Genesis 17:3-9 (NRSVCE) Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.” God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. Something interesting happens when God establishes His covenant with Abram: He gives Abram a new name. From that moment forward, Abram became known as Abraham. We see this pattern repeated throughout Scripture. Sarai receives her new name, Sarah. Jacob receives his new name, Israel. Simon receives his new name, Peter. Today we often think of names as just something we call ourselves, and nothing much more than that. We often even resort to nicknames, because “names” don’t matter so much so long as you are effectively identifying the person you are referring to. I don’t call my dad by his name, because when I say “my dad” everyone still knows who I am talking about. But in the Bible, names are much more than mere indications of a referent. Names mean something.
When God establishes the covenant with Abram, he renames him to Abraham, meaning “father of many.” This isn’t just foreshadowing what God has in store for Abram, it is establishing in that very moment an entirely new identity for “this person, once known as Abram.” So too with Simon, who gets renamed to Peter, which means “rock.” It’s not Jesus just looking to make a pun. Peter becomes his new identity. He is no longer the fisherman. He is now the rock upon which the Church is built. Simon’s relationship with God, and Abram’s, and Sarai’s, all resulted in an entirely new identity. And to an extent this is true for us all. Think of it this way: God is the source and destination of all creation. Everything comes from God, and to God everything ought to return, for God is the very One who sustains all that exists. Anything that “is” is only because of its relation to God. Without that relation, there is no “is.” There is no you, no me, no anything. And the closer you become in relationship to the source of “you,” the more you begin to become who “you” is meant to be. By God’s grace, you become more “you” than you have ever been before, absent the sin that holds you in bondage and absent the passions that keep you enslaved to your desires. In God we find our true purpose, our true identity. God looks upon each and every one of us and says “you,” and thus we realize that we are an “I.” That’s a very heady way of saying that God enables us not merely to realize our potential, but to literally become ourselves in the fullest sense. That’s what the new names in the Bible are showing us. That is what happened with Abram, and with Sarai, and with Simon. In God they found a new identity. In God they discovered their true purpose, their true calling. And it is from God that they received their name. God looked upon Abram and said “Abraham.” God looked upon Sarai and said “Sarah.” God looked upon Simon and said “Peter.” God looks upon every one of us, and says “you.” John 8:31-42 (NRSVCE) Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, because there is no place in you for my word. I declare what I have seen in the Father’s presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Father.” They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your father does.” They said to him, “We are not illegitimate children; we have one father, God himself.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me. What does it mean to be a true disciple? Jesus is seen here calling out the Jews for their unbelief, for their wickedness in wanting to put him to death for the truth that he proclaims. He says they have no place in them for his word. The Jews have spent so much time filling up their hearts with wickedness and sin, that they no longer have any place for Christ to enter in. They have closed their own hearts off to God, preferring to live in their own sin.
This idea of making room in our hearts for Christ is what the penitential season of Lent is all about. We fast during Lent, we give ourselves spiritual challenges during Lent, not merely because the Church asks us to, and certainly not because we want to make up for already abandoning our New Year’s resolutions. We cut things out of our life, through fasting, and we add spiritual practices into our life because we wish to open our hearts up more to Christ and his word. We wish to make room for Christ within us. And it’s not easy. In fact, it’s often incredibly difficult. For example, I very nearly didn’t finish my reflection today because I got caught up doing other things. But I knew I had to make time to do it. Because if I didn’t, then what does that say about the seriousness of my faith and the relationship I have with Christ? Can I not even spare a few minutes in the day for my Savior? What in my life could possibly be more important than God? But we all do this, all the time. We are too busy to go to mass, or we’re just too tired to read our Bibles, or “I don’t think I’ll go to the Bible Study tonight because I haven’t had a chance to sit down and watch TV all week.” We prioritize things in our life, and that’s totally understandable. But the point of Lent is to refocus our priorities—to ensure that our first priority is always God, as it should be. If we are not focused firstly on God, then our lives are out of order. That’s the importance of the Lenten season, and it’s something which ought to carry through beyond Lent and into every single day of our lives. Numbers 21:4-9 (NRSVCE) From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live. The Israelites are ungrateful and indignant. Moses has led them out of slavery in Egypt, but they can only find it within themselves to complain. There’s no food or water here! We were better off as slaves! They have lost all faith in Moses, and all faith in God. They have sinned through their unbelief, and the wages of sin is death. And so they begin to die, at the hands of poisonous serpents. It’s not until they see the repercussions for their actions that they begin to turn back to God.
