Oh, what a wonderful junior high school class we had yesterday. The week before we did not meet as it was Easter Sunday. The week before we took our lesson from the Gospel accounts of Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We explored the traditions of the Church since and how for nearly, or perhaps more than two thousand years, each Palm Sunday was celebrated with some symbolic gesture making visible the cloak and palm fron parade with Jesus as its special focal point. We didn't stay there long though. We quickly got into the passion of the week. The betrayals, the trials, the beatings, the mocking, the murder, the burial, and the resurrection. When the young men went to worship service afterwards, sure enough, they were holding palm branches and waving them as I had predicted. I knew that they felt a special connection. It was good.
Yesterday we took our text from Genesis Chapter 22, The trial of Abraham. We read the complete text of God telling Abraham to take his one and only son and sacrificing that son, Isaac, as a burnt offering. We traced the steps Abraham took; from not hesitating, bringing two servants, bringing his son, traveling to where God prescribed, leaving the servants behind, walking with Isaac up the mountain, Isaac carrying the sacrificial wood, Isaac asking his daddy where the lamb was, Abraham telling Isaac that the Lord would provide, the building of the altar, the binding of Isaac, the knife, the willingness to follow through, the angel, the ram stuck in the bushes, the release of Isaac, to the ultimate covenant with Abraham. We covered it all. We covered Isaac as laughter, as only son, as promise, as sacrifice, as foreshadowing the Messiah. We connected the dots and we made it personal. What would it have been like to have been taken out by our dad to a lake, weighed down with an anchor and having him tell us that God told him to drown us as a sacrifice? Sounds pretty odd, but it must have been shocking to Isaac as he was old enough to understand the process and meaning behind the sacrifice of animals.
We connected the dots to Jesus and his passion. The calling of God the Father. The faith filled following. The "onliness" of Jesus as a son, the innocence, the wood and the burden of the cross, the sacrifice and finally the, "Not my will but Yours." And the differences were there; no stuck ram, no stayed hand.
We came full circle with Easter yesterday. I hope the men were blessed. I know I was.
2 comments:
Hey Bruce,
This is interesting because I translated Gen 22 in Hebrew with Dr. DeRouchie not too long ago. He (and the class) came to the conclusions you did. One interesting thing to note: many commentators have thought this is a reference to child sacrifice, but Gary Pratico did some important archeological work in Egypt a while ago and found a graveyard of thousands of children no more than 3 months old that were sacrificed...but the text in Gen 22 notes that Isaac could talk, and even understand what was going on, so I think it's true that child sacrifice is not involved here. The imagery is quite powerful, in effect God is saying, "Don't you get it--I provide the sacrifice!" And indeed he did!
David
Let's see some updates when you have a chance! Let's hope Cairo works out too!
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