Where Is the Lamb? – What Does This Mean?

TTT Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. TTT

Dear saints, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews writes, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.” Moses says of this, “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” This is certainly true. Yet it can sometimes be hard to see Abraham as righteous. He was a flawed man. Just like the rest of the saints — Old Testament and New Testament — and current day for that matter. He pretended his wife is his sister. Twice. He grew impatient for the Lord to keep his promise of a son with Sarah, and so decided to have a son through Sarah’s servant. He thought they are too old when God told him that the son of the slave woman will not be his heir, but the son of Sarah his wife will be.

But God’s promise to Abraham came to pass. Exactly when the Lord said it would happen, Sarah bore Abraham a son in their old age. Which brings us to our text this morning. God called to Abraham and 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 on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” Moses didn’t tell us Abraham’s reaction. We don’t know if his jaw dropped or if he wept or if he had any reaction at all to this test. But we do know that the next morning the donkeys were saddled, the wood was cut and loaded, and he took two young men and his son Isaac with him.

What must have been going through his mind? Would …. could he actually go through with what God has asked him to do? Kill his own son in a burnt offering? That is what the pagans do! What did he talk about with Isaac along the way? How did he pass the time knowing what he was to do? How does he pretend all is normal and keep this information from those traveling with him?

After three days, Moses looked up and saw the place where they were going. He told the young men with him to stay with the donkeys and that he and Isaac would go and worship and come back. Was he lying to them? Did he think that Isaac would be left in ashes? What would he tell his servants when he returned alone? They know he didn’t take an animal with him.

Moses doesn’t tell us this. He had his reasons. But he does tell us the wood for the burnt offering is laid upon the back of Isaac. We are told Abraham took the fire and the knife in his hand. We are told they walked toward the site together. And on the way, Isaac asks, “My father! Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham replied, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” But as he said this, he knows that Isaac is appointed to be that lamb.

They arrived. They build the altar. Isaac was bound as any other sacrificial animal is bound. Again, what must be going through their minds! We aren’t told by Moses. But we are given a hint of what Abraham is thinking by the writer to the Hebrews. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.“

Abraham knows the promise of God and so did his beloved son Isaac. They knew that the Seed which would crush the head of the serpent would come from Isaac. And so, they knew that somehow God was working through this sacrifice. They knew the Lord would provide.

Luther preached on this text in late 1539. It was the day after burying someone he called a ‘famous and outstanding man’ and wasn’t too long after burying two other young noblemen. He said, “At this time, in the present danger of the plague, we are in a state of trepidation. It is as though we did not have the command to live and to call upon God. We have a most dependable Word uttered by the mouth of the Son of God: ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.’”

As we watch and live amid a global plague, we see a world in constant fear. It has become nearly impossible to ignore death, something that strikes fear to the core of many. And each day as we see the number of cases and deaths rising, we know that it is likely someone we know and love will eventually be affected. Perhaps it has happened already. May we always remember that we do have the command to live and to call upon God. That He will provide for us. And, in fact, has and continues to provide for us.

Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter 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 boy 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.”

The angel of the Lord calls and tells Abraham not to harm the child. That he now knows he fears God. Because he didn’t withhold his only son from me. From the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord speaking here is none other than the pre-incarnate Christ. He knew the faith of Abraham and the faith of Isaac. He tests that faith and we all see that it is strong as both were ready to carry out what had been commanded.

But Christ stops the hand of Abraham. Because Isaac is not the Lamb that shall be slain. It is Christ himself. God will provide for himself the lamb. And he provides his only-begotten son as that Lamb.

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. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Abraham and Isaac are a type and shadow. The Father sends his Son to be the sacrifice. The wood is laid on the back of Jesus. He is bound to the cross. His blood runs down as he is slain as the curse. As the fiery wrath of God is brought down upon him.

Looked at from another angle: We deserved to die. But before the just wrath of God could be brought down upon on us, a ram was caught in the thicket by his horns. And that ram, our Lord Jesus, was slain in our place.

By faith, even with the death of his son imminent, Abraham looked forward to seeing Jesus. By faith, as we heard Jesus say in the Gospel, “Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” By faith, Abraham and Isaac are saved from sin and death.

It is no different for us today. We are poor, miserable sinners. We are surrounded by the reality of death. But we need not fear, for our Lord walks with us. He is the Helper who drank the cup of his Father’s wrath against sin to its dregs. Jesus is our Savior who tastes death in our place. And he swallows it up to victory. Now, he makes a promise to every believer: “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”

In the midst of life, we are in death. But death has no power over those who trust the words of Christ. He says to you, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Trials come and go. As you go through them, you may say in your heart, “Yes, these troubles are great. Yes, these problems are out of my control. I can’t fix them, but I don’t need to. That’s not my job. My job is to trust the promises of Jesus. His job is to keep those promises. So even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; my Savior is with me!”

And so, yes, trouble surrounds on every side. Perhaps you get sick and find yourself in the midst of death. You may even die. And unless our Lord returns before it, you and I will die. But you will not see death. You will not taste death. For your trust is in the one whose promises do not fail. It is in him your heart trusts. For as Jesus says, “Whoever believes in me, even though he die, yet shall he live. Whoever keeps my Word will never see death.” Amen.

TTT Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. TTT

Rev. Brent Keller
Peace Lutheran Church
Alcester, SD