Almighty God, you show to those who are in error the light
of your truth, that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ's
religion that they may reject those things that are contrary to
their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to
the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
THREE covenants feature in the Old Testament readings set for the
first three Sundays of Lent. Last week it was Noah's turn, this
Sunday focuses on Abraham, and next week will bring Moses.
Each has a basic pattern of promise and sign. To Noah, God
promises that the earth will never again be destroyed by flood,
and, as a reminder, sets the rainbow in the sky. Old and childless,
Abraham is promised that he will become the father of nations with
whom God will "establish" a covenant relationship (Genesis 17.6-7).
The outward sign that this covenant is being kept will be the
circumcision of all the males of Abraham's household, and of the
generations succeeding him (Genesis 17.9-14). God promises Moses,
in their conversation on Mount Sinai, that the people he leads will
be his "treasured possession" if they keep the covenant that exists
already (Exodus 19.5-6). The sign of this will be the written Law
(Exodus 20.1-17).
The Lectionary has omitted the instructions about circumcision
from the story of Abraham, and has given us Paul's explanation of
the Abrahamic covenant to the Christians in Rome without its
reflection on the part circumcision plays in it. If this is a
device to protect the readers' sensibilities, it also succeeds in
obscuring something important. Abraham, as the great New Testament
scholar C. K. Barrett* pointed out, was not circumcised until God
had recognised his faith and counted it as righteousness. This
makes him technically a Gentile at the time he received the promise
that he would be the father of innumerable descendants (Genesis
15), so that Paul can argue confidently that he is the father of
all, not just the Jews (Romans 4.11). The faith that was "reckoned
to him as righteousness" will be reckoned to all his children; but
for Paul's audience it has a new dimension; for they believe in the
God "who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead" (Romans 4.25).
It was much harder for Jesus to teach this lesson to his
disciples. Certainly, there was no shortage of signs: they had
twice seen thousands of hungry people fed from absurdly meagre
provisions, and been able to gather ample leftovers (Mark 6.30-44;
Mark 8.1-10); they had seen the child of a Gentile woman healed
(Mark 7.24-30); they had seen a blind man recover his sight (Mark
8.22-26); and they had heard Jesus's response to the Pharisees'
strictures on observing the laws of cleanliness (Mark 7.1-13).
At one level, they had discerned the approach of the Kingdom of
God in generosity to Jews and Gentiles. Peter responds to Jesus's
question "Who do you say I am?" with the acclamation "You are the
Messiah" (Mark 8.29). Yet the Messiah with whom they thought they
were keeping faith was going to be a victor; and they were not
prepared to hear what Jesus was undertaking, in living out the
Messiah's vocation.
In one way, this is entirely understandable. Jesus inspired
great numbers to seek him out as a teacher and healer. Peter's
rebuke is full of panic. How could Jesus think of talking about
suffering and death in front of people who depended on him?
Suddenly the world was turning upside down, at least from the human
point of view. Jesus wants to alter this perspective, and to make
Peter see things from God's point of view. His answering rebuke,
"Get behind me, Satan!" (Mark 8.33), flags up the dangers of
worldly temptation, but it also puts Peter in his place, as a
follower and not even a privileged one. That is confirmed in the
repetition of "behind" in Mark's Greek, when Jesus calls the crowd
- together with the disciples - warning that any who wish to "come
along behind me" must deny themselves, and take up their cross
(Mark 8.34).
Writers on this passage often note that, for most members of the
crowd, "the cross" would instantly have called up images of
condemned prisoners carrying the instrument of execution to the
site of their death. Jesus's promise of life reached by such a
dangerous route was even more implausible than the idea that a few
people and some animals in a boat could survive a catastrophic
flood; or that an old man and woman could become parents of the
nations; or that a stammering man could lead God's people out of
slavery.
It is a promise that will be written on his wounded body, to be
fulfilled in the resurrection.
*The Epistle to the Romans (A.& C. Black,
1957)