In the name of God, who creates, redeems, and
sustains. Amen.
The
story of Noah’s ark may be one of the most well-known stories from Genesis, or
even the entire Bible. But after the two-by-two, the flood, and the dove, comes
a very important part of the story. At the conclusion, God says to Noah “As for
me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants… that never
again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood.” Then the covenant
is enacted through the sign of a rainbow. This is the first covenant between
God and Creation that is found in Scripture, but the idea of covenant will be
reintroduced with Abraham and David, the prophet Jeremiah will write about the
covenant, and at the Last Supper, Jesus will allude to the covenant. Over the
next five Sundays of Lent, the idea of covenant will be present in our
readings, so my Lenten preaching will focus on the idea of covenant and what it
means for our life and faith.
But
first we should define covenant. When I preach at weddings, I almost always
talk about the difference between a covenant and a contract. A contract has
terms and conditions, has out-clauses, and tries to limit surprises. Contracts
are also largely secular. Meanwhile a covenant is holy, a covenant doesn’t
spell things out, but simply says “for better for worse, for richer for
poorer,” and covenants are intended to be everlasting. Covenants were common in
the Ancient Near East, but they were actually more similar to the modern day
contract, in that they had conditions and could be broken- really, they were
treaties. But God takes this human concept of a treaty and makes it holy. God’s
covenant is defined by endurance and steadfastness, and instead of simply
mediating a relationship as does a contract, God’s covenant is about binding
people to God and to each other.
And
considering covenant is a great topic for our Lenten journey. In Mark, Jesus
says “Repent and believe in the Good News.” “Repent” is a Greek word which
means “to change your mind.” Today when we say “repent,” we think it has
something to do with confessing our sins and saying “sorry,” but Biblical
repentance is much deeper. When Jesus says “repent”, he has just announced that
“the Kingdom of God has come near.” Given that a new Kingdom is present, it’s time
to change the way you see the world. The call to repentance is a call to
examine our foundation and reorient ourselves to God’s ways. During the Easter
season, we will renew our vows in the Baptismal Covenant, so Lent is the season
in which we prepare ourselves by self-examination and turning our minds to God.
And considering the Biblical idea of covenant is a great way to do this.
What
is important to the idea of covenant is identity. Think about it, the way you
probably define yourself is based on your covenantal relationships, not your
contractual ones. When I introduce myself to someone, I don’t say “I have a
mortgage at F&M Bank and a Verizon cellphone.” But I do talk about
covenants- “I am a follower of Jesus, a husband, and a father.” Covenants change
who we are. Consider the Baptism of Jesus that we read this morning. Jesus
enters a deeper sort of covenantal relationship with God and is identified as
“the beloved.” The covenant that was enacted between God and Abraham and his
descendants came to define Israel as “God’s people,” and to this
day this identity shapes Jewish identity.
The
covenant also defines God. Often we speak of “giving things up” for Lent, and
some scholars have noted that in both our Genesis and Mark readings that God is
giving something up. As the story unfolds in Genesis, humanity was wicked and
God was lamenting that humanity had ever come along to destroy the beauty of
Creation. It would be a whole other sermon in itself, but I find it fascinating
that God is somehow surprised by what happens with humanity, which should make
us reconsider what we mean by saying “God knows everything.” God’s response is
a sort of vengeful cleaning of the slate. This seems to have deeply affected
God; again, that would be another sermon- that humanity has the ability to stir
the emotions of God. After the flood though, God, in the covenant says “I will never,
never, never do that again.” And then God sets a bow in the sky as a symbol of
the covenant. The bow is an unstrung weapon, pointed away from the earth. God’s
identity will not be that of a vengeful God. God gives up divine retribution
and effectively says “we’re in this together now, it was out of love that you were created, and it to love that I will lead you.” This covenant defines God
as steadfast.
And
in Jesus, God also gives up some of the protections of being divine. God, in
Jesus, knows what human experience is all about- the joys, but also the pains,
the rejections, the sorrows, and death itself. Some people believe in the idea
of God, but aren’t sure what that means, or what God is like. But by giving up
the divine security that comes from the gap between heaven and earth, God makes
God’s identity known. We no longer have to wonder and debate what God is like,
because in Jesus was have seen that God is healing, grace-filled, honest, challenging,
saving, and ultimately, loving. In the covenant, God says “I will be your God
and you will be my people.” In Jesus, God shows us the depth of God’s
commitment to the covenant by giving up all that separates us from God.
