Into the Bosom

The Bosom of Abraham — before the Lord Jesus utters this phrase, it is yet to be heard in human history. And these are no chance words, not something said in passing. For He equates the phrase to Paradise. He is our Savior. The subject before us is salvation. The Bosom of Abraham is roughly equivalent to those other phrases never heard before Jesus articulates them: the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God. God has entered our life world. And these are His words of Divine life.

The Bosom of Abraham stands out for its specificity:

Let us pause to picture the penitent thief who also will proceed directly from the sufferings of his cross to the consolation and comfort of Paradise while the impenitent thief will suffer the flames of Hades (as we heard in our troparion this morning). Here are two matched pairs: Lazarus and the callous rich man told as a parable and the tender-hearted thief matched to the callous thief narrated as literal history.

As the icon posted at the head of today's reflection reveals, Paradise and the Bosom of Abraham were equated in early Christian belief. On the lefthand side of the icon, we find seated Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with multitudes reposed on their laps, which is another definition of k&oactute;lpos, the Greek word underlying bosom in Luke's Gospel. To their right is the man of Eden, John the Baptist. And beside him we find the Most Holy Theotokos attended by angels, such as the ones who carried Lazarus into Paradise. Across the background of the icon we find the trees of Eden including the Tree of Life.

The idea is found in the Book of Jubilees, composed roughly 100 years before the birth of Christ. After Abraham blesses Jacob, the text reads,

The idea of Patriarchs welcoming the righteous into Paradise is found in the Fourth Book of Maccabees (composed around the same time as Jubilees):

Luke echoes this idea in his Gospel. Addressing those people who, like the rich man, are bound for Hades. The Lord says,

The idea persists into the Common Era in the Rabbinical texts:

That we should find Jesus teaching the Abraham tradition is no surprise. Abraham recurs throughout the Gospels: as Jesus' great ancestor, as a welcoming "Father" in the Kingdom of Heaven, even as a proof of the Resurrection (which Jesus later equates to Himself: "I Am the Resurrection"):

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By contrast, Abraham is prominently represented in Genesis and then drops of out of sight in the Hebrew Scriptures nearly altogether. He reappears, prominent once more, with the Advent of Jesus Christ. Indeed, Jesus adduces Abraham as a kind of gold standard for the faith:

The reference here to Abraham not killing is obvious. That is, in the midst of a tradition of blood sacrifice practiced fulsomely by his native land of Babylon, Abraham demurs. He is called away from all of that! He does not offer blood sacrifice. The whole point of the suspense and drama surrounding the binding-of-Isaac story is that Abraham does not kill Isaac. This point is to made conspicuously.

As for the sacrifice of the ram, I would locate this is the tradition of Elisha, whose slaughter of oxen would have fed his entire neighborhood (1 Kings 19:19ff). or even of YHWH's slaughter of Leviathan "and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert" (Ps 74:14).

That is, Abraham, like his God, is a provider. "YHWH-Jireh," we read in the "binding of Isaac" drama (Gen 22:14). "YHWH provides." And, as we read in our Gospel lesson this morning, it is Abraham who appears as provider and consoler in the Kingdom of Heaven. He is the founder of this feast, we might say.

We find two great traditions — of Abraham and of Moses — but they do not intersect. In fact, they diverge .... and widely. The Abraham tradition is decentralized, for the Patriarchs journeyed all over Israel. They erected altars, pillars, and even worshiped amongst the trees such as the Terebinth trees of Mamre (Gen 13:18). By tradition, Abraham pitched his tent amongst the oaks of Mamre, which would be made incommensurably sacred, as he and Sarah receive the Holy Trinity in this place.

First and foremost, the Abraham story is one of spiritual development. He is called away from Babylon, away from Babylonian religion, and into a series of wildernesses and mountain summits where he is enlightened and purified. He is the great type of the three-fold path of purgation, enlightenment, and unity with God. That is the point of his stumbling — his intercourse with Hagar (producing disastrous results) and his willingness to give his wife Sarah to Pharaoh in order to save his own skin. Any story of personal development must include one's errors and triumphs. If he never errs, how could we say that he develops? His blessing under Melchizedek's hand represents a high point in his path of theosis. More important, the priesthood of Melchizedek, a royal priesthood, is inextricably laced through the Abraham tradition. It will be this priestly line, associated with offerings of bread and wine, in which we will locate Jesus:

The tradition of Moses is in no way connected to this priestly line. In fact, the Mosaic line is confused and controverted: is it Levitical or Aaronic and, in any case, falls far below the dignity of the Royal priesthood of Melchizedek, and of David and of Solomon and ultimately of the King of kings.

