"Here I am"

Sacrifice is forfeiting something that is rightfully yours, it is offering something to someone else that you have claim over, it is relinquishing something you possess. To understand sacrifice you have to understand ownership, possession, even love. For sacrifice is not an empty act of appeasement or fulfillment of a command. It is a response of obedience in love. Sacrifice is never without cost, and sometimes the cost seems greater than we can think to bear. We don’t sacrifice our worst, we don’t sacrifice our unwanted. No, we sacrifice what is greatest to us, what is dearest to our hearts, what is real and tangible and desperately wanted. This is what makes sacrifice so real.

To sacrifice a dream, a friendship, a love, a hope. They are things we want, we have, we love; things we pour ourselves into; things we spend time cultivating and growing. These are the things that sacrifices are made of.

I’m studying Genesis in my Bible study and it has been a process of self-examination as well as absolute awe for the Lord I love. This last week we covered the story of Abraham and the offering of Isaac. I was going to give you the cliff notes version but why paraphrase a story when I can show it to you.

1 Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."
2 He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."
3 So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.
4 On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance.
5 Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you."
6 Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.
7 Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"
8 Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on together.
9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.
10 Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."
12 He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."
13 Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.
14 Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, "In the mount of the LORD it will be provided."


There is so much in this text that leaps out at me so I’m just going to narrate my thoughts:

Abraham’s readiness to answer the Lord with a response of “Here I am”; what a heart primed to respond when God calls his name. God knows exactly what He is asking and how much it will cost, “your son, your only son, whom you love”, this wasn’t the prized lamb of the flock, it wasn’t his best of harvest, this was his son, the son born of a promise, the only heir of Abraham. And yet, Abraham doesn’t question God’s command, he only rises early the next day, gathers everything he needs and sets out to do what must be done. Then he sees his future, he sees the mountain top that he must climb, the task that awaits him and he goes alone in faithful obedience, trusting that he will return with his son. Isaac has amazing faith in his father, he questions where the lamb for the offering is and upon hearing Abraham’s response that the Lord will provide, he trusts and continues on. Then there is no mention of Isaac fighting his father as he is bound to the alter, as he is prepared as the offering. And then the most haunting verse to me in this narrative, “Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.” No hesitation, no second thoughts, his obedience was steeped in faith, his faith steeped in obedience. I would hesitate, I would question, I would try and reason away what God had asked of me, but Abraham stretched out his hand, lifted it above his head and was ready to act. Then God cried out to stop Abraham, notice his name is said twice. I think of a voice in urgency stopping him from acting. And again Abraham is ready to hear the voice of his Lord, “Here I am.” And God praises Abraham for his faith, for his love for his God, and He offers what He alone can, a substitute offering. Notice his eyes were fixed on Isaac, on what God had called him to, his eyes had not strayed from this call of obedience. And so he looks up and sees behind him God’s provision. I wonder that it wasn’t in Abraham’s line of sight, in the way to tempt him from the act of obedience, but behind him, in a place that he never would look but for God’s voice to direct him there. And so in the place of the son he loved, the son of promise, there is another, a substitute who fulfills the call for an offering. And so, just as Abraham believed that God would provide the offering, he names this place after a Lord that not only can but will provide.

These verses, the truth of this story, they haunt me. The foreshadowing of another Father, one who has only one Son, a beloved son, who will offer Him as a sacrifice, but there will be no substitute, for He is the substitute for all.

One of the questions in my study asked about the joy that came with Abraham’s offering of Isaac, with his sacrifice. It struck me as so odd to speak of joy in the same breath as sacrifice. And yet there is joy in sacrifice, because there is the presence of God in sacrifice. And there was joy at the ultimate sacrifice, joy not in those who would benefit from it, not in those who were spared, but in the one who was sacrificed for all. His joy.
. . . . Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross . . . . Hebrews 12:2. And I shake at the knowledge that the “joy set before Him” was us, was all those who would be saved by His sacrifice. We were His joy.

One thing I love about the Word of God is that it is not a static book. It moves within our lives, it teaches us in the moments we live, and it strengthens and straightens us every time we come to it.

This text, this lesson in my Bible study, has been so pivotal in these last few days. The truths of this scripture, of sacrifice, of joy in sacrifice, they are water to my soul at the moment. I forget sometimes that the Bible is here for that. It isn’t just a book for us to know of the history of God, or the stories of His people, it is for us to KNOW God, to be His people, and to live the life He calls us to by the very words He speaks to us.

Last night our teaching leader ended his prayer with these words and they challenged me in that moment. Can I say them with an honest heart; can I really believe these words to be true in my life? Honestly, I don’t know, but I hope that one day I will say them as truth, that I will say them with a hear that fully believes them.

Lord, I am willing to receive what you give,
Lord, I am willing to lack what you withhold,
Lord, I am willing to relinquish what you take
Lord, I am willing to suffer what you require