Thoughts as commentary for Lent 2 Cycle B Year of St. Mark

Jesus I will follow ... on paths of promise 

Mark 8.31-38 

It might seem that we could get a little deeper into Lent before we had a conversation about great suffering, rejection and killing but Jesus has to teach about it. When you think about it, it seems like it is not something that would have to be taught: suffering, rejection and killing. Maybe planning pain, honing rejection and the skills of a deadlier aim but not the nature of sin's ease in refusing and discarding God and all others. Rejection is a synonym with disbelief. Suffering we know but we do not understand suffering perfectly except in Christ. 

And of course, we would know nothing and believe nothing of the dead after three days .... 

There was no veiling in the proclamation of the first Lent for, "he said all this quite openly." Peter's rebuke of the raw wounds of God and thus his deep love merits a responding rebuke. Charge and counter charge. Guilty, no I am not, yes you are and so I will be for you. You are not thinking God-things but earth being-stuff and I am the God-man. The disciple must be behind him, he must go and be first. Openly we are taught the hiddenness of sin and the veiled glory of grace in Christ, who is the heavenly-mind. set on the earthly. 

We are behind also, to follow and carry and be lifted with him. 

C.S. Lewis speaks about our relationship to God through prayer in a way that leads me in the following direction. The Father creates the desire to pray. In the divine Son become human we kneel. The Spirit lifts and carries our new desires bound in holiness to the throne of the Trinity. We lose our lives in the triune God's-life for us. 

Gain that loses is our desire. Gain that saves is God's will and way in the cross. 

The cross is contrasted here with "the whole world," literally the _kosmos_. Yet the cosmos the adorning of God not God. God is at the center of the universe in the gospel of the cross. 

The shame of centering other things and gods is pictured in the Old Testament image of idolatry as adultery. What loving bride loves her veil, flowers, dress and dowry more than her husband? The world and all that surrounds seeing, as well as angels and the unseen, is the glory of God coming for us. Christ undergoes, below, that we may rise above. 

Genesis 17.1-7,15-16 

We read elsewhere that Sarah had difficulty with a nine-month plot line while God, in the Abrahamic covenant has a long range set of chapters involving the many, nations, peoples and monarchs.  And add to that the everlasting quality beyond quantity.

But the beginnings of the coming of God are in the pruned womb and stemless vine of this ancient pair. In them the promised presence will grow exceedingly fruitful until their offspring is chaliced and placed paten-tly, God's creation, against the sky to follow not for ninety-nine years but for forever. 

Psalm 22. 22-30 

Are the poor, the far-flung and even those who reverently sleep in the earth, the people whom God does not despise but rather satisfies? Thus we remember, turn to the Lord and praise. Even the unborn will hear through us of the deeds that save. 

Romans 4. 13-25 

Here is commentary on the Genesis pericope and homily on the Marcian gospel. 

Inheritances have to do with faith, especially before you fully receive them. No matter what the legal will, promise, covenant says, until you have the inheritance itself, it is only legalese, words which under threat should be adhered to but if there is nothing to give, if nothing is received, what is the blessing of the bequest? 

"Hoping against hope," the nose of hope pressed against the pane of tomorrow, bracing expectation against an embrace of the unseen but committed, trusting the anticipated to hold what we do not have. It all sounds possible on paper until Sarah rubs the wrinkles on her belly and Abraham remembers a passion long forgotten. Yet he trusts, she with laughter, the God who brings life, to heap up hope as a mound rises from the cave in her flesh. 

Will Jesus do the same to an old, old flat earth that buries its dead beneath a plain, wrinkled surface, on which all things decay, forgetful of the passion for hope?   We now live beyond that couple’s hope in God engagement with us.  

Evening Prayer 

Lord of Abraham and Sarah, we are one day older, our barrenness increased by sin. In to Christ's hands we place our sin. Give us hope in each tomorrow for the resurrection in Jesus. AMEN 

Seasonal Prayer 

In Jesus’ embrace give us trust to know that what we clutch and save, we loose, and that which we have no strength to hold, holds us and all in a saving brace of wood, nails and divine love. AMEN