Lent 2B (RCL) – A Preacher’s Ponderings

Profit and loss

Second Sunday in Lent; 25 February 2024; Lent 2B (RCL); Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:22-30; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38.

In our Old Testament readings this Lent, we seem to be on a march through stories of various covenants between God and God’s creation. Last week, it was the covenant with Noah and all living creatures of all flesh on the earth. This week, it is a restatement, or renewal, or revision of the covenant between God and Abram, first established in Genesis 15. Here God renames Abraham, and in verses we don’t read, requires circumcision. Abram means something like revered ancestor. Abraham something like ancestor of many nations (or so the narrative tells us). This will happen through Sarai, now Sarah, not through Hagar.

To save your life

Second Sunday in Lent; 28 February 2021; Lent 2B (RCL); Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:22-30; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38.

For Paul, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus inaugurated the final phase of God’s plan for Israel. Israel was to judge the world and establish God’s reign on earth. But Israel had misunderstood God’s purposes, thinking they applied only to Israel as God’s chosen people. Instead, Paul believed, Israel was to be a light to the nations, working salvation for the whole world.

To lose one’s life

25 February 2018
Second Sunday in Lent
Lent 2B (RCL)
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38

What the editors of the lectionary choose to leave out as much as what they choose to leave in always puzzles me. In the missing verses of the passage from Genesis, God gives the covenant mark of circumcision. This is a new aspect of the covenant, and so carries some importance. Paul will make much of it in his reading of the Abrahamic covenants. Also, in Mark’s Gospel, the editors chose to leave off the verses at the beginning, in which Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, which frames the whole paragraph that follows. Continue reading “To lose one’s life”