The Beauty of the Lord
Lent 2 – March 16, 2025
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35
The understanding of the construction of our psalm for today has divided scholars throughout many generations. Some think the psalm actually started out as two and was, at some undetermined time, put together as one. Other scholars believe that the psalm was composed as a single psalm. This difference in opinion comes from the fact that the first six verses are a confession of faith and the last eight are a cry for help from God. Those who think this was originally two psalms point to that contrast; a confession of confidence in God followed by a call for God to help. They claim these two parts are too different to have been composed together. Although, if it was two psalms combined into one, the editor who combined them did not see any conflict between the two.
In fact if you think about your life this is a good testament to how you have lived out your faith. Sometimes confident in God’s promise and other times worried about the struggles and conflicts in your life. But it is not just in the psalm that we see that tension. The story of Abram is another example. The text begins with God reminding Abram that God is his shield. Yet Abram doubted God’s promise to give him a child. God shows him the stars and Abram believes only to question God another time. God also tells Abram to prepare a sacrifice and, while in a deep, dark, and terrifying sleep God passes a torch between the sacrifice as a sign of the covenant between God and Abram.
Luke’s account of Jesus shows us a different response in the midst of struggle and trouble. When the Pharisees come to warn Jesus about Herod’s desire to kill him he responds with a challenge to Herod and continues on with what God called him to do. That task is his journey to Jerusalem where, like a hen who gathers her chicks under her wings, made God’s protection a guarantee to all. By Jesus’ action we no longer have to cut animals in two and offer sacrifice upon an altar. The sacrifice has been done. Jesus, God’s own Son, who, by our sins, we hung upon the cross and pierced his side.
Our lives are like the psalmist’s and Abram’s. We agitate back and forth from assured faith to doubt. That, in one sense, is what Lent is about. The traditional ‘works’ of Lent – prayer, fasting, and works of love – are to remind us of God’s unfailing love for us and our unworthiness to receive it. This is not just something to do in order to show others that we are faithful Christians. It is to show ourselves the gap between God’s expectation and our lives and to remind us that, with God’s help we can live better lives all the time – not just one time during the year. Now, let me make this clear. This is not something that you have to do in order to win God’s love and favor. Requirements like that are of this world. The price has already been paid by Jesus’ death upon the cross and sealed by his resurrection. You do not have to do anything but you get to do it. Freed from the bondage of sin you no longer have to hoard what you have in worry of what might happen tomorrow or the next day. No matter what might come, Jesus has opened the door of salvation for you and made you a child of God. Now freed from worry and doubt you can share – shower upon the world – all the gifts that God has given you. Use this Lent as a prelude to how you will spend the rest of your life loved by God.