THE BIBLE –TODAY’S TREASURE HUNT
COMMENT FOR LENT 3 – 19-03-2006
Exodus 20:1-17
The Hebrew people had a creation story of being made in the divine image. Then came Abraham with his faith story. But after hundreds of years ending in slave conditions, they were in desperate need of these basic rules for a people of faith. Faith in the divine pattern for human life. But that is rather looking at these rules through Christian eyes.
Psalm 19
This great psalm is best read carefully and slowly. In its three main sections it deals first with the created universe where its beauty and order glorifies the Eternal God. Then there is the law of God. Just to think of it revives the soul. So in the face of such wonder, beauty and truth the psalmist faces his own insignificance and lack of worth.
I Corinthians 1: 18-25
Paul is explaining how Jesus, Son of God, submitted to the fate of a vulnerable human being. God is not outside and safe from the violence and death of this world, but as one with the weakest of us He dies a victim’s death. For some this is a scandal while others just can’t see it. Others again discover in His resurrection the real dynamics of the spiritual life.
John 2: 13-22
Two important claims are made in this passage. The first is that Jesus fulfils the temple in the epic of Hebrew history. Therefore his resurrected body will be the real temple and house of prayer for all people and nations. The second is that all he is saying in his three year ministry would be proved as they experienced the ministry of the resurrected Christ.
Question for Lent 3
This Jesus from Nazareth claimed to be the Son of God but identified with the weakest of the human race who are life’s victims.
How does that enlarge our idea of the resurrection?
webmaster@mosm anuniting.org
MOSMAN UNITING CHURCH