Second Sunday in Lent, Cycle A

The unifying factor in all of these texts is access to God and to the grace of God. In each text the initiative is said to have been primarily with God. Because God acts with grace, we are expected to react with faith.

Psalm 121
This psalm is almost entirely an expression of faith in the unmerited grace of God. This psalm of trust is excellent for use in the evening before we enter into rest and sleep. It is also appropriate for the morning hour or for the beginning of individual or corporate worship experiences. The theme of divine-human interaction as gospel is more pronounced in this psalm than is the theme of perseverance.

Genesis 12:1-4a
In this well-known text we have the earliest instance sequentially in Genesis of the great four-part promise to the patriarchs. The descendants of Abraham are to be given the land of Canaan, they will be numerous, they will have a great empire, and they will be blessed in order to become a blessing to the tribal groups to be brought into that great empire. Abraham is depicted as obedient to the command and promise of the Lord and is said to have built an altar for the Lord and to have worshiped the Lord in the land. This text remains the initial biblical basis for the Zionist movement, through which God’s gifts of land, peoplehood, blessing, and responsibility come to the Jewish people.

What is the significance of this text for those of us who are Christians? In addition to our recognition of it as the primary basis for Jewish peoplehood and nationhood, we see it as a primary example of God’s graciously given gifts, to which we are expected to respond with faith in God and thanksgiving.

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
In this text Paul claims the inheritance of the world for the followers of Jesus and for all who share with them in the faith of Abraham their father. Paul, therefore, includes the Jews who base their lives on their attempts to live in accordance with the Torah and are not followers of Jesus. Paul contends, however, that people are descendants of Abraham, not because of their adherence to a written Torah that was not available to Abraham, but because they, like Abraham, believe in God. Their faith in God is the channel by which the grace of God is given to them. Therefore, according to Paul in this text, both Jewish background followers of Jesus and non-Jewish background followers of Jesus — and other descendants of Abraham for that matter — have access to God and to the grace of God through faith rather than through what they may try to do. Although Paul could know nothing about Muslims, based on the stipulations provided here by Paul we can say that Muslims as children of Abraham have access to God also through their faith in God.

John 3:1-17
God took the initiative by giving God’s Son, in permitting the Son to be lifted up on the cross. This was done so that “the world” might be saved through him. Our responsibility, our response, is to believe in God and in the Son of God. God permitted the oppressors to triumph, or to appear to triumph, but through the action of God in raising Jesus from the dead, the power of the oppressors was broken.

It is no different in our time. The oppressors may appear to triumph. Nevertheless, because of the resurrection of Jesus and our own future resurrection, the oppressors can have ultimately no victory over us. This is the liberating message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We today, however, generally want more than the members of the Johannine community wanted at the time the Fourth Gospel was written. We want liberation from oppression now, not only for ourselves, but also for others. We want the end of all oppression, at least of the most blatant forms of oppression. We want this for the world, because we believe that God loves the world so much that God gives God’s only Son to be the Lamb of God who takes away all of the sins and oppressions of the world.

Matthew 17:1-9
(modified slightly from the notes for Transfiguration Sunday above)
This well-known account, which has only minor redactional modifications when compared to the earlier Mark 9:2-10 account, is considered by most Christians to be simply a fascinating record of something that occurred just as it is recorded. Much more, however, than simply a written record of an event is involved here. If this were simply a written record of an important event during the public ministry of Jesus, why does John — who according to this viewpoint wrote the Gospel According to John — have no mention of this astonishing event, even though according to this account he was present for this most astonishing experience on a mountain while Jesus was talking with two men who had died many hundreds of years previously? Why would John not have included this account while Mark, Matthew, and Luke, who are not said to have been present, included it? We must do more, therefore, this coming weekend than merely tell this story of the account of the Transfiguration and ask our hearers to accept it as a marvelous and very unusual event. These Transfiguration accounts are extremely important proclamations about Jesus. They are literally packed full of meanings that we can only begin to perceive.

Let us consider, therefore, these questions: Who is Moses in biblical symbolism? Is not Moses the great personal symbol of the Torah? Who is Elijah in biblical symbolism? Is not Elijah the great personal symbol of the Prophetic Traditions? Do not Moses and Elijah together symbolize the Torah and the Prophetic traditions, the Sacred Scripture for most Jewish people and early followers of Jesus at the time of the writing of the Synoptic Gospels? We see, therefore, that the Transfiguration accounts proclaim that Jesus is in the same league with Moses and Elijah, who talk with him. The alert reader/hearer will recognize the intended proclamation that in these accounts Jesus and his words and work are being validated as on the same level of authority as the Sacred Scriptures — the Torah and the Prophetic Traditions — as they were then known. (The Writings had not been accepted as canonical. The Writings were accepted as canonical by the rabbis at Jamnia in 89-90 CE.)

Jesus as a person and Jesus as a symbol of faith are proclaimed as validated in these Transfiguration accounts by God by means of the impressive “voice from heaven,” by having God say, “Listen to him!” We see also that after the cloud moved away, the disciples are reported to have seen no one there except Jesus. Moses and Elijah (the personal symbols of the Torah and Prophetic Traditions) have faded away. Only Jesus is seen, and the voice of God from heaven has proclaimed Jesus to be God’s beloved Son whom his disciples are commanded to hear. By means of these impressive accounts, Jesus and Jesus’ words and actions are first placed on the same level with the Torah and the Prophetic traditions and then given greater prominence than the earlier sacred authorities.

The people to whom these accounts are proclaimed are told by God in these accounts to give greater authority and prominence to the words and actions of Jesus that are now in written form, first in the Gospel According to Mark and later extended to the other two Synoptic Gospels than to the Torah and the Prophetic Traditions as their primary written authorities. These new documents were not intended to replace the Torah and the Prophetic Traditions entirely. Nevertheless, the Synoptic Gospels are given validation by the Transfiguration of Jesus account in each of them to be considered equal to and then actually more significant in authority than the Torah and the Prophetic Traditions for followers of Jesus.

Within this Lenten season, therefore, let us proclaim that Jesus our Lord and Savior is God’s greatest manifestation of God’s self to us and to the world. Let us listen to him and to his words in written and in oral form in our lives!