Ishmael & Isaac

Portuguese version: Ismael & Isaac                                                         
French version: Ismaël & Isaac, Russian Version: Ishmael & Isaac
Hebrew version: Ishmael & Isaac, Arabic version: Ishmael & Isaac
Read also: Marvellous Cityy, Curious Bible and Gospel without Words

ISMAEL: I am 89 years old and you 75, my brother. Today, you and I, have just  buried our dear father Abraham. Let's take these days to remind some of our turbulent childhood?

ISAAC: Of course, my dear brother, nothing better to calm our hearts in such a sad time.

ISHMAEL: Do you consider your people much more blessed than my people?

ISAAC: Who has put such an idea in your head, my brother? Clearly not.

ISHMAEL: I know Alah rejected me and chose you, when my mother - in attention to your mother Sarah´s request - had to go out of our father´s house with me, being myself just a little boy. You can not imagine how terrible  that time was to her!

ISAAC: I can imagine, my brother, how difficult it was to your mother that departure from our kind father Abraham. And it wasn´t different to him. But that has been a typical situation of family. My mother was not prepared to face a question apparently simple to us at this time.

ISHMAEL: But how do you explain the agreement of Alah and Abraham to a very unjust attitude of your mother Sarah?

ISAAC: We human persons look at things as they happen at a given moment. Alah looks at the same things in a panoramic vision. As a matter of fact, He was delivering your life and the life of a great nation that would  come from you.

ISHMAEL: Don´t you agree the blessing of Alah was prepared for you and not for me?

ISAAC: We have to understand this question in a very special way, Ishmael. When you was born, our father asked God his blessing for you. The Lord said him, Yes, I´ll bless Ishmael too and I´ll do a great nation from him.

            There is here a very important thing to consider. God had proposed and promised to make our father Abraham the father of a multitude. Then, he would do all and more to honor his great name and his omnipotent power, even while my parents were too old and my mother sterile.

It was  then, that our father and my mother thought the Lord needed a help from them to accomplish his impossible promise. My mother offered your mother Aghar as wife to our father and you came on with a blessing already promised.

            As you know, when your mother left home by the first time, she was pregnant of you, God said to your dear mother he had already listened her prayers. For the same reason, you received a prophetic name, Ishmael, the God that hears, the name God´s messenger gave her that same time. There, God also promised her a so numerous progeny, that nobody would be able to count. It was also ordered her to come back to our father´s home.

The honor point of God still stood, From Sarai I will do you the father of a multitude. For this same reason, I received a suggestive name, Isaac, smile, a phonetic name, because my mother smiled behind the door when she heard the messenger from Heaven saying our father, from now to nine months ahead Sarah will have a child.

ISHMAEL: Now, here we are as witnesses of fidelity and omnipotence of El Shadai, as we look at the blessed multitudes from our seed!

Ca you see any common fact to our nations, beside Abraham´s seed?

ISAAC: By now, I´ll remember a notable fact. When my grand son Joseph was about to be killed, already thrown to the bottom of a pit, the divine providence took hand of your Ishmaelite brothers who demanded Egypt to save the boys life. He was bought by the group and sold in Pharao´s court. It seems an insignificant thing. But by Joseph our father´s seed became a nation in Egypt. All this came to be a visible step toward God to make his promises possible.

ISHMAEL: Can you remember me anything from your childhood, in those days when I had already left our father´s house?

ISAAC: Oh, my brother! Something happened I´ll never forget. I was nearly twelve.

            A night came when our father said me, Son, tomorrow we´ll get up very early. The sacrifice will be very far. We would spend three days and nights to get God´s chosen place.

            After walking three days, I saw something uncommon. Then, I said our father, Father. Here are the wood and the fire. But where is the lamb for the sacrifice? The answer, my friend, the answer he gave me didn´t sound very logic to my mind, The Lord will provide for himself the lamb for the sacrifice, my son.

            When we arrived at the top of Mount Zion, our father prepared everything, but I couldn´t see any lamb yet. All of a sudden, he took me in his arms and placed me on the altar. After giving thanks to the Lord, he rose the knife in his heavy hand. Before making the knife down, we heard a very strong voice falling down from the sky, Abraham! Abraham! Don’t lay down your hand upon the boy and do nothing against him. I know how you honor my name. You didn´t deny me your son.

            That moment, I realized our father was just fulfilling a divine order. That was one more step, after my miraculous birth, toward to make our father the father of a great multitude.

ISHMAEL: Now I can imagine, Isaac, how would have suffered our father´s heart in those days and nights. Surely it was the most terrible pilgrimage of all his dramatic life.

