God promised a son to Abraham when he was seventy-five, and God gave him that son twenty-five years later when he was 100 years old. Isaac grew up and became a strong young man. “After these things God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘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 Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you’” (Genesis 22:1-2).
Abraham had failed his first major trail of faith fifteen years before when he listened to the voice of his wife and went in to her maid to try to fulfill God’s promise. Ishmael was the fruit, and circumcision was his penitential punishment and symbolized what needed to happen to his heart. This, now, is Abraham’s second chance to live by faith, eat of the tree of life, and trust God in the face of death. God’s asking Abraham to sacrifice his son is the fulfillment of what circumcision symbolized: a heart of faith that trusts and obeys God even when intellectually it makes no sense.
What is the significance of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son? This was the promised son who took twenty-five years for an elderly barren couple to birth at the ages of 100 and ninety. They had waited what seemed like forever, and all human hope had long ago vanished that they would ever conceive a baby. When they heard of the updated promise that he was still going to come to them, they simply laughed. It was preposterous that a ninety-nine and eighty-nine year old should conceive a son, so all they could do was laugh. And they did.
Beyond just the extremely long and impossible waiting for the promised son, this son was incredibly important. This was the boy through whom God had promised to make Abraham a multitude of nations and a father of descendants greater than the sands on the sea shore. This Isaac and no other was the one who would marry, have a family, and be the beginning of an enormous number of people. This Isaac was the one God asked Abraham to sacrifice.
This makes no human sense. God had promised both to give Abraham a son and that this son would be father of an innumerable quantity of descendants; it is similar to God’s command for our first parents to be fruitful and multiply. God then asks Abraham to kill this son which God had given him; this is similar to God asking our first parents and Mary to remain virgins (which normally means one is not going to have children). All of these appear to be contradictory commands/directives from God. They don’t make sense. Our intellect does not know how to handle this discrepancy.
All Abraham has left is his faith to pass this test. He has to eat of his tree of life, which is to believe in his heart that God knows what He is doing, and obey what God asks of him. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.’ He considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:17-19). Abraham’s descendants would come through Isaac, so if God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, God must be planning to raise Isaac from the dead. That is how much Abraham believed in God, that, even though he had never seen it, Abraham believed that God would raise his son from the dead.
The quest for a son that Abraham embarks on many years before comes to completion here when he offers up his only son, Isaac. This quest and Abraham’s faithfulness in the face of his only son’s death, is one of the very most important events in the Old Testament. God stops the hand of Abraham, and He Himself provides the sacrifice: a ram caught by its horns in a thorn bush. This prefigures what God will ultimately do when He sends His only Son crowned by thorns. Abraham’s sacrifice is also the first Passover, for Isaac was passed over. It is his faithfulness which brings down God’s blessings and grace and is the reason for the Israelites’ Passover which set them free from Egypt.
May we eat of the tree of life and so imitate our self-sacrificing Savior and bring down God’s grace and blessings to all those around us; let us offer up our bodies in penance and lay them down in the service of others; let us be willing to be a sacrifice as Isaac was, and if God sees fit, let us be a sacrifice as Jesus was. There is the prayer of the heart, and there is the prayer of the body; we need both, and together they are very powerful. “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (Romans 12:1).
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label circumcision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label circumcision. Show all posts
12.18.2007
Abraham's Understandable Fall
God tested Abraham a number of times during his life: He called him to come to the Promised Land, had him fight in that foreign land against four kings to redeem his nephew Lot, and promised to give him a baby of his own. Abraham passed all these minor tests very well. When God promised to send Abraham his own son, Abraham believed that God would be faithful to His promise. For his belief, God considered Abraham to be righteous. Everything looked wonderful for Abraham who always did what God asked of him and who always believed in God in his heart.
To fully and truly test Abraham, however, God would need to pass Abraham through a trial of faith. He would have to give him a test that would go beyond his intellectual ability to pass the test; the only way to pass such a test when the intellect is rendered useless is to have a full and pure trust in God. So God delayed in sending the promised son. Time is of the essence to an elderly, barren couple. Every day is like a thousand years. After about 3,650 days, when Abraham was eighty-five and Sarah was seventy-five, which seemed like 3,650,000 days, it became humanly obvious that Sarah was not going to have a child.
