January 16, 2018: Day 22 – Genesis 22

We begin with some fairly dark words.  Whenever a chapter starts with: “And God tested…”, you know that things are going to get tough.  It gets really tough with Abraham.  If you wanted to follow along and see the similarities between the sacrifice of Isaac and the crucifixion of Jesus, or at least how a father has sacrificed his son and how a Father sacrificed his Son, it is always pretty impressive.  One of my favorite paintings is the one by Caravaggio of this scene.  If you have followed my blog at all in the past you know that Caravaggio, a baroque painter, is my absolute favorite of all time.  Here is his rendition.

You have it all here, the goat, the binding of Isaac, the knife, the angel, but not the terror in Isaac’s face, not the anguish in Abraham’s face.  It seems a bit dispassionate for me.  Can you imagine this test?  Take your son out and kill him…okay God.  What about that whole promise of a progeny from this same son, you know the one that I love?  I’ll let you figure that out.

But that happens, doesn’t it sometimes?  We don’t understand how in the world something can be a part of God’s plan, until we look back and say: Oh, I see now how it all works together for good for those who trust in the Lord.  Read this chapter and remember it.  If you look at vs.22 it is from where the term: Jehova Jireh comes.  That is how you say “the Lord will provide” in Hebrew.