On Letting Your Son Die

On Letting Your Son Die
Genesis 22: 3- 10

What on earth does it do to you to have your father go to the edge of killing you? What does it do to your relationship to your father, and what does it do to your view of God? A seminary colleague of mine in England, who (like me) was also a Church of England priest and served a little at a local parish church, on one occasion re-enacted the story of Abraham’s offering of Isaac in a family service. Our two families lived in adjacent houses on the seminary campus. Our children were of similar ages and were always in and out of each other’s houses (through the walls I remember listening to the boy involved in this re-enactment doing his piano practice early on a Saturday morning when I thought I had the right to an extra hour of sleep). Watching the re-enactment was horrifying. It brought home the horrific nature of the event (though it doesn’t seem to have done the boy any harm; he grew up to be a fine, balanced adult)...