Sarah, at her wits end, logically and prudently discovered another path to fulfilling God’s promise: Hagar. Maybe God wanted to give them a son through Sarah’s maid. God helps those who help themselves, so it became time to take matters into their own hands. If God was going to send a son, He would have and could have and should have done it already. It must be that God wanted us to use our reason, she must have thought, to figure out a way to make good on what God said would happen. The rationalization that took place is so easy to understand and relate to for we in the modern world do this sort of thing all the time.
At our worst times, we utterly forget God and His providential care of us and think that everything depends on us. At our best, we work as though everything depends on us, but we always are fully aware that it is really up to God. The first is a totally man centered attitude and the second is God centered. The first is fueled by despair and its fruit is selfishness; the second is enlivened by hope and its fruit is the joyful and peaceful offering of self.
Sarah, understandably, gave bad advice to her husband, and he followed it and fell. All of us can relate to such a logical and reasonable and, at root, faithless response for we have all done it ourselves. Abraham, who had perfectly passed three minor tests, does not endure the ultimate test of faith. He lasted for ten years of hell, but then he fell. God needed to send him another test to purify and bring to maturity Abraham’s faith.
To pass this next test, Abraham would have to have complete trust that God would be faithful to His promises, even though what God asked made no human sense. Abraham would need to eat fully of the tree of life. How is this done? God shows Abraham through the covenant of circumcision. On the one hand, it is a penance showing that it is not by human power or ability that we have life; on the other it is a symbol of the stony heart which needs to be broken so that the heart of flesh, the heart that loves and obeys, which lies underneath the heart of stone may beat once again and trust in God no matter how absurd.
God ends up asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac; this seems to contradict God’s promise to give Abraham a vast multitude of descendants through this son. This time Abraham believes God completely, for “he considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19). This will be our topic for tomorrow.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
To fully and truly test Abraham, however, God would need to pass Abraham through a trial of faith. He would have to give him a test that would go beyond his intellectual ability to pass the test; the only way to pass such a test when the intellect is rendered useless is to have a full and pure trust in God. So God delayed in sending the promised son. Time is of the essence to an elderly, barren couple. Every day is like a thousand years. After about 3,650 days, when Abraham was eighty-five and Sarah was seventy-five, which seemed like 3,650,000 days, it became humanly obvious that Sarah was not going to have a child.
Sarah, at her wits end, logically and prudently discovered another path to fulfilling God’s promise: Hagar. Maybe God wanted to give them a son through Sarah’s maid. God helps those who help themselves, so it became time to take matters into their own hands. If God was going to send a son, He would have and could have and should have done it already. It must be that God wanted us to use our reason, she must have thought, to figure out a way to make good on what God said would happen. The rationalization that took place is so easy to understand and relate to for we in the modern world do this sort of thing all the time.
At our worst times, we utterly forget God and His providential care of us and think that everything depends on us. At our best, we work as though everything depends on us, but we always are fully aware that it is really up to God. The first is a totally man centered attitude and the second is God centered. The first is fueled by despair and its fruit is selfishness; the second is enlivened by hope and its fruit is the joyful and peaceful offering of self.
Sarah, understandably, gave bad advice to her husband, and he followed it and fell. All of us can relate to such a logical and reasonable and, at root, faithless response for we have all done it ourselves. Abraham, who had perfectly passed three minor tests, does not endure the ultimate test of faith. He lasted for ten years of hell, but then he fell. God needed to send him another test to purify and bring to maturity Abraham’s faith.
To pass this next test, Abraham would have to have complete trust that God would be faithful to His promises, even though what God asked made no human sense. Abraham would need to eat fully of the tree of life. How is this done? God shows Abraham through the covenant of circumcision. On the one hand, it is a penance showing that it is not by human power or ability that we have life; on the other it is a symbol of the stony heart which needs to be broken so that the heart of flesh, the heart that loves and obeys, which lies underneath the heart of stone may beat once again and trust in God no matter how absurd.
God ends up asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac; this seems to contradict God’s promise to give Abraham a vast multitude of descendants through this son. This time Abraham believes God completely, for “he considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19). This will be our topic for tomorrow.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.17.2007
Quest for a Baby Part Three
God promised Abraham a child when he was seventy-five but did not give him a son until he was 100. When Abraham was eighty-five he listened to the voice of his wife who encouraged him to have relations with her maid. Ishmael was the result. Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian maid, was the mother. Abraham does indeed have a son, but this is not the son that God had promised. This is the son that Abraham gets by his own efforts and contrary to the plan God had: to give him a baby through his wife.
