Gospel for God’s Children - For Palm Sunday
The children and their parents need to read Genesis Chapter 22
This tells about God testing Abraham’s faith. The Hebrew people call it the "Akedah" the offering up of Isaac. According to "The Book of Mysteries", that after this test, God sealed his covenant (His oath or promise) with Abraham. In this test each had to be willing to do what the other was willing to do. Abraham was willing to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice, therefore God had to be willing to offer up His Son as a sacrifice. Abraham brings his son on a donkey to the land of the sacrifice, so then God would have to bring His Son to the land of the sacrifice - Palm Sunday, Messiah is brought on a donkey to the place of sacrifice. The father places the wood of the sacrifice on his son's shoulders; God places the wood of the sacrifice, the cross, on Messiah's shoulders. The son carries the wood up the mountain to the place of the sacrifice. Messiah carries the wood to the place of the sacrifice. The father lays his son upon the wood and binds him to
it. The Messiah is laid on the wood of the cross and bound to it. The father lifts up the knife of sacrifice but is stopped. The knife, the judgement of God, is lifted up, but is not stopped. Messiah is sacrificed on the wood.
What appears here in this account for the first time in all of scripture is the word "love". The first love in the Bible is from this account, the love of the father for the son, just as the first love in existence was that of the Father for the Son. And yet the Father was willing to offer up the Son of His love, to save us. And what does that reveal? If God offered up the Son of His love to save you, then He must love you with the same love with which He loved the Son. As it is written, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have ever lasting life. So don't' ever wonder how much God loves you. As much as He loves His only begotten Son, the greatest love in existence, that is how great His love is for you.
Linda S. Shields
First Presbyterian Church
Independence, KS