We are all familiar with the story of Abraham and the  sacrifice of his son Isaac. How God first commanded  Abraham to go to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice his only son;  when Isaac questioned his father about where the lamb for  the sacrifice was, Abraham told him that God Himself  would provide the lamb; and then, as Abraham was about  to sacrifice his son, the angel of the Lord stopped him. We  know that not only was God testing Abraham’s faith in this,  but in Christ, we discovered that God used this account to  show us that His Son would be the lamb who would be  given up as a sacrifice. In other words, the Sacrifice of the  Son of God was pre-figured in Abraham’s willingness to  sacrifice Isaac.

In the hearing of this story, inevitably either someone asks,  or our thoughts wander to the question: Why would God  even ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? And why would  Abraham follow a God who would ask such a thing?  Wouldn’t a truly righteous man have known something was  afoot and challenged God’s sense of justice in this  command? After all, this was the same man who had  bargained for mercy on Sodom and Gomorrah.  We hear also in this Sunday’s reading from the book of  Exodus, one of the accounts of God directing Moses to offer  sacrifices of blood and even have the blood poured out on  His altar. How does it make sense that a loving God require  the sacrifice of Blood?

Just as in the account of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, the  pouring of the blood in the Old Testament, is a prefigurement  of the blood of Christ that is to come. God knew the plan of  salvation from the beginning. He knew that He would give us  His Only Begotten Son and that He would provide the true  lamb. It is because of this, the plan of salvation, that God  commanded Abraham first, and then Moses to offer these  sacrifices. But why does He require blood?

Through the Prophet Isaiah, we hear clearly that God does  not take delight in the sacrifice of bulls or the offering of  their blood. This is not, as pagan religions believe, the  payment of a blood debt. The requirement is the  prefigurement. It is the revelation of what is to come in the  work of salvation, so that we may better understand the  Mystery that is to come—and is now happening. In the  commands to Moses, and to us, He is prefiguring what He is  willing to do for our salvation. He is revealing to us the  Blood that He will be giving and the sacrifice that will open   for us the way to eternal life.