Our readings today start with a story from the Book of Genesis which, in today’s hyper-sensitive, woke society, must be in some danger of being radically altered if not actually ‘cancelled’ for being offensive to some, and unsuitable for the young. Whatever our own views on such things are though, we must admit, this story about Abram killing and cutting in half various animals as a sign of a covenant between himself and God, is a strange one to us. But then I’m sure that many things we do would be strange to someone of Abram’s day and one very important thing this story does remind us of, is that a covenant is a deal between two parties because, just as we cut a deal, so Abram cut his covenant with God, quite literally in his case.
We read about lots of covenants in the Bible. God makes covenants with individuals, such as this one with Abram, and he makes covenants with groups of people, such as the one with the people of Israel that we read about in the Book of Exodus. In these covenants, as in any deal, there are promises made by the parties concerned. In return for his faith, God promised to give land to Abram’s descendants, and in return for their obedience to the law, God promised the land to those descendants, the people of Israel. As with any deal, all concerned had a responsibility to keep their promises and, as with any deal, if the promises weren’t kept by one party, the other party had no obligation to keep to their side of the deal either. And as we know, the people often didn’t keep their side of the deal and they ended up being exiled from the land God had promised and given them.
A covenant with God always involves a change in the status quo. The person, or people, with whom God makes a covenant are expected to change and become the kind of people God wants them to be and in return, God offers them a reward. As Christians, the covenant we’re most concerned with is what we call the new covenant, the deal we’ve cut with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Under the terms of that covenant, we’re required to have faith in Jesus and to follow his teaching and example and, in return, God promises us eternal life. And this is what St Paul is speaking about in this morning’s reading from his Letter to the Philippians.
Our reading begins with St Paul urging the Philippians to follow his example, the way of life he taught them. If we look at St Paul’s letters in general, that’s a way of life that shows a complete commitment to Jesus as Lord and Saviour. And St Paul says that those who don’t or aren’t doing this are destined to be lost. In other words, if they don’t keep their side of the covenant they’ve made with God, neither will God keep his side of the covenant. Then St Paul speaks about the change that keeping the covenant will bring about. He says,
‘…our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.’
That suggests a change that will take place in the life to come but perhaps what St Paul is really saying is that this is a change that will be completed in the life to come because we know that he believed it was a change that started in this life. It’s a change that begins as we change our mortal lives and conform them to Jesus’ teaching and example.
In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul speaks about the veil that Moses had to place over his face after he’d spoken to the Lord, something he had to do because the Israelites couldn’t bear to look at him because his face shone so brightly with the reflected glory of God. St Paul says that through Christ, the veil has been taken away and we can now see the glory of the Lord. He says,
‘But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.’
So for St Paul, there’s no doubt that this change from what we were to what we should be, from what we are to what we will be, from lowliness to glory, that will be completed in the life to come, begins in this life when we turn to the Lord, to Christ, and we allow the Holy Spirit to enter and guide our lives.
It’s all very well to say that though, the difficulty, as we all know, is in putting it into practice. We’ve all set off on the road to glory, and make no mistake, we have set off on that road, we wouldn’t be in the Church if we hadn’t, but how many degrees do we move before we come to a stop, or even slip back?
If we look at this as a clock face with the lowly, earthly person at the bottom, at ‘6’, and the glorious, heavenly person at the top, at ‘12’, with 180o of glory between them so that they’re exact opposites, then if we’re absolutely honest with ourselves, how far have we moved towards ‘12’ before our ‘clock’ has stopped? And let’s be really honest here, how often have we found ourselves having to reset the clock to ‘6’ and start again?
The difficulty isn’t in believing that we have to make a change from lowliness to glory, it’s not in understanding what we have to do to start making that change, the difficulty is in actually doing something about making that change. One of the great assets we have as Christians though, is that we have lots of help in this respect. We have the lives and examples of the saints, those who’ve struggled to make this change before us. They can guide us. We have each other and that should never be overlooked. We’re all trying to keep the same covenant with God; we’re all on the same journey, and so we can all help each other along the way. That’s exactly what St Paul was doing when he urged the Philippians to follow his example. And of course we have the teaching and example of Jesus himself to show us how to keep the deal we’ve made with God, and the Holy Spirit to guide us when we’re not sure what to do.
One thing we always have to remember is that while Jesus is the divine Son of God, he was also as every bit as human as us and as a fully human being, he was under the terms of a covenant with God too. So Jesus was one of us, a fellow traveller on the road to glory and for that reason, Jesus ticks all the boxes when it come to being able to help us on our journey towards glory.
This morning, we have different Gospel readings at St Mark’s and St Gabriel’s. At St Mark’s we read the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration, the story of Jesus being changed and appearing in glory to Peter, James and John. They saw Jesus in his glorious state. In that moment, Jesus appeared to them as the fulfilment of the law and the prophets, and they heard him acclaimed from heaven as the Son and Chosen One of God. A truly dazzling vision of Jesus in glory.
But at St Gabriel’s we read about a very human Jesus. In this Gospel story, we see Jesus in a quite belligerent mood and even engaging in name calling. When some Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod is looking to kill him, so yes, there were obviously some good Pharisees, Jesus responds by saying,
“Go and tell that fox for me, listen…”
And then, in essence, proceeds to say that he’ll be about his business, whatever Herod wants. Isn’t that exactly how we often react if someone tries to stop us doing what we want to do? And then we find Jesus speaking about his own death, something that, as a human being he had to face up to, as we all have to, eventually. And as he does that, and no doubt thinks about what his death means, what its purpose is, he laments over Jerusalem. He’s deeply, deeply upset because Jerusalem, and by implication, Israel, will not listen to him. They won’t change their ways, they won’t turn to him so that they can see God’s glory openly, with unveiled face, as St Pauls puts it. Because they won’t do that, they can’t begin that degree by degree change from lowliness to glory. But Jesus loves Jerusalem, and so he shows the very human emotion of grief. Some translations say that Jesus even wept for Jerusalem. But even so, Jesus knew the terms of the covenant; if Jerusalem wouldn’t listen then, on their own heads be it. How many times have we reacted in these ways when we’ve tried to help or advise someone, and they wouldn’t listen to us?
So in these two Gospel readings we see two very different images of Jesus. On the one hand we see Jesus in glory, the glory to which we’re called through our obedience to him and to the covenant, the deal we’ve made with God. And on the other hand we see a very human Jesus, a Jesus in the lowly state he shared with us during his earthly life; a Jesus with the very same human thoughts, feelings and emotions that make it so hard for us to change from lowliness to glory, even by degree. This is why Jesus is such a great help to us, not only through his teaching but because his example of keeping to the covenant he had with God is an example of someone who was exactly like us being able to keep to their covenant with God.
As Christians, we have this covenant, this deal we’ve made with God. The deal is that if we have faith in Jesus, if we’re obedient to his teaching and follow his example, we can have eternal life. God doesn’t break his word, so let’s do our best to keep our side of the deal. In Jesus’ Transfiguration, we see the glory to which we’re called, so let’s do as God asked Peter, James and John to do that day and listen to Jesus. Let’s listen to him and try our best to do as he says and to do as he did so that we can have some degree of glory now and have it fully in eternity.
Amen.
The Propers for 2nd Sunday of Lent can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 