Sermon for First Sunday in Lent, Year B

Noah's Ark, English circa. 1100

Genesis 9:8-17

I Peter 3:18-22

Mark 1:9-15

Sunday 22 February 2015

This year, the Old Testament readings for four of the five Sundays of Lent have the common theme of covenants between God and his people. In church circles, we tend to toss around the word “covenant” quite freely. We talk about the Old Covenant, the New Covenant, the Marriage Covenant, and the Baptismal Covenant. But I’m not sure that we’re always clear on what “covenant” actually means. So, it may be helpful to look at the biblical meaning of the word.

In the ancient world, a covenant was an agreement or treaty between two parties. Today, we’re more familiar with the idea of a contract. In a contract, two parties sign an agreement attested by witnesses and enforceable by law. If either party breaks the contract, the injured party has recourse to the courts to have the terms of the contract enforced by a judge.

In the ancient world, however, a covenant was an agreement made between two parties in the absence of any judge or court to enforce its terms. Both parties would make solemn promises concerning their future behavior. Two kings, for example, might make a covenant to live at peace with each other, to respect each other’s trade routes, and to come to each other’s aid if attacked. More often, though, a covenant was not between equals, but rather between unequals, such as a lord and a vassal. In this case, the superior party typically promised to protect and care for the inferior party, and in return the inferior party typically promised loyalty and obedience to the superior party.

To ratify the covenant, the parties would participate in a solemn ceremony that might include an animal sacrifice or a ritual meal, invoking blessings on themselves if they kept the covenant, and curses if they broke it. Finally, they might erect some sort of public monument or sign – perhaps an engraved obelisk, plaque, or stone marker – to stand as a perpetual reminder of the covenant they had made.

Throughout the Bible, God reveals himself and discloses his purposes by means of ideas and concepts that people already know from the world of their everyday experience. In other words, God accommodates himself to the limits of our human understanding by speaking our language. And since covenant agreements were so familiar in the ancient world, it’s not surprising that God made use of them to initiate and establish relationships with his people. In the Old Testament, God makes at least four covenants: with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses, and with David. In each case, the covenant spells out a promise on God’s part, and sometimes also stipulates corresponding obligations on the people’s part.

This background is crucial for understanding the story of Noah. The Book of Genesis tells us that after God creates the world, the wickedness of the human race multiplies, from the original disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden; through the murder of Abel by Cain; to the blasphemous attempt to build a tower that reaches to heaven, the Tower of Babel. God regrets having created human beings, and so resolves to put an end to their wickedness by means of a great flood that will inundate the whole earth.

Amidst the whole wicked human race, God sees one righteous man, Noah; so God tells Noah to build a ship, the Ark, and to take into the Ark both his family and a male and female specimen of every animal upon the earth. So, Noah and his three sons and their wives – eight persons in all – enter the Ark. Then God opens the floodgates of the Great Deep, and it rains for forty days and forty nights. All living creatures on the earth are destroyed, except Noah, his family, and all the animals on the Ark. At length, the waters recede, the dry land re-appears; and Noah, his family, and all the animals go forth from the Ark to re-inhabit and repopulate a new creation.

God then makes a covenant with Noah promising never again to destroy the earth by water. This covenant is truly universal in scope; God makes it not with any particular race or nation but with all generations that shall come after Noah: and not only with all the people of the earth, but with every living creature as well. And the sign of this covenant is the rainbow that God puts in the clouds as a perpetual reminder of his promise.

The story of Noah makes the point, on one hand, that a holy and righteous God cannot abide human sin and wickedness. When people do evil, they bring God’s judgment upon themselves. But, on the other hand, God’s judgment always contains within itself a deeper purpose of redemption and salvation. So, in the Flood story, we see God executing judgment on a sinful and disobedient world and yet, at the same time, through Noah and the Ark, making possible that same world’s re-creation and renewal. 

In other words, God’s final purpose is never to annihilate and destroy but always to redeem and save, to start over and make new. Our God is above all a God of second chances and fresh starts.

We need to remember this truth at those times of crisis in our lives – times for example of illness, death, bereavement, conflict, or separation – when it seems that the flood is raging around us and our world is coming to an end. Even in the moments of greatest darkness, God is still present and at work to realize his purposes of redemption and salvation in ways that we can’t yet see and don’t yet understand.

This biblical pattern – of judgment carrying within itself the seeds of redemption – finds its ultimate expression and fulfillment on the cross. To all outward appearances, the death by crucifixion of Jesus represents unmitigated disaster and total defeat, and yet it bears within itself the seeds of cosmic victory and eternal life.

We begin to share in that life through Holy Baptism, which in today’s Epistle reading Saint Peter likens to the Flood. The analogy is that just as the Deluge drowned a sinful world while the Ark saved Noah and brought the members of his household to a creation made new, so the waters of Baptism drown out our old sinful natures and bring us to the new creation begun in Jesus Christ. The only reason we keep on sinning is that we’ve not yet fully lived into the reality of what God has already done for us in Baptism.

