Faith of Our Fathers

God will provide Himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. (Genesis 22:8)

A man waits faithfully for one hundred years to have his only son by his wife as promised by God. And then God commands him to go out and kill that son as a sacrifice for Him, and he does it without question, even up to the point that he has the son strapped to the altar with a knife raised. THAT is steadfast faith in God. I do not have it, and must admit that it would be a hard thing even to ask for as truthfully I do not want to be put to a similar test of faith.

But is the story of Abraham and Isaac not a fantastic foreshadowing to the redemptive act of God when He offers His only Son as a sacrifice to us? Even more so that we celebrate that act of supreme love each week upon an altar? And that in God's mercy, we celebrate that act not with knives and fire, but with the simple species of bread and wine? Our God certainly likes His paradoxes.