Tag: Exodus

Between a rock and a hard place: a reflection for Ash Wednesday Year A

So here we are, caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock and the hard place are provided, in the lectionary which we follow, by the Sunday readings which bookmark this day, from the last Sunday of Epiphany, before today, and the first Sunday of Lent, after today.

Matthew 17

This is the rock. It is encountered on the top of the mountain. The mountain, of course, was made of rock. And yet, this is not the hard igneous rock, or the more malleable sedimentary rock, which presses against us, from the story. For it was on this mountain, the traditional place of encounter with the Holy One, blessed be he, the place where revelation of the Divine would take place, that the rock of belief in Jesus was shaped, and made manifest, and imprinted on the minds and hearts of the disciples who were there.

For on the top of the rock, Jesus was seen to be a great one, comfortably at home alongside the existing greats of the faith, Elijah the prophet and Moses the Lawgiver. On the mountain was the place of glorious revelation, as a magically translucent light shone forth, from Jesus, over the disciples, conveying penetrating insight, illuminating a divine truth, revealing the essence of Jesus: “This is. my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” He was, then not only among the great ones; he was the great one.

But such revelation, as gloriously indulgent as it might seem, also brings a sharp edge: the confrontation of standing in the very presence of the glory of the Holy One, blessed be He, the challenge of knowing that, once you have seen this reality, your life will be different. There is no turning back. You are now a follower of the man of Nazareth; a man who has the capacity to bring you closer than you ever imagined into the awesome and awful presence of the holy one, blessed be his name. You are marked, charged, and equipped for the life of discipleship by virtue of the vision in the rock which has claimed you as God’s.

That is the rock. What of the hard place?

Matthew 4

The hard place is out in the wilderness, away from the towns, in the desert area which appears, to all intents and purposes, to be harsh, stringent, and utterly challenging to life. It is the place where Israel struggled, complained, and debated, for “a heaps long, long time” (that’s my translation of forty years). And it’s the place where Jesus struggled, debated, and resisted, for “a mighty long time” (that is, in biblical-speak, for forty days).

Of course, it was in the wilderness that Israel came to know its essential identity: a people, beloved by God, rescued from slavery, called into covenant, equipped for the battles of entry into the land, as the great myth from the past declared. “You shall be my people, and I shall be your God”, and so the terms of the covenant were sealed.

And it was in the wilderness that Jesus came to know his destiny and the integrity of his life: as the one who was not the showman, turning stones into bread; as the one who was not the magician, able to levitate, float, defy gravity; and as the one who was not invested with power and authority to trump his greatness over the peoples of the earth. It was in the wilderness that Jesus came to know his identity as the Son of the Holy One, blessed be he; and to know of his mission as the one specifically chosen by that Holy One, blessed be he.

From this time on, says Matthew, Jesus preached his ominous clarion call: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” And the pressing urgency of this message, the confrontation of this call, scratches at our ears and agitates our hearts. How can we not be disturbed by this Gospel? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

How can we not feel hard pressed, faithfully following the man of Nazareth, yet dazzled by his demanding call, joyously celebrating his transfigured glory, yet humbled by the mission of repentance, to which he insistently invites us.

So Lent offers a time of reflection, perhaps of sacrificial abstinence. A call to follow, knowing that this is no ordinary journey, this is no ordinary man. Each one of us has been stirred, provoked, perhaps upended, by just such a call. We are caught in between a rock and a hard place, between the joy of being in the presence of the transfigured one, and the dawning reality of just what it will mean to repent, to turn around, to engage in the mission. And that is what Lent will offer us, each day, each week, through this period of preparation.

May you be faithful to respond to the call, to experience and endure and appreciate what it means to be squeezed between the rock and the hard place, to dedicate yourself to service as a disciple and to follow the pathway set out by the man of Nazareth.

*****

This reflection was offered to candidates for ministry in the Perth Theological Hall in March 2017.

See also

https://johntsquires.com/2023/02/20/gracious-and-merciful-abounding-in-steadfast-love-joel-2-ash-wednesday/
https://johntsquires.com/2023/02/21/practising-righteous-justice-alms-prayer-and-fasting-ash-wednesday/

A blaze of glory, to end Epiphany (Exod 24 and Matt 17; Transfiguration A)

The season of Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of God in Jesus, the one chosen by God to show God’s love to the world. Running through many of the scripture passages offered by the lectionary for this season in Year A is the motif of light—for light illumines, light reveals. The passages remind us that God’s light shines brightly on our lives. See

https://johntsquires.com/2023/01/12/appropriating-prophetic-passages-in-the-season-of-epiphany-isa-49-epiphany-2a/

This coming Sunday is the last Sunday in the season of Epiphany, and the readings for this Sunday do no disappoint in this regard. A theme of light runs through the readings: the appearance of the glory of the Lord” on Mount Sinai (Exod 24:17), the transformation of the appearance of Jesus as “he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white” (Matt 17:2), and a reminiscence of that event from one who styles himself as one of the “eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Pet 1:16).

