Revered as the father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Abraham looms almost like a god over every figure of the ancient world. In our oldest Eucharistic prayer, we even mention him as “our father in faith” yet in the beginning he was as ordinary as anyone could be. God called him from the paganism of his homeland of Ur, in present-day southern Iraq, to take a blind step into the realm of faith in the land of Canaan. In doing so, Abraham manifested a living faith in God that the world had never seen.
His journey was never an easy one. Abraham responded imperfectly but with persistence. There were times when he wavered yet under God’s guidance, Abraham learned to pray, to trust, to persevere and to obey. He prayed that his wife, Sarah, would have the son that God promised even if the time for having a child was long past. The ultimate test of faith comes when God told him to sacrifice his son.
Many readers are scandalized by this biblical story; troubled that God would demand a human sacrifice or test Abraham’s faith in such a cruel way. I cannot fathom what went through Abraham’s mind as he climbed Moriah with his son, Isaac. If I had been in his sandals, that would have been my slowest climb ever, dragging my feet every step of the way. On the crest of Moriah, Abraham raised his hand to splatter the altar he had built with the blood of his son. He is on the brink of sacrificing his son, but why would he?
Forty years ago, I ran across a small paperback while living in Walla Walla entitled, Closer Than a Brother. In one conversation, three men are talking about a mutual friend who is seriously ill and in much pain. Laurie, a faith filled man, is accused by the others of being both stoic and fatalistic about suffering. “How would you react if it were happening to you?” he was asked.
Laurie replied, “Not fatalistic, that’s pagan. Not even stoical, really, because I am not at all brave or courageous. More- how can I put it? –trusting…trusting that my all-knowing God knows best.
“To be frank,” Laurie added, “I do expect that one day, perhaps quite soon, I shall experience some great pain of body or mind. As a matter of fact, my health has never been all that great, and at any age I must be prepared for some illness and pain.
“But the way I look at it is this: I ask myself what could be the worst thing that could possibly happen to me? The answer is crystal clear—it would be to lose this sense of God’s presence, which I have enjoyed for many years. That would be the ultimate disaster and the bitterest pain – and my mind recoils in horror from the thought of it. But God has assured me, in his own written promises, and in the assurance he has given me in my own heart, that he will never leave me nor forsake me.
“That means that, whatever else, the worst imaginable thing simply cannot ever happen to me, and compared with that no pain of body or mind has any real power over me.”
Laurie’s observation offers an insight for us into what may have gone through Abraham’s mind. “However painful this may be, God will lead me through this just as I have been led ever since leaving the land of my fathers.” An angel, as we know, steps in and stops Abraham at the last moment and Isaac is spared.
Abraham experienced transformation and so did the apostles who witnessed the transfiguration on Mt. Tabor. Jesus used the moment to convey that the glory of the kingdom far outweighs the pain of the cross he was about to endure. Transformation is the potential that awaits anyone who is willing to trust and believe in God and is in touch with God’s presence.
In many ways, we have more experience of God’s glory and his power that the apostles did after they came down from the mountain. They had one intense experience witnessing the encounter between Jesus, Moses and Elijah, but they had yet to witness the fullness of Jesus’ glory in the passion, resurrection and the Eucharist.
God often makes us mindful of his presence, not only in the sacraments, but in numerous ways from unexpected favors done by strangers to the heart-warming experience of reconciliation. Our problem is that God comes through in such ordinary ways that we can easily fail to notice, much less, appreciate his divine presence, which can be like background noise that visitors notice but we do not.
Our challenge is to see God’s glory, to see his miracles, and to savor his presence above all else. For the most part, we do keep the faith. We weather the storms of loneliness, doubt and suffering, not by our own strength, but by God’s strength. God has made us spiritually strong so we should consider ourselves as gifted with faith as Abraham and the apostles were. As people of faith, we have to do, as they did, trust in God to take care of us in this world and the next.
Mindful of God’s presence, may we resolve to use the remaining weeks of Lent to become more alert to his gifts and to use them to increase our love for others, especially the less fortunate and to nurture our faith through prayer and worship. Otherwise, we run the risk of becoming oblivious and uncaring about the presence of God as many others unfortunately have done.