The Binding of Isaac, known in Hebrew as the Akedah, is one of the best known — and most troubling — accounts in the Bible. In it, God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah. Abraham agrees, but then is stopped at the last minute when God sends an angel who tells him to sacrifice a ram instead. The sacrifice or binding of Isaac and the Transfiguration of Jesus constitute an example of what Pope Benedict XVI called recapitulative history – the events of the Old Testament, though prior, are fulfilled by Jesus in the New Testament. Recapitulative history is where we see the events in the Old Testament, and then when we come to the New Testament, we see that Jesus is fulfilling all of the events. Saint Augustine described the relationship between the two testaments of the Bible this way, “The new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed (Lat. Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet)” Quaest. in Hept. 2,73: PL 34, 623.
In Matthew 3:15, as John the Baptist tried to convince Jesus not to be baptized by him, you read that He had to because “it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” In other words, by doing so, Jesus would fulfill what was prefigured in the Old Testament. The account of Abraham and Isaac contains a hint that God is either going to raise Isaac or come to Abraham’s rescue, “On the third day…. Abraham said to his servants: “Stay here with the donkey, while the boy and I go on over there. We will worship and then come back to you” (Gen 22:4-5). Then, as Abraham was getting ready to sacrifice Isaac, God stayed his hand at the last moment, and said to him, “…now I know that you fear God, since you did not withhold from me your only son… .” (Gen 22:12). At that point, there is a ram in the thicket, and later on in this series of readings, you will see that we are going to constantly look for this lamb of God who is going to pay for the sins of the world. All of us know that lamb to be Jesus.
The second reading from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans, in this example, in Romans 8:32, we see that God did not spare His own son (Rom 8:32). And so, as God spared Isaac for Abraham, we see that prior happening is a foretelling of what is to come, but God will not stop with the sacrifice of his own Son. And so, God doesn’t spare his Son, and God is going to, as St. Paul says, give us all things. He’s going to give us righteousness. He’s going to give us peace. He is going to give us joy. God will give us purpose, and He provides a plan for life. In Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, Pope Benedict wrote, “Jesus must recapitulate the whole of history from its beginnings — from Adam on; he must go through, suffer through, the whole of it, in order to transform it.”
The Gospel reading involves the Lord’s Transfiguration. In focusing on the Old Testament, any reference in regard to a lamb is usually made in connection with the Passover lamb, part of the celebration of the Seder. Once the Israelites left Egypt, for a year, they down to Mt. Sinai, which took them three months to reach that destination and they stayed there for about a year, after which for 40 additional years they wandered in the wilderness. After delivering them from the Egyptians, God commanded that every year afterwards they were to have feast in which they were to celebrate a ritual that looks back to their being freed from Egyptian bondage. It called the feast of Tabernacles, where they were to live for a number of days in small booths.
In Genesis 22, there is the well-known reading about Abraham, who is a called on by God to go to Mount Moriah with his son, Isaac, and to sacrifice his son. But there is a hint in this troubling text that God is going to either raise him or God will come to Abraham’s rescue. Abraham says this before he goes, “I and the boy will return.” There’s a name for this sacrifice or the binding of Isaac called the Akedah. Then, in the second reading, specifically in Romans 8:32, we see that God did not spare his own Son. And as God spared Isaac for Abraham, that fulfilled promise is a foretelling of what was to come, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.” And so, God doesn’t spare his son, and he’s going to, as St. Paul says, give us all things. God will give us righteousness. He will give us peace and joy. God is going to give us purpose, and He gives us a plan for life in the person of Jesus, His Son.
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Excerpted from Jeff Cavins. “Recapitulative History and the Transfiguration.” http://www.parousiamedia.com 12 March 2019
Nature and dignity 