Mount Moriah—What we gain when we sacrifice everything.
I have not led a particularly saintly life. Like most people, I want to be happy, to help when it's convenient, to go along with the flow with a minimum of fuss and bother. I avoid loud noises, loud people, and loud behavior in both myself and others. A quiet, predictable life, no drama, and basic creature comforts have been my goal for years. Sacrifice was not high on my agenda. Don't get me wrong; I am quite willing to help others, to be a good example to my children, to spend an afternoon performing service. I will wash dishes after a church dinner, help a neighbor pack to move, stay up all night with a sick child, all the usual sacrifices one makes for their family, neighbors and community. But Sacrifice with a capital “S”? That should be for the “noble and great” among us: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Christ. Not for an ordinary person like me.
When I was a child, our family was nominally Lutheran, and I can remember having to give up something for Lent. My parents would give up alcohol; I was expected to give up sweets or play time or something else I valued and would miss. I wasn't terribly successful at this enforced sacrifice, and spent the 40 days trying to figure ways around the restrictions. I don't remember the explanation for why I was sacrificing, and I don't think it did much for my spirituality. I have since learned, through the common life experiences I've had, a much more mature understanding of the concept of sacrifice. But it wasn't until a few years ago that I finally started learning what sacrifice really entails. Many people have given much more than I have.
In 2001, our son enlisted in the Army National Guard. He did his basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and is attached to the 125th Infantry unit in Flint, Michigan. He loves being in the military, thrives under the discipline, and did well in all his training. As a member of the National Guard, I assumed he would be called up to help in natural disasters, on American soil. Then the military started calling up NG units to go overseas, to help with an increasingly far-flung presence around the world. He was sent to the Sinai, on the border between Egypt and Israel, as part of a peacekeeping mission set up during the Camp David accords under President Carter. He spent two months in Latvia, training with the Latvian Army. Both of these missions he volunteered for, wanting to be busy and actively engaged, and I was so proud of his service, not only to his country, but to the world. Then he volunteered for the mission that would change my life forever.
In 2005, he told us that he was going to volunteer to go to Iraq, as a part of a regular Army unit to be stationed in Baghdad. He knew what he would be doing, and knew there would be danger, not only to him, but to all the men in his unit. I did not want him to go on this assignment. He was going to be a top gunner on an unarmored Humvee, driving the roads around Baghdad, clearing IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and looking for insurgents, so convoys of men and materiel could travel safely to and from the city. As the man on top of the vehicle, he would be the first man shot at by enemies, the most exposed man in the patrol. He told me very little about what he would be doing, trying to keep me from worrying. But I had seen videos on the news of the fighting in and around Baghdad at that time. The Army's smaller light infantry vehicles were not adequately armored against buried explosives; Humvees were particularly vulnerable. And the National Guardsmen seemed to pull the most hazardous duty with the fewest resources.
I spent the next few weeks in agony, not wanting him to go, but not being able to dissuade him. I was so afraid of losing my only son. I suppose I could have gotten him to back out of it if I had raised enough of a fuss, but that would have damaged my relationship with him, and seriously compromised his sense of self-worth. This was a job he felt he was called to do.
The night before he left in January, 2006, I was simply frantic with worry. As I knelt for my evening prayer, I felt overwhelmed by fear and foreboding. The only words I could force out through my tears were “Heavenly Father, please keep our son safe.” In my heart, I had turned everything over to Him. I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do but pray for him, for his safety and the safety of the men he would be protecting and working with. As I knelt and wept, a calm swept over me like a cool breeze across the desert. “Your son will be fine” was what I felt. Nothing depended on me, everything was the responsibility of the Lord. I had given away my son, given him over to the keeping of the One who loves him more than I ever could. I had laid my love for my son and my faith in the Lord on the altar of sacrifice. I was well aware that the Lord's idea of “he'll be fine” was probably radically different than mine, and that there was a real possibility that he might not be coming home. But I felt calm, knowing that, whatever happened, he would truly be all right. And it was. He returned damaged, but alive, having had 18 months of dangerous duty and a truck blown out from under him. His unit only lost 2 men during that time, which was very difficult for him, but a manifest blessing from the Lord on behalf of him and the unit as a whole. Many other units had lost significantly higher numbers of good men. He struggles with back pain from the explosion, PTS from the head trauma, and problems with alcohol abuse. But he has found a wonderful woman who has stuck by him through his trials, and has given him 2 wonderful children. He was changed by his experience, and has lost and gained much, but as the Lord had promised me, he truly is 'fine'.
