Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
August 17, 2025
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras

Pentecost 10C

By faith, Abraham when he was tested, offered up Isaac; so that he who received the promises offered up his only-begotten son; of whom it was said that, “In Isaac will your descendants be named;” because he reasoned that God was able to raise him from the dead which, in a manner of speaking, he did receive him back. Hebrews 11:17-19 (DKV)

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We hear the word “faith” 23 times in Hebrews chapter 11, and over 450 times in Scripture as a whole – and so we should conclude that faith is of central importance to us as we commune with our God through Christ Jesus our Lord. For as the Bible says, “Without faith it is impossible to please Him.” (Heb 11:6)

Faith has two meanings in Christian vocabulary. First it refers to a disposition within us to receive and believe all that our God says to us in Scripture. Such faith is a gift. No person however intelligent or pious or desirous can create faith within himself. But such faith, such trust is obtained by the gracious activity of the Holy Spirit within us. For as Scripture says, “No man can say that Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor. 12:3)

To have faith means to place our unwavering trust in our Heavenly Father and Him alone as our highest good. He who will never leave us nor forsake us, but will provide for every need of body and soul: both now and unto the ages of ages in His eternal Kingdom.

The word faith has another meaning as well when we speak, for example, of the Christian Faith by which we mean the entire content of the holy Christian religion. The sum total of theological facts, truths, practices, virtues and moral teachings that make up our religion; and that come from the Bible. But to be clear the Bible as it is interpreted by the church catholic (small “c”); as it is formulated e.g. in the Nicene Creed with which we are all familiar.

At the granular level we hold non-negotiable belief that God is a Person, though not a human being. We believe that He is our Almighty Father who fashioned the heavens and the earth and all things that exist be they visible or invisible. But the very core of our Holy Faith this: the glorious truth that God’s deepest desire is to win back His rebellious children who, when they came of age, promptly rejected everything that they knew and believed and joined the Serpent’s religion. Just like so many gas lighting Christian young people today.

But in the largest possible contrast to the calamity of sin which made ship wreck of all that God lovingly created – our same God and Father came to the rescue by dispatching His One and Only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord to be our Savior; and to restore us to the family table – the one you behold in front of you today – this Holy Altar.

Christians believe, teach and confess that Jesus Christ is “True God begotten of the Father from eternity, and also True Man born of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” That for the joy set before Him, He came from heaven to earth to redeem “lost and condemned persons from all sin, death and the power of the devil. Not with gold or silver, but with His Holy Precious Blood and by His innocent suffering and death. Why? So that we might be His own and live under Him in His kingdom; and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.”

We further believe in God the Holy Spirit, who gives us the steadfast faith to adequately believe the Holy Christian Faith. By that faith He makes sinners holy as His name implies. For He is indeed the Lord of life and Giver of Life both biological and spiritual life. So that without Him and His tender ministrations there IS nothing. We ARE nothing. In which case this Divine Conversation in this Holy Convocation is not taking place.

Among those elements that make up the Christian Faith That We Believe is the account of Abraham’s great test of faith, which is recorded for us in Genesis 22. The time when God asked Abraham to do what was irrational and unreasonable and against every instinct, that no person in his right mind would believe to be a true test from the Living God.

But by dogged faith Abraham heard God’s voice, believed what the LORD God said and proceeded to Offer up Isaac his long awaited, only-begotten and beloved son. Isaac! By whom all of God’s promises to restore the world in Christ Jesus were to take place in the fullness of time. Those are the very Promises that the church declares aloud in liturgy every week from invocation to benediction.

And may the Holy Spirit continue to provide us with such resolute faith, to believe “the faith” so that we might live abundant lives now and unto eternal life.

Now in the verses we heard a few moments ago the preacher to the church of the Hebrews explains how the Offering of Isaac was, and still is, the proclamation of the salvation that our God carried out for us in Christ.

Indeed the sacrifice that Abraham was about to perform, and which God the Father did perform, are so close in every respect that we can never understand them apart from one another. Said another way Abraham’s Offering informs us of God’s Offering of Jesus.

Take note!

God and Abraham were both fathers. God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Abraham the father of Isaac.

Both S/sons were Beloved. Only begotten. And long-awaited.

Both were born by Promise against all odds. Isaac outside the course of nature to parents nearly 100 years old, and Jesus outside the course of nature to a Virgin who conceived without human agency, but by the Holy Spirit.

Isaac was the only Patriarch who had just one wife, Rebecca. Even as our Lord has but one Bride, the church into which we are graciously baptized.

Both Isaac and Jesus carried the wood of their sacrifice on their own shoulders: Isaac to Mt. Moriah, Jesus to Mt. Calvary.

The comparisons are so uncanny that, prophetically speaking, we can say that Isaac is Jesus who comes through the lineage of Isaac and is the fulfillment of the Grand Promise of the redemption of all things by the cross.

On the other hand while Isaac did not die on the mountain that day because he was a type or the One to come. Jesus Christ our Lord DID die on Calvary’s Holy Mountain to rescue sinners ruined by the Fall.

Moreover as Isaac was an OFFERING to God, even so our Lord Jesus Christ was an OFFERING to God to take away and do away with humanity’s sin! An OFFERING that the church REMEMBERS, which is to say re-enacts, by Divine Service every Sunday. Not just by means of psychological recall, but by imbibing the consecrated Bread and Cup which are the fruit of the cross – the resurrected and glorified Flesh and Blood of Jesus.

This is why we are here today. Take eat! Take drink!