I is for ISAAC

I've always thought that Isaac was a bit hard done by. He's not the most well known of the Old Testament patriarchs and he starts off life being born to a father who has already reached one hundred years of age. Hardly an auspicious start to life! But you can imagine the commotion in his parents' house when, God informs Abraham that his wife, who is already a very old woman, who never could have children and is now well past the child bearing age is going to have a son. And then think about the excitement when it actually happens.

But it's not long before God wants to test Abraham's faith and of course Isaac become central to that testing as God tells His father to sacrifice His only son, for whom he had waited so long. I wonder did the young Isaac have any suspicions? I'm sure he must have had some strange and bewildering thoughts as he lay on top of the hastily constructed sacrificial altar. Hardly good for the nerves, I would have thought! But having survived that scare, a few years later he discovers that his dad is choosing his wife, the daughter of his own uncle.

It is clear that Isaac loved Rebekah, but the old family problem of not being able to have children rears its head again and Isaac prays to God for help. He has to wait twenty years after his marriage, by which time he is now sixty before Rebekah becomes pregnant and then gives birth to twins. It's a bit like the buses in Belfast used to be - you wait ages for one and then two come along at the same time! Anyway, these are no ordinary twins in God's eyes because they will struggle both inside and outside the womb and their descendants will form two separate nations and continue the struggle far beyond Bible times, but one of the nations will become God's chosen people through Isaac's son Jacob, later called Israel.

Yet that's not where Isaac's problems end. IN a time of famine, he moves to the Philistine country but because of 'interest' in his beautiful wife he portrays her as his sister, until he is found out by no less than the king. Under the Philistine sovereign's protection he flourishes and becomes extremely wealthy, to the point where he is the subject of extreme jealousy by his neighbours who fill up the water wells that he has dug. Forced to move on, his nomad life becomes a series of quarrels over wells with other dwellers until he finds a more permanent home in Beersheba.

Meanwhile, his first son, only by a few seconds of course, marries a couple of wives - never a good idea at the best of times and the Bible suggest that 'They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah.' But his younger son causes him even more grief when he steals the blessing from Esau by deceiving his father in his aging blindness. But Isaac is still not finished and in a moment remarkably similar to that of his father, he instructs Jacob not to take a wife from Canaanite women but to go elsewhere in search of a partner.

Isaac lived to the grand old age of one hundred and eighty but it wasn't exactly a straight forward life and, like I say, I think he was hard done by at times. Yet God never forgot him and so often in the New Testament God is referred to as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob so his importance in the greater plan of things is clear.

When I get to heaven, I'm looking forward to having a conversation with the great man about that sacrifice that nearly happened, about his marriage to Rebekah and the troubles of being a parent of twins. How do I know he will be there? Because Jesus says so. Though He does deliver a warning to us all about making certain that we will be with him too when He says, 'There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.' God's plan of redemption, just like the heaven He has prepared, is open for all for 'People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.' (Luke 13 v 29). His love is all encompassing and He doesn't want you to miss out on that conversation with Isaac.