Full of sacrifices, life is, and I am not complaining. Over
and over again, my faith is tested, walking up the mountain with my money in
tow, with responsibilities or love holding my hand, with other facets of my
spirituality tested on similar slopes: patience, kindness, love, grace, mercy,
hope. Moriah grass is lonely, bristly, and the wind always blows into your face
abrasively, and there is no thoughtless path. I’ve tread this many times, and
will continue to do so, and the place of sacrifice always looms before me, on the
third day.
Behold, the fire and
the wood, my heart says, but where is
the lamb for the sacrifice?
God himself will provide the lamb, and the lie is bitter in
my throat, though a thousand times I’ve lived this story, a hundred thousand
times, God has shown faithful. The binding of Isaac is heavy: lead in my
footsteps, burdens on my back, scorching muscles and a tortured heart,
self-inflicted and mythical, for I carry only a knife and a light for the wood
that laughter carries. Laughter, joy, why do you mock me with your faith?
Up and up we go, his innocent hand so small and mine so
bloody, and who is my son, this time? Do I know? Patience and you’ll always
understand, my son scratches his legs and arm on a thicket, not far from a pile
of stones, and I bind it, for he bleeds too soon.
How do you build an altar for your heart and joy? But you
must, and bind your only son with the wood he’s carried so faithfully (oh,
where is mine now? Oh, father, where art thou? He cries so plaintively). I
stretch forward my hand, raising it to the heavens – it’s between me and the
divine, my hand, blotting out the sky, my murderous hands – and I ignore the
bleating cries of Isaac, the lamb for the slaughter.
But Christ always stays my hand, and the clouds part and a
dove alights on my shoulder, sheltering my face in spiritual wing. But I’ve brought no sacrifice, ah!
Do not fear, for a ram is caught in the thicket, and my
patience, faith, grace has suffered another gauntlet.
All stories are part of the Story. I am caught in the hands
of grace. I am the ram, I am Isaac, I am the stones beneath which my son lies,
I am Abraham and the mountain, and Adonai-Jirah is real to me now, always, and
never until the right time. That is the mystery, and grace. There is always a
passing over, always blood over the threshold, and always God, even in the
shadow of the mountain, the trails over the brambles and briars along the way,
the stiff, ragged climb, the precipitous paths, and even as I stack the stones
at the solemn summit – nowhere is it my clear that the sacrifice must always be
made, in good faith, before the parting of the waves of the heavens makes clear
what will be gained.
There is a heavy burden on this world’s heart, forever and
always now. A man has been shot; children are dying and suffering from
significant trauma as rockets sound and airstrikes shriek overhead and mortars
crash into the streets; and starvation, dehydration, and displacement are the
monster nipping at the heels of children who, before their teens, have already
felt a handful of wars. Too much retribution and not enough reconciliation, in
homes, villages, cities, nations, and across the world – how can we engender
justice, and walk an extra mile when our knees are so weak, and the miles keep
coming.
