The journey from Epiphany to Lent brings us from the brightness of our dawning to the
bleakness of our sinfulness. From God manifest as Lord of all to Godly power expressed in
emptying itself of power. A baby—weak, unarmed, and wise, in the words of
16th-century poet Robert Southwell—overturns a world.
These weeks we join generations of followers who wondered, perplexed as we, at
ineffable light coming into sharpest focus on a cross. What a strange faith we profess.
Our life as children of the covenant is spent trying to make sense of this Jesus we
claim to love, and of the God whose love claims us. This isn’t mere
headwork—it’s what we do, how we love, the quality of our trust. In so doing we
stand in a long line of faithful people who believe that death has lost its dominion here
and now, all evidence to the contrary.
This mystery is ever new. No matter how many times we sit through the stories—the
Magi, Jesus’ baptism and that voice from heaven, his Transfiguration and
testing—old meanings are recovered and new ones generated.
The Bible speaks with many voices, diverse in style and theology. Try as we might to
squeeze out a definitive Jesus or claim that our reading, however learned, is exhaustive,
we will fail, and mercifully so. Matthew, John, Micah, and 2 Peter give us different takes
on the same story of God’s covenant faithfulness, each reflecting a particular
refraction of the light that shines in our darkness.
Kari Jo Verhulst, a Sojourners contributing writer, is an M.Div.
student at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
January 6
A Birth Announcement
Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
Set aside, if you can, some of that Midrash we call Christmas and step
into Matthew’s world. Forget the manger, the Magnificat, shepherds, and an
overstuffed inn—they belong to Luke. Try to get "We Three Kings" and your
neighbor’s illuminated front yard out of your head. Keep going back, past the
medieval saints calendar telling how the Magi died as martyrs for the gospel. Beyond their
names and faces, fixed in the seventh century.
You should be surrounded by a plurality of traditions, crammed together
in a mish-mash of relocated people from across the empire. You and your fellow Jews have
tested the limits of the tolerance Rome prides itself on, but your alternative take on
reality doesn’t leave room for even token assent to other gods. Now your temple has
been destroyed and you’re living in exile, but you’re used to this—your God
has never taken apostasy sitting down.
Remember the long conversations you grew up around, working out the
details and significance of Moses’ birth? Perhaps you imagined, as first-century
Jewish historian Josephus did, that Egyptian persecution of the Hebrews resulted from a
prediction of a marvelous child. Or that God announced Moses’ birth to his father in
a dream, telling him that his son "shall deliver the Hebrew race from their bondage
in Egypt" (Antiquities).
Come back home now, and see Isaiah’s estranged children returning
home—sons from far off, daughters on their nurses’ hips (Isaiah 60:4) The
promise then—the promise now—is that Yahweh will come through on Yahweh’s
singular claim to authority. Birth announcements written in the stars don’t bode well
for competing empires, no matter how cozily we reside within.
January 13
Becoming the Covenant
Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17
Once again, pay attention to where we are. Details that might seem
insignificant to us were loaded with meaning for Matthew’s audience.
The Jordan river, the site of Jesus’ baptism (Matthew 3:13-17), is
the same place where Elijah ascended in a fiery horse-drawn chariot, at which point his
spirit fell in double portion on Elisha, his successor (2 Kings 1:11). Elijah’s
assumption was taken as a sign that he would some day return as the inaugurating moment of
the Day of the Lord, prophesied in Malachi 4:5.
John the Baptist, in his "clothing of camel’s hair with a
leather belt around his waist," looks exactly like Elijah in 2 Kings 1:8 ("a
hairy man, with a leather belt around his waist"). And where there is an Elijah,
there’s a twice-as-powerful Elisha. All of which lends support to the text’s
portrayal of Jesus’ baptism as much more than a ritual cleansing. Coming up from the
water, he receives his portion of God’s Spirit, punctuated by a voice from heaven
that identifies him as the "Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased"
(Matthew 3:17).
Acts recalls this moment differently. While Peter is still coming down
from his visions of impure foods dancing in his head, the Spirit tells him to get ready
for three visitors (remember Abraham and the three strangers in Genesis 15?). According to
Peter’s catechism-like summary of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, John the
Baptist only announces the baptism—it is God who does the anointing (Acts 10:37).
In baptism, Christians become one with Jesus in his life, death, and
resurrection. We get written into the text, becoming the covenant Isaiah writes of,
"given...to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to
bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness"
(Isaiah 42:6-7).
January 20
The Father or the Son?
Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42
Another layer of Jesus’ meaning is presented, here, in the only
place in scripture where Jesus is called the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of
the world" (John 1:29). The image of Jesus as the final scapegoat—the necessary
offering to make us clean—appears in a different form in Revelation, there in
apocalyptic triumph over the forces of the present age and as herald of the new.
