Abraham’s Tapestry

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, February 25th, 2024:
Second Sunday of Lent

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Genesis
22.1-2, 9-13, 15-18​

God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And Abraham said, “Here I am.”

God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”

When Abraham and Isaac came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son.

But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” The Angel said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

The Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Have you ever looked at the wrong side of a woven tapestry? One of the saints used to recall being a child and sitting on the floor at his mother’s feet while she worked on her weaving. From his position, as he looked up at the back of the tapestry, all he could see was a mess of loose threads and haphazard colours. There was nothing too beautiful about it, and it certainly didn’t look intentional! But then, when his mother wanted to show him her work-in-progress, she would lower the loom down to his eye level and now, finally seeing it from the right side, he could behold all the intricate beauty she was weaving with those threads and colours. 


If ever there was a man who could not – for all his efforts – see what sort of plan the Lord was up to, it must have been Abraham when he was asked to sacrifice his only son. We hear this reading every year and we can almost grow accustomed to it, but think of it for a moment. Without explanation or reason, God asked of Abraham what seems to us unthinkable, as a test of his strength of faith in blindness. 


Now, I’m a real planner. I like to have a clear path in front of me with chronological steps, with colour-coded tabs when possible… and at least three contingency plans in case things go sideways! And at times I think this can be a good quality, something the Lord can use. But if we become slaves to our control and autonomy over our own lives, trust in the Lord can go out the window. I can reflect back on so many times in my life when, despite my efforts, all I could see was the back of the tapestry: when nothing made sense, my plan certainly hadn’t worked out, and it was difficult to see that He had a plan. 


I think if I remember the deepest of these hard moments, this may be the faintest touch of what our father in faith, Abraham, must have felt. As he walked up the mountain with Isaac, a knife in his hand and fear and trust mingled in his heart, what else could there have been before his interior eyes but the back-side of the tapestry? What he couldn’t see at that moment was that his genuine act of faith in the Lord’s goodness would make him a father in faith to countless generations of children. What he couldn’t have seen at that time was how, even though his son Isaac would meet no harm and would be saved from being made a sin offering, in God’s timing Isaac would become a symbol of the Son who knew no sin, but became a sin offering for us, once and for all. 


I imagine the angel who was tasked with stopping Abraham, and sharing the good news with him that the Lord did not want his son to come to harm. The angel is a little bit like the mother, who took the tapestry of God’s plan for his life and showed him just enough of it to console his heart and lead him on the right path. May we have the patience to bear with the Lord when all we can see is loose threads, and have eyes and ears open to the Lord’s messages, which will show us the right side of the tapestry of our lives.




Sister Angela Burnham

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