One interesting thing is that the people do not beseech God directly. They go to Moses, and ask Moses to intercede on their behalf. This is noteworthy for a couple reasons. Firstly, it seems to speak to how far the people have fallen into unbelief. They are not even able to pray anymore, and so they need someone to pray on their behalf. But secondly, we see Moses time and again appearing as a Christ-like figure—the one who saves, who provides nourishment through mana, who provides live-giving water from the rock, and who leads the people to the Promised Land. Here we see Moses the intercessor, the one who looks up on them with pity and asks for mercy on their behalf. He is the one mediator between the Israelites and God, just as Christ is the true mediator between man and the Father. That is, of course, not the only figure of Christ we find in this passage. The salvation of the Israelites in this moment comes from the serpent that God had Moses raise up on a pole. It was serpents that were killing the Israelites, and it is a serpent sent by God that saved them. Man kills himself by his sin, and it is a man sent by God, raised up on a pole (that is, the Cross), who offers the only path to salvation. Jesus tells us this himself: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). The thing which was killing man was raised up on a pole, and now became the source of their salvation. So too the Son was made like the thing which was killing man—namely, sinful man—and was raised up on a pole so that we might have eternal life. Am I the one who looks to Moses and does nothing but complain? “How could you do this to me? I was far better off before you!” Am I the one who brings death upon himself by his sin? Or am I the one who looks to the cross, and finds upon it the source of my salvation? Daniel 13:1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62 (NRSVCE) There was a man living in Babylon whose name was Joakim. He married the daughter of Hilkiah, named Susanna, a very beautiful woman and one who feared the Lord. Her parents were righteous, and had trained their daughter according to the law of Moses. Joakim was very rich, and had a fine garden adjoining his house; the Jews used to come to him because he was the most honored of them all. That year two elders from the people were appointed as judges. Concerning them the Lord had said: “Wickedness came forth from Babylon, from elders who were judges, who were supposed to govern the people.” These men were frequently at Joakim’s house, and all who had a case to be tried came to them there. When the people left at noon, Susanna would go into her husband’s garden to walk. Every day the two elders used to see her, going in and walking about, and they began to lust for her. They suppressed their consciences and turned away their eyes from looking to Heaven or remembering their duty to administer justice. Once, while they were watching for an opportune day, she went in as before with only two maids, and wished to bathe in the garden, for it was a hot day. No one was there except the two elders, who had hidden themselves and were watching her. She said to her maids, “Bring me olive oil and ointments, and shut the garden doors so that I can bathe.” When the maids had gone out, the two elders got up and ran to her. They said, “Look, the garden doors are shut, and no one can see us. We are burning with desire for you; so give your consent, and lie with us. If you refuse, we will testify against you that a young man was with you, and this was why you sent your maids away.” Susanna groaned and said, “I am completely trapped. For if I do this, it will mean death for me; if I do not, I cannot escape your hands. I choose not to do it; I will fall into your hands, rather than sin in the sight of the Lord.” Then Susanna cried out with a loud voice, and the two elders shouted against her. And one of them ran and opened the garden doors. When the people in the house heard the shouting in the garden, they rushed in at the side door to see what had happened to her. And when the elders told their story, the servants felt very much ashamed, for nothing like this had ever been said about Susanna. The next day, when the people gathered at the house of her husband Joakim, the two elders came, full of their wicked plot to have Susanna put to death. In the