John the Baptist insists, "I myself did not know him" (John
1:33). "The one who sent" the Lamb gives John the sign—the "one on
whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy
Spirit." This, so Jesus "might be revealed to Israel" (John 1:31).
Notice that we are in the fourth gospel, not Matthew. John’s logos
was in the beginning—always eternal, co-equal with the Father—whereas
Matthew isn’t as evidently concerned with Jesus’ eternal divinity.
By now we’ve harmonized the four gospels, if only in our heads,
and pass over the differences easily, yawning through the Nicene Creed. But in the third
and fourth centuries, people were so caught up with trying to work out Jesus’
relationship with the Father that public demonstrations were organized, complete with
chants and slogans.
Gregory of Nyssa complained in "On the Deity of the Son," one
of his five Theological Orations (circa 381 C.E.), that "The whole city is
full of it, the squares, the marketplaces, the crossroads, the old-clothes men, money
changers, food sellers: They are all busy arguing. If you ask someone to give you change,
he philosophizes about the Begotten and the Unbegotten; if you inquire about the price of
a loaf, you are told by way of a reply that the Father is greater and the Son inferior; if
you ask ‘Is my bath ready?’ the attendant answers that the Son was made out of
nothing."
January 27
Leave Your Nets
Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1, 4-9; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23
Jesus begins to announce the kingdom of heaven at hand, echoing John
the Baptist’s cry in Matthew 3:2. The Greek word translated "come near" in
the NRSV is eggizo. Here it is in its perfect tense, suggesting something that has
happened in the past and come to completion, and yet has lasting impact for all time. This
carries the linguistic implication of being perpetually in the state of happening: the
kingdom of heaven is always in the midst of drawing near—imminently imminent, as it
were.
Two chapters later, Matthew places the Sermon on the Mount, one of
Jesus’ explications of what this kingdom both looks like and requires. Deceptively
simple, even the beatitudes leave ample room for interpretation.
Paul, writing to the community in Corinth, pastorally intervenes in an
all-too familiar scenario. Left to their own devices, ideological camps have formed with
competing schemes for sanctity and true believing. Paul implores them to remember whose
they are, "so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power" (1
Corinthians 1:17).
Just what is the power of the cross? Left to our own devices, it has
been a most effective weapon of oppression, used to justify suffering and thereby pervert
everything Jesus stood for. As theologian Jon Sobrino insists, suffering people need to be
taken off of the cross, not to have their "crosses" sanctified.
To choose to follow, like those fishermen who "immediately left
their nets" (Matthew 4:20), is to throw our lot in with the God who expresses divine
power by giving completely, in full knowledge of the consequences. In doing so, the power
of that ultimate threat—death—has been unseated. Have we come anywhere close to
grasping this?
Let me put it another way. Do we love with abandon, no matter how
imprudent, uncool, or tasteless we appear? Does fear paralyze us from living as if we
needn’t fear death? Does shame blind us to how forgiven we truly are?
February 3
‘Have I Wearied You?’
Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12
Moses ascends the mountain, talks with Yahweh, and comes back with clay
tablets. Jesus goes up, sits down, and begins teaching, acting as mediator and content of
the new covenant. Written on hearts of flesh, Jesus’ covenant demands absolute
loyalty.
Two kinds of covenants reside in the Hebrew scriptures: the
Abrahamic/patriarchal covenant (preferred by kings)—an unconditional pledge of
faithfulness from God, who is bound to uphold the covenant. And the Mosaic/Sinai covenant
(favored among prophets)—a conditional bond that obliges the people to uphold
God’s stipulations, else God is released from his end of the deal.
Micah, in true prophetic fashion, casts his lot with Moses. Using the
image of a covenant lawsuit (in Hebrew, rib), God’s people are tried in front
of the heavenly courts, charged with infidelity. As soon as Israel is in the
defendant’s seat, Yahweh turns the trial around and demands that they come forth with
a charge against Yahweh. "What have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer
me!" (Micah 6:3).
More courtroom drama follows—the evidence presented is a rehearsal
of Yahweh’s history of hesed (steadfast love or covenant grace)—in a
guilt trip that would put any child to shame. Remember how you were set free? God asks.
Remember how I intervened with the Moabites, using Balaam (in Hebrew, "not of the
people") and his donkey to send King Balak packing? You must have forgotten.
Why else would you act with such an appalling lack of mercy and justice (not to mention
ingratitude)?
Israel’s reply, sardonically scripted by Micah, is rapid
appeasement—elaborate offerings, exaggerated rituals, anything to get them out of
court as quickly as possible.
They’ve missed the point. As covenant children, they’re
obligated to imitate Yahweh’s hesed. They’ve bound themselves to a way of
life that must act in all things—not just the cultic—out of the heart of God.
