Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. – Genesis 22:10

Today’s Scripture Reading (June 7, 2015): Genesis 22

The parents of the eight year-old boy killed by the twin blasts at the Boston Marathon in April 2013 came out with a statement before the sentencing of the accused requesting that the prosecutor’s in the case to take the death penalty off of the table. “We are in favor of and would support the Department of Justice in taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for the defendant spending the rest of his life in prison without any possibility of release and waiving all of his rights to appeal,” wrote Denise and Bill Richard, whose 8-year-old son, Martin, died  in the bombing. Before we see this as a ringing condemnation of the death penalty, the phrase “in exchange for the defendant spending the rest of his life in prison without any possibility of release and waiving all rights to appeal” needs to be addressed. The reality is that the appeal process keeps the trial alive sometimes decades after the verdict and sentencing have been completed. The Richard’s are not the only parents recently who would have gladly traded life in prison in obscurity over the death penalty which might not even happen and which will keep the situation in the courts for years into the future. The feeling seems to be, as parents, that we need to end this so that we can move on with our lives - and with the mourning of a child that should never have died.

And every parent that watches the situation from the outside understands, at least partially, the horror of this situation, although having your child killed violently in such a senseless tragedy is admittedly hard for any of us to imagine who have not experienced this in our own lived. All of our hearts cry out with the parents that this shouldn’t have been -Martin Richard should never have died.

But it is exactly this empathy that we have for the Richard’s and other parents like them that makes it hard to understand this story in the life of Abraham. And the question that seems to keep ringing in our ears is this “Abraham, how could you even think of doing this?” How could you think of taking the life of your own son?

Ancient Rabbis have long had an answer to exactly this question. Abraham could undertake this task because Abraham expected that either he would be stopped by God before the crucial moment (which is exactly what happened), or that God would raise Isaac back to life after the deed was done. Abraham never really believed that Isaac would remain dead.

In this, he was finally learning. Every time he had Sarah declare that she was his sister, not his wife, Abraham seemed to be forgetting that the promises of God laid in God’s hands. He did not have to be the one to protect the promise, God was both willing and able to do that. And God had clearly told Abraham that Isaac was the child of promise, and that through Isaac what God had promised to Abraham would be fulfilled. And that simply couldn’t happen if Isaac died. And so this strange little story really tells us that finally Abraham had become the person of faith that we believe him to be. That now he could rely on God – for anything.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis 23