Easter Reflection 2026

Every generation of young people has its way of affirming the importance of a promise – their own standardized way of saying, “this is a promise I absolutely intend to keep”. Some will interlock their little fingers and say the phrase, “I pinkie promise”. When I was young the phrase, “I cross my heart and hope to die,” was popular. (I can only assume it meant something like I sanctify my conscience and may I die if I’m lying to you)! Previous generations of English-speaking gentlemen would utter, “I give you my word”, or “my word is bond”. Some will say very extreme sounding things like swearing on the lives of loved ones. (I often used to hear people say, “I swear on my mum’s life,” to validate their trustworthiness; if they were ever discovered to be lying, their reputations were shot)! More recently (and I believe popularized by the well-known “Kardashian” family), people will affirm their honesty by simply saying the word “Bible”! Of course, in legal contexts, people utter binding oaths or place a hand on the Bible and recite a creed by which whatever they say becomes irrevocable testimony.

On occasion, when the person to whom the promise is made wants affirmation, they will simply ask, “do you promise”, assuming that if the person responds with a “yes” then, unless they are utterly devoid of conscience, they will make good on their word. Making promises is a serious business; we all in our lives have lived through moments where unkept promises led to devastation.

The parent who promises to be at their child’s school play or graduation or sports match and for whatever reason is a no show. The political leader whose election campaign is filled with hopeful promises, none of which come to fruition once they attain power. The person who has an extra marital affair. The addict who relapses. The church that protects an abuser and sacrifices victims. Broken promises hurt, destroy and paralyze.

Indeed, so great is the potential hurt of broken promises, Israel’s sages warmed against making too many of them (Eccl. 5:4–5). The terrible story of Jephthah and his daughter are a cautionary tale about making promises (Judg. 11:29–40). The Apostle James echoed the words of his famous brother - people should be able to trust us on the basis of simply saying “yes” or “no” (James 5:12). About this, Jesus was unambiguously clear. If your “yes or your “no” are not enough for someone to trust, you have ventured into the realm of evil (Matt. 5:37)! We cannot know if Paul was cognizant of Jesus’ words here, but when the Corinthian believers questioned his trustworthiness because of his altered travel plans, he was quite clear that he does not say “yes” and mean “no” or vice versa (2 Cor. 1:17–19). We have all felt the effects of broken promises. Broken promises confuse, disturb and unsettle.

Abraham and Sarah were promised a son. We are told that Abraham trusted God for this promise, and his trust was “credited as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). This is a phrase which has major purchase for Paul’s attempt to explain how people can enter covenant relationship with God irrespective of ethnicity. They must trust in the way that Abraham trusted. To have one’s trust divinely credited as righteousness approximates to saying God accepts you as a part of His family, purely because you trust what He says.

Did Abraham waver at any stage? Paul seems to think not (Rom. 4:20); perhaps in Paul’s mind Abraham going along with the ploy to have a son by Hagar was Sarah’s wobble and not Abraham’s. Perhaps Paul simply wanted to spare Abraham’s blushes. Or maybe it is simply that this is how Paul depicts Abraham’s perseverance despite the challenges until Isaac was born.

Either way it makes the episode involving the divine command for Abraham to sacrifice the son that God gave him even more intriguing and disturbing. It appears so foundational a moment in Abraham’s life that certain Jewish writers claimed that it was this God credited as righteousness and not the original promise of having a son in the first instance. On this score, Paul was contextually accurate. However, both James and the author of 1 Maccabees played somewhat loose with history for the sake of their rhetorical goals, and asserted that it was Abraham proving the genuineness of his allegiance when challenged to sacrifice Isaac that God credited as righteousness:

²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that faith was working together with his works, and by the works the faith was perfected. ²³ And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend (James 2:21–23).

⁵² Was not Abraham found faithful when tested, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness? (1 Macc. 2:52).

We could multiply examples, but the story of the Binding of Isaac, or the Akedah as it is known, was central to early Jewish and Christian understanding of what it means to trust a promise – it even became the basis of Søren Kierkegaard’s reflections on the basis for a Christian existentialism. The story has several eerie twists and turns – few more so than this:

⁴ On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and he saw the place at a distance. ⁵ And Abraham said to his servants, “You stay here with the donkey, and I and the boy will go up there. We will worship, then we will return to you” (Gen. 22:4–5, emphasis added).

