Second Sunday of Lent
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,will save it”
Summary
Throughout Lent our Old Testament readings recall the covenants, binding promises, God made with God’s people. This week, Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16, recounts the promise to Abraham. This promise had been made to Abraham before but he had failed to believe it. Similarly, in Mark 8:31-38, Peter fails to believe Jesus. It is heartening that our scriptural heroes doubt as much as we do but that God is persistent. Peter does not doubt that Jesus is divine, is just that his idea of a Messiah is informed by the world in which he lives: a saviour is someone who will gain the whole world for his people. Jesus, however, is insistent that he will suffer and die, that the fulfilment of God’s promise will not be an easy path. Yet we need to hold onto these promises if they are to become our reality. Abram is renamed by God in this week’s reading, becoming Abraham, meaning the Father of nations. A name which must have made him acutely aware of the difference between his present childless state and the future that God promised. In a week which saw the death of Alexei Navalny his supporters are acutely aware of the difference between their present reality and the future Russia that Navalny dreamed of. During Lent we are called to reflect, with sorrow, on all the ways in which our world does not conform to the kingdom of God. At the same time, we are asked to hold onto the possibility of a better, different world. A world which may seem foolish to some, just as it was foolish for 99 year old Abraham to believe that he would father nations and for Peter to believe that healing and renewal would come from the cross. Jesus asks us to risk being fools, to keep our minds on the possibilities of the divine so that kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven.
FIRST READING
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.’ Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.’
GOSPEL
Mark 8.31-38
Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’
