Old Love Songs #2 – Abraham by Sufjan Stevens

For our next Old Love Song, we go to an episode in the life of the patriarch, Abraham, as told by Sufjan Stevens in his appropriately titled song, “Abraham.”

I’ve got to begin by saying that Sufjan Stevens is in so many ways a genius at what he does. Ever since a college roommate introduced me to his Michigan album, I’ve been a fan. His poetry, instrumentation, storytelling, musical phrasing, and songwriting are all satisfyingly original.

Regarding his storytelling, Sufjan is exactly the type of artist that re:invention set out to find in our Old Love Songs series. He draws inspiration and content from places in the Bible that other artists aren’t. He expresses their truths in thoughtful and strong ways. This is especially present in his almost completely Bible-based 2004 album, Seven Swans, from which comes this song.

The story that “Abraham” tells, however, is far from obscure. The test that God levels to Abraham in Genesis 22:1-19 is probably one that most people who paid attention in high school literature class will recognize.

While perhaps familiar, Sufjan presents the subject matter in a way that forbids assumptions. He sings the song with a vacant and sweet timbre (not atypical for Sufjan) over a looping one-note-at-a-time guitar riff. This minimalistic setting for the Abraham story creates a melancholy atmosphere that draws focus the intent and emotion of each word. The weight of his diction stands in contrast to the sparseness of his word count and song structure.

Though Sufjan uses few words to tell the story, he hits all the main points of this narrative. He describes

• Abraham’s faith: “Abraham/ Worth a righteous one,
• the journey up Mount Moriah: “Take up on the wood/ Put it on your son,”
• the intent to slaughter: “When the angel came/ You had raised your arm,” and then
• the substitution: “Put off on your son/ Take instead the ram/ Until Jesus comes.”

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(That’s actually almost the entire song. There’s only one more line, “Lake or Lamb/ There is none to harm,” but I’m still trying to distill Sufjan’s full meaning in it. Let me know in the comments below if you have any insight.)

The song breaks right after we see Abraham with knife in hand above the bound body of his son, Isaac. During this intermission, Sufjan passively sings a falsetto descant above his guitar loop to simply let simmer the intensity of what Abraham intended to do. Sufjan’s understatement gives his audience room to find their own anguish in Abraham.

But Sufjan doesn’t let us dwell on Abraham’s internal struggle just to demonstrate his ability to access our empathy. He lets us feel Abraham’s pain so that we can feel Abraham’s elation in verse three.

After the intermission, the angel of Lord stops Abraham and then provides a substitute in a ram that was tangled up in some brush on the mountain top (Genesis 22:13). This ram allows Abraham to obey God but not have to kill his son. After God provides the ram as a substitute, Sufjan points to Jesus: “until Jesus comes,” finishes with an outro the same as his intermission, and then quietly backs away. The song ends as unassumingly as it began. The audience, however, isn’t finished yet.

In the space after the song, Sufjan gives us room to make our own connections between what just happened and the message of Jesus he left us with. We remember how Jesus would become the sacrifice (Romans 3:25) that wouldn’t just save Isaac, but would save humanity from the punishment that sin demands (Romans 8:28). Our anguish is as Abraham’s as we consider the inevitability of what must come to us for sin: death and hell. Consequentially, our elation is just as much as we consider the undeserved substitute that God provided for us in Jesus.

Sufjan communicates the richness of this Old Testament story so that we can see the richness of God’s love. In Abraham’s test, we not only see a real example of God’s love, but we feel the affect of God’s love as for a few we minutes stand in Abraham’s place. This is more than a poetic device, though. The affect of God’s love that we feel through Abraham is only a sample of what we feel when God’s love acts to us in the sacrifice of his Son.

Anyone who calls Jesus, “Savior” has a story of elation. Sufjan helps us see it.