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."

    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, and said, "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 burnt offering instead of his son.

    And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven,  and said, "By myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son,  I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice."

Today's Epistle is from the Letter of Paul to the Romans, beginning at the 8th Chapter:

If God is for us, who is against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?  Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies;  who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us?

+ A Reading from the Gospel of Mark, beginning at the 9th Chapter:

    And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves; and he was
transfigured before them, and his garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them.  And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses; and they were talking to Jesus.

    And Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is well that we are here; let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah."  For he did not know what to say, for they were exceedingly afraid.

    And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, "This is my beloved Son; listen to him."  And suddenly looking around they no longer saw any one with them but Jesus only.

    And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of man should have risen  from the dead.   So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what "rising from the dead" meant.
 

    A friend, reflecting on today's Old Testament readings, came up with two questions:  "Was the Lord playing a trick on Abraham?"  and "How did Abraham know that it was the Lord, and not his imagination, or the devil, talking?"  I gave a quick answer or two, and then sat down to think about it in depth.

    First -- on tricks.  No, the Lord was not pulling a trick on Abraham.  A trick is meant to hurt or shame someone -- to make them the butt of a joke, and this is very much NOT what was going on.  It is in human nature to test one another -- young women often test their boyfriends, saying: "Show me how much you love me by doing . . . . .";  Young men test each other by saying: "If you're a REAL man, you'll . . . ."

    Quite evidently human nature has not changed much in the 4 or 5 thousand years since Abraham's time, because we here see the Lord saying to Abraham:  "How much do you love and fear me?  If you are really faithful, give me your only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice."  And Abraham proves his devotion, by not only being willing, but going through with it -- until stopped by the voice of the Lord, saying: "Do not lay your hand on the lad..."

    Of course, the Lord had no intention of actually taking Isaac's life -- the Lord God of Israel does not demand human sacrifice.  He also knew beforehand that Abraham was faithful, and would do as he was told.  It was not a futile exercise, however -- because it taught Abraham two lessons:

    First, that he, Abraham. was indeed a faithful follower of the Lord God of Hosts.  It gave Abraham knowledge of himself, and of his relationship with the Lord -- that he was indeed the sort of person that the Lord approved of and treasured.

    Second, that the Lord is not the cold, heartless sort of God that prevailed in that area at that time -- like Moloch and Tanith, who demanded the sacrifice of children.  Here was a God who comes forth and makes compacts with humans -- not a lordling who treats them as cattle and sheep.

    The Sumerians saw themselves as the gods' cattle, not as children of God.  Israel was to be different from the people of "Ur of the Chaldees", where Abraham had come from.

    And -- lo and behold -- after giving Abraham that lesson, the Lord makes a compact with him -- that he will bless Abraham and his progeny forever more.  A powerful gift that -- that one's family will continue forever, and one's memory will never be lost, as so many are.  Who knows the names of Abraham's neighbors in Ur?  Or even the names of the kings and princes?  But Abraham's name -- the name of a poor, wandering shepherd -- still resounds over 4 millennia later.  Such is the reward of faith.

    Second -- how would Abraham know that it was the Lord, and not his own mind, or the devil?  My first reaction was that, in the Old Testament,
only God speaks to mankind, not the devil, or pagan Gods -- the Lord only.

    Humans tell lies, and are crafty, but the gods of the other peoples are treated as imaginary, and their oracles as fabrications.  The Lord, or his messengers (which is the meaning of the Hebrew word "malak", which the Greeks translated "angelos" -- that being the ordinary word for "messenger") speak directly to people, as here, to Abraham.

    My next reflection was that Abraham and the Patriarch show no sign of the psychological sophistication that we take for granted -- they do not seem to have had the idea that their own mind could play tricks on them.  Julian Jaynes, in "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", posits that people in that day and age experienced their own intuition and unconscious processes as external -- a voice from on high, as it were.

    Jaynes then goes on to say that there has been a great qualitative change in human consciousness between that day and this.  I am not so sure that this is so -- the biblical accounts of the Patriarchs and their dealings with people sound an awful lot like what I see in modern people's dealings and reactions.  Human nature does not seem to have changed radically since at least the time writing was developed.

    My next thought was that this was not the first time that the Lord had talked to Abraham -- He had told him to pick up and move out of Ur, and head West toward the Mediterranean Sea, toward the Promised Land.  I would expect that Abraham would be familiar with the Lord's voice, then, and this "locution" would be from a familiar source.

    In any case, the Lord proves himself to be a good Lord, one concerned for Abraham and his seed, a God who blesses Abraham's beloved son, and assures him of progeny until the end of time.  Israel still exists, as do we, who are the heirs of Israel, and part of the Mystical Body of God's own Son, Jesus Christ, if not necessarily descendants of Abraham's physical son, Isaac.

    The same concern for  His Son is shown in today's Gospel -- while up on Mt. Horeb, Jesus is Transfigured -- he shines with he light of glory, and his garments become whiter than white.  A voice comes out of heaven, as it did for Abraham, and says:  "This is my beloved Son; listen to him."

    Again, there is a son to be sacrificed -- but this time the Son goes willingly, not simply at the behest of his father, as in Isaac's case.  Here, the Son and the Father are closer that close -- in a way that Abraham and Isaac never could be.

    And again, a lesson is taught -- that Jesus is, as the Creed says:  "..begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father...God of God, Light of Light.."  He is not just a man, lifted up or illuminated by God, but the Second Person of the Trinity, "by whom all things were made".

    The writer of today's Gospel -- Mark -- is thought to have been Peter's secretary and confidant, so we here probably have Peter's memory and outlook on the experience of the Transfiguration.  Mark portrays the Apostles as not being entirely sure what Jesus is talking about -- until Pentecost, when the Spirit illumined them, and loosed their tongues to preach, and their power to cure.  We are sure, now, being heirs of the Apostles, and also, like them, in the Spirit.

    St. Paul makes the same point in the Epistle -- that God is for us, that He who gave his only-begotten Son to suffer death on the Cross is our justification, and that the Son himself, with the Father, is our advocate in heaven, and on earth.  We are justified and saved by Christ's Incarnation, His Death, and His Resurrection -- having risen, he ascended into heaven, and, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is a loving God, in all times and all places, reaching out, and blessing us.

    And this is the whole message of Salvation -- from Abraham some thousands of years a go until today -- that the Lord is a loving and passionate God, concerned for His people, constantly striving and desirous of bringing us -- all of us -- back to Himself.  He has injected himself into the world, that He might redeem the world, and renew it for everlasting.

    And what is our part?  To strive, as much as in us lies, to be worthy of that love, to show that love to the world, to praise the Lord, and to pray, in this Lenten season . . .

        In the Name of
        The Father      +
        And of the Son 
        And of the Holy Spirit
Amen.