As we move into Thanksgiving, I can’t help but consider the many sacrifices made for us to be here, in this place, in this time. The earliest settlers lost so much. The natives were forced to lose. Without modern medicine, life expectancy was grimm. A tremendous amount of sons and daughters sacrificed for our freedoms in wars at home and wars abroad. “Brace yourselves, winter is coming.” This phrase made popular by the show “Game of Thrones” is a warning of great expectation of hardship and sacrifice. In the show… winter isn’t a season of cold, but a decade of death. A shroud or a dark cloud will hang over the land for years.
And to early pioneers, winter seemed that way, and death not a surprise…. But we don’t fear winter anymore, not with our southern locales, our heated homes, our canned foods, our grocery stores. No…the only real consideration we have is fashion and holiday preparations. The world has changed greatly for our benefit, but at a cost. The cost is not considered much these days.
One of my favorite texts in all of scripture is the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. It is this amazing foreshadowing of the great narrative of the gospel. In this one story, you have the story of God’s love for us. If you are unfamiliar, let me recap it for you.
Abraham is super old, over 100. He has been childless all his life and that is all he ever wanted to be. God promises him a great lineage, as numerous as the sand grains. He finally has Isaac, his only son with Sarah. When Isaac is around 7, God tells him that Abraham must sacrifice him. The questions go round and round in Abraham’s head. It is the ultimate test of obedience. Abraham with fear, trepidation, and all the stages of grief, takes the long journey to the mountain to do as the Lord commands. At the last minute, God intervenes and provides a different sacrifice in place of Isaac. It is a great tale of epic emotion that points to God’s sacrifice of his one and only son. The parallel cannot be missed for it encapsulates the gospel.
