John Shearman's Lectionary

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 7, 2010

ISAIAH 6:1-13. Here we have another classic example of a prophet called to a special ministry. As the smoke of the morning sacrifice wafted through the temple, Isaiah had a vision and heard an angelic voice praising the holiness of God. He then realized his own and his fellow Israelites’ unworthiness before God. One of the angelic beings touched his lips with a live coal, thus cleansing him to speak. Isaiah heard the voice of God calling for a messenger and he responded. But the message God gave him to deliver was one of unmitigated judgment.

PSALM 138. Unlike most of the psalms, this hymn of thanksgiving by an individual is thought to be from a small “Davidic collection.” (Psalms 138-145.) This meant that it was ascribed to King David rather than being composed by him. It expresses gratitude for God’s blessing as well as trust in God’s love and purpose.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-11. In this passage beginning his great confession of the resurrection, Paul states as simply as possible what he had learned from the apostles. He had met some of them – notably Peter (Cephas) and James – in Jerusalem when he returned there some time after his conversion. First, he concentrated on the facts he had been told. Could this summary have been what the apostles in the earliest Christian community were teaching in the first years after the resurrection? Then he too makes his claim as “the least of the apostles” and reiterates his dependence on God’s grace for that.

LUKE 5:1-11. Behind the gospels as we now have them, there was a long tradition of stories about Jesus’ teaching and miracles repeated by word of mouth before being put into written form. Toward the end of the 1st century CE Luke gave a much more elaborate story than either Mark or Matthew. He connects this story of a miraculous catch of fish with the calling of the first disciples. John tells it as one of Jesus’ resurrection appearances (John 21). Taken together, the tradition represents a promise of the ultimate success of the apostolic mission.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

ISAIAH 6:1-13. Here we have another classic example of a prophet called to a special ministry. My OT professor, the late Rev. Dr. R.B.Y Scott, made this passage the starting point for his lectures on prophecy. He had written a highly regarded book, The Relevance of the Prophets, and at the time he was lecturing to us at McGill in 1948, he was writing the introduction and exegesis of Isaiah 1-39 for The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 5. His analysis of this passage in this latter volume is a valuable contribution to the understanding of prophetic visions and oracles.

The ancient temple in Jerusalem faced east. The daily sacrifice was offered as the sun rose over the horizon formed by the Mount of Olives. Rays from the rising sun flooded into the temple through its great doors causing its burnished gold and copper accouterments to shine gloriously. As the smoke of the morning sacrifice wafted through the temple, Isaiah, saw a vision and heard angelic voices praising the holiness of God.

Isaiah was possibly a cousin and certainly a courtier of King Uzziah, who had just died. Uzziah’s reign was one of the longest of the kings of Judah, 783-742 BCE. In his last years he suffered from leprosy and was replaced by his son Jotham as regent. This was also the time when Assyrian power was on the rise throughout ancient Mesopotamia and the wider Middle East. Uzziah’s reign included an expansion into both Philistine territory to the west that controlled trade routes to Egypt and Edom, to the south where there were valuable trade routes to Arabia. As the prophecies of Amos and Micah also reveal, this was a very prosperous period in the nation’s history.

In this passage Isaiah was in mourning and went into the temple, as was his wont, to offer a lament. As he worshiped in the familiar surroundings, he sensed the divine presence in a dramatic new way. God, of course, is invisible; yet Isaiah did have such a vision. Or was it just the hem of God’s robe and the attending seraphim, which represented the divine presence to him? Quickly afterward, Isaiah recognized his own unworthiness before God and that of his fellow Judeans. The experience overwhelmed him. That he should become the prophet to proclaim God’s judgment on his nation’s moral and spiritual decay was furthest from his imagination. Great revelations come to faithful men and women in the midst of the mundane experiences of life.

In Isaiah’s vision, one of the angelic beings touched his lips with a live coal from the altar, thus cleansing him to speak for God. He heard the voice of God calling for a messenger and he responded, “Here am I, send me.” But the message God gave him to deliver was one of unmitigated judgment. It must have been a fear-filled experience. To be called to speak God’s judgment against his own people would have frightened the most courageous of men or women in that day of woeful events as is in ours. One only has to hear or see to the attack ads created for contemporary political campaigns to realize how much the prophet exposes him or herself to community ridicule.

Yet there are men and women willing to present the divine alternatives to our petty human machinations of history. The people are the ground-breakers for new advances in faith and witness to the purposes of God in the world. It was so for Isaiah, who with Amos and Micah in the late 8th century BCE set forth a vision of divine justice and righteousness which remains as convincing for us as it was for them. These elements of Israelite prophecy had close affinity to the actual events of that time when the great empires of Assyria and Egypt were in conflict. Israel, the northern kingdom, and Judea itself was constantly threatened with invasion and the imposition of foreign religious practices.

PSALM 138. Unlike most of the psalms, this hymn of thanksgiving by an individual is thought to be from a small “Davidic collection.” (Psalms 138-145.) This meant that it was ascribed to King David rather than being composed by him.

There are some twenty such hymns of thanksgiving by individuals preserved in the religious literature of Israel. Isaiah 38:10-20 and Jonah 2:2-9 are examples found in the OT. The apocryphal books of Ecclessiasticus (Sirach), the Psalms of Solomon and the Odes of Solomon contain others.

Like most others, this psalm is from a post-exilic date. The absence of any thanksgiving sacrifice points to an unusual level of spiritual development rarely found except in some of the prophetic literature which condemned the temple sacrifices. Or it may date from a time before the reconstruction of the temple when the normal sacrifices could not be celebrated. It also reflects a universalism echoing that of Second Isaiah (vss. 4-6) for earthly kings are said to worship God as do the humble; and God does not despise their praise. The psalm ends with an declaration of trust in God’s love and purpose. Vs. 8 certainly provides a very preachable text.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-11. Paul states as simply as possible what he had learned from the apostles whom he met in Jerusalem when he returned there some time after his conversion. This probably occurred less than a decade after the resurrection. Some scholars believe it may have been no more than a year or two. Could this have been an early Christian creed? It summarizes what the apostles were teaching in those first years after that momentous event when the apostolic church was feeling the full flush of its new faith.

One point stands out in Paul’s repetition of this statement of faith. To him, the resurrection was something experienced by those few who had seen and spoken with the risen Christ. It was also Paul’s firm conviction that the same risen Lord had appeared to him on the Damascus Road. The ambiguity between faith and fact remains with the Christian community to this day. Faith does not attempt to be factual. Rather it expresses a spiritual interpretation of deep and often inexplicable psychic experiences. It uses the language of image, symbol and metaphor to describe what persons of faith have experienced amid the ebb and flow of ordinary events which a reporter or historian might well record differently as observed facts or strange myths.

The resurrection experience symbolized for Paul and the other apostles that Jesus Christ, who had been executed as a criminal, was very much alive. Death had not conquered him; he had conquered death and was now with them in spirit. There were still many living in Paul’s time who could testify to this experience. The reference to the risen Christ’s appearance to five hundred people may be an alternate reminiscence of Pentecost as that event had been told to Paul by the apostolic community.

Quite possibly Paul was the first to connect the death of Christ to the ancient Israelite tradition that sin could be forgiven by the shedding of blood. This belief had its roots in the ancient practices of offering sacrifices to the deity common to all ancient religious traditions. In some traditions human sacrifice had also been quite commonly practiced. Even in Israel as late as the 7th century BCE reign of Manasseh (ca. 687-642 BCE) there had been evidence of this. Among the Jews, animal sacrifice in lieu of human sacrifice was related closely to the celebration of the both Passover and Yom Kippur. In this context Paul interpreted the crucifixion of Jesus as a self-offering which had a similar effect of dealing with the human problem of sin and alienation from God.

