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Day 9 The Lord Will Provide the Lamb
Posted on: March 17, 2025
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
Every day, pray aloud worshipfully this golden thread that weaves through the entire tapestry of God’s intent for us.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD,
when I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel. . . .
I will put my law within them,
and I will write it on their hearts.
And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
They shall all know me, from the least of them
to the greatest. . . .
For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will
remember their sin no more.
(Jeremiah 31:31, 33-34)
Daily Scripture
Genesis 22:1-14
After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.
When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”
Picking Up the Thread
To me, this is the most disturbing story in the Bible. Just as he promised, the LORD gives a son to childless Sarah and Abraham. Then God commands Abraham to ignore the primal instinct we have to protect our children. Instead, Abraham is to make a burnt offering of his beloved only son. How this must have baffled God’s people through the centuries! What kind of God demands such a horrific sacrifice? It is only with the coming of Jesus that the story at last comes into focus. Let’s look at three of the many connections to Christ.
1. Abraham hears God call his name, and Abraham’s literal reply is, “Behold!” which means “Look, here I am, ready to do your will.” This is the paradigm for responding to God. Immediate and radical availability. Hebrews puts this same word on Jesus’ lips: “Behold, I have come to do your will O God” (Hebrews 10:7). The text goes on to tell us that this means “the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).
2. Isaac also foreshadows Jesus in that he obeys his father and undertakes the journey up the mountains. He carries on his back the wood that will become the burning altar of sacrifice. Similarly, Jesus carried up the hill of Golgotha his own wooden cross, the altar of sacrifice on which he offered himself for us.
3. Along the way, Isaac astutely asks where the lamb for the sacrifice is. We hear Abraham’s faith as he replies, “God will provide for himself the lamb.” Hebrews 11:19 explains that Abraham “considered that God was able even to raise the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, [Abraham] did receive [Isaac] back.” Abraham advanced toward the ghastly act trusting that God would keep his promises even if it meant doing the impossible to raise Isaac. Every listener breathes a huge sigh of relief when at the last second Abraham sees a ram caught in the thicket.
Jesus himself would reflect on this event in John 8:56 when he says, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” Jesus understood that he was the true Isaac. The eternal Father himself would offer his only Son to redeem the world.
Stitching It In
This story is hard. Indeed, Biblical faith is hard. We have often made Christianity softer than it is, expecting Jesus to cushion any sacrifice we might have to offer. We think he who took away our sins must also smooth the way of discipleship. But Scripture speaks of a tougher realism. We recall verses from Romans 8:35-36 that we often skip:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
Here Paul quotes from Psalm 44 to make sense of Christian suffering and to affirm that God calls us to expend our lives in his service. That may well mean we experience overt persecution or the more subtle tribulations of life in a dangerous and fallen world. Our model, of course, is Jesus who lived as a sacrificial lamb. He calls us also to pick up our cross and follow him (Mark 8:34). It is only in accepting this charge that we can truly know the comfort of the verses that follow: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).
Praying Along the Pattern
You are my gracious Father,
Yet ever you have called your people to hard things.
You called your beloved Son Jesus
To be the forerunner and pioneer of our faith,
Forging through the horrible cross
In faith of the joy that lay far ahead.
I wish that had been the end of it.
But I know your Word tells me otherwise.
You call and I am roused to reply
With Abraham and Jesus,
“Behold, here I am!”
Even when the path is marked with pain,
Even when I cannot see,
Can only barely imagine,
The glory on the other side.
For your sake, I pass through
The deathliness of life,
Praying sometimes with clenched teeth
“The LORD will provide,”
For you do and you have,
And there is no other way.
I offer this day what has come to me that is hard,
As a sacrifice of praise to the Lamb
Who offered himself on my behalf.
Sacrifices of Abel, Melchisedec and Abraham. Mosaic from the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, Italy, 6th century. Wikimedia Commons.
In this 6th century mosaic, we see an artistic link between three stories about offering. On the left, Abel offers his lamb as the acceptable sacrifice. On the right, Abraham offers Isaac in obedience. In the middle, the mysterious Melchizedek, a prefiguration of Christ, offers bread and wine.
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