We don't hear about Sarah's reaction to the events surrounding her beloved son, how she felt as she watched Abraham and Isaac leave home and journey to Mount Moriah. How great was her sorrow? Abraham would have wanted to spare his wife the details of his task from the Lord, but she knew the heavy sorrow he carried. I doubt that, after all their many years together, Abraham would have been able to hide anything from her. What prayers raced through her mind as she watched her only son walk away from home to fulfill a commandment from God that would keep him from ever returning? I can well imagine her on her knees the whole time they were gone, praying for a miracle that would bring her son home. Abraham was not the only one who was to perform a sacrifice. As great an offering was required of her.
I have heard people wonder why Jehovah would ask for such a sacrifice from Abraham and Sarah, having given them the promise of a posterity that would bless all the peoples of the world. Some have said it was a test of Abraham's faith, to see if he would really do all that that he was asked to do. I don't think it was that. Abraham had proven again and again his faith in God and his willingness to do all that the Lord asked him to do. God knew what was in Abraham's heart. But perhaps Abraham, and Sarah, needed to know something about themselves, and about how much God loves His children. Abraham would have willingly died for his God, would have given his life for his wife and child. He had experienced the horror of child sacrifice firsthand, and Sarah would have known of his experience. Sacrifice his son? What loving parent is there who would put his child in harm's way? Our first instinct is to protect and shield our children from danger, to give up our lives for theirs.
D&C 136:36 states “Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless, it was written: Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.” By choosing to obey the Lord, even in something he would have been vehemently opposed to under any other circumstances, Abraham learned the true meaning of sacrifice and obedience. He received back his son, and the knowledge that anything he gave the Lord would come back to him. Anything we honestly give, “in faith, nothing wavering”, is returned changed, purified and blessed beyond our capacity to measure. In this mortal world, we do not have the vision to see the desired outcomes of events; we cannot see “the end from the beginning”, as the Lord can. We have to learn to trust Him completely, even though what we can see is scary. As Abraham did, we need to know God as our Father, and to trust Him without faltering in our faith.
The word “sacrifice” does not meaning simply giving something up. It means to make something holy, sacred to the Lord and to ourselves. To sacrifice is to allow God to sanctify it, to change it from something temporal and unclean to something eternal and pure. Whatever we give to the Lord, be it our time, our talents, our worldly possessions, or even our most precious relationships, He changes them, purifies them, and gives them back to us as celestial gifts. When we can reach the point of sacrificing ourselves—our fears, desires, hopes and weaknesses—on the altar of His love, that's when we receive the greatest gift of all. We get back ourselves, purified and glorious beings of Light, fit to live with Him in eternal lives. In order to gain “all that the Father hath”, we all eventually have to travel the long road to Mount Moriah, and offer up everything we have.
Only by walking in Abraham's and Sarah's footsteps, can we begin to inherit their blessings, the blessings promised in the covenant Abraham and Sarah made with God—the blessings we look for as we make our covenants with Him. As we consecrate everything we love to the Lord, we become more like Abraham and Sarah, and by extension, more like Christ, more worthy of the trust placed in us by a loving Heavenly Father. And He, in turn, honors that covenant by giving back to us so much more—great heaps of celestial gold in exchange for our meager handful of copper pennies. The posterity of Abraham has truly become “as the sands of the sea, and the stars of the sky” because of his and Sarah's willingness to sacrifice their most precious son to the Lord. The altar of sacrifice is not just where we give our all, it's where we receive His all.