The
covenant not only gives God identity, but defines us as well. And this identity
is crucial not only to understand, but also to embrace. In your creation, you
were made in the image of God. In your Baptism, you were called “the beloved of
God.” And in your other covenantal relationships, whether it be as a parent, as
a child, as a spouse, as a neighbor, as a brother or sister in Christ, your
identity is cemented as someone worth knowing, someone worth being around,
someone worth loving. Nothing can change the fact that God created you in the
image of God or that God loves you.
And
as we see in Mark, you’re going to need that identity. Maya Angelou wrote “to
survive is human, to thrive is divine.” When Jesus says “the time is fulfilled…
believe in the good news,” he is inviting us to thrive in the Kingdom of God on
earth as it is in heaven. But what happens next? On the high of being baptized,
the text says “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was
in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan.” One Biblical scholar has noted
that our struggle with Satan is often strongest after the exhilaration of a
divine encounter. It’s something we all know to be true- exhibited by the fact
that we often use the phrase “the honeymoon is over” to speak of the testing
that often comes after the initial excitement and newness wears off. This
happens a lot in spiritual renewal retreats, where you go for an intense
weekend of prayer and then you come home and are soon lost. Life is not lived
on the mountaintop nor in the waters of Baptism. Life is often lived in the
wilderness, or at the very least, we often pass through the wilderness.
A
few notes on the words that are used in this sentence from Mark. First,
“Satan.” Last Sunday, the Cherub Choir sang “This Little Light of Mine” and one
verse was “don’t let Satan blow it out.” One parent said that their child came
home asking “who is Satan?” And that’s a good question for us to consider.
Satan is not the Devil, as we think of it. We are Christians, not dualists. We
do not believe that the cosmos is the battlefield for the forces of light and
the forces of darkness. We believe in one God. In the Old Testament, the
character of Satan comes up a few times, but isn’t considered to be a demon.
With apologies to you lawyers out there, Satan was considered to be a
prosecuting attorney- someone whose job it was to accuse human beings. By the
time the New Testament was being written, interest in demons had become more
common, so you start to see a conflation of demons and Satan. But for the
purposes of understanding this encounter, Satan is not a proprietor of evil,
but rather someone who challenges us and questions our identity.
And the word that is used
for what Satan does to Jesus is “tempted.” In English this makes us think that
Satan was trying to get Jesus to do something that was against the rules, but
really the word is more like “tested.” Satan wants to find out how serious
Jesus is in his commitment to God. It really comes down to a question of
identity. God’s covenant says that we are loved and redeemed, and the Accuser
comes to say “do you really believe that?” God’s love makes you complete and
worthy, but Satan tests us by saying “you’d be better if you lost a few pounds,
you’d be more loveable if you had more money, you’d be more likeable if you’d
have a few drinks and loosen up.”
I don’t know how you will
be tested. I don’t know where your insecurities lie. But I know that none of us
are perfect, and I know that the world can be a trying place to live. You will
be tested. Your identity as the beloved of God will be challenged. Corporations
value us for our spending ability, politicians value us for our vote, allies
value us for our contributions, but God’s covenant values you for who you are. Jesus
knew who he was, and that is what sustained him through his time in the wilderness.
God is in covenant with
us. It is a covenant that defines us and saves us from being defined by what
society and we ourselves think that we should be. You are worthy and you are
loved. Period. God is steadfast to the covenant, and through the covenant, God
chooses to be present with us in Jesus. Despite the fact that the satans of our
world will challenge that identity, God will never, never, never forget God’s
love for you. And if you ever need a reminder, just look for the rainbow.
Over these next weeks in
Lent, we’ll continue to explore the idea of covenant, what our role in the
covenant is, and how it affects our daily life. But for this week, know this- you
are God’s beloved son and God’s beloved daughter, and with you, God is well pleased.
