“What Would You Do
for a Klondike Bar?”
Grown women clucking like chickens. An adult man at the park panting and barking like a dog. A suited businessman singing, “I’m a Little Teapot.”
These are just a few of the scenarios featured in the commercials that asked, “What would you do for a Klondike Bar?” In each case, the participants initially refuse the action out of embarrassment. But when presented with a Klondike bar, their tune quickly changes. Suddenly they become willing to sacrifice their dignity, to act in a silly manner in exchange for the reward of some chocolate-covered ice cream.
Apparently there was a reboot of the Klondike Bar challenge just a few years ago. The stakes were raised even higher. Couples who were expecting went so far as to sign over the naming rights of their child in exchange for a lifetime supply of Klondike bars.
Making Sacrifices
“What would you do…?” The question contains within it an assumption that is foundational to the story much of our world lives by. In order to get something, you have to give something up. Quid pro quo. Anything good comes at a cost. What makes the Klondike bar commercials funny is the lengths to which people are willing to go, the sacrifices they are willing to make, usually at the cost of their dignity.
Unfortunately, this same logic—in order to get something, you have to give something up—can quickly turn from humorous to heart-breaking. How many times have we read or heard about children being neglected—left in hot cars, left unattended at home, left waiting at a designated spot to which their parent does not return—because their parent is too busy getting drunk or high or chasing after some other obsession that eclipses all of life, including their own child? In scenarios of addiction, people commonly sacrifice what is nearest and dearest to them for their drug of choice. A workaholic stays at the office late, sacrificing his family. A gambling addict puts down money she does not possess, sacrificing her home and her future.
For some of us, the sacrifices may not be so obvious or extreme, but they’re there nonetheless. We sacrifice others in pursuit of our own happiness regularly, just in less conspicuous ways. Consider the couple at the restaurant who spend more time looking at their phones than at one another. Perhaps one is checking sports scores; the other is shopping. They’re not hardened drug addicts or swallowed in some other nefarious obsession. They have both simply concluded that their phone is more worthwhile than that untamable person sitting across the table. So they quietly sacrifice their partner, believing they will find what they need in that little rectangle in their hands.
A World of
Bloodthirsty Gods
In ancient cultures, human sacrifice was not unheard of. In Carthage, archaeologists have found slabs of stone standing beside cremated remains, on which are written dedications from a child’s parents to the gods, often ending with the words that a god had “heard my voice and blessed me.”[1] As gruesome as it may sound, it is but an extreme case of the same logic according to which much of our world lives. In order to get something, you have to give something up. In that ancient culture, some people tried to buy the gods’ favor by giving the gods their most valuable possession.
Which brings us to our scripture today. Recall God’s words to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love…” (Gen 22:2). God’s repeated qualifications—“your only son,” the one “whom you love”—emphasize how invaluable Isaac is to Abraham. (As you’ll maybe recall, God had earlier promised wrinkled, old Abraham a son by his equally wrinkled and apparently barren wife Sarah, and Isaac is that miracle child. He couldn’t be any more precious.)
Is God’s test a perverse precedent of the Klondike challenge? Is God asking Abraham, “What would you do for my blessing? Would you sacrifice even your miracle child, Isaac?” Is this ancient story just a part of its culture, in which the gods might demand child sacrifice in exchange for their favor? As a follower of Christ, I cannot overlook what seems to be a sadistic God demanding violence and instilling fear. If Christ is indeed God in the flesh, the fullest representation we have of God’s character (cf. Col 1:15-20), then I expect God to be at least as loving as Christ. And what’s happening here seems to bear little resemblance to that love.
An Ambiguous Test
But…before we jump to conclusions, let’s try to give God the benefit of the doubt here. We know that elsewhere in the Old Testament, God clearly opposes child sacrifice. Israel’s neighbors engage in it. Mesha, king of Moab, sacrifices his own son so that he might have victory in battle (2 Kgs 3:26-27). But God forbids Israel to follow in the way of its neighbors, saying, “You shall not give any of your offspring to sacrifice them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God” (Lev 18:21). Child sacrifice is a blemish on God’s name. It is a bad witness to God’s character. It does not reflect who God is. God even goes further to say that if anyone is aware of the practice going on and ignores it, then God will turn against that person, and they will be cut off from the rest of the people (Lev 18:24-25).
If God is so resolutely opposed to child sacrifice, then why does God demand it of Abraham? Intriguingly, Genesis indicates that God is testing Abraham but never tells us the purpose of the test. Readers have assumed it is a test of Abraham’s faithfulness. But God already knows what is in Abraham’s heart. Whenever God asks a question in the Bible, it’s not to learn new information, but rather to invite the characters to learn something about themselves, maybe even to take responsibility for themselves. Think about Adam and Eve, whom God asks, “Where are you?” and “What is this that you have done?” (Gen 3:9, 13).
It is possible, then, that God is testing Abraham to show him something about himself. God’s character is not in doubt. We know that God is resolutely opposed to child sacrifice. But what about Abraham?
