Genesis 12:1-4a
Psalm 121
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17
This second Sunday in Lent is full of classic passages from Scripture. We hear that Abraham's faith, his trust in God's promise, is reckoned to him as righteousness. Psalm 121 declares that our help comes from God alone, not from the pagan altars located on the hilltops. In John 3:1-17, we hear Nicodemus' conversation with Jesus, where we come to understand the transformative power of baptism, where we are born of water and the Spirit. We also hear in that passage the gospel in miniature, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."
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1 comment:
I especially enjoyed the references to Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and Achilles...the first cannot slay the dragon alone, the second cannot achieve immortal life, and the third seems immortal until his weakness is exposed. Only the character who is fully mortal-- Beowulf--is depicted positively among his own people, not as a capricious personage of worship, or symbol of hubristic repression. Both Gilgamesh and Achilles ask questions about the collision between the worlds of immortals and mortals. Their downfall is the inability to be renewed, transformed-- so the static nature of their deific stature dooms them. Christ could be a reasonable parallel to Beowulf, but this may also reflect that Catholic monks were responsible for writing down the original Old English oral traditions of the time.
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