presence of the people they said, “Send for Susanna daughter of Hilkiah, the wife of Joakim.” So they sent for her. And she came with her parents, her children, and all her relatives. Those who were with her and all who saw her were weeping. Then the two elders stood up before the people and laid their hands on her head. Through her tears she looked up toward Heaven, for her heart trusted in the Lord. The elders said, “While we were walking in the garden alone, this woman came in with two maids, shut the garden doors, and dismissed the maids. Then a young man, who was hiding there, came to her and lay with her. We were in a corner of the garden, and when we saw this wickedness we ran to them. Although we saw them embracing, we could not hold the man, because he was stronger than we, and he opened the doors and got away. We did, however, seize this woman and asked who the young man was, but she would not tell us. These things we testify.” Because they were elders of the people and judges, the assembly believed them and condemned her to death. Then Susanna cried out with a loud voice, and said, “O eternal God, you know what is secret and are aware of all things before they come to be; you know that these men have given false evidence against me. And now I am to die, though I have done none of the wicked things that they have charged against me!” The Lord heard her cry. Just as she was being led off to execution, God stirred up the holy spirit of a young lad named Daniel, and he shouted with a loud voice, “I want no part in shedding this woman’s blood!” All the people turned to him and asked, “What is this you are saying?” Taking his stand among them he said, “Are you such fools, O Israelites, as to condemn a daughter of Israel without examination and without learning the facts? Return to court, for these men have given false evidence against her.” So all the people hurried back. And the rest of the elders said to him, “Come, sit among us and inform us, for God has given you the standing of an elder.” Daniel said to them, “Separate them far from each other, and I will examine them.” When they were separated from each other, he summoned one of them and said to him, “You old relic of wicked days, your sins have now come home, which you have committed in the past, pronouncing unjust judgments, condemning the innocent and acquitting the guilty, though the Lord said, ‘You shall not put an innocent and righteous person to death.’ Now then, if you really saw this woman, tell me this: Under what tree did you see them being intimate with each other?” He answered, “Under a mastic tree.” And Daniel said, “Very well! This lie has cost you your head, for the angel of God has received the sentence from God and will immediately cut you in two.” Then, putting him to one side, he ordered them to bring the other. And he said to him, “You offspring of Canaan and not of Judah, beauty has beguiled you and lust has perverted your heart. This is how you have been treating the daughters of Israel, and they were intimate with you through fear; but a daughter of Judah would not tolerate your wickedness. Now then, tell me: Under what tree did you catch them being intimate with each other?” He answered, “Under an evergreen oak.” Daniel said to him, “Very well! This lie has cost you also your head, for the angel of God is waiting with his sword to split you in two, so as to destroy you both.” Then the whole assembly raised a great shout and blessed God, who saves those who hope in him. And they took action against the two elders, because out of their own mouths Daniel had convicted them of bearing false witness; they did to them as they had wickedly planned to do to their neighbor. Acting in accordance with the law of Moses, they put them to death. Thus innocent blood was spared that day. This is quite the tale! Susanna is a beautiful woman, who is lusted after by the elders, the men who were supposed to be authorities amongst the people. They catch her alone, and demand she lie with them or they will make up lies about her in order to have her killed. After all, who will the people believe? A woman accused of grave sin, or two highly respected elders? Susanna refuses, and chooses to face death from their lies rather than commit sin herself. They follow through on their promise, and have her condemned to death.