Note too that Paul adds himself as “the least of the apostles.” One view of the narrative in Acts presents Paul and Peter as rivals for leadership of the Gentile mission. In Galatians and here, Paul gives some basis for this hypothesis. He numbers himself among the apostles, though with self-deprecating diminution. He goes on to reiterate his total dependence on God’s grace for his status and gives his fellow apostles credit where credit is due. They all share the resurrection faith which is the heart of the gospel for us as well.

LUKE 5:1-11. (Author’s note: This passage is also covered in a new blog posted here: http://studiesinluke.blogspot.com. Look on the list to the left for #7 – Calling The First Disciples. The content of this blog introduced a Bible study with a group of seniors at Glen Abbey United Church, Oakville,ON, Canada.)

Luke tells this story of a miraculous catch of fish in connection with the calling of the first disciples. His version is much more elaborate than the brief accounts of Mark and Matthew. John tells it as one of Jesus’ resurrection appearances (John 21). Behind the gospels as we now have them, there was a long tradition of stories about Jesus’ teaching and miracles repeated by word of mouth before being put into written form. Assuming that all versions referred to the same event, which some commentators doubt, they speak to the future mission of the apostolic church. It appears to be a promise of ultimate success though not without long and difficult toil on the part of the disciple community.

At first, the ekklesia (i.e. the apostolic church) meant simply a group of Jews of humble origins, many of them unlettered and poverty stricken, who had responded to the preaching of Jesus and believed in his resurrection. Then as now, fishing was not always a lucrative occupation, but one which required much skill and patience, hard work and long hours. These men were partners in a small business in which they had invested their whole lives. Catching and marketing of fresh fish, a major food in Galilee at the time, was not always a profitable trade. In that climate, the fish would have to be caught during the night and sold in the marketplace within a few hours. Often the results were disappointing. However, this story is told for its metaphorical significance rather than as a factual vignette of the harsh life of the Galilean fisherman.

Luke has a way of weaving the whole tradition into his story as he tells it. His audience was two generations removed from the events he narrates and unfamiliar with the places in which those events occurred. So he did not have to be concerned about chronological order. His intent was primarily evangelical. For instance, he has Peter call Jesus first “Master,” then “Lord.” Those are titles which Luke reserves for disciples. Non-disciples used the term, “Teacher.” The title “Lord” appears in Luke twenty-one times; twelve of them in pericopes peculiar to Luke. It can be argued that here Luke was thinking in post-resurrection terms when the apostles had fully realized that Jesus was the Messiah for whom such a title was appropriate. As has been pointed out many times, the original creed of the apostolic church was the simple statement, “Jesus is Lord.”

So also Peter’s confession of sinfulness in his plea that Jesus depart from him is appropriate to a post-resurrection attitude. It reiterates the gospel call to repentance as the antecedent to Christian discipleship. Luke had emphasized this as the message John the Baptist had preached (3:1-20) and which Peter had also proclaimed in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:38. It may also have some reference to Peter’s denial of Jesus in the court of the house of Caiaphas (22:54-60).

The late Professor G. B. Caird pointed to Jesus’ choice of these “hard-working but intensely loyal men, ever aware of their own shortcomings, as those whom he needed to carry the gospel into the world.” Does not the present evangelistic environment call for a disciple community of similarly dedicated, loyal and hard-working persons? Certainly not those who may lay claim to moral perfection or spiritual greatness would not fit the requirements. Caird’s analysis of this passage is a valuable contribution to the understanding of how prophetic visions and oracles affect us: “On Simon at least the impact he made was a profoundly moral one, resulting in a sense of sin. It was not the miracle that brought him to his knees but the grandeur of sheer goodness.” (Caird, G.B. Saint Luke. The Pelican New Testament Commentary, 1965.)

INTRODUCTION OF THE SCRIPTURE
SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
JANUARY 17, 2010

ISAIAH 62:1-5. The return of the exiles and the rebuilding of Jerusalem is the constant theme of Second-Isaiah, as scholars have named the unknown poet-prophet of Israel’s exile in Babylon. He either composed or inspired his disciples to write the poetry now contained in Isaiah 40-66.

This is part of the last of a trilogy of poems in Isaiah 60-62 emphasizing the promised return and reconstruction resulting from Israel’s special relationship with God. Vss. 4-5 of this passage likens this relationship to a renewed marriage covenant. This special, intimate relationship with God motivates much of the tenacity of many Jews have for the modern state of Israel today.

PSALM 36:5-10. The steadfast love of God for Israel and for the whole of creation brings praise to the lips of the faithful and a prayer that this love with continue for “the upright of heart.”

1 CORINTHIANS 12:1-11. Paul had many difficulties teaching the new converts in Corinth just what it meant to believe in Jesus as Lord and follow his way of life. A major disagreement had arisen as to which of the gifts of the Spirit were the more important. Here Paul points out that all gifts come from the same Spirit of God, serve different purposes in the Christian community, and yet contribute to the common good. The issue still has relevance for our modern congregations. Each member may have a different role to play depending on his or her particular talents.

JOHN 2:1-11. John’s Gospel took its shape from a series of signs revealing Jesus as the Messiah, Son of God, and Saviour of the world. This miracle story described the first of these signs. Some regard it as the moment of Jesus’ revelation of himself to his own family and to those who knew him.

The marriage feast at Cana symbolized that the messianic age had begun. The changing of water for ritual purification to wine for the marriage feast indicated that Jesus would reinterpret Jewish religious tradition for the new age he inaugurated.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

ISAIAH 62:1-5. The themes of return of the exiles from Babylon and the rebuilding of Jerusalem resound through all the writings of Second-Isaiah, as scholars have named the unknown poet-prophet of Israel’s exile in Babylon. Much of the latter part of the Book of Isaiah (chs. 40-66) are believed to have come either from him or from a coterie of his disciples, sometimes called Third-Isaiah in scholarly circles. This brief passage joyfully reiterates this promise of return and reconstruction.

 The trilogy of poems in Isaiah 60-62, of which this excerpt formed the last part, emphasized the promised return and reconstruction resulting from Israel’s special relationship with God. This stands out in vs. 1 where the prophet, speaking for Yahweh, declares Yahweh’s passion as the initiator of this historic event. This further divine action in Israel’s faith-history occurred so that Israel might fulfill its divinely appointed mission. Vs. 2 clarifies this special role among the nations as ordained by Yahweh. The returning exiles will receive a new name indicative of a renewed relationship with Yahweh in accord with Yahweh’s eternal purpose. Since names in the prophetic tradition had special significance and tended to define the nominee’s character and purpose, the giving of a new name was, in effect, a confirmation of this purpose. (Cf. Gen. 32:28; Is. 7:3; 9:6, etc.)

The mission was to be messianic in the monarchical rather than a salvatory sense, as “the crown of beauty … a royal diadem” in vs. 3 states. The image is that of Israel as the crown in the hand of Yahweh, sovereign of the nation, in much the same way that the image of a protective patron deity of ancient cities crowned the city walls.

Vss. 4-5 introduce a different image, likening the relationship of Yahweh and Israel to a renewed marriage covenant. (cf. Hosea 2 and similar metaphors in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.) Though all the names in Hebrew in this passage ended in ‘AH,’ (or YAH) representing Yahweh, the new relationship was represented by the new names Hephzibah, “My delight is in her,” and Beulah, “Married.” These names revealed Yahweh’s love for Israel above all other nations. There may even have been undertones of the pagan sexual relationship with deity found in other traditions of this period.

The passage has relevance for the current crisis in the Middle East. The special, intimate relationship with God motivates much of the tenacity many Jews have for the modern state of Israel today. Yet it has to be admitted that most people, even in Israel itself where a majority are non-religious Jews, do not share a similar view. History is rarely kind to religious ideologies. Is democratic idealism always the will of God for every nation?

