Years ago a magnificent diamond was found in a South African mine.  The De Beers Corporation, knowing where its bread was buttered, presented it to the King of England to place in his crown.  The monarch sent it to Amsterdam to be cut.  It was put into the hands of an expert cutter.  And what do you suppose he did with it?  He took the priceless gem and cut a notch in it.  Then he struck a hard blow and the beautiful jewel lay on the table cut in two.

       Did he do this out of recklessness, wastefulness, or carelessness?  Not at all.  For days and weeks that blow had been studied and planned.  Drawings and models had been made of the diamond.  Its quality, its defects, its lines of cleavage had been studied with minute care.  The man who struck the blow was an artist.

       That blow was not a mistake.  It was a climax of skill.  When the cutter struck that blow, he did the one thing that would bring that diamond to its greatest radiance and splendor.

       In the same way, God sometimes lets a sharp blow fall on our lives.  The blow may seem to us to be an appalling mistake.  But it my not be.  For you are the most priceless jewel in the world to God and He is the most skilled artist in the universe.

       We see this very clearly in the cutting of Abraham.  Listen to Genesis 22:1-14.

                        Read Genesis 22:1-14

       This is the climax to the story of God’s shaping of this man.  Verse 1 says, “After these things God tested Abraham.”  Everything that has happened so far to Abraham is relegated simply to a list of incidents called “these things”.  Everything to this point has been a build up to this moment.

       When God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, God promised that He would make him into a great nation.  This promise is repeated and enlarged many times during the years of Abraham’s pilgrimage.  But in all these years – from Abraham’s early seventies to when he is ninety-nine years old – Abraham has only one son by the wrong mother and the small company of his immediate family seems to shrink.  When Abraham is ninety-nine, God appears to him again and changes his name from Abram (Exalted Father) to Abraham (Father of a great multitude).  Abraham believes God and receives his son.  His name is Isaac.  He is born when Abraham is one hundred years old.

       God specifically confirms Isaac as the son of His promise:  “I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.”  Abraham loves Isaac and is extremely proud of him.  But even more important for this test, all of Abraham’s spiritual hopes are centered in him.

       About twenty years pass between Chapters 21 and 22.  For twenty years of blessing and happiness, Isaac is the delight of his parents’ hearts.  True to his name, which means “laughter”, he has brought laughter into their tent.  The whole family life centers around this boy as he grows up to young manhood.

       Suddenly, like a thunderbolt from the sky, comes a command from God. Abraham can hardly believe his ears.

       God says, “Now take your son Isaac, your only son whom you love, and go to Mount Moriah and offer him up on that mountain.”

        This is a personal test for Abraham, who is called by name.  “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love.”  The threefold description rules out any possibility of misunderstanding.

       These words seem cruel.  But they should at least reassure Abraham that God is fully aware of what he is asking him to do.  God is asking him to sacrifice Isaac --  not Eliezer, who is no son – not Ishmael, a true son but not the son of God’s promise – not even an Isaac about whom Abraham might conceivably have been indifferent.  It is “your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love.”  This is the one whom God is asking the old man to sacrifice.

       You can imagine what a blow this is to Abraham.  It is specifically called a test.  God want to know if Abraham’s confidence is in his son Isaac, or in the God who gave him his son.  This is a test of Abraham’s faith and insight – and a way of teaching Abraham even more about his God.

       There is an old story about a preacher who used to start every sermon with a motion like this (sweep hands up to left side).  Then he would end each sermon with a motion like this (sweep hands up to left side).  When he was finally asked what “this” and “this” were he said, “Oh, those are the quote marks.”

       I don’t usually have to do that – at least not for extended sections.  But I am so indebted in this sermon to the insights of Dr. Earl Palmer of University Presbyterian in Seattle that I feel I ought to do “this” and “this” – or at least (smaller motion) “this” and “this.”