But, at the last possible moment, Daniel stands up and declares that she is innocent! He is allowed to question the two elders separately, and he finds that their stories do not match. He has caught them in their lie! Susanna’s prayer for God to save her is answered through Daniel, and the two elders are revealed for the lustful, murderous men they truly are. The people took what was to be Susanna’s sentence and instead enacted it upon the two elders—certainly an ironic twist of justice. Now, if you’re unfamiliar with this story, it’s because it may not be in your Bible. The story of Susanna appears in the Greek version of the Old Testament, but does not appear in the Hebrew texts. More than likely, the story was originally written in Greek. For example, though you can’t tell in the translation I’ve chosen here, the trees the elders name and the sentences Daniel proclaims are actually puns in the Greek. Think “yew” and “hew,” or “clove” and “cleave,” which is what several translations go with in order to preserve the pun. There’s obviously some disagreement amongst scholars on that, but I’m not nearly qualified enough to even explain the two sides, let alone choose one to side with. The interesting thing about the story is how Susanna comes out being an icon of faithfulness, while the Jewish elders, the ones who are supposed to be beacons of righteousness, are the ones who are portrayed as the most wicked. Even knowing she would die, save some miracle coming to rescue her, Susanna did not hesitate to remain faithful to God. She refused to sin, even though sinning would have saved her life. By Jewish law, two witnesses condemning you was a certain conviction, let alone when those two witnesses were the judges themselves. Also take note of the context of the story. This is Israel living in exile in Babylon. The faithful live in constant persecution, in constant threat of either having to sin against their God or be killed by their persecutors. This story is extending the role of persecutor from simply the Babylonian rulers to the very leaders they have set up amongst themselves. The message is that persecution comes from all sides, even the sides you thought most fortified. It is only in remaining faithful to God and God alone, as Susanna did, that you will find salvation. John 8:1-11 (NRSVCE) Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” It’s a peculiar scene John has painted for us here. The Pharisees bring a woman to Jesus, informing him that she is an adulterer. And rather than respond to the charges, or question the woman, Jesus begins writing on the ground with his finger. He continues to write, while they continue to demand he pronounce judgment. He then utters the phrase we are probably all quite familiar with: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then he continues writing, and they leave. It’s only after they leave that Jesus tells the woman “Go and sin no more.”
This story leaves us with a lot of questions. First of which is “What is Jesus writing?” John is silent on the content, but he makes sure to mention the action twice, so it seems there’s some relevance to it. It’s possible that Jesus was simply doing the sort of task we all do while idle, or while bored. Doodling, essentially. It could be he used that kind of action to defuse the situation. The Pharisees came rushing up to him, hopping mad, and repeatedly demanded that Jesus proclaim judgment on whether or not they should stone this woman. Approaching someone in that kind of a rage only to be met with indifferent doodling would probably catch them off guard, and perhaps lower the air of anger amongst them. But is there more to it than that? Was it just a tactic, a psychological game Jesus was playing with them? Or is the actual content of Jesus’ doodles relevant? The Church Fathers seemed to think so. St. Jerome opined, in Against the Pelagians, that what Jesus was writing was, in fact, the sins of the woman’s accusers. They were laying her sin bare before everyone, demanding punishment. Those who are quick to point out others’ sins are often the best at hiding their own. But nothing can be hidden from Christ, who is the Judge. So while they continue to demand they be allowed to enact retribution on her for her sin, Jesus calmly lays their own sins bare in the sand. Notice how they don’t stop accusing and questioning until after Jesus bends down a second time to write some more. Could it be that they were afraid of the further sins Christ would reveal to the people? The irony in the story is that now the sins of all present have been laid bare, before the only one who can forgive them. It’s only the woman who sticks around for absolution: “Go and sin no more.” The Pharisees flee from this forgiveness. They are too afraid of facing the reality of their sins. If they had stayed and faced their judgment, as the woman did, surely Jesus would have forgiven them as well. But they did not. They were so arrogant in their piety, so good at hiding their sin from the world, that they couldn’t bear to have it revealed. I often wonder who I am in this story. Am I the adulterer, the sinner who nonetheless accepts judgment and receives absolution? Or am I a Pharisee, who flees from forgiveness because I care too much about my reputation? Jeremiah 11:18-20 (NRSVCE) It was the Lord who made it known to me, and I knew; then you showed me their evil deeds. But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. And I did not know it was against me that they devised schemes, saying, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will no longer be remembered!” But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously, who try the heart and the mind, let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. The prayer of Jeremiah is difficult to contend with. It appears that Jeremiah is yearning for vengeance. God has revealed to him that the people who he is supposed to preach to are planning evil things, and even planning to have him killed. They plan to “destroy the tree with its fruit,” to cut Jeremiah down in his prime. So Jeremiah prays that God will make retribution on them, and even more, he prays that he can witness that retribution. That certainly sounds like Jeremiah desiring vengeance to me. The trouble is that vengeance is not something I typically associate with righteousness or virtue. Justice, sure. But vengeance carries with it a connotation of a personal slight. “You have wronged me, and I want to hurt you for it. Not because it is just, but because I want you to hurt like I hurt.” We can of course quibble about what “vengeance” may mean, but the point is that in a first look at this verse, that’s the sense I get from Jeremiah. The people have planned to make him suffer, and so he wants to see them suffer. And that seems morally wrong.
