God Will Provide the Lamb

A father and son climb a mountain together. The boy carries the firewood on his back. The father carries a knife and a small pot of fire. And the boy asks a question his father can hardly bear to answer.

This is Abraham, years after he left Haran. God has kept his promise. Abraham and Sarah, in their old age, have a son, Isaac, whose name means laughter. Every promise God made, a great family, stars beyond counting, a blessing for all nations, hangs on this one boy. Then Genesis tells us something that makes us catch our breath. God tested Abraham. God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you of.” We know something Abraham did not. This is a test. But Abraham does not know how it will end.

Early the next morning Abraham gets up. He saddles his donkey, cuts wood for the offering, and sets out with Isaac and two young servants. For three days they travel. No arguing is recorded, no running away. On the third day, Abraham looks up and sees the place in the distance. He tells the servants, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there and worship, and we will come back to you.” We will come back. Both of us. Hebrews in the New Testament says Abraham believed God could even raise the dead. Then he lays the wood on Isaac's shoulders, takes the fire and the knife, and the two of them walk on together.

Isaac speaks. “My father?” “Here I am, my son.” “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” It is the question every listener has been dreading. And Abraham answers, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” And again Genesis says it: the two of them went on together. They reach the place. Abraham builds an altar and arranges the wood. He binds Isaac and lays him on the altar. He reaches out his hand and takes the knife.

And at that very moment, a voice from heaven. “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am.” The angel of the Lord says, “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 held back your son, your only son, from me.” Abraham lifts his eyes. There, behind him, a ram is caught by its horns in a thicket. He takes the ram and offers it instead of his son. Isaac goes free. And Abraham gives the place a name: The Lord Will Provide. People were still saying it centuries later: on the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided. A lamb, given by God, so that the son could live. Christians have long heard an echo here of another Father, and another only Son, and the Lamb of God.

Where was Moriah? Genesis only calls it one of the mountains in the land of Moriah. But much later, the second book of Chronicles says that Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah. The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the first century, said the same. So Jewish tradition remembered this hilltop as the place where, for a thousand years, lambs would be offered in the temple.

God will provide the lamb. You can read it in Genesis chapter twenty-two, verses one to fourteen. When John the Baptist first saw Jesus, he said: Behold, the Lamb of God. So here is a question to carry with you. What do you need God to provide for you, and can you trust him with it?