Light and Shadow

This article appears in the February 2018 issue of Sojourners magazine. To subscribe, click here .

THIS MONTH SEES several liturgical transitions. Epiphany, the season of light and revelation, comes to a close. Jesus’ transfiguration is its own epiphany. The church enters the season of Lent, beginning with a focus on human frailty and failure—and for many people an evening (or week) of indulgence in things that bring joy, pleasure, and sweetness. The light is still there, but we are peering more intently at the shadows.

The opening prayer for Ash Wednesday in The Book of Common Prayer begins, “Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent.” The readings for the first week present the God whose power and splendor in creation is only matched by her care for her children. The radiance of the transfiguration also shines a light on the ways in which we are not like Jesus, yet he chooses to leave the mount of illumination and return to the world that needs his light. The readings for the third week attend to the world God has made, calling us to care for it in partnership with God. And on the final Sunday, Jesus teaches about his death and resurrection, the greatest transition in the scriptures.

God’s faithful love and care demonstrated through the gift of creation and through the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus are beacons that light the way through these transitions, and those in this world and our own lives. We remember that we are earth and to earth we shall return. In between is light and shadow.

[ February 4 ]

A World Restored

Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-11, 20c, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39

GOD IS WORTHY of our praise. That is the testimony of the psalmist who crafted Psalm 147. God is gracious, a restorer rebuilding that which is broken, gatherer of the world’s outcasts, mender of broken hearts, healer of sorrows (“wounds” in verse 3), and cares for the downtrodden in verses 2, 3, and 6. This is one of the most comforting portraits of God in scripture. God is worthy of our praise and trust and able to bear and transform the ruptures in our souls and in the world.

This portrait of the God who gathers, heals, and restores is made all the more poignant by the reference to Jerusalem and outcasts of Israel (verse 2). That language strongly suggests the psalm be read in light of the fall of Jerusalem in the sixth century B.C.E., the most devastating event in Israel’s history to that time. Even if the psalm is set after a different conflict, the psalmist is praising God for a restoration that is not yet manifest. Her world is still broken.

The psalmist has read God’s résumé in creation. God determined the number and names of the stars. God clothed the heaven with clouds and waters the earth, tending to the thirst of the earth, and providing food even for unclean animals. God’s praiseworthiness is demonstrated in faithfulness as well as in power. In a world riven by conflict within and between individuals, communities, and nations, and between humanity and the earth itself, this psalm offers a vision of a world restored, no matter how deep the ruptures.

[ February 11 ]

Light of God

2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9

GOD IS LIGHT. Each lesson for Transfiguration Sunday reveals divine light: the chariot of fire in 2 Kings 2:11, “God shines forth” in Psalm 50:2, the light of the gospel in 2 Corinthians 4:4, and the transfiguration of Jesus in Mark 9:2.

In each, God’s glory touches the earth. Elijah ascends bodily into heaven on heaven’s own fire chariot. In the psalm, God’s glory shines from Zion here on earth, Jerusalem. In the epistle, the glory of God shines forth from the face of Christ. In the gospel, Jesus not only walks the earth as the embodiment of God’s glory, but also reveals a glimpse of that glory in his transfiguration.

The worlds in which these texts are set include brutal wars, occupation, colonization, slavery, financial exploitation, and interpersonal violence. And yet God chooses to dwell among her people, accompanying them through the perils of a very broken world. These texts testify to God’s presence in our world as well; we are every bit as broken and God is every bit as present. In a world deluged by floods, shaken by architectural and economic collapses, and bruised by violence between persons and nations, the enduring presence and undimmed glory of God is a beacon of hope and comfort.

Liturgically speaking, the transfiguration is the predecessor to Lent. Jesus and the disciples will leave the mountain and its glory behind and descend into the brokenness of the world to live out their callings just as the church heeds the call to Lenten disciplines amid the troubles of the world.

[ February 18 ]

Covenant Partners

Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-10;1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15

Noah and God made a covenant (Genesis 9) that is binding on us today. We are partners in it with all creation. The covenant between God and Noah is not just with Noah or he and his immediate family, but also with all his descendants—and with every living creature on earth represented by the animals on the ark. It does not end with the passing of that generation. This text is a lesson in ecology, teaching we are all responsible for safeguarding creation, in partnership with creation.

Of the two groups—humans and the rest of creation—it is clear that it is humans who are out of sync with creation, leaving lasting, often irreversible devastation in our wake. Nature’s destruction, from predation to earthquakes and whirling storms, often balance the natural equation even when human property and possessions are devastated.

Nature’s fury is terrifying. We are terrified in its face and traumatized in its wake. Our biblical ancestors, like other ancient humans, looked to the skies through which lightening shot as though from a bow and saw in the arc of the rainbow the template for a divine weapon. In Genesis, the weapon of divine warfare becomes the sign of a promise of survival. The rabbis believed that Noah’s ark and this cosmic covenant gestured toward the Ark of the Covenant, as both arks would safeguard the people of God.

It will still storm and flood. But we as a species will survive. Unless, perhaps, our survival depends on our care of the earth.

[ February 25 ]

Son of Woman

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:23-31; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38

While there may be some speculation about the identity, and hence nature, of Jesus’ father, there is generally none about his mother, the fully human Palestinian Jewish young Miriam called Mary. Mark 8:31-38 presents the human and divine aspects of Jesus’ natures. He is fully incarnate here, mortal and immortal: Son of Woman.

Jesus is also living fully in the shadow of his impending death. There is perhaps nothing more truly human. He teaches his disciples that he will certainly die and suffer along the way and—in the same breath—that he will rise again on the third day, all in the same verse (Mark 8:31). Christians often rush to the resurrection, neglect the crucifixion, and avoid at almost all costs the period that Jesus lay dead. The season of Lent bids us sit at the foot of the cross and in the shadow of the tomb.

It is not just Jesus’ death that we shrink from. Death may be our constant companion and most frequent one, but she is an unwelcome one. Many don’t plan for their deaths or those of their dear ones and don’t talk about death, sometimes not even at funerals. Lent provides an opportunity for us to reflect on our own mortality.

We, like Jesus, are woman-born. And we, like him, shall die. Jesus calls us to follow in this life-space between birth and death. It is in our shared humanity that we are called by the Son of Woman. Jesus bids us to follow and live in the knowledge of the certainty of our deaths. 

“Preaching the Word,” Sojourners’ online resource for sermon preparation and Bible study, is available at sojo.net/ptw.