The apostles could not believe all of it at once: that they were God’s beloved children, that he would be there for them. They were trained to think as servants, to think that God desired absolute obedience and that they, like Abraham, had to go all the way for God. But all of that changed. After Jesus’s death they continued to spread his teaching and share his spirit for years, sometimes decades. And when their time came to face slander, persecution, and even death, they knew they were not alone. They felt the loving arms of the Father carrying them home.
Can you imagine what happened to them? I am not asking you about analytical logic here, but about psychological understanding. I don’t ask you to think about how they understood the teaching of Jesus, but how they came to trust in it. Our reading today gives us a clue by calling Jesus the ‘monogenes,’ a Greek word that we normally translate as ‘only-begotten.’ In Latin (and Hebrew) it sounds a bit differently: God’s unique son (unicus), his only one. So Jesus is called ‘the one and only son,’ but only so in the Johannine literature (the Gospel of John, the Letters of John and the Book of Revelation), and it may have something to do with that other Johannine name for him: The lamb of God. In fact, when John talks about him in these words, he talks about God ‘sacrificing’ him to save the world.

Abraham's son(s)

Other than for Jesus, we find the word in the Letter to the Hebrews, where Abraham sacrifices his ‘one and only son,’ Isaac. This is a bit strange, because Abraham already had a son, Ishmael. The story is also found in the Quran, where the son is not named. Muslim exegetes have inferred that the story must have been about Ishmael: before Isaac was born, Ishmael was Abraham’s only child. But that is not the story as the apostles knew it. For them, Isaac is called the ‘monogenes’ because he Abraham’s heir, the son that would continue his house. Isaac was the child that carried God’s promise. He would take Abraham’s place as the head of the clan, he would carry his name and authority. He is the one that not only looks like his father in appearance, but also in behavior, responsibility, role and status. This very young boy was burdened with all the expectations of his aging father and mother. They did everything to make certain he could not be hurt or worse. He was so special that Sarah demanded that his half-brother Ishmael be sent away, so he would not threaten the succession. Abraham is at a loss, for he loves Ishmael, but God tells him to give in to Sarah. “I will take good care of Ishmael,” God promises Abraham. So Abraham had ‘sacrificed’ Ishmael before he had to sacrifice Isaac.

Can you let your one and only child go?

But as Abraham and Sarah are not allowing Isaac a life of his own, they were harming him psychologically and endangering the very future they were trying to secure. Isaac was growing up as an infantile son, unprepared to take the role that his parents so desperately wanted for him. And Abraham himself was suffering as well: where in the past Abraham had learned to trust the voice of God to lead him, now the fear of loss dominates them. He had replaced his trust in the one who promised him a son with worrying about the promised son in his care. And while he tries to ignore the voice of God within him, that he should let go of his son, the voice grows stronger and more demanding, to the point that Abraham hears that God wants him to burn his son, an unthinkable thing in Israel that is explicitly denounced some twelve times in the Law and the Prophets. The readers of the story are at a loss: Does God really need to test Abraham to find out whether he is loyal? The only one who is uncertain about his faith is Abraham himself!

God is not done yet. He asks Abraham to take Isaac and leave his mother’s tent behind and walk no less than three days to Mount Moriah, where later the Jerusalem temple would be built. These are three days for Abraham to walk the desert with his son and servants. Three days to mourn the death of his son in solitude, for he cannot bring himself to tell his boy about the monstrous crime that the voice within him had told him to commit. On the third day, Abraham took the knife and tinderbox in hand, while his beautiful boy carried the firewood, as Jesus would one day carry his cross. In silence they walk further. Then the innocent and unknowing Isaac asks: “Where is the lamb that we will sacrifice?” And Abraham answers: “God himself provides the lamb, my son.” Abraham’s seemingly pious language does not hide the hurt, that he has to give up the son he had been provided with. But the reader hears the spiritual truth in the words of Abraham, even when Abraham cannot see it yet. Abraham had to let go of Isaac, in order for Isaac to become his own man. Abraham had to sacrifice his fixation on his son, in order to become free himself. Yes, his descendants would be numerous and bless the nations with their faith, but it was not upon him to force that history to unfold. It was only when he let go of his son that he understood the real call of God who had already provided for him before he started out on his journey. Only now, Isaac could grow up to take his place and fulfil the promise.