The issue in the Holy Land today has become one of a geopolitical conflict between a strong religious nationalism and the rights of Palestinian Arabs. The Arabs moved aggressively into a vacuum left by the decline of Roman and Byzantine empires. But most Jews had been driven out of the land to become a global diaspora long before that. Twentieth century geopolitics recreated and has sustained Israel as a viable state. Both Arabs and Jews now claim the right to live where their ancestors settled long ago. After more than six decades this conflict still festers as both parties often function as pawns in much larger geopolitical struggles.

Christian churches have not helped by taking one side or the other in this conflict. Most have been motivated by differing theological stances. Even when one believes fervently in God as Lord of history, events in the world are always the result of human interaction, rarely motivated by profound discernment of God’s will and purpose. On the other hand, it is never easy to discern where justice lies or how one position or the other relates to the divine will. The debate regarding the involvement of Christians in political issues between Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr has never been satisfactorily settled. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one who struggled with this issue in a very personal and sacrificial way.

PSALM 36: 5-10. The steadfast love of Yahweh for Israel and for the whole of creation brings praise for the goodness of Yahweh to the lips of the faithful. The psalm concludes with a prayer that this love with continue for “the upright of heart.”

This abbreviated reading provides a fascinating counterpoint to the first four verses of the psalm which have been excluded from the lectionary. Most commentators agree that the two parts probably represent two originally separate compositions which a later editor brought together. Yet they complement each other in such a way that two conflicting ways of life are cast in bold relief. The first (vss. 1-4) is said to belong to the category of Israel’s Wisdom literature, with special affinity with Proverbs. It emphasizes the way in which people of lesser moral character flatter and deceive themselves, and secretly plot mischievous misbehavior. This theme appears to have been picked up in the concluding verses (vss. 11-12). The part included in this reading (vss. 5-10), reflects the sovereignty and universalism of divine providence characteristic of the later prophet-poets like Second Isaiah and Job.

Vss. 10-12 raise a question that still troubles many modern Christians. Does God love only the faithful and morally upright? Is divine love exclusive? The covenant motif of the OT did have a strong ethical component which finds wide expression in the psalms. The opening verses of this psalm exhibit this aspect of the Hebrew tradition. The second part of the psalm reveals a more tolerant view found in the prophecy of Second Isaiah. Vs. 6, for instance, extends Yahweh’s steadfast love to animals as well as humans. Vs. 7 includes all people, not just Israel, within the purview of divine protection and providence.

The New Testament goes much farther. The Gospels in particular show unequivocally that God’s love extends even to those most alienated from God and immoral in their behavior. Is it not possible that the Islamic prayer Sadam Hussein offered on the gallows which seconds later ended his life were sincerely offered? However, God loves sinners like us so that we may respond to that love by changing our ways and seeking to follow Jesus in all we say and do. Jesus came to reconcile us all to God by revealing just how much God does love us and wants us to learn from Jesus how to live in a loving relationship with God, with all other people, and with the planet Earth on which we pass our years.

1 CORINTHIANS 12:1-11. The New Testament has a great many references to the body of Christ and many different meanings to that phrase. In general the phrase connotes the many-faceted relationships between Christ and those who believe in and belong to him, their relations with him as members, and with one another in the wide fellowship that bears his name. It is, perhaps, the most prevalent metaphor in the NT, in the Pauline corpus especially, for what was to become within a few decades of his death and resurrection the institution which has endured for the past two millennia. An examination of the many texts, however, would show how the understanding of the various authors changed from decade to decade. The unique aspect of its usage, however, is that the NT Greek word soma which normally translated the Hebrew basar had no counterpart in classical Hellenistic Greek. Furthermore, contrary to Hellenistic and most modern thinking, in OT and NT usage, there was no distinction between the true self or soul and the flesh or body.

While the word soma does not appear in this passage, that is certainly the metaphor toward which this passage points. It also speaks to our time as forcefully as to the middle of the 1st century AD when it was written. Today, secular paganism challenges us as it did the apostle Paul and his Corinthian converts. Here the apostle almost seems to wring his hands at their obstinacy and obtuseness. He had a great many difficulties teaching them just what it meant to believe in Jesus as Lord and follow his way of life. The chief problem cited in this passage was a disagreement as to which of the gifts of the Spirit were the more important. Paul points out as plainly as possible that all gifts come from the same source, the Spirit of God. They may serve different functions in the Christian fellowship, yet all contribute to the common good.

The issue still has relevance to our modern congregations. Each member may have a different role to play depending on his or her particular talents. It needs to be noted, however, that the use of these gifts in not to be exercised exclusively within the institution. The mission of the church is to the world, not to itself. Perhaps that was the main reason why the Corinthians had so much trouble with the great variety of gifts they brought to the apostolic church. Like so much of our contemporary gifting, it concentrated on themselves and their own fellowship rather than equipping them for the ministry of love for the world. They were in it for themselves and for their own little community, not for what Christ could do for the world through them as part of the wider Christian fellowship.

Another important feature of this lesson is the role the Spirit plays within the community. The word Spirit occurs no less than ten times in these few sentences. This tells us most poignantly that nothing beneficial can happen within the community or in carrying out its mission to the world except by the activation of the Spirit (vs. 11). That was the fundamental issue with which Paul had to deal so forcefully.

What really did control the witness of Christians in Corinth, or, for that matter, in any of our cities, towns and villages today? At the heart of the matter was the lordship of Jesus without whose Spirit none of the gifts of individual believers were of any value. As Paul states so clearly in vs. 3, even confessing that Jesus is Lord is the work of the Spirit. The contemporary leader of the World Community for Christian Meditation, Laurence Freeman OSB, reaffirmed this simple truth in saying that the Holy Spirit runs though every instant of time and every cell of life.

At the same time, it is wise to remember this prayer posted on the Internet on January 1,2010 by Quinn G. Caldwell, Associate Minister of Old South Church, Boston, MA: “Lord, I thank you that you are God and I am not. Help me to trust that you are saving the world even as we speak, and give me the grace and the resolve to play my small part in it. Amen.” (Stillspeaking Daily Devotional.)

JOHN 2:1-11. John’s Gospel takes its shape from a series of signs revealing Jesus as the Messiah, Son of God, and Saviour of the world. This miracle story is the first of these signs. Some regard it as the moment of Jesus’ revelation of himself to his own family and to those who knew him.

In the NT, a sign designated an outward manifestation of a hidden and usually divine purpose. Jesus himself was a sign that, as in the past, Yahweh had again taken redemptive initiative in the Israel’s history. In his prologue in chapter 1, John had made this revelatory statement that would infuse the whole of his narrative.

We meet this concept first in the birth narratives of Luke 2:12, 34. So also the miracles of Jesus were themselves signs that the dynamic reign of divine love was in process of being fulfilled in human affairs. Not only the person of Jesus and all his works, but also his death and resurrection were signs that the prophesied Day of the Lord when all history would be consummated was at hand.

The marriage feast at Cana symbolized that the messianic age had begun. Behind it lay the whole panoply of purification rites so prominently described in the Torah. Wine too had liturgical significance included in the daily sacrifices offered as victuals for the deity, although never offered alone. This custom had undoubtedly been adopted from earlier Canaanite and other non-Israelite traditions. In the Hebrew tradition, it may have substituted for blood sacrifice. Wine had a major place in religious feasts celebrated in every home as well as in the temple cult as a libation. However, it was not used in the Passover feast until Hellenistic times.

The changing of water for ritual purification to wine indicated that Jesus would reinterpret Jewish religious tradition for this new age he had inaugurated. For John, the miracle was nothing less than an open declaration that Jesus is the Messiah. Hence his curious reluctance to follow his mother’s anxiously informing him that the ordinary wine for the wedding feast had run out. She believed in him, so she told the servants standing-by to do whatever he told them. Was she also concerned that she about to lose her control of her son?

