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“DOES GOD HAVE A SKELETON?”

GENESIS 22:1-14

 

22:1 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.”

2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.

4 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.

5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.”

6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together.

7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”

8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.

9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.”

12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

 

One of my favorite sayings suggests that there are three kinds of people in the world. 

·         There are those who make things happen. 

·         There are those who watch things happen and

·         There are those who wonder what the heck happened.

 

Nobody, of course, wants to a “what the heck happened” kind of person.  Sometimes though you can’t help it.  I don’t care who you are.  There are going to be times when life gets the best of you; times when you’re not sure if you’re coming or going; times when things just don’t many any sense at all.

 

For example, you could live in the Midwest and after working hard all your life everything you own is washed away in a flood. Or, you could spend years saving for your retirement and then your company goes bankrupt taking all the money you saved with it.  Or, you could work hard to raise your kids the right way and then you get a phone call in the middle of the night asking you to come down to the police station.  

 

By the way, if you ever get a phone call like that you could react the same way a mother did when she and her husband got an unexpected phone call from their son. The son called to let his parents know that he was flunking out of college.  Shortly after they got that disappointing phone call the parents left for a trip to Greece.  While they were there the mother sent a postcard to her son.  On the back of the postcard she wrote these words, “Dear Son, Having a wonderful time. By the way, the picture on the front of this postcard shows a cliff from which women in ancient Sparta used to hurl their defective children onto the rocks below.  Wish you were here. Love, Mom”

 

Sometimes life doesn’t make sense at all. Abraham must have felt as though life didn’t make any sense while he was walking to the top of Mount Moriah.  What happened that day on Mount Moriah makes a lot of people cringe.  How about you?

Does it bother you that God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac?

Does it bother you that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac?

What would you do if God asked you to do something like that?

 

I bet Abraham’s head was spinning as he made his way up that mountain. I can easily picture him having a running conversation with the Lord:

 

LORD what are you doing to me here? This doesn’t make any sense at all.  Isaac is my beloved son and if I sacrifice him how am going to be the father of a great nation? You told me I was going to be the father of a great nation and Sarah and I are much too old to have another son.  Of course we were much too old to have a son when Isaac was born.  So, if you did it once I’m sure you can do it again but I don’t want another son. I love Isaac Lord.  Yes, I know there are people all around us who sacrifice their children to their gods all the time, but I was hoping that you were going to be different from all those other gods.  LORD, I also don’t understand why you have to test me again.  You’ve already tested me time and time again.  You tested me way back when I was living in the land of Ur.  You told me to leave my family and everything that was familiar to me and travel sight unseen to the land of Canaan and that’s what I did.  I also don’t understand why you have to test me again if you’re all knowing.  If you know everything then you already know what’s really in my heart.  Okay maybe this test is meant to show ME what I have in my heart. Is that it LORD?  Are you trying to help me see what I’m made of?  Or are you really testing Isaac here?  Are you testing him so he’ll be ready when the time comes for me to pass the torch of faith on to him? I don’t know Lord. I just wish that there was an easier way to do whatever it is you’re doing here.

 

Sometimes life doesn’t make sense at all. When that happens you can do one of three things.  Actually, there’s probably 20 different things you could do but I’m sure you’d be a lot happier if I stayed away from a 20 point sermon. So, let’s look at  the three main things you can do when life doesn’t make sense.

 

The first thing you can do is throw in the towel.  In other words, you give up on life.  You give up on yourself.  You give up on God.  You say to yourself, “Okay Lord, if this is the way you’re going to do things around here I’ll just go my own way thank you very much.”

 

The second thing you can do is throw a fit.  You get angry.  You get angry at life.   You get angry at everyone around you.  You get angry at God.  That’s probably better than just throwing in the towel.

 

The best thing you can do though is exactly what Abraham did that day on Mount Moriah.  You can see that by looking at the answer that Abraham gave when Isaac asked him about the burn offering.  I believe that the answer that Abraham gave his son is the key to the story.  So, let’s take a closer look at what Abraham and Isaac said to each other in that crucial moment. Abraham and Isaac are walking up the mountain when Isaac suddenly realizes that something isn’t quite right.  Isaac says, “My father! Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham must have been expecting that question because he immediately replies, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”

 

Now here’s the thing.  Abraham didn’t say that because he was trying to pull the wool over Isaac’s eyes.  Abraham said that because he really believed that God was going to provide the lamb for the sacrifice.  Abraham really believed that somehow, someway God was going to make everything right in the end.  So, after wrestling with God for much of the way up that mountain I can easily see Abraham saying those words to himself over and over again as he got closer to the top of the mountain. “God will provide.  God will provide.  God will provide.”

 

That’s the best thing you can do when life just doesn’t many any sense.  Just keep walking up that mountain and saying to yourself, “God will provide.  God will provide.  I know that God will provide.  I don’t understand what’s going on here but I know that God will provide.  I don’t know how this is all going to work out, but I know that God will provide.  When I get to the top of that mountain I know that everything will make sense because I know that God will provide.”

 

If you get tired of saying that over and over again when your head is spinning here’s another suggestion.  Just stop for a moment and ask yourself this question.  Ask yourself, “Does God have a skeleton?”  That’s a question that a woman who taught English as a second language got one day from one of her students. It all started while they were looking at a picture of a skeleton.  At the top of the picture were the words “Inside Of Me.”  The picture was designed to teach the children that everyone has a skeleton inside of them. While they were looking at the picture a little girl from India found it hard to believe that she and everyone else had this scary looking skeleton inside of them.  So, she pressed the issue a little further.  “Even you got one of these inside you, Mrs. K?” she asked.  The teacher smiled and said, “Yes, I have one, too.”  The little girl thought about it for a moment and then asked, “Even God got one inside him?”  Now that’s a question that might make a person a little uncomfortable; especially when the children in the class were from many different cultures with many different religious backgrounds.  The question, though, didn’t faze this particular teacher.  She was used to six year old theology questions.  So, when the little girl from India asked if God also has a skeleton the teacher smiled and said, “If God needs a skeleton, I’m sure he has one.”  That satisfied the children’s curiosity and then went on with the lesson.

 

Does God have a skeleton?  Who knows?  No matter who you are you’ll never understand God completely which means some things in life aren’t going to make sense no matter how hard you try to figure them out.  When that happens you can throw in the towel, throw a fit or throw your hands up to the heaven and say to yourself, “God will provide.”   Amen.

 

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes                                                                            

June 29, 2008