Light first figures in the biblical narrative in the Priestly narrative of creation that was placed at the head of the Torah, when the first word from God’s mouth was, “‘Let there be light’”; and there was light” (Gen 1:3; see also Job 12:22). Light is the companion to the Israelites as the traversed the wilderness: “the Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light” (Exod 13:21; see also Neh 9:12).

Light was to burn constantly in the Tabernacle: “command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil of beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly. Aaron shall set it up in the tent of meeting, outside the curtain of the covenant, to burn from evening to morning before the Lord regularly” (Lev 24:2–3). In Numbers, the command is for seven golden lamps to shine forth light (Num 8:1–4).

In David’s last words, he sings an inspired song about the king as one “who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, [who] is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land” (2 Sam 23:3–4). In this regard, the king reflects the Lord God, for “he will make your vindication shine like the light, and the justice of your cause like the noonday” (Ps 37:5–6). Many centuries later, the prophet Daniel would declare that God “reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him” (Dan 5:22).

In like fashion, the psalmist sings, “the Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” (Ps 27:1), rejoices that God is “clothed with honour and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment” (Ps 104:1–2), and prays, “ let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord!” (Ps 4:6). “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”, the writer of the longest psalm sings (Ps 119:105), rejoicing that “the unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple” (Ps 119:130). The same thought appears in Proverbs: “the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light” (Prov 6:23), and “the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day” (Prov 4:18).

Israel’s vocation, according to the exilic prophet whose words are included in the scroll of Isaiah, is to be “a covenant to the people, a light to the nations” (Isa 42:6, Epiphany 1A), “a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isa 49:6, Epiphany 2A). That same prophet evokes the creation story, affirming that “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things” (Isa 45:7), and reminds the people that God promises, “a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples” (Isa 51:4). Later, after returning from exile, another prophet rejoices in the bright shining of the light of the Lord (Isa 60:1–3, set for the day of the Epiphany).

This theme extends the call of the prophet Isaiah himself, who cries, “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” (Isa 2:5) and foresees a time when “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined” (Isa 9:2, Epiphany 3A). For Micah, realisation of the scale of injustice within Israel lads him not only to call the the people “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8, Epiphany 4A), but also leads him to express his deep penitence: “when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me … he will bring me out to the light; I shall see his vindication” (Mic 7:8–9).

The prophet Isaiah also links light with judgement, declaring that “the light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame; and it will burn and devour his thorns and briers in one day; the glory of his forest and his fruitful land the Lord will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when an invalid wastes away” (Isa 10:17; see also 13:10–11

Other prophets use the absence of light—the presence of darkness—as a symbol for divine judgement in the face of human sinfulness (Amos 5:18–20; Jer 4:23; 13:16; 25:10; Lam 3:1–3; Ezek 32:7–8), although in his apocalyptic mode, Isaiah offers hope using this image: “the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days, on the day when the Lord binds up the injuries of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow” (Isa 30:26).

In Third Isaiah this promise blossoms wonderfully: “the sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended” (Isa 60:19–20). For Zechariah, the apocalyptic vision of the final victory of the Lord includes the affirmation that “ there shall be continuous day (it is known to the Lord), not day and not night, for at evening time there shall be light” (Zech 14:7).

Light, of course, forms one of the famous “I Am”affirmations that Jesus makes of himself in John’s Gospel (John 8:12; 9:5; see also 1:4–9; 3:19–21; 11:9–10; 12:35–36, 46) and the description of his faithful followers as “the light of the world” (Matt 5:14, 16). Paul rejoiced that “it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6).

He urged believers to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light” (Rom 13:12) and affirmed that they are “all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness” (1 Thess 5:5). He rejoices that “it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6).

The author of 1 John also uses this imagery to affirm that “ God is light” (1 John 1:5) and advises believers, “if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7; 2:10). The final vision of Revelation includes a description of the servants of the Lamb, noting that “there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (Rev 22:5); indeed, “the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb; the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it” (Rev 21:23–24).

So the readings for this Sunday express a strong biblical theme that has run from the opening story of creation, through the story of Israel and the movement initiated by Jesus, to the vision of the promised future. What has been to the fore throughout Epiphany climaxes atop the mountains where Moses receives and Jesus interprets the Torah, with the appearance of “the glory of the Lord … like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel” on Mount Sinai (Exod 24:17) and the glittering transformation of the appearance of Jesus as “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white” (Matt 17:2).