One thing still warms my head. I´ll be eternally thankful to you if you can explain to me the reason for this tremendous work of God to make a multitude from our dear father.

ISAAC: As a matter of fact, Ishmael, that multitude goes very far beside our two nations. It is compounded by those who become sons and daughters of our father Abraham through their faith. In the ancient days, our father was called the friend of God. Multitude for multitude, the Lord didn´t need one more. Our two nations have been born by the Lord´s hands to make possible the coming of a special multitude, the spiritual children of our father Abraham. Then, let us come back to my teenager experience.

            I brought the bundle of wood tied to my shoulder.

            A lamb appeared tied to a lot of jungle sticks and was sacrificed for me. It was a pure lanb.

            That mountain is the same one where Jesus carried the timber to be sacrificed for every son and daughter of Abraham.

 ISHMAEL: I always have been thinking in Jesus as the most honored son of our father Abraham, tried by the princes of Israel, executed by the Roman and buried according Israel´s precepts, as well. But now, I understand that he didn´t introduce himself as a national savior, but as the savior of all Abraham´s children. Is it this way you see his coming to this world?

ISAAC: So it is,  my brother. I can give you two more proves for this moment. First, he spent a good part of his time helping foreign people and our mother Agar´s children. That was a constant in his teaching and service. Second, when he came back to Heaven, he said, go and make disciples from all the nations…

            Here I add some notable facts from the Messiah´s life.

1. Jesus was born, lived and died according to the holy scripts of our fathers. This makes a tremendous difference and security. If you pay attention to every detail of his birth, life and death, you´ll be absolutely sure that Jesus is the anointed of the Lord to save the world.
2. His death happened to be in a spontaneous way, once his deeds came to prove he was able to avoid it at any moment.
3. Hadn´t his death an eternal propose, what would he die for?
4. As is clearly foreseen in the Psalms of David, his death was not able to consume his body. That is why he rose from the dead, on the third day.
5. The evidences were such that no official condemnation could be done against their witnesses. Other way, they would be forced to present his body.
6. John and Peter saw the chits in the tomb as if they were still wrapping the body. That caused a tremendous admiration in their minds and made them remember his words in life.
7. Don’t forget the same witnesses, his first disciples, doubted the resurrection of their Lord the most they could. Then, the facts defeated all their unbelief  for the forty glorious days and nights of his presence among them.

ISHMAEL: If Jesus didn´t come as a national hero , but as the Savior for the world, how can I myself, family and friends receive the eternal benefits of his coming?

ISAAC: The benefits face all the nations and races, as the honorable name of our father suggests. But the way to reach all benefits of the Lord coming to this world is our faith in Jesus. This is why Abraham is also called the father of de believers, no matter where these children come from.  All those who believe in him, Jesus, become a son or daughter of Abraham.

      So, the total number of the sons and daughter of Abraham is the same multitude of the sons and daughters of God.

      This faith is something beside an intellectual acceptance. It is a spontaneous agreement of the human heart. Every one who believes in him becomes a son or daughter of God and receives eternal life. This one experience is called childhood, reconciliation, forgiveness, salvation, regeneration, justification, redemption, atonement, and several other ways.

      Being individual, the exercise of this obedience can be done even by a multitude in a moment. The benefits are immediate, in a personal, national or global level. The same in a temporal or eternal dimension.

ISHMAEL: Is there any infallible formula in which I know I myself, family and friends can have everlasting salvation?

ISAAC: You don’t need to look for a place, a formal act or a dressing. Just one thing. Deny yourself and, within a very humble heart, say a prayer like this,

      Great Lord. I thank you for being myself an Abraham descendent. I tank you as well because I may become a son of Abraham by my face. This moment, I believe and receive your son Jesus as my Savior and Lord. The more I do, I don’t deserve too great a gift. But I need it. Forgive my sins and write my name in the book of life through the blood of Jesus. And help me to serve and honor your name now and forever. Amen.

        NOTE: Evidently, the refereces to Jesus and Calvary could only be possible if that interview went on in heaven, once both the brothers lived almost 2000 years before.

YOU ARE ONE

Remember, oh Israel!

Remember, oh Ismael!

You are only one.

You are  Abraham’s sons.

When life you were given,

Both of you a blessing received.

Blessing from Heaven, most high,

Not from the earth or sky.

What an unhappy sight!

Ismael and Isaac in a fight!

Old Prince Father’s welcome!

Drop for drop and gun for gun!

You are fruit of a tree.

Let the world your shadow see!

You are gold of a mine.

Show the world your sunshine!

Eimaldo Vieira

Brazil, November, 1996

Copyright Eimaldo Alves Vieira           Read more: Maravilhosa Cidade