This seemingly insignificant aside can be seen as the way for Jesus to differentiate himself from his closest human relationships, even his mother. He appeared to reject his mother’s counsel and yet also as indicated that she did believe in him. The steward supervising the serving of the feast and the bridegroom were quite ignorant of what had happened. This served to establish the pattern so obvious throughout of John’s narrative that there would always be some who believed and would follow Jesus and some who would not.

Our post-Enlightenment Age minds have yet to grasp that biblical miracles cannot be explained in terms that exclude the supernatural. As Tom Harpur pointed out in a column in The Sunday Star (Toronto, January 4, 2004) symbols and metaphors have power. It is what they stand for and the power they represent that is important. John and his contemporaries had no difficulty combining such spiritual and material realities as metaphors of divine initiatives in ordinary human affairs.

This was especially true of the Hebrew minds who authored the Old and New Testaments. Spiritual realities were as obvious to them as the water with which they washed and the wine they drank at their festivals or ordinary meals. The transformation Jesus effected appeared as a perfectly natural, though surprising and pleasing event.

Behind the miracle, however, was the messianic message John sought to convey to a later generation of Jews and Gentiles at the end of the 1st century. This was the spiritual truth that lay beyond the materialism of the event. The Messiah/Christ had come to change everything, to reinterpret for them in their particular time and place, the great traditions which God had initially revealed through the chosen people Israel. For Jewish Christians recently thrust out of their synagogues and for Gentiles eager to find a new, fulfilling life of faith, this was indeed Good News.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
First Sunday After Epiphany
The Baptism of Jesus

January 10, 2010

 ISAIAH 43:1-7. The passage is the concluding part of a longer poem beginning in 42:5. The unknown prophet of Israel’s Babylonian exile authored this poetic promise of the return of the exiles to their homeland. Like all prophets, he speaks for God, assuring those dwelling in foreign lands that, in spite of their great difficulties, they would be brought home. The basis for this beautifully expressed faith is God’s ancient covenant with Israel as God’s chosen people.

PSALM 29. This psalm begins with evidence of God’s omnipotence in a thunderstorm, which it describes very vividly. It goes on to point out that the God who can work such wonders can guarantee the people of God strength and peace, for the God of the nature is also the God of history.

ACTS 8:14-17. The Philip of the passage immediately preceding this story (8:4-12) is not one of the apostles, but a deacon and evangelist. He was one of several Greek-speaking Christians appointed to help the apostles. (Acts 6:1-6) He had been forced to flee from Jerusalem after the death of his fellow evangelist, Stephen. This brief note points to a subtle development in the early church’s understanding of baptism and the special role of the apostles. For some reason, baptism by Philip “in the name of Jesus” had not been sufficient to bring upon some new converts the blessing of the Spirit.

LUKE 3:15-17, 21-22. Luke gives a much briefer account of Jesus’ baptism than the other gospels. It seems little more than an ending to his narrative about the ministry of John the Baptist. The essential details are the same, however. Luke records the actual baptism, the descent of the Spirit as a dove, and the divine blessing.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

(NOTE: Understood from the Christian point of view, the theme of all these lessons for the First Sunday after Epiphany can be interpreted as the activities of God who is Spirit as the Creator and Redeemer of Israel, God’s people, and who has come again to recreate the world in Jesus Christ through the action of the Holy Spirit in ordinary men and women.)

ISAIAH 43:1-7. This passage forms the concluding part of a longer poem beginning in 42:5. The unknown prophet of Israel’s Babylonian exile, called Deutero – or Second Isaiah, authored this poetic promise of the return of the exiles to their homeland in Judea. Like all prophets, he spoke for Yahweh, assuring those dwelling in foreign lands that, despite of their great difficulties, they would be brought home. The basis for this beautifully expressed faith was Yahweh’s ancient covenant with Israel as Yahweh’s chosen people. No other theme so dominated the Hebrew understanding of the countless events of their long experience as a much oppressed people.

This part of the poem emphasized the intervention of Yahweh so that Israel could fulfill its divinely ordained redemptive purpose. Revelation, creation and redemption formed the triple intent of Yahweh’s activity in Israel’s history, the one closely following on the other. Redemption was costly, however. Vs. 4 expressed the true measure of Israel’s value. Other nations and peoples would be given in return for Israel, i.e. Yahweh’s people would be ransomed.

The element of ransom had always been present in the Hebrew concept of redemption. In vss. 3-4, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sheba were the price paid for Israel’s freedom. This may well reflect the volatile period during which many Jews did return from exile in Babylon. The dominant Babylonian empire had fallen to Cyrus, king of Persia, in 539 BCE. After the death of Cyrus (c. 530 BCE) his son and successor, Cambyses, invaded Egypt, never to return home. It is now believed that skeleton’s of his army, 30,000 strong, have been re-discovered recently in a sand-swept wasteland in western Egypt where they perished in a sandstorm.

Rival usurpers vied for control of the empire until Darius emerged triumphant is 522 BCE. During this period, the returning Jews lived a very perilous existence as they struggled to reclaim independence and rebuild their temple under the governor, Zerubbabel, a sion of the house of David. The prophet may well have expected such turbulent times as inevitable or the passage may have been adapted after the fact to include these references.

The repeated imperative, “Do not fear,” (vss. 1 & 5) provided encouragement for Israel. In both instances, a reassuring proclamation followed the command. In vss. 1-2, Yahweh claimed Israel as a sacred possession and promised to accompany them through deep waters and consuming fires. These images may be reminiscent of dangers encountered in the Exodus although the long journey from Babylon to Judea did involved crossing great rivers, passing through burning-hot desert, and possibly also settled areas where they would have to fight their way onward. In vss. 5-7, Yahweh promised to be present with them as the exiles made their way home to Judea.

The 18th century hymn, “How firm a foundation,” drew extensively on these same images. The unknown author of that hymn, however, made reference to the grace of God in Jesus Christ as the source of reassurance rather the covenant of Yahweh with Israel as this prophecy had done.

PSALM 29. This psalm begins with evidence of God’s omnipotence in a thunderstorm, which it describes very vividly. Before that, however, there is a description of angelic beings in a heavenly temple robed as ministering priests in a sacred procession summoned to praise Yahweh (vss 1-2). Then the psalmist hears the voice of Yahweh as the roll of approaching thunder.

Such thunderstorms are not common in Palestine. During the autumn and spring, cold fronts do sweep in from the northwest to break over the mountains of Lebanon and bring much needed rain to the whole of Israel, especially Galilee and the coastal plain. With no knowledge of modern meteorology, the psalmist could only see the storm’s effects as lightning flashed and thunder crashed overhead. His vivid description in vss. 5-9 conveys an unsurpassed realism for anyone who has ever been out in a violent storm such as this.

Vs. 10 refers to the traditional cosmology of the Bible where rain came from the heavenly ocean or flood above the clouds (cf. Gen. 7:11; Ps. 104:3). Yahweh’s throne was situated above the ocean from which Yahweh could command the loosing or restraining of its waters.

This vision of Yahweh in command of a mighty storm reminds the psalmist that the One who can work such natural wonders can guarantee Israel strength and peace, for the Yahweh who controls nature is also the One who controls history.

ACTS 8:14-17. The Philip of the passage immediately preceding this story is not one of the apostles, but a deacon and evangelist with particular gifts. He was one of several Greek-speaking Christians appointed to help the apostles. (Acts 6:1-6) He had been forced to flee from Jerusalem after the death of his fellow deacon, Stephen. Like Stephen, he appears to have preached and baptized first in Samaria with some startling results. Despite having received the apostolic laying on of hands, the apostolic community in Jerusalem do not seem to have been so sure of his effectiveness. So they sent Peter and John to investigate and improve upon the baptism Philip had offered those who believed.

