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First Sunday of Lent (B)
Psalm 25:1-10
Genesis 9:8-17
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15
This psalm is an acrostic psalm; the lines begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The strictness of form produced by an acrostic allows for less coherence in successive verses. This means the poet is free to use an abundance of prayer formulas without worrying too greatly about their cohesion. This also allows for the close connection of topics which we might not have considered to be so tightly linked.
The first verses express trust in God, in spite of human opposition (verses 1-3). It is clear the petitioner is a believer in its truest sense; one who trusts in God and not in self. Next comes a petitionary section. First there is a plea for instruction, for teaching, about the way God would have the petitioner live (verses 4-5). This petition is followed by a request for forgiveness, a forgiveness which rests on the grace and mercy of God alone (verses 6-7).
In verses 8 and following, a striking turn is taken: God’s instruction, like God’s forgiveness, is expression of God’s grace. This grace not only comes to those who seek God’s will, but also to sinners, those not seeking the way of God. By this arrangement we find that the petition for forgiveness is surrounded by a petition for instruction.
These verses and their arrangement show us very succinctly the Bible’s understanding of God’s grace. God’s grace comes to us as forgiveness for sin, expressed here as God’s forgetting past transgressions. But God’s grace also comes as instruction, as teaching about the will of God for our lives. After forgiveness we yet need to live our daily lives! Both forgiveness and instruction are sought by the petitioner, but the arrangement of verses places the weight and focus on the later. Indeed, the punch line, so to speak, comes in verse 10: the paths of the Lord represent in a concrete way God’s steadfast love, God’s care for us.
In the season of Lent we reflect on God’s grace as shown to us in Jesus. As part of this reflection we take stock of our lives and call to mind how our sins are and can be forgiven. But it is also appropriate to reflect on the way in which God would have us walk, the path which Jesus showed us. This too is part of God’s grace to us in Jesus. It is this grace which points us toward our way following Easter and enables God’s steadfast love to become a greater reality in our lives.
Perry B. Yoder
The story of the rainbow, a familiar story to all of us. But perhaps we have not yet recognized the importance of this story. First, it is important because of its place - immediately following the flood and the new beginnings. Second, it is important because of its scope - beyond the matter of placing the rainbow in the sky.
Immediately following the flood God does two things of universal scope. First, God blesses humankind. They are to be fertile and multiply; they may now eat meat as part of their diet; but neither they nor the animals are to take the life of a human being. These stipulations extend to all humankind.
Second, following this blessing, God makes a covenant. This covenant is not only universal in scope, but it is also all-inclusive. It includes all life. This inclusion is indeed remarkable. God is making a covenant with the animals. Note how the passage ends--its summation, so to speak: "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth." This final statement stresses the inclusivity of this covenant.
It is humbling to think that we as humans are partners with the animals in a covenant with God. It is not an oversight that after the flood, as part of the blessing and covenant with humankind, the rule and subdue of the first blessing in Genesis 1 is not renewed. Humans are no longer the rulers here, but co-covenanters with the animals.
We have the will to dominate. We want to dominate others, and we want to dominate over nature. Instead of the model of domination, God sets out another pattern. We are participants with the animals in a covenant with God. Easter time is a good time to rethink our patterns of domination in all spheres of our life and to remember that in Jesus, domination was not the way of God.
Perry Yoder
This text is puzzling because it uses some background ideas and imagery that were evidently familiar to the first readers but difficult for us to recover. We might begin, however, by noting that the text really has two parts. The first part is verse 18, which is another Christological hymn, like Peter uses in 2:21-24. There are a couple of interesting things about this hymn. Like the earlier hymn, it uses the word “suffered” in relation to Christ and it emphasizes the injustice of his suffering. But this hymn, unlike the earlier one, “turns” on the reader. Up until now in this letter, the believers have been the insiders. There has been a clear line established between the insiders who are suffering and doing good and the outsiders who are slandering and doing all kinds of bad things. Peter encourages the readers to hope that the outsiders will observe the good behaviors of the believers and either glorify God (2:12) or be put to shame (3:16). But here in this hymn, the author reminds them that Christ suffered “so that YOU might be brought close to God.” The believers were not always insiders. It is the suffering of Christ that brought them inside. This strengthens Peter’s point that their own suffering might have redemptive power for those who still do not know God.
