The Mountain Offering.

1. Lent is a time of penance and sacrifice. The readings of the second Sunday makes us take a look at the God who calls us to this discipline. What is the offering and to whom!

We have heard the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac so often, that we are immune to the one question that should be asked.

• If this is the God the Lord and giver of life as we say in the Creed, then why does he ask for the killing or snuffing out of the life of Isaac?
• If this is the God, who demands from Cain an explanation for the killing of Abel, why does God deman d the life of Isaac?
• If this is the God, who says he does not need the sacrifice of lambs and calves, why does he demand the sacrifice of a human being? Ultimately, and in the New Testament, we can ask
• If God is all powerful, why does God allow Jesus to die on the Cross, was there no other way to save the human race?

Part of the answer to these questions will always remain a mystery. However, in the case of Abraham, human sacrifice was part and parcel of the religious practices of that time. We cannot judge that story on the mores and customs of 2009. As to the sacrifice that Jesus made on the Cross, God could have chosen a different way, but that would go in the face of the gift of choice, the gift20of free will. As John would tell us in the first chapter of his Gospel, “those who received the Word, received the right to become God’s children.”

2. The second question that arises from this story is the acceptance of Isaac. Did he resist being tied and being offered as a sacrifice? It would be natural (in our times) to say, “it is alright for you Father Abraham to be obedient to God, but it is my life you are talking about.

Sometimes we do the same, we will move heaven and earth to get our grandchildren to be baptised, when we have failed to get our own children to come to Church on Sundays or to practise their faith. Babies cannot protest.

However, the non-resistance of Isaac can be a pattern for us in our own lives. We have the courage, the intelligence, the skill to deal with the difficulties and hardships in our lives. But there are occasions when we cannot change the situation or deal with issues that fashion and shape the direction in which our live s are going. At this time, the serenity prayer is the most intelligent and perhaps divine way of going about our lives: Lord, Give me

the courage to change the things I can

The serenity to accept the things I cannot

The wisdom to know the difference.

Ultimately, the question from our first reading deals with God, not whether or not there is a God, but rather on the nature of this God who calls us into a personal relationship.

3. We have an insight into this God from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul tells us nothing can separate us from the Love of God. It is a God in whom we live and move and have our being. It is a God of compassion and love, slow to anger and abounding in mercy.

AT first sight a God who demands the sacrifice of Isaac, and then changes His mind when he sees the obedience of Abraham, may seem a fickle and capricious God. However, through a series of questions in Paul’s letter, we find a20God who continues to have faith and will entrust his Son, Jesus to us, who change with every tide and change of wind direction. It is a God who is steady as a rock in all types of weather, in all the vicissitudes of human life.

4. Our Gospel at first sight seems to be a story of joy and hope in the midst of the gloom of the passion to come. It is a beacon of light, a memory that the Apostles can hold on when they see their friend and master hanging on the cross. However, is a prelude to an offering, like the offering of Isaac. It all takes place on a mountain.

Abraham brings his son, Isaac to be sacrificed on the Mount of Salem (Jerusalem.)

Jesus will be transfigured on another mountain (tradition has it as Mount Thabor). He is transfigured between Elijah and Moses, the two traditional pillars: Law and the Prophets of the People of Israel. Elijah was taken up in a chariot to heaven. Moses died peacefully on Mount Nebo. Jesus who would be left alone when Elijah and Moses vanish, will not have a peaceful death like either of these two. He will die, he will not be reprieved like Isaac on another mountain close by, the Mount Calvary.

Not only Isaac but the very mountain will be the prefigurement of the Offering freely given of Jesus by himself to the God of Mercy and Compassion.