This is a re-enactment of the original baby quest with Adam and Eve. They wanted a child and to fulfill God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, but God told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which is not to have marital relations. Adam listened to the voice of his wife, and viola, Cain was conceived. They realize they were naked, and the woman’s pain in bearing children is increased. The man’s ability to plant good things in the ground is diminished for he just planted his seed (semen) into the ground (his wife), and it brought forth a thorn and thistle: Cain.
Ishmael was conceived when Abraham was eighty-five, and he was born when Abraham was eighty-six. Thirteen years later, God talks with Abraham and once again promises to make him and his wife the parents of child which will lead to a vast multitude of generations to follow. God makes a new covenant with him and requires for the first time that all the males be circumcised. All newborns will be circumcised at eight days old, and anyone who wants to be a part of the family of God will need to be circumcised before he is considered so.
Then, God again promises to give a baby to Abraham and his wife. “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, ‘O that Ishmael might live in thy sight!’” (Genesis 17:17-18). Abraham still wants God to fulfill His promise of many descendants through Ishmael; in the end, Ishmael is not even considered Abraham’s son; Isaac is Abraham’s only son. Isaac means laughter, and that name was given to him because both his parents laughed when they heard that God was going to give them a baby.
God still blessed and multiplied Ishmael who is a major patriarch of the Islamic religion, for Middle-Eastern Muslims trace their genealogy back to him. Ishmael was circumcised when he was thirteen years old, which was the custom of the Egyptians as a right of passage into manhood. By circumcising him at thirteen, it signifies that he is an Egyptian, born of an Egyptian slave, and not a true member of the household of Abraham. “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise.” (Galatians 4:22-23).
Paul continues saying, “Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does the scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Galatians 4:28-31). Gob blesses Ishmael, but he does not become a member of God’s people. He is a slave with a slave’s mentality, and even today the Islamic religion is one where they see themselves as slaves and God as supreme master. It is blasphemy for them to call God “Father.”
Because Abraham relied on the power of his flesh to conceive a son and not on the promise God had given him, God punishes him in the flesh and the exact part of the flesh. He relied on his sexual organ to give life, and so now that organ needs to be cut around as a penance and reminder that life comes from God. It would have been no easy thing to be circumcised at age ninety-nine, yet so Abraham was. Because Abraham did not trust in his heart that God would be faithful to accomplish what He promised, Abraham turned to Hagar. Because he did not eat of his tree of life, he turned instead to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
What is the significance of circumcision? It says in Deuteronomy 10:16: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” There seems to be some connection between circumcision and the heart. At the end of Deuteronomy, there is a very interesting passage about circumcision of the heart:
“And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live…. And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD, and keep all his commandments which I command you this day. The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body…and in the fruit of your ground; for the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (30:6-10).
Circumcision of the heart is loving and turning to God with all one’s heart, and it is obeying all His commands. God delights (Eden) in us and prospers our work and the fruit of our bodies (children). Abraham failed his test when he did not wait upon the Lord just as Adam gave up waiting, too. They stopped waiting and trusting in God and so took matters into their own hands to gain life; they tried to save their life and so lost it.
Paul talks a good deal about circumcision in both his letter to Rome and Galatia. In Romans he says: “For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal” (2:28-29). Real circumcision is an internal, spiritual matter of the heart. Circumcision is a sign of what needs to happen to our hearts.
Our tendency is to turn our trust from God and put it in our abilities, especially our ability to generate children; God gives circumcision to remind us that it is not by our strength and might that we have life; life is given to those who eat of the tree of life, to those who trust in God. Life does not come from the goods of the earth but from God and His commands to us, as Jesus said during His temptation: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).
The tree of life is the heart because it is only by means of a trusting, loving and obedient heart that we have life: this is a circumcised heart. Our hearts need to be circumcised because at the Fall they turned from God and became dead and stony. We need new hearts of flesh, a circumcised heart. Jesus gives us his pierced heart which loves and obeys unto death when we receive the sacraments of baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
This is a re-enactment of the original baby quest with Adam and Eve. They wanted a child and to fulfill God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, but God told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which is not to have marital relations. Adam listened to the voice of his wife, and viola, Cain was conceived. They realize they were naked, and the woman’s pain in bearing children is increased. The man’s ability to plant good things in the ground is diminished for he just planted his seed (semen) into the ground (his wife), and it brought forth a thorn and thistle: Cain.