There is much that is troubling about this pericope. Why was Philip’s ministry insufficient? Was Philip regarded as little more than a magician, by both the Samaritans and the apostles? Did his miracles (vss. 6-7) attract so much attention that the gospel message did not get through to the Samaritans? Did the conversion of Simon the magician detract too much from Philip’s preaching? If Philip, Stephen and the other deacons had been chosen because they were “full of faith and the Holy Spirit,” how could the Spirit be under the control of the apostles alone? Were these questions about what we call “apostolic succession?”

Does this not reflect an ecclesiology of a later period when apostolic confirmation had become the prerogative of the episcopacy? Some scholars argue that Acts – or portions of it – date from the early 2nd century and that this passage may be one of those excerpts. This reading, along with 9:32-11:18 and 12:1-23, presents Peter as having the same kind of mission to the Gentiles as did Paul. Does this point to a certain rivalry within the community for which Acts was written or redacted from earlier documents?

This brief note points to a subtle development in the early church’s understanding of baptism and the special role of the apostles. In many respects the lectionary misleads the reader from the intent of the whole narrative of Philip’s ministry and the apostle’s confrontation with Simon (8:4-25). “Simony” was known to have been a problem within the church at certain times. Isn’t it still?

The action by the apostles extends the practice of baptism to include the laying on of hands. It may be that this was a unique development by the apostolic church. After all, John the Baptist had practiced baptism for the repentant as had Judaism for proselytes converted from other traditions. But these were acts of moral purification. The unique aspect of Christian baptism was that by this sacramental act the gift of the Holy Spirit came upon the believers; they were en-Christ-ed, i.e. christened. On the other hand, Paul makes no mention at all of the laying on of hands as part of baptism. The practice may well be a later development, although laying on of hands was common in OT blessings and certain sacrificial rites. It was also used for healing in many gospel pericopes.

However, several OT references do relate purification by water to the gift of a new spirit (e.g. Ezek. 36:25-26; Ps. 51). It was not any power inherent in the water, but the action of God’s Spirit which initiated new life. Baptism not only symbolized a new way of life, but admission to a new community, as it did in the Essenes who probably composed the Dead Sea Scrolls. In Acts, the apostolic church acknowledged that by baptism God added new members to its fellowship. But on some occasions the gift of the Spirit preceded the act of baptism (e.g. Acts 2:4, 41; 10:44-48). The only satisfactory conclusion is that the apostolic church learned through practice what baptism is and what it meant. 1 Peter 3:18-22 appears to present a summary of what baptism ultimately came to mean to the early church and how this related to history, worship and mission of Israel.

LUKE 3:15-17, 21-22. Luke gives a much briefer account of Jesus’ baptism than the other gospels. It seems little more than an ending to his narrative about the ministry of John the Baptist. The essential details are the same, however, if perfunctory. Luke records the actual baptism, the descent of the Spirit as a dove, and the divine blessing. There are, however, some significant aspects to this brief narrative.

As noted previously, baptism was common in the Jewish tradition; but not for all people. Ritual bathing had great symbolic meaning for priests, Levites and Pharisees. Considering the shortage of water in Palestine, ritual bathing by the common people must have been regarded as a significantly holy act. However, this was not regarded in the same light as proselytes receiving baptism marking the cleansing of their pagan ways and acceptance into the covenant community. John did preach repentance of sins and baptized those who responded, thereby acknowledging their sinfulness and being immersed in water as a sign of their cleansing. Did Jesus also feel the need to be cleansed, he whom the whole NT testifies as having no sin or ever being alienated from God?

Another possibility exists: Jesus had reached the point in his own spiritual growth where he was acutely aware of his filial relationship to God and of his divinely appointed mission. Consequently, he felt the need to identify himself with all the people whom he intended to bring into a similar intimate fellowship with God. His messianic role had become that of a mediator. Luke captured these filial and mediatorial elements of Jesus’ baptism in the tightly worded sentences of vss. 21-22. Behind this profound experience lay long years of personal development, of growing insight into the scriptures of his Jewish tradition and their application to his own life (cf. Luke 2:41-52).

The moment had come for him commit himself, to move out into a wider community than his carpenter shop in the small village of Nazareth. Henceforth he would make known to whomsoever would listen what was involved in a life lived totally within the reign of God’s love. He would live in such a way that people would see that Israel’s messianic promise could only be fulfilled in such a totally committed life. Jesus’ baptizing kinsman provided the opportunity for taking action to fulfill this commitment. The vision of the dove symbolized the gift of the Holy Spirit, something he alone experienced in Luke’s account.

Did Luke describe it this way to identify Jesus’ absolute divinity in a manner corresponding to the narrative of his conception? The words from heaven gave final, divine approval to the course he had chosen as a human. Was he also aware at this time what the cost would be? Had he yet come to grips with the implications of being the Servant of Yahweh in the mold of Isaiah 53?

THE REIGN OF CHRIST
Proper 29 Ordinary 34
NOVEMBER 22, 2009

The Christian year ends with the celebration of Christ reigning in glory with dominion over all creation.

2 SAMUEL 23:1-7. The author of this hymn of praise, regarded as King David’s last words, saw them as a fitting conclusion to the long narrative of David’s reign. Jews and Christians alike saw it as a prediction of the coming of God’s anointed Messiah in fulfilment of an everlasting covenant with God’s faithful people. The last two verses of this reading also describe the destruction of those who do not believe.

PSALM 132:1-12, (13-18). Yet another of the songs pilgrims may have sung as they approached the temple. this one recalls the vow of David to build a permanent dwelling place for the ark of the covenant symbolizing the presence of God among God’s people. The psalm also contains a promise that David’s descendants would sit on the throne of Israel forever if they keep the covenant.

DANIEL 7:9-10, 13-14. (Alternate) ) The scene in this vision of Daniel is the classic setting for judgment day in several ancient Middle Eastern religious traditions including those of Egypt, Babylon and Persia. The description also had great influence in the early Christian visions of divine judgment at the end of time. The same scene is still used frequently in both popular and homiletic presentations of what will occur on judgment day.

PSALM 93. (Alternate) As in several other psalms (24; 47; 68; 96-99) this one has the characteristics sung at the New Year celebrating the enthronement of Yahweh as sovereign over the whole earth and its people. Kingship was the common political system of the times, so it was natural that divinity should be described in this image.

REVELATION 1:4b-8. The Book of Revelation fits the description of eschatology, a form of literature containing of predictions about the fulfilment of God’s purpose at the end of history. This introductory passage cites the expectation of the early church that the return of Christ would bring this about.

JOHN 18:33-37. Jesus had been accused by his opponents of claiming to be king of the Jews, a treasonable offense in the Roman empire. This exchange between Jesus and Pilate tells us what the early church believed about the true nature of Jesus’ sovereignty. It was spiritual, not political; but it certainly had and still has political implications.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

2 SAMUEL 23:1-7. The author of this hymn of praise, regarded as King David’s last words, saw them as a fitting conclusion to the long narrative of David’s reign. Vs. 1 clarifies the tradition of David as the man whom God had specially chosen and exalted to be Israel’s greatest king. The tone is more than hero-worship or hagiography. It has a prophetic and messianic flair to it. Jews and Christians alike saw it as a prediction of the coming of God’s anointed Messiah, in fulfilment of an everlasting covenant with God’s faithful people.

The prophetic element finds expression in vs. 2 where the spirit speaks through David in the same way that prophets spoke for Yahweh. The subsequent message reiterates the prophetic theme of justice (vs. 3) and elicits a striking simile of the world seen in the freshness of sunrise in spring (vs. 4).

The reference in vs. 5 to David’s house, i.e. his descendants who ruled Israel after him, suggests that this hymn was written at a later date than the end of his own life (c. 950 BCE). It conveys the conviction that the Davidic dynasty was given the divine mandate to carry forward the covenant relationship with Yahweh. The question in vs. 5c might be interpreted as questioning whether or not David’s heirs were succeeding in their duties. Not to do so would be tantamount to the apostasy and polytheism for which later monarchs were infamous, resulting in the end of Israel as an independent nation in 586 BCE. The last two verses of the reading describe the destruction of those who do not believe. This judgment became the religious explanation for the nation’s disastrous history by the great pre-exilic prophets and the post-exilic chroniclers.

