Advent: The Son of Abraham
Delivered 12/14/2008 on Genesis 22:1-18 by Carter Sanger
We had an old motor boat that we kept tethered to a pole in the shallow part of the lake. The lake is near Lake Michigan so storms coming in off the big lake have little to stop their impact. On calm days, the pole worked fine as an anchor for the boat. But on stormy nights the wind and boat pulled the boat so hard that often the anchor was ripped right out of the sandy bottom in which it was drilled.
We are often a lot like that boat. We anchor our lives to something and as long as life is calm then the anchor seems just fine. It is when things get difficult that we find out if our anchor will keep us from being swept away. I am convinced that many of us believe our anchor is sound. I’m especially convinced that many in the church think their anchor is sound because they believe in Christ. But just because a person goes to church or professes to be a Christian doesn’t mean his anchor is really Christ. How do we know if our anchor will hold? How do we know if our anchor is Christ?
In Genesis 22, Abraham is tested. God tells him to take his son and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. It is a head-scratching command. As we look at this text we gain a picture of not only the anchor but the faith in that anchor. Even in this Old Testament text we find Christ to be the anchor of faith because he is the fulfilment of long-awaited promises.