Ishmael was conceived when Abraham was eighty-five, and he was born when Abraham was eighty-six. Thirteen years later, God talks with Abraham and once again promises to make him and his wife the parents of child which will lead to a vast multitude of generations to follow. God makes a new covenant with him and requires for the first time that all the males be circumcised. All newborns will be circumcised at eight days old, and anyone who wants to be a part of the family of God will need to be circumcised before he is considered so.
Then, God again promises to give a baby to Abraham and his wife. “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, ‘O that Ishmael might live in thy sight!’” (Genesis 17:17-18). Abraham still wants God to fulfill His promise of many descendants through Ishmael; in the end, Ishmael is not even considered Abraham’s son; Isaac is Abraham’s only son. Isaac means laughter, and that name was given to him because both his parents laughed when they heard that God was going to give them a baby.
God still blessed and multiplied Ishmael who is a major patriarch of the Islamic religion, for Middle-Eastern Muslims trace their genealogy back to him. Ishmael was circumcised when he was thirteen years old, which was the custom of the Egyptians as a right of passage into manhood. By circumcising him at thirteen, it signifies that he is an Egyptian, born of an Egyptian slave, and not a true member of the household of Abraham. “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise.” (Galatians 4:22-23).
Paul continues saying, “Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does the scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Galatians 4:28-31). Gob blesses Ishmael, but he does not become a member of God’s people. He is a slave with a slave’s mentality, and even today the Islamic religion is one where they see themselves as slaves and God as supreme master. It is blasphemy for them to call God “Father.”
Because Abraham relied on the power of his flesh to conceive a son and not on the promise God had given him, God punishes him in the flesh and the exact part of the flesh. He relied on his sexual organ to give life, and so now that organ needs to be cut around as a penance and reminder that life comes from God. It would have been no easy thing to be circumcised at age ninety-nine, yet so Abraham was. Because Abraham did not trust in his heart that God would be faithful to accomplish what He promised, Abraham turned to Hagar. Because he did not eat of his tree of life, he turned instead to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
What is the significance of circumcision? It says in Deuteronomy 10:16: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” There seems to be some connection between circumcision and the heart. At the end of Deuteronomy, there is a very interesting passage about circumcision of the heart:
“And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live…. And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD, and keep all his commandments which I command you this day. The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body…and in the fruit of your ground; for the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (30:6-10).
Circumcision of the heart is loving and turning to God with all one’s heart, and it is obeying all His commands. God delights (Eden) in us and prospers our work and the fruit of our bodies (children). Abraham failed his test when he did not wait upon the Lord just as Adam gave up waiting, too. They stopped waiting and trusting in God and so took matters into their own hands to gain life; they tried to save their life and so lost it.
Paul talks a good deal about circumcision in both his letter to Rome and Galatia. In Romans he says: “For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal” (2:28-29). Real circumcision is an internal, spiritual matter of the heart. Circumcision is a sign of what needs to happen to our hearts.
Our tendency is to turn our trust from God and put it in our abilities, especially our ability to generate children; God gives circumcision to remind us that it is not by our strength and might that we have life; life is given to those who eat of the tree of life, to those who trust in God. Life does not come from the goods of the earth but from God and His commands to us, as Jesus said during His temptation: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).
The tree of life is the heart because it is only by means of a trusting, loving and obedient heart that we have life: this is a circumcised heart. Our hearts need to be circumcised because at the Fall they turned from God and became dead and stony. We need new hearts of flesh, a circumcised heart. Jesus gives us his pierced heart which loves and obeys unto death when we receive the sacraments of baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.
12.04.2007
"Abba! Father!"
Last night I asked a question that I did not really answer. It may have been implied, but it was not directly answered. I answered the question about why baptism does not take away concupiscence, but I did not answer why it does not feel like anything happens when one is baptized. The first obvious response is that grace has little to do with feelings, just as much of life has little to do with feelings; they have their role, but it is a secondary and subordinate one. Living by one’s feelings is building a house upon the sand near the seashore—it feels good for a while, but catastrophe soon follows.
To discuss baptism further and in a positive light, I will examine the heart of the message of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The center and most important part of his letter is found in the middle two paragraphs which are mirror images of one another in 3:23-4:7:
“Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave, though he is the owner of all the estate; but he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.”
