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Morning Meditation for the Season after the Epiphany
February 4, 2026
Reading: Genesis 22:1-18
After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ 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 that I shall show you.’ So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt-offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.’Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘Father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ He said, ‘The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.
When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’ And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt-offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place ‘The Lord will provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’
The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, ‘By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.’
Meditation-Rebecca Northington
I have often thought of this reading and this story as heart wrenching. Can you even imagine if God asked you to do this? To sacrifice your son (or daughter). It takes me to that scene in the film Sophie’s Choice when the SS soldier arbitrarily makes Sophie choose one of her children to die. Just to be cruel. Just to exert power. Just to expose and crush love. It is heart wrenching. But God is not trying to flex power or control in this story. God is showing us that he is not like the gods of Abraham’s time. Nor is he like the gods that we worship today: power, materialism, consumerism, wealth, comfort. He operates outside of that power structure, and outside of the power structure that mankind has come to understand and operate within. God is showing us what it means to have faith in something greater than human understanding.
Abraham placidly responds “here I am Lord” each time God calls him. This story doesn’t test Abraham’s faith so much as reveal it; to us, to God, and to himself. And God is not crushing love here, the way the SS soldier does, or in fact we do with Christ, but reveals it, and what it can cost all of us. This is in fact the first time the word love is used in the Bible. And it references the love between a father and a son, giving us some understanding of what is to come with Jesus, and what it costs God to offer him to us.
This story foreshadows the sacrificial lamb of the New Testament: Christ. And as I read it now, I understand more intimately how we are supposed to feel regarding God the Father’s love, and how we cruelly rejected it. We crucified it. We did not have enough faith to say ‘stop the sacrifice’ when we murdered love incarnate. And God knew we would not have the courage, or the faith, when he sent his son to us. God knew his son would bear the burden of our selfishness, of our cowardice, of our very human instinct to take care of ourselves, and not those being persecuted; and he sent him to die so that we may see, that even in that cruel and heart wrenching death, God would love us still. His faith, like Abraham’s, would remain steadfast.
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