One of the major difficulties in exegeting this passage is the corruption of the Hebrew text. Some scholars believe this is due to the antiquity of the poem. It bears some similarity to a poem in Numbers 24, thought to be from the J-document source in the 10th century BCE. If so, an early date not long after David’s death for this composition is not an improbability. Other scholars contrast it with the so-called “Testament of Jacob” in Gen. 49 and the “Blessing of Moses” in Deut. 33. The former is from the post-exilic P-document, but the latter is thought to have originated in the 10th century BCE.

PSALM 132:1-12, (13-18). Here is yet another of the songs pilgrims may have sung as they approached the temple. This one recalls the vow of David to build a permanent dwelling place for the ark of the covenant symbolizing the presence of God among God’s people. Unlike several of the other psalms of ascent, this one was created intentionally as a processional hymn commemorating David’s bringing the ark to Jerusalem. There are antiphonal parts for a soloist and a chorus. It has been speculated, with good reason, that its origin lay in the anniversary of the reigning king’s accession together with the celebration of Yahweh’s enthronement. This celebration is believed to have been held annually at the New Year in pre-exilic times. The psalm most likely came from the latter part of that period, but not from David’s own reign.

“The hardships” in vs. 1 refer to the loss of the ark and the difficulties David had in recovering it and bringing it to Zion as told in 1 Samuel 4-6. There is, however, no record of his vow (vss. 2-5). That may be an imaginative addition to the tradition for theological purposes, a common practice of both OT and NT authors.

Vss. 6-7 re-enact David’s search for the ark sung by the choir and summon the people to participate with them in bringing the ark to its appropriate place in the temple. A sense of awe in the holy presence symbolized by the ark comes to the fore in vss. 8-9 as the priests advance to carry the ark into the temple and lead the people in worship before it. As the ark entered the temple, the monarch
offered a sacrifice with prayer for Yahweh’s favor (vs. 10). The remaining verses of the shorter reading consist of an oracle which responds to the prayer giving Yahweh’s promise of the continuance of David’s dynasty (vss. 11-12). A second oracle (vss. 13-18) promises Yahweh’s continued presence in the temple and his providential care for both the priesthood and the monarchs who will continue David’s dynasty. The repeated mention of “the anointed one” lent this psalm to a messianic interpretation, although the term originally was a pious euphemism for the monarch.

DANIEL 7:9-10, 13-14. (Alternate) The scene in this vision of Daniel is the classic setting for judgment day in several ancient Middle Eastern religious traditions including those of Egypt, Babylon and Persia. The description also had great influence in the early Christian visions of divine judgment at the end of time. The same scene is still used frequently in both popular and homiletic presentations of what will occur on judgment day.

“The Ancient One” (i.e Yahweh) takes the seat of judgment in the heavenly court with a supporting cast of assessors. The books containing the lists of deeds, good and evil, is opened for the assessors to examine. There are several other OT and many intertestamental references to this scrutiny of human actions. (See Ps. 56:8; Isa. 65:6; Mal. 3:16; Jubilees 30:22; Enoch 81:4; 89:61-64; 98:7-8; 104:7.)

Suddenly the vision of Daniel changes. A new figure appears representing the beginning of a new era inhuman form. He comes from heaven, the place of orderliness, peace and purity replacing the old order of turmoil, chaos and evil.
This new person is given divine authority, power and eternal sovereignty which will never pass away.

It is not difficult to see why Jewish and Christian messanism and apocalypticism adopted this understanding of divine judgment that would completely displace the evil order of human affairs as it was experienced in actual history.

PSALM 93. (Alternate) As in several other psalms ( 24; 47; 68; 96-99) this one has the characteristics sung at the New Year celebrating the enthronement of Yahweh as sovereign over the whole earth and its people. Kingship was the common political system of the times, so it was natural that divinity should be described in this image.

This concept originated long before the development of monotheism in the myths of creation common throughout the ancient Middle East. Subsequently Israel’s god Yahweh was seen to be supreme among the gods of all other of the nations (i.e. henotheism) and the only one to whom the Israelites owed obedience.

This psalm describes how water in the form of floods from heavy rainstorms, recalling the primeval deep as in Gen. 1:1-2, assured that the providence of Yahweh would continue throughout the coming year. This assurance derived from Yahweh’s holiness even as his holiness would remain forever.

REVELATION 1:4b-8. The Book of Revelation can only be classified as eschatology, a form of literature containing predictions about the fulfilment of God’s purpose at the end of history. Some people make the mistake of reading this book literally or allegorically, then trying to guess how it fits into the current affairs they hear about on the daily news. One wonders where and how one could find reference to the current confusion about how democracy works or doesn’t work in different countries. Perhaps this is the time to prepare a sermon on how to interpret apocalyptic and eschatological literature with its strange symbolism and imaginative visions that so fill the pages of Revelation.

One of the best resources I have found for understanding what John was trying so say is Professor George B. Caird’s commentary in the Black’s New Testament Commentaries (The Revelation of St. John the Divine. Adam & Charles Black, 1966). William Barclay’s Daily Bible Study on Revelation is also excellent, as is exegesis and exposition by Martin Rist and Lynn Harold Hough in The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 12.

This reading contains a lot more than the greeting and address of the seven letters to follow in chs. 2-3. Seven is the traditional symbol for wholeness or completeness. So, in this instance, it does not only designate the specific churches addressed, but the church as a whole for whom John wrote. In other words, the book has a universal audience, all who believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. According to Caird, “the seven spirits who are before the throne” represents the Spirit of God actively engaged with the churches in all its fullness and power. He also sees this as a reference to Zechariah 4 where the prophet has a vision of Israel represented by a candelabra with seven lamps. Rist also felt that the phrase referred to several OT passages which spoke of the seven archangels of Jewish speculation and to Persian astral theology where the sun, moon and five visible planets were thought to have control over human affairs.

There may also have been a hidden challenge to the imperial religion of Rome in this phrase. Coins from the early reign of Domitian showed the emperor’s heir who died in childhood as an infant Zeus playing with the stars to compensate for the dominion he would never inherit. For John, there could be no other sovereign than the crucified, risen and ascended Christ. So immediately he calls forth the scene before the throne of God (vs. 5). The titles he gives to Christ proclaim his sovereignty to encourage those who are even now struggling with the challenge to be faithful witnesses as they faced persecution for not paying obeisance to the emperor.

The first witness to the saving, redeeming love of God was Jesus Christ himself. Faithful unto death, he was raised from the dead and now is seated at the right hand of God as the reigning sovereign of heaven and earth. To him even the emperor owes allegiance for he is “ruler of the kings of the earth.” The term “firstborn of the dead” refers not only to the resurrection, but to the spiritual experience of every believer who enters into Christ’s death and resurrection through the act of baptism. Compare also the words of Jesus to Nicodemus about being born again of the Spirit in John 3: 5-6.

A double reference to the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrament of holy communion leads into the next sentence of John’s address to the churches. This same sentence resonates with the Fourth Gospel in speaking of the both the sacrament and the glorification of Christ by his death and resurrection. John also knew the OT (probably in the LXX version) and voiced the tradition of the apostolic church that the church was the continuation of Israel as “a kingdom (and/of) priests serving God” (vs. 6 cf. Exod. 19:6) What is more, John believed and returned to the thought several times that those whom Christ had released from their sins would reign with him. It remains a question whether they would exercise this dominion in this life or in life beyond death (cf. 2:26; 3:21; 5:10; 7:13-15; 20:6).