The context of these paragraphs is that Paul is discussing how Abraham was justified by faith when he believed God would give him and his barren wife a son in their old age. God “reckoned it to him as righteousness,” back in Genesis 15, and it was not until Genesis 17 when God gives Abraham the covenant of circumcision. The big question Paul is addressing here in Galatians is the question of whether a Christian needs to be circumcised. His answer is no. Abraham had to be circumcised because he had tried to fulfill the promised son by having relations with Hagar, Sarah’s maid, upon the advice of his wife. Abraham listened to the voice of his wife and had relations with Hagar: the result was Ishmael. He was not the son God promised.
Abraham was 75 when God first promised a son to him; when he was 85 he had a son with Hagar, but that was not the son God had promised. It was not until Abraham was 99 when God gave him the covenant of circumcision that He re-promised Abraham a son. Twenty-five years after the initial promise, at the age of 100, Isaac was born to this most impossible set of parents. Isaac means laughter because his birth to such old parents was surely hysterical.
Because Abraham did not trust God Himself to provide the son but relied on the powers of his body and a woman not his wife, God provided a punishment that fit the fall. He trusted in his male part, so that very instrument, so to speak, had to be cut around. That was a painful procedure, especially at such an age, and it was a strategic strike at the symbolic root of the problem. Circumcision was added because of sin just as all the laws concerning animal sacrifices and other ritual offerings were. Israelites had to sacrifice bulls because they worshipped the golden calf; they sacrificed sheep because they worshipped goat demons in the desert; the sacrificed lambs because they worshipped themselves every time they sinned. All those laws were temporary to keep the people from falling further into sin. God is a good Father who gives appropriate and fitting penitential and medicinal punishments which are designed to bring the sinner back to Himself.
Circumcision was added as a law because Abraham, at root, did not trust in God. The problem was with his heart, his tree of life. True circumcision is circumcision of the heart; it is the cutting away of the dead, stony part to reveal the living fleshy part underneath. There is a fittingness to circumcision striking man’s “foot” as the material used in the sin, but deep down what is needed is a heart believing and obedient to God. In baptism, as Galatians says, we have been made sons and daughters of God; we have been made a new creation and given a new circumcised heart of flesh. We are born from above and become members of the new Israel of God as infants (usually), just as circumcision made one an Israelite in the Old Testament at eight days old, unless he was a convert. Baptism is the new circumcision. Instead of cutting away the foreskin, baptism imparts in our chest a new tree of life.
Now we are sons who have hearts filled with the Spirit of His Son. We have put on Christ and we make what was Christ’s our own. We become God’s children because we are now members of His Son. We have a new circumcised heart because we have been given Christ’s heart. The heart of Our Savior gave itself entirely on the cross and was cut through with a lance, pouring forth blood and water. This is the circumcision of His heart. This is the heart we receive at baptism.
Since Abraham never really trusted that God was going to give him a son, since he never fully passed the test, Abraham had to be tested once more. When Isaac, the one through whom God had promised to send a vast multitude of descendants, was old and strong enough to carry the wood for a burnt offering, it was then that God asked Abraham to kill this son of the promise. If Isaac was old enough to carry the wood for a long distance, surely he was strong enough to escape his 115 or more year-old dad. Both Abraham and Isaac willingly made the offering; there are a multitude of parallels between Isaac’s offering and Jesus’ crucifixion. For now, suffice it to say that they are images of one another. As the crucifixion was the circumcision of Jesus’ heart, so Abraham and Isaac’s sacrifice was the circumcision of theirs.
As Isaac and Abraham were getting close to offering the sacrifice, and before Isaac knew what they were going to sacrifice, Isaac said, Abba, Father, here is the wood and the fire, but where is the lamb? Since Paul is discussing all of this in Galatians, when he says that the spirit of the Son is in our hearts crying “Abba, Father,” Paul is directing our minds to these same words spoken by Isaac as he began his journey to his total self-oblation. Baptism sets us down the path that Isaac walked; it initiates us to pick up our own chunk of tree and follow our Savior as He makes His way to Calvary. The fulfillment of our Baptism is in our own crucifixion; and the Eucharist is the very heart of Jesus which provides us strength and food for this beautiful and aweful journey. On a daily basis, nourished by our daily bread, we die to our self in all the many little things of our ordinary life lived faithfully and well; we make our entire life, each and every day, each and every moment, an offering back to our loving Heavenly Father in imitation of His son who did so for most of His life in obscurity.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
To discuss baptism further and in a positive light, I will examine the heart of the message of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The center and most important part of his letter is found in the middle two paragraphs which are mirror images of one another in 3:23-4:7:
“Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave, though he is the owner of all the estate; but he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.”