Verses 19-22 probably have as their background an ancient notion of the sea/flood as chaos as well as a first century idea about how Christ’s death really vanquished the powers of evil. Let me try a reconstruction that is somewhere between my own translation and a bit of a paraphrase: In the spirit in which he was resurrected, Christ went and preached to the captive spirits. These spirits are identified as the ones who were disobedient in the days of Noah. Probably Peter is referring here to the Nephilim of Genesis 6:1-6. Noah persevered against these spirits. He built the ark in obedience to God and a few (eight) were saved. Now the believers have their own “ark.” This ark is the communal bonds of baptism which allow them to ride safely on the sea of chaos. But the believers should not understand this baptism as a cleansing but as an on-going mind-set of a good conscience toward God and the resurrection of Jesus. Finally, they can trust this orientation toward the resurrection because Jesus is at the right hand of God with all these formerly disobedient angels, authorities and powers subject to him.
While we may never be able to resolve all the difficulties with this text, what we can understand is that believers offer a resistance to evil by bonding in baptism and (in the context of 1 Peter as a whole) not repaying evil for evil. Furthermore, this resistance is grounded in a cosmic reality. The nonretaliatory Christ, vindicated by God, won over the imprisoned spirits. Therefore the nonretaliatory readers, vindicated by God, will win over evil.
Lent is a season for many kinds of reflection. Perhaps what this text is calling us to consider is the graceful bonds of baptism and how secure we really are in the perilous venture into reconciliatory living--because we are grounded in the cosmic reality of Christ’s victory.
Mary H. Schertz
This text is all important to Jesus’ ministry, Mark’s Gospel, and Christian faith.
The baptism of Jesus confirms Jesus’ divine Sonship, with the messianic bath qol declaring Jesus to be God’s Son.
“You are my Son” cites Ps. 2:7, thus acclaiming Jesus as royal, indeed, the king God appoints over the chosen nation. The next part of the divine declaration, “the Beloved One” harks back to Genesis 22, the Binding of Isaac narrative, since the Septuagint uses this precise phrase for 22:2. With this connection, a very special Sonship with love of the Son that fully obeys God’s word even in the crisis of impending sacrificial death, enters the text and future destiny of this baptized one. Finally, the last line, “with whom I am well pleased,” draws on the vocation of the suffering servant of justice in Isa. 42:1, depicting the character of Jesus’ mission.
The heavens are ripped open and the Spirit descends upon Jesus. The ripping open may echo Isa. 64:1, an outcry that God would rend the heavens to make divine power and redemption effectual for Israel returning home from exile. Certainly, the ripping open anticipates the ripping of the veil in Mk. 15:38, since the word is used only twice in the Gospel. Further, on this veil was a cosmic mural (Ulansey in JBL 110, [1991], 123-25), so that its tearing reenacted for all to see what Jesus saw happen at baptism.
God has come so near to us humans in Jesus and his ministry that every separating veil disappears between God and humans as well as between peoples.
This is the context of Jesus’ Spirit empowered gospel proclamation of 1:14-15 in Galilee. The word gospel is used seven times in Mark in noun form (whereas Luke uses it in verb form 25 times in his two volume treatise).
The proclamation of the gospel (echoing Isa. 52:7) is threefold: 1) the time is fulfilled, 2) the kingdom has come near, 3) repent and believe in the gospel. This is the dawning of the messianic era, and the entire Gospel narrative explicates it.
But an important aspect of this grand kick-off of Mark’s Gospel story has not yet been told: the “Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan and among the wild beasts, with angels waiting on him.” Both Moses and Elijah stories are echoed here. But more important, this vignette assures us that Jesus became one of us in vulnerability to sin and the wiles of Satan, yet without succumbing to sin and its power (I Cor. 10:13; Heb. 2:14-15; 2 Cor. 5:21). Praise God for this wonderful gift of salvation made possible by Jesus’ life as well as his death. In the manner of his ministry the gospel began and lives on even today. May the Spirit, like a dove, descend afresh on us today!
Willard M. Swartley