But is that really what’s going on here? Jeremiah calls himself a lamb being led to the slaughter. That could just be a complaint. “You sent me to do this, Lord, and you knew they would want to kill me!” And it is that, but it also reveals how Jeremiah views his role as a prophet. He is a lamb, following the direction of his shepherd. He knows it’s not his place to determine where he goes or what he does. He places all his trust in God, and despite the new revelation that he may die for it, he will continue to follow the direction of his shepherd. Because he knows that the shepherd is the ultimate authority. He also knows that he has much more to do as a prophet. He is still producing fruits! Why would God allow a fruitful tree to be cut down?! Beyond his complaints, though, look at his plea. He starts with an acknowledgment that only God judges righteously—the implication being that Jeremiah cannot judge these people despite what God has revealed about their intentions, because he is not the righteous judge. He also specifically says not his own vengeance, but God’s retribution (other translations use “vengeance” there as well). God’s vengeance is not driven by passion, like man’s is. It is not inordinate, seeking to punish more than is deserved. God is the righteous judge, and therefore His vengeance is just. Jeremiah is aware that, though he be a righteous man, a faithful lamb to the shepherd, his sense of justice is not good enough to carry out judgment. Only God can execute that judgment. Lastly, he finishes his plea with “for to you I have committed my cause.” Everything Jeremiah does is because God has set him on this path. God has made him a prophet, and it is a prophet’s role to be faithful lambs, even faithful lambs willing to be led to the slaughter. Jeremiah is not worried about himself, as his complaint may seem at first. He is worried about the cause God has set him toward. He is still bearing fruit! The task given to him is not yet completed! His plea with God is not for his own life, or to right a personal slight against him. His plea is that the cause may continue, for God’s sake. He is not praying “You sent me here to die. Save me, and let me see those who wronged me suffer as they meant for me to suffer!” It is rather “Execute your divine justice, Lord, so that I may continue to bear fruit for you.” That’s not vengeance at all. That’s humility and faithfulness. John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30 (NRSVCE) After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near. But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret. Now some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, “Is not this the man whom they are trying to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah? Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.” Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come. We’re just past the Bread of Life discourse, where the Jews were appalled that Jesus insisted they were to eat his flesh if they wanted eternal life. Because of his radical teaching, and because he is challenging the normal order of things, they want to kill him. Because of this, he has been remaining in Galilee. But for the Festival of Booths, he sneaks away to Jerusalem, and begins teaching openly there. That’s where the people take notice, realizing this is the man who “the Jews” want to kill (“the Jews” being what John uses in his gospel to refer to those Jews who oppose Christ, typically the Jewish authorities). They are shocked that a wanted man like this would be so brazenly preaching in public. If he is guilty of the things they say he is, why is he not afraid? And he can’t possibly be the Messiah the say he claims to be, because we know where he comes from. He’s a Galilean, from Nazareth. He can’t possibly be the Messiah, because no good can come from Nazareth.
