I still remember the day I almost lost my life. The morning was early. It was cool and dark. My father walked into my tent and pulled back the covers. “Get dressed and get ready,” he said in a low voice, “they are waiting for us outside.” Confused, I quickly got dressed, grabbed some bread and a flask of water. I then went out to meet my father and two of his men at the edge of the compound.

Usually, my father talked as we travelled together. That morning he hardly spoke at all! My father was uneasy. Something wasn’t right. We journeyed through Moriah, and on the second night we arrived at camp late in the evening. The next morning, we woke at dawn and could see the mountain in the distance. My father finally spoke and instructed the servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there,” pointing towards the mountain. “We will worship and then we will come back to you.” He then turned to me, “Isaac, my boy, come, let us be off to worship God.” He placed the wood on my shoulders, and he carried the knife and fire. As we reached the foot of the mountain, I began to wonder where the sacrificial lamb was. “Father!” I spoke up nervously. “Yes, my boy,” he responded. “I have the wood and you have the fire and the knife, but we don’t have the lamb for the burnt offering?” “Isaac, my son,” he said, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.” Now, you must know that my father, Abraham, was a man mighty in faith and trusted his God with every fibre of his being. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, of course,” I thought to myself. Yet an unbearable tension continued to hang over the silence.

Finally, we reached a place that my father thought was suitable for the altar. I collected the rocks, and he constructed the altar for our worship. He then arranged the wood on it. Now, let’s “look for this lamb,” I thought to myself. Just then, my father walked up to me. His face was sullen and as white as a fleece. The agony in his expression made my stomach turn; I felt severely nauseous. “Son, get on the altar.” “No, Father, you said God would provide the lamb, let’s go look for him,” I said. “Isaac, you are that lamb, lie on the altar, my boy. This is God’s command.” His lips were trembling and his eyes were wet with tears. I don’t know what came over me, but I submitted and did what I was told, and he bound me to the altar.

I am the very child God promised to my father, the one through whom he would have countless descendants. Yet now the promise and the command seemed to cancel each other out. “This is absurd!” I exclaimed. Many years later I would discover that true faith begins where reason runs out in its attempts to comprehend what God has said.[1]

My eyes were fixed on him as he continued to bind me to the altar. I was stiff with fear, and yet my father’s hands were trembling violently, which made it difficult to tie the cords. Despite the emotional pain, my father continued to trust his God even when it seemed to destroy the very promise that God had made to him. His obedience and trust in God were beyond any sense of clarity, because what he was doing to me made no sense whatsoever.

When he was done, I stared at him for a few more seconds. He would not look at me. Finally, he pulled out his slaughter knife from his waist and lifted it with both hands just above his chest. I winced and shut my eyes as tightly as I could.

Terror struck!

I felt a powerful jolt…

With eyes wide shut, I saw a powerful, large figure looming high above me, clothed in brilliant light. I thought I was dead and he was calling to me. But he wasn’t calling for me at all. The angel was calling out to my father, “Abraham! Abraham!” with a voice so loud and clear it echoed from the mountain through the valley. My father hid his face from the brightness of the angel with his arm, and responded, “here I am, here I am.” “Do not harm the boy,” the angel commanded. My father dropped his knife to the ground. “You fear God, that I know, because you did not withhold your only son from the Lord,” the angelic being proclaimed, and then vanished out of sight.

My father had already, in a sense, “reasoned” that God could even raise me from the dead. Faith, for him in that moment, was not certainty—but a trust that even death cannot finally undo God’s promise. It was his belief that the impossible is still possible with God. This became clear the moment the angel had left and we heard the rustle in the bush just above us, not far off. Quickly my father unbound me, and he went over to see what was there. It was a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. He brought it to the altar and he sacrificed it. I was still beside myself, not sure what to make of my father about to sacrifice me, and then the angel… thank God for that angel! My father called this place, “The Lord Will Provide,” even today people say, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” I have not returned to that mountain since, and I’ve never spoken about that day until now.

I have often reflected on what this absurd event might have meant. Perhaps, in the deepest sense, it reminds us of what it means to speak of faith. It’s not a calm possession of answers; rather, it’s often a trembling trust that God remains faithful even when everything appears contradictory. And so, the one who truly believes looks like a fool to the world, but they are, in fact, standing in the deepest truth.

*          *          *

Centuries later, another beloved Son would walk another hill carrying wood upon his shoulders. Here too, God’s promise of a Messiah appeared to collide with the reality of his execution by crucifixion. Imagine yourself as a first-century Jew and place yourself at the foot of the cross of Jesus, the promised Messiah, as he hangs there. Wouldn’t you ask:

How could he reign as Messiah from that cross?

How could the King of Israel wear a crown of thorns?

How could life come through this savage and brutal death?

The absurdity of it all! But as Abraham stood in the deepest truth, Jesus too, just before he took upon his shoulders the wooden cross, stood before the Roman governor, Pilate, who interrogated him, “Are you a king?” (paraphrased) Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.” (John 18:37–38; NIV).

What previously seemed absurd now appears deeply ironic. The irony here is breathtaking. Truth was not simply being spoken between Pilate and Jesus. No, the very embodiment of truth was standing right before him.

On Mount Moriah, Isaac and the world would have seen contradiction, absurdity, and downfall, but as difficult as it was to lift up that slaughtering knife, Abraham’s faith saw something very different: he saw the God who remains faithful to his promises even when everything visible appears to deny them. And so here too, at the crucifixion site, we remember the Father giving his beloved Son, and the Son freely offering himself: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16; NIV). You and I are not bound to a sacrificial altar, for behold, like the ram stuck in the thicket, there is a spotless Lamb.

I end off with the words of John the Baptist who proclaimed to the Jews as Jesus approached, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29; NIV).

AI Disclaimer:

This blog has been edited for grammar, clarity, and readability using AI-assisted tools. The core content, theological insights, and personal reflections remain my original work.

[1] This blog integrates here and elsewhere the philosophical-theological thought of Søren Kierkegaard, namely his book, Fear and Trembling. Translated by Alastair Hannay. London: Penguin Books, 1985.