Good Friday Sermon
God Will Provide Himself
the Lamb for Sacrifice
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Almighty Father, have mercy upon this thy family for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed, and in accordance with your will delivered into the hands of sinners, and suffered death upon the cross.
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... God tested Abraham, and said, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Mori′ah, and offer him there as a sacrifice upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
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 sacrifice, and arose and went toward the place of which God had told him.
On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.” And Abraham took the wood for the sacrifice, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife.
So they went on both of them together.
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 sacrifice?” Abraham said, “God will provide Himself -- the lamb for sacrifice, my son.”
So they went on both of them together.
When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad 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.”
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 sacrifice instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place ִי ְרִי ְר ֶא ה ְי ה ָו ה ַה ה ּו א as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” (Genesis 22)
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To scholars in every generation, the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac is the most shameful event in our Salvation History --
that God would demand such a horrific thing, testing or not;
that Abraham would commit such an atrocity. Atrocity of intent and will which began the moment he left home with knife, and fire, and wood, and his son, and his intent -- atrocity through three days' travel -- atrocity that did not cease till the angel spoke.
Granted, the point is that because of Abraham’s obedience God justified Abraham as righteous. But scholars agree, the end does not justify the tale, neither God nor Abraham, both shadowed by indelible shame.
I have discussed this in many Bible study groups. In any discussion group the question is always, “What did Sarah, Isaac’s mother, think of all this? What of the boy’s mother?"
Rabbis also tell us that when God said, “Take your son, your only son,” Abraham, ever obedient but never meek, corrected God, “I have two sons.” And when God said, “Isaac, whom you love,” Abraham said, “I love them both. I love both my sons.”
Etched in the annals of shame, the story of Abraham’s three-day trek to Moriah to sacrifice Isaac changed forever the image of Holy Family: the fiercely protective father and the meek, submissive mother. Because Sarah was excluded from any consideration or involvement -- and the rabbis tell us that after her shock of this outrage, Sarah never spoke to Abraham again.
There is a story from the Nazi Holocaust, maybe you read about it right after the war years ago. One morning the Gestapo came into a Jewish Ghetto to round up Jews to take to the concentration camp. They began by grabbing all the children playing in the street and cramming them into a van. One young mother ran out horrified that her three children had been grabbed, all three of her babies. She began screaming at the Gestapo officer, “Give me my children. give me back my babies.” Gazing at her with contempt, the German officer smirked and said, “Very well, madame. You may have one. Choose. Choose One.” As she stood there stunned, the van rolled away with all of her children forever.
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Wednesday evening we walked the Way of the Cross. The fourteen Stations are mostly scriptural -- events lifted from the four gospels and the words of Paul -- though some of the references are far more ancient than Good Friday, coming from Psalms and Isaiah. And at the Thirteenth Station when the body of Jesus is placed in the arms of his Holy Mother, there is an allusion to the Book of Ruth, “call me Mara,” the bitterness of Naomi the widow, bereft of her husband and her two sons. Naomi’s daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabite, a Gentile woman, becomes the great-grandmother of David the anointed king -- David, king and forerunner of Jesus the anointed, Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords, Son of Man, Son of God, God the Son, the crucified one -- Himself the Lamb, son of Mary.
This day consecrated to Jesus could as well be consecrated to Mary, his blessed mother; and to all mothers throughout the ages who have suffered and grieved for their sons.
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17th century English Puritan theologian Richard Baxter wrote a hymn, “Christ leads me through no darker rooms than he went through before.” It was in our 1940 Hymnal but has been deleted, some here may remember it. Now largely out of congregational use, it’s included in the booklet Songs in the Night, or, Hymns for the Sick and Suffering:
Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than He went through before;
Whoever into God's kingdom comes
Must enter by this door.
He seems to have been speaking to mothers, the mothers of sons: Sarah furious with Abraham for his outrageous obedience and treachery. Naomi, bitterly so generations later when her sons Mahlon and Chilion die during the family’s exile to Moab in a time of famine -- as part of God’s plan of salvation. Divine sacrifice of innocent sons.
And now into that Holy Family of Abraham and Sarah, Naomi, Ruth and David, comes Mary, mother of Jesus. When Mary and Joseph present Jesus in the Temple the prophet Simeon blesses the little boy and says to Mary, “a sword will pierce your own soul also.” And fill your heart with bitter pain. It has come. It has come.
Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ -- sees a mother’s love for her son, love from the time the angel Gabriel came, through the years of his childhood into adulthood. That time he stayed behind in the Temple and scared his mother half to death. And today, on his way to the Mount that the Lord has Provided, in a scene that is also captured in our Stations of the Cross, Jesus falls, nearly crushed by the weight of his Cross, and Mary in the crowd rushes out to him in the cobblestone street. As she kneels down lovingly to comfort, he says, “See, mother, I make all things new.”
“See, mother, I make all things new.” It is a climax and high point of the story, the moment of truth. “What is truth?” scoffs Pontius Pilate? This is Truth: “See, mother, I make all things new.” This is why we are here today, at the Cross with Mary the mother of God.
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We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
Because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.
As soon as it was morning, the chief priests, with the elders and scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation; and they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him to Pilate. And they all condemned him and said, “He deserves to die.” When Pilate heard this he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called Gabbatha. Then he handed Jesus over to be crucified.
God did not spare his own son,
But delivered him up for us all.
My Father?
Here am I, my Son.
Behold, here are the fire, and the wood, and the knife. But where is the lamb for the sacrifice?
God will provide Himself -- the Lamb for sacrifice, my Son. The Son of Mary.
Holy Father, we thank you that you have delivered up your only Son to release us from the dominion of sin and death.
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.