In any case, the Mosaic tradition is not about transformation of mind and soul, superlatively expressed on the Mount of Transfiguration, but rather through appeasement of God by way of offering goats and bulls.

The disjunction between these two traditions surfaces in the Psalter. While Psalm 66 celebrates the offering of animals:

Psalm 51 pointedly differs:

Yes, Exodus emphasizes the personal transformation of Moses, but Deuteronomy is keen to suppress this, insisting that Moses neither saw God nor heard Him directly, but rather perceived Divine words arising from a mist (Deut 4:12).

This Mosaic tradition of appeasement through blood sacrifice follows the pattern of Mesopotamian religion. Indeed, when King Cyrus issues a proclamation announcing that he will return the exiles to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple, he defines that planned temple in terms of blood sacrifice:

And Darius the Great, who implements this fiat, supplies a prodigious number of animals for this purpose.

The Hebrews who did not participate in the Exile (two-thirds of the population) — seeing these strange returnees from Mesopotamia, who spoke not Hebrew but Babylonian Aramaic, and who introduced a new Mesopotamian cult — fled, many of them to Elephantine in Egypt.

There they would build their own temple in order to carry on their ancient religious observances. But when the Persian King Darius, who carried out the decree of King Cyrus, learned that they were not offering animal sacrifice, he threatened to destroy their temple. (See Bezalel Portens, Archives from Elephantine (Berkeley, 1968).) When they submitted to the Persian king, offering blood sacrifice lest they be destroyed, ironically, the Egyptians, who were outraged by such practices, destroyed the temple anyway.

So let us ask, "What was the Hebrew religion like before the Exile? What was the religion of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob like?" Well, it was nothing like the cult we see specified in the books written during and after the Exile.

Why should the religious establishment of the Second Temple so jealously guard the Mosaic tradition while deprecating the tradition of Abraham? This threat to Moses, after all, was the reason they sought Jesus' life:

Moses has taken pride of place among the Babylonian returnees. He is a convenient standard of belief as the returnees would claim a centralized authority in Palestine. All power would be concentrated in Jerusalem, and all sanctioned religious practice would be restricted to the Jerusalem Temple, where animal sacrifice had to be carried out. You see, it could not be carried out anywhere else.

The revised books of the Hebrew canon (remember: this so-called canon was still in flux during Jesus' time) prohibited all other altars .... or any other places of worship, for that matter. They celebrated kings that tore down and despoiled the altars and high places of the Patriarchs. And they condemned as "idolators" the kings who did not tear them down.

The Apostle who most prominently represents a rejection of the Moses tradition in favor of Abraham is, of course, the Apostle Paul. He told the Galatians,

He now is focused on Judah-ism, the religion invented in Judah following the return. This is the same man who would the Letter to the Hebrews.

To the Philippians, he said he was

And in Jerusalem he declared,

Throughout he emphasizes his conformance to Mosaic Law and its traditions, that is, of blood sacrifice.

Following his conversion on the Damascus Road, however — his self-imposed, three-year exile in Arabia and Damascus, and his meeting with the Apostles Peter and James, — he emerges a transformed man. The heritage he upholds is that of Abraham. Abraham is the hero of the faith. As he would say to the Galatians,

When the time comes for Stephen to present his defense before the High Priest, he combines both traditions. But, significantly, he does not mention blood sacrifice at all .... except to condemn it. Citing the words of God, Stephen says,

.... obviously referring back to the prophet who wrote Psalm 51: all these are mine. I have made them, and repudiating Psalm 66, which emphasizes blood sacrifice.

The essence of the faith, Stephen says, is personal sanctification and union with God:

God has come. His Forerunner prepares the people through baptismal cleansing anticipating union with Him. Those who strive for righteousness He calls His friends. And at the end of all their roads — when they have walked their last mile, when they have prayed their last prayer, when they have breathed their last breath — with St. Stephen, with the penitent thief, and with the beggar Lazarus, angels will carry them to their consolation and delight in Paradise. There they will be received by Father Abraham. They will touch the purity of the Baptist's hand. They will bow before the Most Pure One, the Holy Theotokos, in reverence. And through all of these final graces of santification, they will be readied to stand before the Just One, the High Priest of Melchizedek, and the seed of Abraham par excellence — the Lord of all Life.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.