In vs. 7, John combined two apocalyptic references from Daniel 7:13 and Zechariah 12:10 to create a vivid picture of the Second Coming of Christ when even those who crucified him will submit to him. But is their wailing when they see his wounds a true repentance and acclamation of him as Lord and God as was the case with Thomas (cf. John 20:28)? John, the author of Revelation, has no doubt . He proclaims Jesus “the beginning and the end” i.e the great “I am,” the One in whom we are perpetually confronted by the living, ever-present and all powerful God. In the OT, those terms are caught up in the Hebrew name Yahweh Sebaoth, translated in English versions as “the Lord of hosts.”

One of the Greek translations for that name in the LXX was Pantokrator, “the Almighty.” For John the word meant something else than the Hebrew interpretation that Yahweh’s Messiah would lead a great army into victorious battle over Israel’s enemies. Christ’s omnipotence does not exist in unlimited coercive military power, but in the authority of self-giving love that cannot be defeated. This surely has something to say about all the current manipulations in the pursuit of political power a s well as the seemingly endless wars for dominance in geopolitical spheres of influence.

JOHN 18:33-37. Through the centuries Jesus’ trial before Pilate has engendered incredible flights of imaginative fancy. Despite all the research and preaching based on this event as John narrated it, we have no clear, definitive indication of what actually happened. We have no more than this pericope tells us. Jesus had been accused by his opponents of claiming to be king of the Jews, a treasonable offense in the Roman empire. The automatic penalty was death. Pilate had very little personal reason to examine the prisoner before him. After all the others he had ordered executed, one more dead Jew would mean little or nothing to his career. His governorship lasted for another six years. Why then did John tell of this incident told in this way?

This exchange between Jesus and Pilate helps us understand what the early church believed about the true nature of Jesus’ sovereignty. John designed this part of the passion story to reiterate something he had Jesus say earlier. He wanted to reaffirm Jesus as “the way, the truth and the life.” (Cf. John 14:6) He also wanted to clarify the true nature of the kingdom of God as Jesus had revealed it, although the phrase actually occurs in only one other passage in John. (3:3 & 5)

This interchange revolved around the meaning of the word “kingdom.” (Greek = basileia). The word occurs no less than six times, twice as many as “truth” (Greek = aletheia) on which so much expository and homiletic attention has been focused. As John narrated it, Jesus and Pilate talked right past each other, but that appears to have been quite intentional on John’s part. The meaning of the word “kingdom” was the key to what each of the two men said. Each had a totally different interpretation of it.

For Pilate, “kingdom” had a purely political reference. As Roman governor, he recognized Herod Antipas as one of two puppet kings, also known as tetrarchs, of the Jews. Philip, half brother of Antipas, was the other. Antipas had limited authority in Galilee; Philip in Transjordan. Luke added a complication to the trial of Jesus before Pilate passed sentence on him by having Pilate send Jesus to Herod (Luke 23:6-12). At most, Pilate must have been curious about this Galilean usurper of Herod’s jurisdiction, little though it was under Roman imperial sovereignty. For Jesus, the meaning of “kingdom” was quite another matter.

As Jesus exercised it, true sovereignty was spiritual, not political. Had it been political, he told Pilate, his followers would be fighting in the streets to keep him from being handed over to the Jews. (We may note as an aside that this is yet another hook on which to hang the accusation that John’s Gospel is anti-Semitic. Actually, the nature of Jesus’ sovereignty prevents that from being credible except in its literal sense. The central drama of John’s Gospel includes this conflict between Jesus and the Jews.) Jesus had been brought before Pilate on a purely political charge. Jesus did not deny his kingship; he interpreted it on a level on which people of all nations and races could respond to it.

Pilate was as puzzled as we are about what that meant. The sovereignty of Jesus rests on the love of God he came to reveal. The anticipated response to that revelation of divine sovereignty is to make love dominant in all human relationships in obedience to the commandment to love as God loves us. (Cf. John 15:12; 1 John 4:7-12) This humble truth was as far beyond Pilate’s understanding as it still is for a great many of the six billion and more of us inhabiting this planet today. That may be an entirely spiritual sovereignty; but it certainly had and still has political implications. It is our calling as believers to implement this God’s sovereign love in the myriad affairs of personal, national and international life.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
All Saints Day
November 1, 2009


WISDOM OF SOLOMON 3:1-9. Many congregations will find this passage from the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom as a canticle in their hymn books. It is often read at memorial services because of the comforting message it conveys. In some respects it speculates about trials after death, but also presents a view of the righteous ultimately being found worthy to be in God’s eternal presence.

(Please Note: The Revised Common LectiOnary assigns these reading for All Saints Day which falls this year on the Twenty Second Sunday after Pentecost. Some congregations may wish to use those posted separately for this Sunday.)

ISAIAH 25:6-9. (Alternate) The banquet theme described here has antecedents in the literature of several other religious traditions and echoes through several New Testament passages. The uniqueness of this poetic excerpt from Hebrew prophecy rests in its expectation that all peoples will be included at the Lord’s table and all suffering will cease. Jesus practiced eating with outsiders as a symbol of the way things will be in God’s realm.

PSALM 24. This psalm celebrates two crucial elements of Israel’s religious tradition: the whole creation as the possession of God alone and the temple as the visible symbol of God’s presence within creation.

REVELATION 21:1-6. John has a vision of the whole of creation redeemed and renewed. This is what awaits the faithful and thus makes those bitter experiences of persecution endurable.

Many Old Testament references colour this vision – the creation, the city, the bride. Perhaps the most important insight of the passage is that “now God’s dwelling is among mortals.” (vs. 3) This reaffirms Jesus as God’s human representative coming into the world for the single purpose of redeeming the world and reconciling humanity and all creation to God’s original purpose.

JOHN 11:32-44. The passage contains the heart of the story of the raising of Lazarus. It is the sixth of seven signs John gives to prove that Jesus is the Messiah/Christ, Son of God, and that through faith in him believers receive eternal life. Even as the event reveals Jesus’ divine power over death itself, it also shows him as a wonderfully sensitive human being.
The story, which may be a midrash or interpretative story, is also John’s reflection on the significance of the resurrection. Because in John’s view Jesus is fully human and fully divine, life and death are his gifts to give.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS. Written in Greek about 100 BCE, The Wisdom of Solomon (or simply, The Book of Wisdom) was not included in the Bibles commonly used by the Protestant Bibles because it was not included in the Jewish canon. On the other hand, in making up the canon for his Latin Vulgate translation, Jerome did include it after the Song of Songs. Hence it came into use in both the Roman Catholic and most Orthodox Churches. Its content has more affinity with Greek philosophy, literature and science of its time than the Hebrew scriptures. There are no quotations from it in the New Testament, although it does allude to the Hebrew scriptures, especially the Psalms and Isaiah, but in their Greek text from the Septuagint.

WISDOM OF SOLOMON 3:1-9.

Many congregations will find this passage from the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom as a canticle in their hymn books. For example, Voices United, published by The United Church of Canada, has it as #890. This passage is often read in memorial services because of the comforting message it conveys. In some respects, it speculates about trials after death, but presents a view of the righteous ultimately being found worthy to be in God’s eternal presence.

Contrary to Christian faith and modern science, the first few sentences seem to deny the reality of death for the souls of righteous humans. This is closer to the Greek concept of the immortality of the soul, an entity distinct from the human body, which found religious expression the Gnostic heresies of 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. Christian faith in life beyond death is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, not immortality. No one has yet clarified how that element of our human nature we know as spiritual consciousness experiences resurrection. Some progressive research in the field of psycho-neurology is beginning to throw some light on the experience.

The second set of sentences in this canticle presents an element not recognized by Protestant traditions. In Roman Catholic teaching, Purgatory is “a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God’s grace, are not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions.” (Catholic Encyclopedia) This doctrine appears to be very similar to the text from Wisdom. However, the text does leave the final outcome to God as to who shall be ultimately redeemed.

