Text: Genesis 22:1-18

They say that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. This means that, when life gets you down, just well up your strength, and pick yourself up. When life deals you a bad hand, you make your own luck, right? Good people can make the best out of the worst situations. Okay, one more and I’ll be done with the clichés. People say that when life hands you lemons, you best make lemonade. All of these sayings imply that when life gets hard, if you just dig in deep, you’ll barrel on through it. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

Take Abraham for example. God told him to leave everything behind and go to an unspecified place, and he did. God told him that he would be blessed, and he believed it. Scripture says Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness. But, Abraham was old. His wife was old, well past the age for bearing children. They had resigned themselves to the fact that they will die childless. And then, God promised to Abraham, “’Your very own son shall be your heir.’ And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’”^[1] God promised a son, and that is what Abraham got. Isaac.

But here in our text today, it seems that life is turned upside down for Abraham. Isaac, his beloved son and gift from God, is demanded by God to be sacrificed, as a test. Not knowing it was a test, Abraham obeyed God and went to sacrifice his son. This is because he knew the promise of God, and he believed that, even when life looks contrary to the promise of God, it is especially then that He remains true. You see, when God hands you lemons, you’ve already got lemonade.

I.

What an unthinkable request! God had just promised Abraham, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be blessed.”[2] We know that it’s a test, but Abraham didn’t. In this situation Abraham might’ve wondered if this was a trick of Satan. He could’ve said that God’s promise about Isaac is sure and clear, but then wondered why God wanted him killed. Even worse, Abraham was the one who is to do the slaying and not a robber or bandit in the woods. Maybe Abraham could’ve figured that God is going back on His Word, or that he himself committed some grievous sin against God, and for that reason God is taking back His promise.

By nature we all have a habit of thinking this way, too. Whenever our lives go to the gutter financially or personally, whenever our health or relationships fail, our conscience goes to work within us. The devil torments us inside, telling us that these bad things are the sum of our lives, or that we offended God and now He is punishing us by ruining our lives. When faced with the contradiction of a loving God and a painful existence in this world, our sinful flesh will never make sense of the conflict. Very rare is the person who goes their entire life without thinking that maybe God isn’t good, or that He doesn’t exist.

II.

In Hebrews 11 we read more about the Sacrifice of Isaac: “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead.”^[3] In hope, Abraham believed God. He knew that as God was able to give him a son in his old age, God would just as easily be able to raise up offspring from Isaac. Abraham believed in the resurrection of the dead, that from the ashes of the sacrifice God would restore Isaac and make good on His promises. He knew and believed that when God handed him lemons, he already had lemonade.

It’s a silly saying, I know. But it’s true. God can never go back on His Word. It is contrary to His character. The Word that He gave you in Baptism will stand true for all time. In Baptism you were given the name of the Triune God as you were washed in the water and the Word for the forgiveness of sins. In Baptism, God claimed you as His own and made a promise to bless you and keep you. God does not go back on His Word. We all struggle in our lives. We do not always struggle with the same things, nor do we share all the same suffering, but we do know one who shares equally in all our sufferings. This One is Jesus Christ, whom Scripture says, is the propitiation for our sins.

Though the world gives way around us, we have a great Lord and King who remains steadfast with us in our suffering. The Son of Man was tempted in every way, including the despair of being abandoned by His God and Father as He hung on the cross, forsaken. He bore those temptations, and the guilt of our sinfulness and despair, and died for our forgiveness. Thus, even when life appears to be stacked against us, He remains true. In His forgiveness we are made more than conquerors and His promise will always stand true, even as He says to us: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”^[4] Therefore, when God gives you lemons, you already have lemonade – salvation through faith in Christ, who remains beside you until the end of the age.

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^[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Gen. 15:4–5.

[2] Gen. 21:12

^[3] Heb. 11:17–19.

^[4] Matt. 28:20.