What kind of God calls you away from the comfort of your father’s home and promises you and your descendants a new land…that is already occupied?
What kind of God promises you will be the father of a great nation but delays giving you a child until you and your wife are old and withered?
What kind of God will still fulfill the promise of a child after you have seen fit to take matters into your own hands (Ishmael)?
What kind of God gives you the long-promised son and then demands you offer him as a human sacrifice by your own hand?

The story of the sacrifice of Isaac—or to be fair the near sacrifice of Isaac—is a strange and troubling story, especially to our modern ears. What kind of God can demand such a thing? And even if it is just a test, what kind of God can be so seemingly cruel? How do we reconcile this account with the loving God we worship?

Abraham’s response is the core of this story. The writer of the story does not let us have psychological insight into what Abraham must have been thinking and feeling. It is just a matter-of-fact account of how Abraham carried out this gut-wrenching command to sacrifice his only son. Abraham’s faith was such that even if he had to carry out such a horrible deed, he knew God would still keep God’s promises.

But he also knew something else about God. He knew God’s grace. Why, out of all the people in the world did God select him for this great promise? How, when all hope was lost of bearing children, did he and Sarah receive the miracle of Isaac? You can see that, in his trust, he knew that God would be true to God’s promise in his response to Isaac’s question about not having a lamb for the sacrifice. “God will provide one,” he said hopefully.

In Romans, St. Paul, in his great discourse on the centrality of God’s grace in Christ, holds up Abraham as an example of faith. Paul cites all the seeming obstacles in the way of God’s promise coming to fruition but adds, “Hoping against hope…he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God being fully convinced that God was able to do what he promised. Therefore, his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness” (4:18;20b-22)

What kind of God is this? It is the kind of God that is constant in his love though that may not always seem readily apparent. As we listen for God’s voice in our own faith journeys we can be called to travel by a way as yet untrod. We may wonder why God would be leading us there. May the example of Abraham’s faith guide us. And let us take comfort that this very faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit who continues to work in and through us to face the unknown with the hope we all share in Christ.