Reflection on Mass Readings for this Sunday

There is a wonderful continuity in the bible passages for this week’s Sunday Mass, which serve to illuminate and highlight each other. Sometimes I think it is too easy to gloss over the fact that the readings, all the readings, are chosen as a whole, with not enough attention given to the totality of what is being read.

In the passage from Genesis we have one of the most heart-rending and difficult (in my view) passages in the Jewish Scriptures. Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his own son: the son that was promised to him, the son of his old age, the son that … is there any real need to add things to the simple fact that a father was commanded to sacrifice his own son. Too often we skip to the end – Isaac was sparred everything was okay. But was it? What anguish went on in Abraham’s mind, let alone Isaac’s! The grief, the pain, the heart-rending journey to Moriah, all in the belief that God knew what God was doing.

There have been various attempts to add to the image by trying to tell more about Isaac and Abraham and what was going on in their minds, but perhaps what is better is to simply rest for a moment in the apparently awful feeling of that moment.

But not for too long, for God did provide a way out. Isaac was spared, and not only spared but flourished (though I have often wondered how difficult the relationship between Isaac and God might have been after that day). Through that act of faith, the whole world has been blessed repeatedly!

It is through reading the account in Genesis that the Psalm 116 is given more power and light. Trying reading, hearing it as if spoken from the mouth of Isaac: he was to be the sacrifice, he was to die at the hands of his father, but then the Lord let the ropes slip and he was saved! An offering of thanksgiving is made rather than one of grief and desolation.

And then, of course, we come to the crux of the matter. That father and son we were talking about earlier and the anguish at having to sacrifice, is – despite the Father knowing the outcome – is what The Father and The Son went through in some mysterious way. But unlike Abraham, the Son was sacrificed; the Father did not spare his own Son. But after the sacrifice came the most amazing part: the resurrection. Everything is changed. God’s great laugh. Jesus is then raised up and sits in glory with the Father forever more as the chosen one of God, as our mediator.

It is in the Transfiguration that we get a glimpse of that. Jesus is shown in all his glory as a foretaste of paradise for the apostles, much like God telling Abraham that he would be blessed through his son before asking him to sacrifice Isaac. We, as very frail human beings need a glimpse of the reward from time to time. We also need to realize, however, that God has a plan regardless of what it might seem like, and in order to follow that plan we need to heed the call of God regarding Jesus: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”