Jesus’ response sparks outrage. Yes, they know him. Yes, they know where he comes from. But they do not know the one who sent him. They understand the implication he is making here. They know he is implying that it is God who sent him. If they knew God, they would surely know His Son. And if they knew the Son, they would know the Father. They can’t believe Jesus is the Messiah because they don’t know God, who sent him. Understandably, they are filled with anger. They immediately try to arrest him, presumably to turn him over to “the Jews.” We’re told they never touched him, because “his hour had not yet come.” These weren’t particularly wicked people. These weren’t thieves and murderers, or criminals of some other nature. These were average people, just “some of the people of Jerusalem.” Presumably, they were just as pious as the next guy, going about their daily lives trying to be righteous as best they can. And yet, here comes the Son of God, and they cannot recognize him for who he is. They look at him and see a fraud. How blind they must be to not even recognize the Son of the God they are trying every day to serve! I can’t help but wonder that if these people could not recognize Christ, could I? Am I any better than them? What makes me any different, or special? I do my best to serve God in my daily life just as they did, but still they were blind to his identity. It’s easy to say “Yes, but we know Jesus is the Christ now!” It’s true, we have the luxury of being born in a time after the risen Christ, in the age of the Church. But while that may make more predisposed to recognizing Jesus (and I’m not sure to what degree we can even say that much), it is certainly no guarantee. We still have to struggle with the question. Would we recognize Jesus? Do we know the Father enough that we would recognize His Son? Too often, I worry the answer is “No.” Exodus 32:7-14 (NRSVCE)
There are a few passages in Scripture which seem to present us with a bit of a problem. This one, for example, portrays God in a way that makes it seem like He changed His mind because of what Moses said. There’s also the binding of Isaac, when God seemed to change His mind right before Abraham sacrificed Isaac, and instead provided a ram. The trouble is that God does not change—He is the same eternally. Numbers 23:19 says this explicitly: “God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind. Has he promised, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” So we seem to be left with a bit of a pickle. Either God can change His mind as these verses seem to say, and then Numbers 23 is false, or God never actually changed His mind, in which case what do we make of these passages where it seems that He does?
Well, one thing we do know about God is that He is far beyond our comprehension. We cannot even begin to truly understand His ways or His nature. But the thing is, God still interacts with man, and man with God. God still chooses to reveal things to man, and bless man, and guide man. And in order to do that, God needs to interact with us in a way that we can understand. John Calvin describes it as thus, using the term “repentance” to refer to God “changing his mind”: “Because our weakness cannot reach his height, any description which we receive of him must be lowered to our capacity in order to be intelligible. And the mode of lowering is to represent him not as he really is, but as we conceive of him. Hence, because every change whatever among men is intended as a correction of what displeases, and the correction proceeds form repentance, the same term applied to God simply means that his procedure has changed. In the meantime, there is no inversion of his counsel or will, no change of his affection. What from eternity he had foreseen, approved, decreed, he prosecutes with unvarying uniformity, how sudden soever to the eye of man the variation may seem to be.” -John Calvin (Institutes 1.17.13) What Calvin is pointing out here is that these instances where it appears that God is changing His mind are actually just our limited perception of His actions. It seemed that God wanted to kill all the people of Israel, and it seemed that this desire changed suddenly after Moses made petition. But God never intended to kill all the people (we know this because He did not do it). What we don’t want to say here, in an attempt to make sense of this, is that God deceived Moses by feigning that He would kill the people. God does not deceive. But what we can say, and what Calvin explains above, is that this appearance is us ascribing human qualities and traits to God, in an attempt to understand Him (we would call it “anthropomorphism”). In reality, God knew always that He would show mercy toward the people. It seemed He had a change of heart only because that is how a human would respond. God revealed to Moses that Israel deserved to die for its transgressions, and Moses began pleading for mercy on their behalf. And then God revealed His mercy. There is no change in God, there is only man trying to understand how God makes Himself known to us. But now we come up against the question in this story of why God told Moses that Israel deserved death, if He always intended mercy? If He did not intend to smite them, why bring it up? Because like Abraham and Jacob before him, this is a test for Moses. He is to wrestle, like Jacob did. He is to demonstrate his resolve to lead God’s people, for they have a long way to go to the Promised Land. Notice how God refers to them not as “my people”, but as “your people.” “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.” Moses says the same in return. “Why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?” Moses demonstrates that he understands his role as mediator. He is to stand and lead the people, according to God’s direction. God had no intention of killing the Israelites. But God had every intention of preparing Moses for what was to come. Isaiah 49:8-15 (NRSVCE) Thus says the Lord: In a time of favor I have answered you, on a day of salvation I have helped you; I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages; saying to the prisoners, “Come out,” to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.” They shall feed along the ways, on all the bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. And I will turn all my mountains into a road, and my highways shall be raised up. Lo, these shall come from far away, and lo, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Syene. Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones. But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Israel is in exile. They are despondent. They think God has abandoned them, forgotten about them entirely. What we have here is God’s promise that He has not forgotten the promise He made—the promise that He would be their God. He brings to mind the many times He has helped Israel through troubles, and recalls the promises of prosperity to come. You are in exile now, scrounging for whatever you can get. But soon you will not hunger or thirst, you will not feel the sting of the scorching sun or wind, and rather than being outcasts in the slums of the cities, you will walk along the Lord’s roads. And all those roads shall lead to Israel.