Letting your child go out on a calling that might kill him is a sacrifice for parents. Even worse when you realize that it is the same spirit in which you raised them once that drives them now. When your daughter goes out as a reporter to a war zone, in search of truth, or when your son volunteers to work with infectious patients out of love. But you have to let them go, trusting that the choices they will make are better than yours, simply because it is not only what they choose what matters, but that that they choose for themselves. For that is the only way that children can take the position of father or mother in their own lives. Even if it might hurt or kill them. For our worries as parents should not extinguish the holy spirit within them. For so the spirit will go on, even when our own lives are limited.

Can God let His one and only child go?

‘This son of man will be killed,’ Jesus said as they turned around to go up to Jerusalem. ‘God won’t let you be killed,’ Peter had answered. But he would and Jesus felt it. For the people could not let go of their expectations of the Messiah. And the ones who wielded the hammers that nailed him to the cross thought they were doing the right thing to maintain law and order. Jesus walked with his friends all the way to mount Moriah, just like Abraham and Isaac had done. But now it was the son who made his own choice: he knew and was willing to give his life to enable his friends to go on and reach more people with his message and spirit than he could ever do on his own. Jesus carried his cross up the hill, just like Isaac had carried the firewood. But unlike Abraham, no one listened to the voice of God, no-one except Jesus himself.

Jesus died not because God killed him, but because Jesus was one with the will and spirit of God, who so much loved the world that he ‘sent’ his one and only son, the one who looked like him, who shared his desire and responsibility, and who behaved like him. That is why Jesus did what he did. He surrendered to the urging of the spirit of love within him. He would not claim earthly kingship and trigger a war across the empire of death and destruction. Rather he gave his life for his friends and his people. He liberated them of their fixation on him as the carrier of their hopes for the restoration of a kingdom of God with violence. He would not be that Messiah. He liberated himself of the mold of their expectations. He would not save his people by force, but show a way forward that each and every unique child of God can embrace in her or his own way.

So if John speaks of Jesus as the one and only son of God, he means two things. First, he stresses that Jesus is the son that looks like the father in every way. The expectations the disciples had of God, they now projected unto Jesus. He carried all of that. But he did it in a way that made his friends discover God as a Father. So much so, that if we now think of God’s character, we are thinking about the unknown Father through what we know about his son Jesus. That is why John can say, ‘God is love.’ The second reason why John calls Jesus God’s ‘one and only son’ is to expresses how much God loves all his other children, even those born in slavery and exile, that he would let his heir go out to them to save him. Letting Jesus go into the world, his unique son, was indeed a sacrifice of God. Not a sacrifice to himself but to the world, to reconcile our mistrust of him. And unlike the parable of the prodigal son, John found in Jesus an older brother who is willing to go out to into the world to bring his lost brothers and sisters home. For John this experience changed him forever, for he had walked with Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, seeing how this son of God, his brother, was willing to die for his people, willing to die for him.

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Suggestions for dialogue

A moderator can explain the dialogue steps and invite people to contribute:

• Check in with yourself. Share with each other how you are in this moment. Then take a moment again to seek stillness, humility and openness. 
• First round: Share something from the text or image(s) that stood out to you and that you would like to explore with the group, briefly indicating the thoughts and feelings that it evoked within you. Listen to the others do the same: what resonates with you? Responses in this round should be limited to questions for clarification.
• Second round: Name one or two things that resonated with you from the things that others just shared. 
• Third round: Having heard the group, the moderator names the main topics for exploration. The moderator may also propose a common thread that emerged in several topics. The exploration normally starts with asking the person(s) who brought up the topic to expand on it.
• Leave room for silence and contemplation. 
• Check out by sharing what you take home from this dialogue.

These suggestions are an adaptation of the Estuary protocol. Look for more at https://www.estuaryhub.com