Even though our sins have merited God’s judgment, then, our Baptism holds out God’s promise and pledge of salvation. So, perhaps the best way to begin our Lenten pilgrimage is simply by renewing our trust in God’s promises. For the story of Noah reminds us that God’s desire above all else is to redeem and save his creation, which he loves.

Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B

Isaac Williams, 1802-1865

II Kings 2:1-12
Mark 9:2-9

In 1837, Isaac Williams, a priest of the Church of England and one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement, published Tract Number Eighty of Tracts for the Times. The Tract was titled, “On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge.” It caused quite a storm of controversy at the time, and established what became known as “the principle of reserve” as a key tenet of Anglo-Catholic teaching.

Briefly, the principle of reserve suggests that some mysteries of the Christian faith are so sublime and holy that they are best not talked about too openly, too publicly, or too casually, in settings where they’re apt to be not only rejected but also blasphemously ridiculed and reviled. Instead, such teachings are best left unmentioned except in hushed tones of reverence and respect.

Over and against the Evangelicals of the era, who had taken to preaching Christ’s Death, Resurrection, and Second Coming on street corners and in open-air marketplaces – often before hostile crowds who responded with catcalls and even projectiles – Williams advocated a restrained and graduated approach. Preachers, teachers, and catechists should progressively reveal the deepest and most sublime truths of the faith to potential converts only as they were ready to receive them.

Williams buttressed his argument with numerous illustrations from Scripture. It’s always seemed to me that today’s Gospel contains an archetypal example of the principle of reserve where it records that after the Transfiguration, as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus charged the disciples Peter, James, and John to tell no-one what they had seen, until the Son of Man should have risen from the dead.

Today’s readings are shot through with mystery. The Old Testament story of the assumption of the prophet Elijah, from the Second Book of the Kings, sets the stage for the Gospel. Since Elijah did not die but was taken up into heaven, he remains alive with God and thus appears on the holy mountain with Moses and Jesus in the light of divine glory.

The death of Moses, as well, is an event shrouded in mystery. The Book of Deuteronomy records that at the end of the Hebrews’ forty years of wandering in the Wilderness, Moses ascended Mount Nebo, in full view of the Promised Land, and there died. The Lord himself buried Moses, the narrative continues, and no one knows the place of his burial. By New Testament times, however, the tradition had grown up that Moses had not died but had been taken up into heaven – a view propounded in such apocryphal works as the Assumption of Moses.

Moreover, the tradition had also developed that the return of either Elijah or Moses or both would signal the arrival of the Messianic age. So the prophets of Israel had foretold. The Book of Malachi included the prophecy, “Behold, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” And before he died, Moses himself had told the Israelites, “The Lord your God will raise up a prophet like me from among you, from among your brethren – him you shall heed.”

So, when Peter, James, and John witness the spectacle of Jesus transfigured with the brightness of divine glory, and Moses and Elijah with him, the message is clear. Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One of God. He is the One destined to bring about the reign of God on earth. So the voice from heaven confirms: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”

Most likely, as Peter, James, and John are coming down off the mountain they want nothing more than to proclaim what they have seen and heard: to the rest of the Twelve, to all the disciples, and to the multitudes far and wide. But then, to their surprise, Jesus enjoins silence. “He charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man should have risen from the dead.”

Why this divine gag order? The most likely reason is that while Peter, James, and John have seen a vision of overwhelming power and significance, they are not yet properly equipped to interpret the vision’s meaning.

The Transfiguration comes seven days after Peter has confessed Jesus to be the Messiah. Yet when Jesus immediately thereafter began to teach that he must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, Peter began to rebuke him, drawing in turn the Lord’s rebuke, “Get behind me Satan, for you are not on the side of God but of men.”

Again, shortly after the Transfiguration, Mark records that Jesus was traveling through Galilee teaching his disciples that “the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” But, says Mark, “they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask him”

A bit later, as they are on the road going up to Jerusalem, Jesus predicts his death and resurrection a third time, and in more detail than before: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him, and scourge him, and spit upon him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise.” But the disciples still don’t get it; and the depth of their incomprehension is evident in the request of James and John to sit one at his right and one at his left in his glory.

James and John, remember, were both present at the Transfiguration. For the moment, all they can see is the promise of divine glory of which they have received an anticipatory glimpse. Despite the Lord’s repeated warnings and admonitions, they still don’t grasp that before they can share in the glory of God’s Kingdom, they must first follow Jesus in the Way of the Cross. That is why the Lord charged them as they were coming down the mountain to say nothing of what they had seen until the Son of Man should have risen from the dead. Apart from the cross, the story of who Jesus is cannot be fully told. In this case, the principle of reserve means refraining of speaking of things not only that the hearers are not yet ready to hear, but also that the teachers are not yet ready to teach.

The assumption of Elijah in today’s Old Testament reading anticipates the ultimate ascension and glorification of Jesus, towards which the Transfiguration in today’s Gospel likewise points forward. For the disciples, as for us, the Transfiguration is a glimpse of a promised future but not yet the possession of that future. So, after today’s celebration, on Wednesday we begin the observance of Lent, by which the Church annually reminds us that before we can enter into the glory of Christ’s Kingdom, we must first climb with him another mountain, that of Golgotha.