Abraham’s Habit of
Sacrificing
For readers who pay close attention, Abraham’s character is a dubious matter. Perhaps the most glaring mark against him is his repeated choice to sacrifice his own wife, Sarah, for his own well-being (Gen 12; 20). On two separate occasions, Abraham fears that Sarah’s beauty will lead to his death, that the ruler of the land will dispose of Abraham and take Sarah for himself. So, he formulates a plan. He tells Sarah to say that she is his sister rather than his wife. On both occasions, the plan works wonderfully—for Abraham. The king of the territory takes Sarah into his home and deals favorably with Abraham, giving him a whole lot more than a Klondike bar (cf. Gen 12:10-20; 20:1-18). But imagine how Sarah must feel. Her husband is sacrificing her for personal gain. He is pushing her into the clutches of what he fears in order to save his own skin.
Abraham does something similar with the family’s maidservant, Hagar. When Sarah becomes upset with Hagar—although Hagar has done nothing other than what has been demanded of her—Abraham disclaims any responsibility in the matter, saying, “Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please” (Gen 16:6). He passes Hagar off just as he did Sarah.
A Test of
Selfishness?
Observing this pattern of sacrifice, we might begin to wonder, “What or whom will Abraham not sacrifice for his own security or gain?” In this context, God’s command begins to look less like a test of faithfulness and more like a test of selfishness. Maybe God is revealing the horrible lengths to which Abraham would go for his own equivalent of a Klondike bar. Abraham thinks sacrificing Isaac is necessary to secure God’s favor and to continue to receive blessing, so he is willing to make the sacrifice. Rather than limit our questions to God’s character for making such an outrageous command, we might also question Abraham’s character for not refusing, for not saying, “Wait a minute, God. What now?” A little earlier in Genesis, Abraham has no trouble bartering for the lives of the righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah. In that episode, he even seems to reprimand God, “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked! … Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Gen 18:25). It seems that a similar response is even more in order here: “Far be it from you to ask such a thing! Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?”
Amazing Grace
Today’s story ends in blessing. Generally, readers have interpreted this as a sign that Abraham has passed the test. But we can equally read the opposite, that he has failed. Listen to the angel’s words again: “Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (Gen 22:12). In other words: “Now I know to what extent fear dominates your life; you sacrificed your wife, you sacrificed your servant, and here you went so far as sacrificing your own son to secure your own life.” Yet the angel proceeds to bless Abraham. Abraham fails the test. But God blesses Abraham.
Amazing grace, indeed. In this interpretation, we get an early glimpse of God’s surprising character, a God who overcomes evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21). We see a God unlike the gods of the ancient world, who operates not according to an economy of exchange, of quid pro quo, of “What would you do for my blessing?”—but rather who operates according to unconditional love. This is the merciful God of Jesus, who is “kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” (Luke 6:35). It is worth remembering that God’s first covenant with Abraham is not conditional, “If you do this, then I will do that.” It is unconditional, “I will bless you…so that you will be a blessing” (Gen 12:2; cf. Gen 15). God is welcoming Abraham into a different world than the world of sacrifices, the world of this-for-that. One way to read Genesis 22 is that it marks an evolution in Israel’s understanding of God. The moment in the story when the angel calls out and stops Abraham, represents a moment outside of the story in which it dawns on Israel that their God is not petty and selfish like the other gods, does not demand sacrifices in exchange for favor. It marks Israel’s realization that this God is different. This is a God of grace, whose blessing is not bought or achieved, but only received as a gift (and even when we’ve done everything not to deserve it).
God blesses Abraham’s family again and again, patiently enduring their wayward looks, their flaws, their shortcomings. God’s blessing works on them like water works on stone. The good news that we see in Genesis is not that God instantaneously confers strength and success upon the faithful, but that God patiently loves them even amid their faithlessness. God’s real blessing is not wealth and power but God’s steadfast presence, which never leaves them. They move about without a permanent home, they suffer the losses of this world, they endure the consequences of their own mishaps, but God is always there. Abraham gets a lot of things wrong in his story, but one thing he gets so right is his declaration at the end of today’s scripture. There at the place where God stops him from the worst sacrifice of all, perhaps snapping him out of his distorted thinking, out of his repeated attempts to secure his own life on his own terms—there at rock-bottom Abraham declares, “The Lord will provide” (Gen 22:14).
Prayer
Whose blessing defies logic,
We are indeed children of Father Abraham,
Imperfect, impatient, impulsive,
Yet also aware of your presence.
…
Where fear and insecurity
Has our grip on things tightened,
Ready to sacrifice priceless connection with others,
Loosen our grip
And deliver us into the freedom
Of trusting in your grace.
In Christ, your gift: Amen.
[1] “Ancient Carthaginians Really
Did Sacrifice Their Children,” https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-01-23-ancient-carthaginians-really-did-sacrifice-their-children,
accessed September 8, 2025.
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