Abraham at this point knew full well what he was about to do. What on earth could he have meant by “worship”? YHWH was not like the gods of Canaan or Babylon who demanded the sacrifice of children in their liturgical rites. Perhaps being devoted to obeying God irrespective of the potential consequences was for Abraham, in itself, an act of worship. We tend to think of worship as offering praise, thanksgiving, reciting creeds or singing songs. For Abraham it appears that worship meant to trust. Were God to renege on his promise here, that would be devastating. A broken promise would mean death.

Not only did Abraham say he was going to worship but he said WE will return. What did he mean “we”? He could have meant that he would come back with Isaac’s corpse, but that would seem utterly self-defeating. How does the author of Genesis expect us to receive the Abrahamic declaration. One of the most genuinely moving interpretations, is the Easter Faith (or “trust” as I have been using in this reflection) interpretation provided by the author of Hebrews.

The 11th chapter of Hebrews expands the author’s designation that trust is the substance of things hoped for and the conviction of the unseen (Heb. 11:1). All the people it lists could say, “I trusted God before and He came through despite the odds - so even though the odds are against me again and I cannot see any way out, I will still trust”. Like James and the author of 1 Maccabees, the author of Hebrews sees the Binding of Isaac story as the most pivotal expression of Abraham’s trust. What he writes speaks powerfully about how resurrection invites us into the joy and beauty of a kept promise. For broken promises take away our safety, rob us of our joy and instil a sense of hopelessness:

¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered Isaac, and the one who received the promises was ready to offer his one and only son, ¹⁸ with reference to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants will be named,” ¹⁹ having reasoned that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which he received him back also as a symbol.

By virtue of that act of trust, Abraham predicted the Resurrection. He imagined that the same God who promised him a son in the first place would be so completely faithful to His promise, that He would defy death in order to keep it. So complete and unyielding was Abraham’s trust in God’s promise, that if he was commissioned to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham reasoned that God must be both willing and able to raise Isaac back to life again! As such, according to the author of Hebrews, Abraham did in fact symbolically receive Isaac back from the dead.

What is our resurrection hope? It is that God will overcome death to be faithful to His promise. Anyone who trusts in the God who defies death to keep His promise is established as a member of His family. So, Paul observes that just as Abraham trusted the God who makes dead things live (Rom. 4:17), to trust in the risen Jesus is to demonstrate the faith of Abraham and so be joyfully accepted into God’s family (Rom. 4:22–25). God’s people share a common “gene” which has nothing to do with biology, ethnicity, heritage or status. Our common gene is Easter faith! It is trust in the God who raises the dead to keep His promise. God made a promise to David:

When your days are full and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you who will go out from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Sam. 7:12–13).

God promised David that He would “raise up” his descendant and establish his kingdom forever. No Jew reading this prophetic passage before the time of Christ would have understood it to mean anything other than God would appoint a Davidic king, and there would always be a Davidic king on the throne. How could this be the case? In light of Easter, the early Christians were not in two minds. In the passage in 2 Sam. 7:12, God literally says “I will resurrect (Gk. anastēsō) your descendant”. It is quite clear how the Apostle Paul understood the text:

[1] Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, [2] which he promised previously through his prophets in the holy scriptures, [3] concerning his Son, who was born a descendant of David according to the flesh, [4] who was declared Son of God in power according to the Holy Spirit by the resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ our Lord... (Rom. 1:1–4, emphasis added).

The “raising up” of the Davidic descendant was not initially the establishment of a Davidic heir to the throne, but the resurrection of the crucified Messiah to an unprecedented form of new existence, by which he would reign forever from the heavens. Thus, God was faithful to His promise. God is always faithful to His promise even if He is faithful in ways we do not initially (or perhaps ever) understand. This is why Easter is so crucial; deferred hope sickens the heart (Prov. 13:12). Broken promises steal our hope. A promise that is kept is freedom, life and hope; and Easter is the promise kept.

Where have broken promises caused despair, disillusionment, or pain in your life? We celebrate Easter to honour the God who is always faithful to His promises - even when people are not. We celebrate Easter because it is our constant reminder that divine hope is permanent and unrelenting. It grips us, renews us and lifts us into a new way of existing today, as a foretaste for the new creation to come. May the God who raised the crucified Messiah to life renew your hope today, wherever hope has been crushed because of human untrustworthiness. May the eyes of your heart be enlightened to see the resurrected Lord. Maranatha.