A Look at This Coming Sunday's Bible Lessons (March 8, 2009) (Part 1)

[Regular readers of Better Living know that, each week, I try to take a look at the lessons on which worship for the subsequent Sunday will be built. I do this partly to clarify my own thinking, but also to help the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, the congregation I serve as pastor, to get ready for worship. Because we use a lectionary (that's a plan of Bible readings) associated with the Church Year, a version of which is used by most Christians in the world as they worship each week, I hope that others will find it helpful, too.]

Second Sunday in Lent
March 8, 2009

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

Prayer of the Day
O God, by the passion of Your blessed Son You made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life. Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

General Comments:
1. Go here for a discussion of Lent. (In spite of the title of the linked piece, it contains quite a bit of information about Lent.)

2. The color associated with Lent is purple. Purple, as most children learn, is the color associated with royalty, making the color appropriate for this season that culminates with Jesus' "enthronement" on the cross and the confirmation of His kingship with His resurrection on Easter.

But how exactly did purple come to be associated with royalty, wealth, and power? Purple dyes were the most costly to create and so, the most costly to buy in the ancient world. Only kings and others of great wealth could afford to have anything with purple in it.

In the Roman Empire, the wealthiest and most powerful members of society--the senators--were the only ones who could incorporate purple into their garments. They did so with purple stripes on their togas. (Only the elite could wear togas in public. Others wore simple tunics.)

Purple dye was created from the "glandular fluids of certain types of sea snails in the eastern Mediterranean, known collectively as murex snails." (Since Christianity emerged in Palestine during an era dominated by Greco-Roman culture, you might also be interested in reading The Ancient City by Peter Connolly and Hazel Dodge for fascinating descriptions and illustrations of everyday life in ancient Rome and Athens.)

3. Unlike many Sundays in the Church Year, there is a connection between the first lesson (from Genesis) and the second lesson (from Romans). (The Psalm isn't really counted as a lesson, per se.) The lesson from Genesis recalls a covenant that God made with Abram (later Abraham) and Sarai (later Sarah) to become the ancestors of a generations of believers. What did Abram have to do to be so blessed? Believe in the promise and the promise-maker.

In Romans, Paul underscores that this is all that's required of us today: To believe in the God made known definitively and authoritatively in Jesus.

We cannot earn, any more than Abraham could, the status of righteousness, rightness with God, and with it eternity with God and the presence of God in our daily lives now. That comes as a gift which God confers on sinners who turn from their sin (and its control over their lives) and instead, trust or believe in Jesus (and His control over their lives).

More on the individual texts later in the week.