Opportunity for Repentance

Third Sunday in Lent (Year C)

Luke 13.1-9

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Live Streamed on Parish Facebook page (beginning at 27:40)

 

Why do bad things happen? Such a broad and complex topic. Of course, the answer—if there even is a correct answer—depends on perspective. Depends on the lens through which one chooses to evaluate the particular circumstances of any given situation. As our understanding of the universe has increased, the range of possible answers seem to broaden rather than narrow. The whole notion of quantum physics alone throws such a monkey wrench into the works that an absolute answer may never be found.

 

For the ancients, with a much simpler worldview—and even for many in our own day—the answer is clear. Bad things happen because the gods—or, in our case, the One God—was angry. Bad things happen because of God’s wrath. Suffering was often viewed as punishment for sin. Even when bad things happened to those who were apparently good and righteous, there must have been some hidden sin, some unknown transgression, that was being punished. And in some cases, if there was no actual transgression, the punishment must have been for a sin committed by a parent or ancestor or other relative. Right in Exodus, when God gives the Ten Commandments to Moses, God specifically says, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquities of parents, to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me” (Ex 20.5b). Although, this is also countered elsewhere in Scripture. And yet, this perspective continued—and continues—in a generalized form, of suffering being the wages for sin.

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Lenten Exam

First Sunday in Lent (Year C)

Luke 4.1-13

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Live Streamed on Parish Facebook page (beginning at 33:10)

 

This is the first Sunday in our annual Lenten journey. The forty-day duration is meant to call to mind two other significant “forties” in Scripture. The first is the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness being tempted and tested by the devil—the account of which we just heard in our Gospel reading. A period which, itself, is meant to call to mind the second of the “forties”: the forty years the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness following their liberation from slavery in Egypt, as they made their way to the Promised Land.

 

There are two common themes—maybe more, but we will focus on two—between Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness and the Hebrews’ forty years in the wilderness. The first is the commonality of the duration: forty—be it days or years. In ancient scripture, forty was a shorthand way of indicating a long time. Generally, a long period that was meant to be transitional, even transformational. A time in preparation for something new.

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Do Our Faces Shine?

Last Sunday after the Epiphany (Year C)

Exodus 34.29-35; 2 Corinthians 3.12-4.2; Luke 9.28-36

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Live Streamed on Parish Facebook page (beginning at 23:25)

 

Throughout Epiphanytide—our celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany and the season that follows—we have explored the many and varied ways in which Jesus is revealed as Messiah for all people. In the process, also seeking to discern what this means for those of us who seek to follow him. Catching glimpses here and there of his glory, of God’s glory, shining in our own lives. Today we come to the end of our annual Epiphanytide journey by traveling with Jesus and his closest disciples—Peter, James, and John—up the Mount of the Transfiguration. A journey in which we witness the ultimate expression thus far of who Jesus is as Messiah. A climactic event bringing together all aspects of what it means for Jesus to be Messiah for all people. An event eclipsed only by what it foreshadows, by what we will witness at the end of the next season we are preparing to enter.

 

As this journey up that mountain begins, there is no indication of anything special. Today’s journey up the mountain appears to be just an ordinary day-in-the-life for Jesus. He often went away by himself, often to a mountaintop, to pray. To recharge and reconnect with God. But this was different. He took Peter, James, and John with him. His chief lieutenants. Jesus obviously has something important in mind. They are to be witnesses—and in the fullness of time, to bear witness—to the ultimate revelation of who he is. The symbolism of what unfolds on the Mount of the Transfiguration is so rich, bringing together so much of who Jesus is, so much of what his life is about, so much of what he will continue to accomplish beyond his earthly life. Each detail revealing more.

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