Wednesday • 2/2/2022
Wednesday of 4 Epiphany, Year Two

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 72; Genesis 22:1–18; Hebrews 11:23–31; John 6:52–59

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

John: “the one who chews my flesh.” The great 20th century New Testament theologian Oscar Cullmann brilliantly lays out the flow of thought in John 6: Jesus draws the line from the miracle of the feeding of 5,000 people with material bread (vv. 1-13), to the fact that despite the ordinariness of his birth as a human he is the “Bread of Life” come down from heaven (vv. 14–47), to the miracle of the fact that as the risen and ascended Lord he manifests his presence among his people in simple bread that is eaten and wine that is drunk: “For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. The one who chews my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (v. 56).*

Wonder of wonders: you and I commune each Sunday with the same Person who walked the shores of Galilee 2,000 years ago. And because he is eternal bread of eternal life, our fellowship with him will extend into a timeless, fully physical existence on a new earth and under new heavens. The Jesus of the Gospel’s historical account and the Christ of the Church’s worship and the Alpha/Omega of the coming eschaton are one and the same person—and altogether accessible to us.

He came in the flesh. He comes in the bread and the wine. He will come again in power and great glory. Now, that is food for the soul.

Genesis 22: the gift of an only son. Looking back on earlier revelation from this perspective, it’s impossible not to see the story anticipated repeatedly. Abraham’s testing on Mount Moriah is just such an instance.

Abraham mirrors the love of God in being willing to give up his only son for the sake of relationship. Abraham also exemplifies utter faith in God’s promise to raise the dead to newness of life: “He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead—and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Hebrews 11:19).

Isaac points forward in dramatic ways to Christ’s saving death for us. The destination of Abraham and Isaac’s journey is Mount Moriah, which, according to 2 Chronicles 3:1, is the place in Jerusalem where God makes a plague to cease and where Solomon builds the temple. Mt. Golgotha, the place of Jesus’s sacrifice, is a stone’s throw away.

Isaac is remarkably quiescent in the face of the unfolding of events: “…like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7b). As Jesus will carry his wooden cross up to Calvary, so Isaac carries the wood for his altar. As Jesus will submit to the nails and to the agony of death, so Isaac submits to the ropes and is ready for the knife. On Mount Moriah, God substitutes a ram for Abraham’s “son your only son”; on Calvary, God will substitute his Son, his only begotten Son, for sinners.

Nor should it escape our notice that everything happens “on the third day” of their journey (Genesis 19:4). By faith, Abraham does indeed receive him back from the dead “figuratively speaking” (Hebrews 11:19). And what a figure he has given us of the God-Man’s atoning and life-giving sacrifice!

Hebrews 11: it takes faith. Because Moses is the Old Covenant’s “law-giver,” it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that he (no less than Abraham and other heroes in faith’s hall of fame), was driven by faith. Moses should never be thought of as the fountainhead of a project of merit, as the architect of a system of works righteousness, or as the standard-bearer for “judginess” toward the failings of others. “By faith he left Egypt,” says the writer to the Hebrews (11:27). “Faith” in the God of his people led him to say “No!” to the faux freedom of Egyptian court life and “Yes!” to the true freedom of life with Yahweh and his people through the waters of, and on the far side of, the Red Sea.

I pray we too are able to live the wondrous mystery of “faith”: “Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!”

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Lucas Cranach the Elder , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

* Summarizing material in Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1953), pp. 37–38,91–102.