Why me? We have probably all said those words to ourselves at one point or another. When a difficult situation or unbearable trial comes along in life, we often wonder why this should be happening to us now. Why a car problem of this of all days? Why this extra assignment at work, why this unexpected costly home repair?
Here in this first Sunday of Lent we are reminded of our state of walking in the wilderness, where hardship are to be expected.
In our Old Testament reading for today Abraham faces a hardship directly of the Lord’s doing. Abraham would have been without doubt justified in asking God, “Why me?” The Lord had asked him to give up his only son by means of a three day journey up to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice him.
God tested Abraham with this request. Talk about walking through the wilderness of uncertainty, how could Abraham make sense of an action that had nothing to do with God’s love and faithfulness? In God’s order for creation, people are never intended to be sacrificed, especially not children. Child sacrifice was present in some false idol worship over history- but never from the God who created the world.
How strange this command must have also sounded to Abraham! After all the years of waiting God had promised Abram that he would bear a son. How could this same promised heir now receive the fate of sacrifice on the mountain? Why me indeed.
Isaac was a walking testimony to the miracle of God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah in their old age. Isaac illustrated the gift and promise of God and carried with him the future promise as Abraham’s heir who would continue God’s covenant promise to Abraham.
We can only imagine how much Abraham loved Isaac with all of these promises of God wrapped up in Isaac’s existence. And that is not to mention on top of all of that is the love a parent has for a child from the start. The love that grows with everything from those first steps, and first words to those favorite activities and rituals that a parent and child develop together. Certainly at that time Abraham had a right to ask God, “why me?” He was in the middle of the wilderness with no clear direction home.
Abraham met God’s requests with faith and obedience all the way until God intervened to save Isaac. Abraham obeyed despite the great love he had for his son. He even obeyed through the three day journey to Mt. Moriah in which he had the chance to change his mind. Trusting in God’s Word to him was his anchor in the midst of the confusion of life in this fallen world.
When Abraham thought why me, God said “I will provide.” Whenever we want to ask “Why me” we have an example in scripture of how God is at work in the midst of life’s trials.
The testing of Abraham preached a sermon about Jesus to God’s people. It was a message about God providing the sacrifice in our place which was fulfilled some 2,000 years later. This testing was not about seeing whether God could trip up Abraham, but instead this served as a means of strengthening Abraham’s faith. His son Isaac said it himself, the fire , the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice. God will provide for himself the lamb for an offering.
While Abraham would have been justified in asking “why me”, God was answering “I will” provide the lamb. God provided the lamb for Abraham, just as Abraham spoke in faith to Isaac, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering my son.” God provided the lamb in the form of his own son, not on the mountain of Moriah but on the hill of Calvary. The ram caught in the thicket served to illustrate that God always will provide through Jesus.
God sent the angel to stop Abraham from taking the knife to his son. Abraham was not permitted to make this sacrifice because God would do so instead in sacrificing his Son on the cross. For as painful as it is to think of what it would be like for Abraham to take his son’s life, God provided his son Jesus to die on the cross as the sacrifice for us.
This “I will” of God is a demonstration of His love for all sinners. It gives us a picture of how God’s determination and love goes beyond what we could ever offer ourselves. We look at the prospect of personal sacrifice and loss from the perspective of the “why me” personal cost.
In contrast Jesus did not look to his own interests and carefully calculate the cost of helping others. He willingly embraced the ultimate “why me” situation of dying on the cross for our sake. Instead of asking the question why does this have to happen to me?, Jesus remained focused on what his sacrifice would accomplish for you and I, and the whole world.
Just as God provided for Abraham, He works in the midst of our “Why Me’s” to provide this great “I will” in our lives. No matter the challenge we face Jesus provides for us with his “I will”. His sacrifice for us has provided us with a forgiveness and grace that brings a lasting hope and renewal to our lives no matter the adversity or trial.
Jesus provides His “I Will” for us in the sense that He is faithful even when we struggle and fail to be faithful in trusting God through the trial of the moment. We may chronically worry about how something in the near future will turn out, where we struggle to have faith and trust that God is in control and has our best interest in mind. Yet Jesus remains just as faithful to us. In response to this undeserved Grace, we can say “why me” as in, why am I so richly blessed with God’s love!
When we as Christians undergo trials and persevere in faith, we serve as invaluable examples to our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we undergo difficulties of life with patience, trust and faith, we demonstrate and model to others what it means to live in faith in our Savior through the perils of this fallen world.
In our gospel reading we are reminded of how Jesus overcame temptation for us. He journeyed from Nazareth to the land of Judea where he was baptized by John in the Jordan river. Next the Holy Spirit drove him to the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. After the forty days of testing he returned to Galilee, commenting on the meaning of his coming, his baptism and his victory over Satan’s first round of temptations: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel.”
The time was fulfilled and the kingdom was at hand because of what Jesus was doing for us, living in righteousness where we failed, consecrating himself for his journey to the cross and the tomb.
In the midst of significant trials in life our first instinct certainly is to speak those words, “Why me” But through faith we know that God is at work in the midst of those trials. So perhaps a more appropriate response to the trials of life is to say, “Lord, what are accomplishing in me through this situation?”
Christ has undergone testing and trials to restore paradise, he has overcome the devil for us. Jesus overcame the temptations of Satan in order to fulfil what we could not do, in order to obey God where Adam and Eve failed.
Now at the start of this season of Lent, we are called to live in courage not according to our sinful flesh, but according to the new life he gives us in our resurrection. In Christ we have already now a foretaste of the feast to come. As we draw near to Him in the Sacrament of the Altar, we experience in that moment the relief that the knife of the Father’s wrath has been held back from us, and in its place the Lamb of God is sacrificed for us. His life given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.
May the Lord continue to bless us with faith and trust in his leading and guiding- safe through the wilderness of this world and into the joys of his eternal kingdom. Amen.