“I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.”
We are in the middle of our Lenten journey, our Lenten penances, and our Lenten spiritual exercises that help us turn back to and turn ever deeper toward our God. In our first reading today, we have part of the familiar story of the sacrifice of Isaac. A detail that can be quickly overlooked however, is that Isaac carries the wood up the mountain himself. This means that Isaac was young, healthy, and a physically strong man. In contrast to his father Abraham, who was well advanced in years, Isaac was in the prime of life. Thus, when we read later that Isaac was bound on the altar as a sacrifice, we know that Abraham could not have done without Isaac’s consent. Yes, Isaac must have been informed about God’s plan and willingly offered himself through his father Abraham to the Lord. We know the happy end of the story, God does not ask this sacrifice of Abraham or Isaac, but Isaac – ignorant of the outcome – trusts his father and his God in his unconditional offering and thus becomes for us not only a forerunner of Christ, but a great model for us this Lent.
How willingly have we entered into this Lenten season – with our prayer, our fasting, or our almsgiving? Our sacrifices and practices, when done with a willing heart, allow the Lord to work a transfiguration in us – sometimes slowly and imperceptibly at first – but none the less real. Perhaps, this Lenten season, our sacrifice will not be something that we choose, but something that is forced upon us (pandemic, sickness, etc.). Like Isaac, we might not be expecting something life throws at us. But like Isaac, and like Christ, we know that we can transform these moments into acts of love and trust in God, thus offering ourselves, our situations, and our hearts to the Lord, and in so doing, allowing the Lord to work a transfiguration in us, through grace, to have wills and hearts more like his Son. Let us pray to see how we can enter more deeply into Lent with hearts that are willing.