There are several images drawn from the liturgies of the temple. Souls are tested in a golden crucible. The element of sacrifice finds expression in the text as well, likening the souls of the righteous to a burnt offering on the altar which will burst into flame again in God’s presence. Prophetic images of judgment and ruling over the nations also enlighten the text. But the basic religious emphasis is on trust that in God’s grace and mercy the faithful are the chosen ones, or in popular parlance, “the saints.” This is not the NT view. The saints are all God’s people who remain faithful throughout the most difficult times, even persecution and undeserved death.

ISAIAH 25:6-9. Those who do not wish to wrestle with the alternative views of the canticle from Wisdom, have this passage from a special section of Isaiah as the Old Testament reading. Isaiah 24-27 is generally regarded as an eschatalogical collection of prophecy, psalms and prayers dating from the post-exilic period. Similar eschatsalogical appendices were added to the prophecies of Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Joel and Obadiah.

The banquet theme of this passage has both antecedents in the literature of other religious traditions and echoes in several New Testament passages. The uniqueness of this poetic excerpt from Hebrew prophecy rests in its expectation that all peoples will be included at the Lord’s banquet table and all suffering will cease. Jesus practiced eating with outsiders as a symbol of the way things will be in God’s realm.

The idea that Yahweh will triumph over his enemies is a common OT theme, but the victory over death and pain does take on a deeper meaning. When the passage in again quoted in Revelation 21:4, it was in the light of a new certainty of faith in the resurrection of Christ. The same passage is also referenced in Paul triumphant shout, “O death where is thy sting; O grave where in thy victory.” (1 Cor. 15:54).

PSALM 24. This psalm celebrates two crucial elements of Israel’s religious tradition: the whole creation as the possession of Yahweh alone and the temple as the visible symbol of God’s presence within creation. Although attributed to David in the superscription, it comes from a much later date as evidenced by the references to the temple (vs. 3). Similarly the cosmology of creation is typical of the ancient world-view which saw our plant Earth set in a three tiered universe with heaven above, the place of the dead (Sheol or Hell) below. Modern science following the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton have shown that this is not the universe as we know it today.

It would appear that the psalm had liturgical origin and was sung in a procession on some festival occasion. Late Jewish sources regard it as a hymn for the New Year festival when Yahweh’s work of creation was commemorated and the sovereignty of Yahweh over all creation celebrated. There is also a strong element of holiness in vss. 3-6. Ritual purity had special meaning for entrance into the temple because the sacred precincts were regarded as the place where Yahweh dwelt.

The antiphonal song of vss. 7-9 again emphasizes the entrance of Yahweh into the holy place. The gates of the temple are personified and responsive to the approaching worshipers represented by the holy people of Yahweh. Yet the identification of Yahweh and the people of Israel is not altogether complete. Hence the question, “Who is the King of glory?” The poetic image used in answering this question (vs. 8) is that of a victorious monarch leading his triumphant army home. One commentator has suggested that this may have been the point in the procession where the ark or some other symbol of divine presence moved into the temple.

In Jewish history, the temple was the last stronghold to fall to an invading enemy. Its few remaining stones in the Western Wall still form the centre of Jewish religious devotion. In the Scottish Protestant tradition, the antiphonal verses were sung to the tune of St. George’s, Edinburgh, at the evening service in many churches on Communion Sunday.

REVELATION 21:1-6. John has a vision of the whole of creation redeemed and renewed at the end of history. This is what awaits the faithful and thus makes those bitter experiences of persecution endurable.

Many Old Testament references colour this vision – the creation, the city, the bride. Perhaps the most important insight of the passage is that “now God’s dwelling is among mortals.” (vs. 3) This reaffirms Jesus as God’s human representative coming into the world for the single purpose of redeeming the world and reconciling humanity and all creation to God’s original purpose.

The late Principal George B. Caird, of Mansfield College, Oxford, wrote in his magisterial commentary on this passage, “In some ways this is the most important part of the book, as it is certainly the most familiar and beloved.” It is the promised answer to the plea of every martyr, “If only we knew where it is all going to end! Much of John’s vision, and much of the human history it depicts and interprets, becomes intelligible, credible, tolerable, when we know the answer. Here is the real source of John’s prophetic certainty.” (The Revelation of St. John the Divine. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1966.)

The image of the vanishing sea has great significance. It represents the ending of history in the same way that creation out of chaos began history when “the earth was a formless void and darkness was over the face of the deep.” (Gen. 1:1-2) The descent of the holy city, New Jerusalem, and the voice from heaven announcing its meaning, also represents a whole new order that is taking place. The distinction between heaven and earth disappears. No longer is heaven the dwelling of God and earth the dwelling of humans. Now God’s dwelling is with us. The Incarnation has reached its true end: Immanuel, God with us. (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23) As we have seen above, the bride from heaven are also a quotation from Isaiah 25:6-8.

The voice from the throne is, of course, the voice of God which was first heard at the very opening of John’s visions (Rev.1:8). All things are being made new; a complete transformation is taking place, not just in the seven churches to which John was commanded to write, but in all places of God’s dominion, God is forever making all things new. Paul had the same vision as voiced in 2 Cor. 3:18; 4:16-18; 5:16-17; Col.3:1-4. But John sees it on a cosmic scale whereas Paul saw it in the individual believer. As Caird put it: “Blind unbelief may see only the outer world, growing old in its depravity and doomed to vanish before the presence of holiness; but faith can see the hand of God in the shadows, refashioning the whole. The agonies of earth are but the birth-pangs of a new creation.”

God’s naming of the Alpha and the Omega do not mean that God is just at the beginning and the end, as the deist philosophy would have it, creating then allowing creation to run without intervention. God is the living God who confronts humanity at every step of the way. All that we have and are as humans within God’s creation, and above all our salvation, is the work of God from start to finish. God requires nothing of us but the openness of faith, a thirst for God to be satisfied with nothing less that the water of life.

JOHN 11:1-45. The story of the raising of Lazarus is the sixth of seven signs John gives to prove that Jesus is the Messiah Christ, Son of God, and that through faith in him believers receive eternal life. Hence, the telling of this miracle leads directly to the climax of the gospel story and the greatest sign of all – the resurrection. Throughout the gospel, John’s purpose had been to show that in all that Jesus of Nazareth said and did God was fully present, actively revealing and “glorifying” the redemptive power of God’s love. Of this not even Jesus’ closest friends were fully aware until after the resurrection.

As this story proceeds, Martha gradually becomes aware and believes. That is the significance of the interchange between Martha and Jesus resulting in another of the characteristic “I am …” proclamations found only in John’s Gospel (vs. 25), and Martha’s confession of faith (vs. 27). Yet even she, like countless others since, experiences a moment of real doubt when Jesus orders the tomb to be opened (vss. 39-40).

While the miracle of raising Lazarus from the grave shows Jesus’ divine power over death itself, it also shows him as a wonderfully sensitive human being. His love for Lazarus and his sisters is palpable. Martha’s and Mary’s accusation that Jesus’ presence would have averted Lazarus’ death tells how real their friendship was. So also did Jesus’ tears. All cultural aspects of ostentatious grief aside, the story represents the best of that special human quality of openly expressing their real feelings. This same quality also comes through in Martha’s revulsion at the stench of her brother’s decaying corpse.

Not to be overlooked, however, is the dramatic intensity building throughout John’s narrative. Martha’ s accusation (vss. 21) sets the stage for Jesus to declare, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and for Martha to confess her faith in him. When Mary repeats the accusation, Jesus uses it to reveal his very human feelings (vss. 33-38) and then perform the miracle.

By means of this miracle story, John is telling his own 1st century community and us that because Jesus is fully human and fully divine, life and death are his gifts to give. This too is the meaning of his resurrection and the basis of hope for ours. Yet nowhere in this passage is any attempt made to define what the resurrection life will be like.

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