        As Palmer observes, “There are two ways to look at this incident on Mt. Moriah.  The first way is to see the experience as proof of the great faith of Abraham.  In other words, Abraham is being tested to see if his obedience is strong and he passes the test.  The problem for us with this view is that we are offended and disappointed that a loving God should pose such a choice to Abraham.

       Then there is a second view, that is much more profound and much more biblical.

       But in order to understand this second view, we first of all have to understand something about Abraham and his time.  Human sacrifice in Abraham’s time was common among all the nations.  The Moabites and the Amorites and the Babylonians and later the Assyrians in the context in which Abraham lived all practiced human sacrifice.  Very often the first son would be sacrificed as a part of fertility rites.

       Nation Geographic some years ago did a series of articles of Assyria.  One of the Assyrian gods, Marduk, delighted in child sacrifice.  They excavated one of those idols with its two arms above a fire on which to place the body of a child.  This was common practice in the time Abraham lived.  That’s the region where Abraham grew up.  The Canaanites, among who Abraham is now living, were known to make their sons “pass through the fire” – which meant that they were sacrificed and burned.

       So Abraham could well have thought of the command that God gives in the 22^nd chapter of Genesis in light of the terrible religious context in which he lives.  He could have said to himself, “Ah, I knew a moment like this would come!”  Why shouldn’t it come?  Abraham may have been bitter and he may have been hurt, but he is resigned to do what everyone else does.  This is the religious system that is honored.  This is the religion of his age.  This is the expectation.

       Abraham could have said to himself something like this:  “The God who called me from Ur of Chaldees who has led me, whom I obey, is now going to ask the same symbol of devotion that all of the other gods do.”  This is the context of Abraham’s life.  There is no reason to expect anything different than this.  “Why should I expect my God to set up any different means of love or obedience to him that any other god?”  But I think there is more to it than this because of the experience Abraham has had with God.  Abraham does expect something more!

       God says that Isaac is to be sacrificed.  And for the first time in all Abraham’s experience with God, he is faced with a conflict between God’s command and God’s promise.  Earlier, Abraham is tested as to whether he will believe that God can do the seemingly impossible task of giving Abraham and Sarah a son.  That was a test, but it was not as hard as this one.  This test involves an apparent conflict within the words of God Himself.  God had promised a future through Isaac.  But God now also commands Abraham to kill him.

       How can this conflict be resolved?  There are only two ways.

      Abraham could conclude that God is erratic, wavering from one plan to another because He does not know His own mind.  God could feel about His promises, “That was then, this is now!”

       But this has never been Abraham’s experience of God.  The long wait for a son had taught him better than that.  Now Abraham does not understand how, if the command is carried out, the promise can be fulfilled.  But that is all right.  Abraham becomes confident that God will do something to bring it all together.

        It takes three days to reach the region of Moriah.  Three days are an eternity when embarked on such a task.  What is Abraham thinking about during that eternity?  I do not think he is imagining the sacrifice itself.  I do not think he is asking whether at the crucial moment he will have the strength to go through with his assignment.  I believe that Abraham is continuing to chew on the problem of God’s promise.  The reason I think this, is that the passage suggests that he solves it on the way to Moriah.  We are told that when Abraham finally sees the place in the distance, he says to his accompanying servants, “stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there.  We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

       “We will come back.”  Abraham intends to sacrifice Isaac.  But by this time he is sure that the outcome will not be the end of Isaac.  What has Abraham come to believe?  The author of Hebrews tells us:  “by faith Abraham, when God tested him offered Isaac as a sacrifice – he who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him “it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”  Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”  Hebrews tells us that Abraham now has faith to expect a resurrection.  He has become an Easter person.

       Abraham’s trust is that God will do something new.  That is Abraham’s faith – not his willingness to sacrifice Isaac.  And when Abraham least expects it, though he hopes for it, God interrupts Abraham.

        The painter, Rembrandt, was a great interpreter of the Old and New Testaments.  And in many ways he is one of the greatest Biblical teachers.  Not all of his paintings are original.  He did a painting of the sacrifice of Isaac that he copied from another, lesser-known painter.  Rembrandt copies it in almost every detail except for two insights that shod the depth of his understanding.  In both paintings, Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac.  The son is bound and Abraham has the dagger in this hand and the angels come down and wrestle with Abraham to prevent the blow.

