much you’re giving both to DSA and to our parish. It’s tough. Money’s tight. It’s no different for me. I have things that I want to do, vacations that I would like to take, and giving more would certainly get in the way of that. But can I die to myself and be generous with the money with which God has already blessed me? That’s a question we all have to ask ourselves. For some, the answer is certainly yes. For others, there’s no more else to give without endangering the basic goods of life.
But, let’s be honest: for some of us, money is all too easy to give. It’s just a few more dollars, without any real commitment of mind, heart, and soul. For you, consider what it is you really don’t want to give up. It was tough for Abraham even to take his son up that mountain. But, each slow step, Abraham reaffirmed his faith in God who had called him to leave his family behind in Iraq, and now was asking him to sacrifice the very son who was supposed to be answer to God’s promise to make of Abraham a great nation, more numerous than the stars in the sky.
So what is it that God has called us to give up? Not just candy, or gum, or chocolate, but things that really are precious to us, but that we don’t need. What do we need to sacrifice to reaffirm that we trust that God who calls us His sons and daughters will never abandon us and will not let us want for any good thing? Is God calling us to sacrifice more of our time to spend with Him in prayer? Is God asking us to make more of an effort to learn about Jesus so that we can love Him better? Is God asking us to take the time to learn about the teachings of the Church? If we can sacrifice what is precious to us, truly give it up, then the shadow of Mount Moriah does not have to be the end of the story, but we can continue on to Mount Tabor, and to the glory which is to come in the resurrection for those who were willing to give all they had to God and hold nothing back.