February 10
Glimpse God’s Glory
Exodus 24:12-18; Psalm 99; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9
Now things take a turn for the weird. The Transfiguration, observed
traditionally in this last Sunday before Lent, brings Epiphany to a close with another
divine irruption into the earthly. This is a tough passage for modern (and post-modern)
Christians to swallow—apocalyptic visions seem irrelevant at best, escapist at worst.
But apocalyptic literature is immensely political. Contemporary author
Timothy LaHaye’s dramatizations of life amidst the rapture are full of social
commentary and political interpretations of the kinds of behaviors and identities that
land people on either side of judgment day.
Apocalyptic literature, as theologian Pablo Richard explains, sees the
world as so corrupt that reform is impossible—a complete destruction of the current
system is necessary before God will build a new world. Writing in Apocalypse: A
People’s Commentary on the Book of Revelation, Richard explains, "The
prophet acts within the existing world; [the] apocalyptic condemns the existing order and
announces the building of another world."
Jesus and his community are immersed in this apocalyptic sensibility.
Powers and principalities vie for control—not just of souls, but of bodies,
economies, and nations. It is fitting that just after they come down from the mountain,
Jesus frees a boy plagued by a demon (Matthew 17:14-21).
What we have here is an eschatological vision—a glimpse of
God’s glory like the one Moses catches on Mount Sinai and which is being fulfilled in
Jesus. Like the visions in Daniel and Enoch, Jesus, the seer, is transported temporarily
into the cosmic realm. This breakthrough moment means the barrier between the cosmic and
earthly realms, which always co-exist and yet remain mutually exclusive, has been rent
open.
February 17
To Be Human
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus refuses to step outside of the confines
of humanity. No matter what good ends are dangled in front of him, he resists displays of
might, choosing to draw people to him by remaining faithful to his full identification
with us.
So why is it that the Spirit, not the devil, leads Jesus into the
wilderness to be tested (Matthew 4:1)?
Matthew’s world wasn’t as troubled as we might be by the idea
that Jesus, needed to be tested to prove himself fit for the apocalyptic struggle at hand.
The Greek diabolos is not the devil we love to hate. Even the term Jesus
uses—Satan or the Prince of Demons (Matthew 12:24)—can be translated, simply, as
adversary.
The adversary reaches back to Job, where the accuser (Hebrew ha-satan)
resembles the spies kings employed to sniff out sedition. These ancient narcs had
equivalents in the pantheon—lesser gods who tested people’s fidelity. So when
Satan suggests that Job’s fidelity be tested, he’s just doing his job.
Does God really cause suffering to see what we’re made of? Or does
a whole lot of suffering stem from a disdain of creaturely dependence?
Isn’t that what Genesis 2 portrays? Rather than live as recipients
of God’s gifts, Adam and Eve swap their humanness for a cheap imitation of
omniscience. This propensity to grasp rather than receive infects our lives, crafting
economic and political structures that protect our own at the expense of others, and creep
into the tiny choices we make every day between loving or resisting love.
As poet Scott Cairns writes in "The Entrance of Sin,"
published in Recovered Body,"For sin had made its entrance long before the
serpent spoke, long before the woman and the man had set their teeth to the pale, stringy
flesh, which was, it turns out, also quite without flavor. Rather, sin had come in the
midst of an evening stroll, when the woman had reached to take the man’s hand and he
withheld it...." This take on the root of suffering is quite stunning: In
Cairns’ eyes, it is a tiny act of withholding love, of which we are all so guilty.
February 24
When We Love, God Loves
Genesis 12:1-4; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17
Psalm 121, in my family, was the vacation psalm. Every summer we’d
read it early in the morning of departure, just before loading into the packed car. It was
a tradition my father carried over from his family, and which I brought with me to
Sojourners, adapting it for when we’d pray people off to places not known as choice
vacation spots, such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Colombia, and Sudan.
Such beautiful promises—Yahweh will not let your foot be moved; he
who keeps you will not slumber. The Lord will keep you from all evil; she will keep your
life (Psalm 121:3).
Kind of cheeky to walk around as if this were so, don’t you think?
Feet stumble, the sun strikes. In our neighborhoods, across the globe, in those tender and
most vulnerable places of our relationships, evil seeps in. What right do we have to
pretend that our travels enjoy some privilege with God, while the rest of the world can go
to hell?
But what’s this in Genesis 12? "I will make you a
blessing." "In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis
12:2-3).
We’ve inherited this covenant promise as well. We, children of the
new covenant, are God’s pledge to this world. When we love, he loves. Where we go,
she goes. And when we refuse to be shade, or walk in those places of great danger,
God’s saving work, strangely given to us, is hampered somehow.
Whatever was God thinking?
Read other articles by:
Verhulst, Kari Jo
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