       In the first painting, Abraham holds the dagger above his son and the angels are struggling with Abraham.  “Abraham, Abraham, do not offer your son.”  In this painting Abraham grips the knife and is prevented from carrying out the sacrifice only by the angel’s superior strength.

       Rembrandt’s painting takes place at the same moment.  It is identical except for two changes.  In Rembrandt’s painting the father stands with his hand across his son’s face.  The father can’t bear to have his son see him.  And second, the knife.  In Rembrandt’s painting, just as the angel touches the father, the knife is let go.  There is no wrestling.  There is only suggestion of a touch.  And the hand is flung open and the knife is falling to the ground.

       In the other painting, it is almost as if the father religiously wants to follow through and do the murder.  He seems to be delighting in this great and spectacular act, which he would be doing for God.  But Rembrandt sees that the father does not want to slay his son at all.  All the angel says is “Abraham, and he drops the knife – he even throws it away.  The hand is wide open.

       The great event of Mt. Moriah is that at just the right moment, God interrupts Abraham who is ready to be interrupted.  Up until now, Abraham has obeyed the God of authority who called him.  He’s had his ups and downs but he has followed and he’s followed to the bitter end here on Mt. Moriah.  But now, in his old age, Abraham meets the God of love – the God who cares for Abraham and cares for what Abraham cares for.  He’s not like those other Gods.  Something new is happening.

       Abraham, as he starts for Mt. Moriah, is a typical religious figure.  He’s going to do it by the numbers.  Trudging up the hill with his son, Abraham is a typical religious figure – ready to sacrifice greatly for a demanding God – climbing the mountain of ultimate obedience.  As such, he would make a good Muslim suicide bomber.  The motivation is the same.

       But Abraham runs down Moriah a new man – as a Christian.  Because he now knows that God takes on His own shoulders the total responsibility for the old man and his son.

       That’s the big event on Mt. Moriah, and the gospel begins right here when God takes the responsibility for sacrifice off of Abraham’s shoulders and, brothers and sisters, off our shoulders as well.  What Abraham and Isaac experience on Mt. Moriah is redemption and resurrection.  The author of Hebrews writes that Abraham received back Isaac as if he were resurrected. 

       1 Chronicles 21:18 tells us that Mount Moriah, where Abraham offered Isaac, is the very place where in later years King David bought the threshing floor of Onan as a site for the temple.  On that very place where Abraham offered Isaac, the Temple of Solomon was built.  Today there stands in that same exact place the Dome of the Rock, a Moslem shrine, built over the great rock that formed the base of the altar of sacrifice in the Temple. It is a very historic spot.  That’s why people are fighting over it today.

       When God gave His Son for us, it was on another part of the very mountain where Abraham had offered his son.  In Abraham’s day, there was no temple on this mountain.  It was a deserted, barren place.  But the fact that this was the place where God intended to build His city and in which he intended to have His own son die, explains why he had Abraham make the three day journey to get there.  God is showing that it was on this mountain (Jerusalem, or Mount Moriah) that He would accomplish our salvation.

       Abraham said to Isaac, “God will provide for himself a sacrifice.”  And John the Baptist announced Jesus as “the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

       Jesus is the lamb Abraham had said would be provided.  Abraham is only asked to sacrifice his son; he did not actually have to do it.  Even if he had, there was only physical death involved.  But when the time came for God to sacrifice His Son, it was not a mere physical death; it was a spiritual separation – a taking our place that achieved forgiveness for you and me.  When God’s hand was raised at the cross, there was no one to call out, “stay your hand.  Do not harm the boy.”  The hand that was poised above Christ fell.  Jesus dies and through that death God brought life to Abraham and to all whom, like Abraham, trust what God has promised in the cross and in the resurrection.