The context of these paragraphs is that Paul is discussing how Abraham was justified by faith when he believed God would give him and his barren wife a son in their old age. God “reckoned it to him as righteousness,” back in Genesis 15, and it was not until Genesis 17 when God gives Abraham the covenant of circumcision. The big question Paul is addressing here in Galatians is the question of whether a Christian needs to be circumcised. His answer is no. Abraham had to be circumcised because he had tried to fulfill the promised son by having relations with Hagar, Sarah’s maid, upon the advice of his wife. Abraham listened to the voice of his wife and had relations with Hagar: the result was Ishmael. He was not the son God promised.
Abraham was 75 when God first promised a son to him; when he was 85 he had a son with Hagar, but that was not the son God had promised. It was not until Abraham was 99 when God gave him the covenant of circumcision that He re-promised Abraham a son. Twenty-five years after the initial promise, at the age of 100, Isaac was born to this most impossible set of parents. Isaac means laughter because his birth to such old parents was surely hysterical.
Because Abraham did not trust God Himself to provide the son but relied on the powers of his body and a woman not his wife, God provided a punishment that fit the fall. He trusted in his male part, so that very instrument, so to speak, had to be cut around. That was a painful procedure, especially at such an age, and it was a strategic strike at the symbolic root of the problem. Circumcision was added because of sin just as all the laws concerning animal sacrifices and other ritual offerings were. Israelites had to sacrifice bulls because they worshipped the golden calf; they sacrificed sheep because they worshipped goat demons in the desert; the sacrificed lambs because they worshipped themselves every time they sinned. All those laws were temporary to keep the people from falling further into sin. God is a good Father who gives appropriate and fitting penitential and medicinal punishments which are designed to bring the sinner back to Himself.
Circumcision was added as a law because Abraham, at root, did not trust in God. The problem was with his heart, his tree of life. True circumcision is circumcision of the heart; it is the cutting away of the dead, stony part to reveal the living fleshy part underneath. There is a fittingness to circumcision striking man’s “foot” as the material used in the sin, but deep down what is needed is a heart believing and obedient to God. In baptism, as Galatians says, we have been made sons and daughters of God; we have been made a new creation and given a new circumcised heart of flesh. We are born from above and become members of the new Israel of God as infants (usually), just as circumcision made one an Israelite in the Old Testament at eight days old, unless he was a convert. Baptism is the new circumcision. Instead of cutting away the foreskin, baptism imparts in our chest a new tree of life.
Now we are sons who have hearts filled with the Spirit of His Son. We have put on Christ and we make what was Christ’s our own. We become God’s children because we are now members of His Son. We have a new circumcised heart because we have been given Christ’s heart. The heart of Our Savior gave itself entirely on the cross and was cut through with a lance, pouring forth blood and water. This is the circumcision of His heart. This is the heart we receive at baptism.
Since Abraham never really trusted that God was going to give him a son, since he never fully passed the test, Abraham had to be tested once more. When Isaac, the one through whom God had promised to send a vast multitude of descendants, was old and strong enough to carry the wood for a burnt offering, it was then that God asked Abraham to kill this son of the promise. If Isaac was old enough to carry the wood for a long distance, surely he was strong enough to escape his 115 or more year-old dad. Both Abraham and Isaac willingly made the offering; there are a multitude of parallels between Isaac’s offering and Jesus’ crucifixion. For now, suffice it to say that they are images of one another. As the crucifixion was the circumcision of Jesus’ heart, so Abraham and Isaac’s sacrifice was the circumcision of theirs.
As Isaac and Abraham were getting close to offering the sacrifice, and before Isaac knew what they were going to sacrifice, Isaac said, Abba, Father, here is the wood and the fire, but where is the lamb? Since Paul is discussing all of this in Galatians, when he says that the spirit of the Son is in our hearts crying “Abba, Father,” Paul is directing our minds to these same words spoken by Isaac as he began his journey to his total self-oblation. Baptism sets us down the path that Isaac walked; it initiates us to pick up our own chunk of tree and follow our Savior as He makes His way to Calvary. The fulfillment of our Baptism is in our own crucifixion; and the Eucharist is the very heart of Jesus which provides us strength and food for this beautiful and aweful journey. On a daily basis, nourished by our daily bread, we die to our self in all the many little things of our ordinary life lived faithfully and well; we make our entire life, each and every day, each and every moment, an offering back to our loving Heavenly Father in imitation of His son who did so for most of His life in obscurity.
Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
