Around this time 42 years ago I flew to London from Istanbul. My Yugoslavian airlines flight via Belgrade had been delayed and I missed the last train up to Scotland. It was before we had mobiles and internet, so I asked for directions to a ‘cheap’ hotel and began a half hour walk carrying my case – no wheels in those days.
I was 7 months pregnant and felt desperate as I struggled along. Suddenly, there in a piece of waste ground, caught in a barbed wire fence, was an abandoned supermarket trolley. Instinctively, I cried out, ‘A Ram in a Thicket!’ It was just what I needed. The next morning it was there waiting for me by the hotel entrance to help me back to the station.
This is the month of the year when many Muslims have been making their pilgrimage to Mecca. An important event is the annual Feast of Sacrifice when they kill sheep in memory of Abraham who was willing to obey God and sacrifice his son. God gave a sheep as a substitute and in the Old Testament account an angel directs Abraham to ‘A Ram in a Thicket.’
In Genesis 22 we see Abraham’s son carrying the wood on his back, climbing Mt Moriah and willingly being bound for sacrifice. What a dramatic preview of the gospel. As they journeyed his question to his father, ‘We have the wood and the fire, but ‘where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ is only fully answered in Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:36).
Throughout the Old Testament the prophets of God were looking forward to this ultimate sacrifice when the Father, himself, would provide a once and for all atonement. The most famous verses come from Isaiah 53:5-7,
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
The apostle Paul writing to the Roman Christians emphasises the greatness of this gift of salvation and logically explains, if God has not spared his own Son, but given him up for us all, surely with Jesus we can trust him to care for the smaller details of our lives (Romans 8:32).
This doesn’t mean he’ll always give me what I want, or even what I think I need, but he is for me, not against me, he has compassion on my weakness, and if he thinks a shopping trolley will help, he will provide one.
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