Israel knows of the promises of prosperity. But in times like this, it’s difficult for them to feel hope. The people are at their lowest. Strangers in a hostile land, they have no home to call their own. It’s easy for them to think those promises were abandoned. It’s easy to think God has forgotten them. But God’s response is that though many things can be forgotten, He can never forget Israel. Even a mother may forget her child. The mother loves that baby more than anything, but it can happen that she is distracted and, say, accidentally locks the baby in the car. Or forgets to pick him up from daycare. Despite the strength of her love, that’s the reality of human fallibility. But even that mother loves her child. It’s possible, too, for a mother to not only forget her child, but to have no love for him whatsoever. This is supremely evident today in the culture of death we have created for ourselves, as people continue to fight for the right to kill their children. All of this is possible with fallible human beings. But though it’s possible for a mother to forget her child despite her love, and though it’s possible for a mother to feel no love whatsoever for her child, we are assured that this is never possible with God. Unlike man, God is infallible and immutable. God will never forget us. God will never stop loving us. He has made a covenant with Israel, to be their God. He is not merely “a god.” Or even “God”. He is their God. That is how He identifies Himself. “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” He can never cease being their God, any more than you could cease being who you are. “Their God” is who He is. “Our God” is who He is. John 5:1-16 (NRSVCE)
Yesterday we saw Jesus healing the royal official’s son, and we saw how that indicates that Christ meets us where we are and provides what we need in order to bring us to belief. Belief is the most important thing in John’s Gospel. Jesus stresses it over and over. So it makes sense that he would extend his hand and provide help to bring people to belief. But in today’s reading, we see something even more radical.
Jesus sees the sick man, waiting to enter the healing waters of the pool, and asks if he wishes to be healed. The man responds with what might be called a plea for help, as he clearly needs someone to bring him into the pool. Jesus does help him, but not in the way he expects. Jesus tells him to get up and walk, and immediately he is able to do so. But notice something here. At the end of John 4, Jesus healed the royal official’s son, and because of it the royal official and his entirely household believed. Now, at the start of John 5, Jesus heals someone else who is sick, and we hear nothing of belief. The man leaves. And not only does he leave, when he is confronted by the Jews, he doesn’t hesitate for a moment to point them in Jesus’ direction. “It’s not me you want, but that man!” He didn’t even know the name of the man who healed him. Not only was there no belief, there didn’t even seem to be gratitude. And see again that Jesus finds the man in the temple later. Jesus tells him to not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may happen. Jesus is referring, of course, to the greatest sin: unbelief. The man was healed, and did not believe. Jesus then tells him to believe, lest something worse befall him (i.e., death, which is what sin causes). The man immediately goes to turn Jesus in. Again, there is no belief, no gratitude. Unlike the royal official and his family, this man repeatedly sets himself up against Christ. He rejects Christ twice, without hesitation, even after being given the wondrous sign of miraculous healing. There’s a reason those two stories are placed next to each other. In the first, Jesus reaches out to those who need his help, and who he knows will come to belief if he does. In the second, Jesus knows he will be rejected, but he intervenes anyway. He knows they will not believe, even with these miraculous signs. But still he provides them. Jesus doesn’t just help those who already believe, like his disciples. He doesn’t just help those who have yet to come to believe. He helps even those who he knows will reject him, even knowing that he will be persecuted for it, as he was here. He helps indiscriminately. In every case, he doesn’t hesitate. “Go; your son will live.” “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” Christ’s blessings are for everyone. That’s the message we get from this story. Even when he knows it will incur the wrath of the authorities and people around him, even when he knows it will eventually mean a brutal death for himself, he continues to dole out his blessings. I find that incredibly encouraging. |
ArchivesCategories
All
|