Lent Season: Living the Baptised Life

In these six weeks leading up to Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, through the gospel readings, we fix our eyes on Jesus of Nazareth and his life of obedience to God the Father, especially the last few weeks of his ministry as he journeys to Jerusalem as Israel’s Servant-King. And through Him, we catch a sense of Our Creator’s deep concern to redeem and restoring his fallen first Creation and bring forth New Creation. The New Testament letters deepen our understanding of the significance of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension, while the Old Testament readings and the Writings (mainly the Psalms), help us explore the journey of the people of God in finding and living out their place for the generations of their time as well as the tension of holy living in a fallen world. As for our personal reflections, we focus on what it means to live the baptised life - as sons and daughters of God, following Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit in our various spheres of life, living in a way that glorifies our Heavenly Father.

reading for: Tuesday Night, 20 february

Mark 8:31–38

• READ

  31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” 34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

  Commentary

  Jesus went with his disciples to the villages at Caesarea Phillippi and he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples replied that some say he was John the Baptist and some Elijah, and others one of the prophets. Jesus then modified his original question slightly by asking them, “But who do you say that I am?” This disciples had been with Jesus for years by this point and Jesus wanted to know who the disciples thought that he was. Peter answered that Jesus was the Christ. (Mark 8:27-30)

  Peter was able to articulate the identity of Jesus. He said that Jesus is the Christ. But did Peter understand what being the Christ meant? Do we understand what does it mean to be the Christ? Do we imagine a conquering king with a mighty army riding into the city and conquering the entire city with force? Maybe this was what Peter imagined Jesus to be. Perhaps he imagined that Jesus was the Messiah that rode a large horse with a large army to overthrow the Romans and reestablish God’s rule.

  Yet, this was not what Jesus saw himself as. Jesus is the Christ, but he is the Christ that must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. Jesus is the crucified and risen Christ. He is the one that rides into Jerusalem on a donkey as the one who is the crucified and risen Christ.

  Peter did not get this; he still saw Jesus as the Messiah who conquers by force. However, Jesus makes it plain that he conquers by his death and resurrection by rebuking Jesus with the harshest rebuke.

  Jesus makes the meaning even more clear by exhorting his disciples to deny himself, take up the cross and follow him. He teaches that whoever would save his life will lose it but loses his life for Jesus’s sake will save his life. Jesus is saying that if we follow him in his death, we will have life.

• REFLECT

Jesus is the servant of God who conquers not by force but by humility and obedience to the Father. He is the Christ as the crucified and risen one. How do we see Jesus? Do we see Jesus as the crucified and risen King? Or do we see Jesus as the one who shoots lightning bolts in the sky?

Mark 8 challenges us that Jesus is the conquering king who conquers by being a servant. He conquers by dying on the cross and rising again. He calls us to make the same journey with him by dying with him and rising with him. Will we make this journey with him? Will we try to save our lives, or will we lose our life for his sake to gain a life that cannot be touched by death?

reading for: Wednesday Night, 21 february

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

• READ
  Abraham and the Covenant of Circumcision

  17 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, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 7 And 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.

  Isaac's Birth Promised

  15 And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”

  Commentary

  This covenant that God made with Abraham, our great father of faith, about 2000 years before the birth of Jesus, was the engine of God’s plan to redeem all of humanity and creation. Abraham’s descendants would eventually constitute many peoples – both Jews (biological) and gentiles (spiritual). And the promised son to Sarai was biologically Isaac but eventually, 2000 years later, it was Jesus of Nazareth, who through his death and resurrection would forge a covenant relationship with God the Father. And at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (the everlasting covenant), Christ would bring both his Jewish and gentile followers into a new covenant relationship with God, making them children of God and spiritually, the descendants of Abraham through faith.

  In Genesis 17:2–7). God’s promise and one-sided gift to Abram that he should become the ancestor of many nations (v. 4), and that he should “multiply greatly” (vv. 2, 6). Seems quite ridiculous, even laughable, given the advanced age of both Abrahm and Sarai (v. 17).  

  Yet the renaming of Abram into “Abraham” (v.5) and Sarai into “Sarah” (v.17) are significant moments – they are to boldly accept and assume their new identities and others around are to call them by their new names, in faith, until at some point - God fulfils his promise to them.

• rEFLECT

  Most of us think of ourselves in terms of a certain identity. For some of us, our workplace position, roles and responsibilities define us and perhaps we and others see ourselves as ‘director’ ‘manager’, ‘employee’ or ‘associate’, etc. At home we may assume other important identities, such as ‘father/mother’, ‘children’, ‘uncle/aunt’ or ‘brother/sister’. Among friends, we might be known as the ‘crazy one’ the ‘life of the party’ etc.

  What would it mean for God to see you his ‘child’ and what would it mean to call God your father? How much do we resemble him in words and action? What would it mean to first consider yourself a child of God before you think of yourself in your other identities? How would that change things for you?

reading for: Thursday Night, 22 february

Romans 4:13-25

READ

“For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

 (Romans 4:13–25 ESV)

In this section of his letter to the church in Rome, Paul is developing an argument with the Jewish Christians in mind. He wants to make the point that when it comes to being God’s People and enjoying His Presence with Us, faith in God Himself has always been fundamental, not faith in the keeping of the Law.

For the nation of Israel, the keeping of the Law of Moses had become fundamental to being God’s People and thus, enjoying all the benefits and privileges that come with being God’s Children and Servants in the world – access to His Presence, His Guidance, His Wisdom and a Distinction amongst the nations to name a few. Paul as a former Pharisee, was cognizant of the importance of the Law, but now in the light of God’s work in and through His Son, he was revising his convictions. Access to God and the benefits and privilege of being God’s Children and Servants in the world, now came NOT through the keeping of the Law, but through faith in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. To demonstrate this, he brings the Jewish Christians back to their Scriptures, ie the Law of Moses.

Paul agrees that the nation of Israel was built upon the Law of Moses (Torah). It was through Moses that God brought the 12 tribes of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, and through the wilderness. It was through Moses, that the Law was given to Israel – to constitute the twelves tribes of Israel as one united nation as they enter the land of canaan to possess it. As for as the nation of Israel was concerned, their life with God, and with one another in the land was determined and regulated by the Law of Moses. To be a true citizen of Israel, one was to be faithful to the Law of Moses.

But Paul goes on to point out that the Law of Moses doesn’t start with the book of Exodus, but with the book of Genesis. In referencing Abraham, Paul reminds the Church in Rome that God’s saving work in the Exodus event, only happened because of a prior relationship between God and Abraham. God’s calling of Moses and the making of the nation of Israel, started a promise to Abraham. Because Abraham believed in God’s promises that he would be the father of many descendants, and that these descendants would be God’s servants in the world… not only did Moses and the nation of Israel emerge from that faith, but now Jesus, the promised Son of David, had come forth, to take His rightful place as the One Reconciling Priest and King who would unite Jews and Gentiles, and build the household of God, to effect God’s Kingdom rule over the creation.

In this way, all God’s promises are now fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus, and the one thing that brings us into the reality of those promises, was not the Law, but Faith in God. It is precisely this faith in God’s action in and through His Son, that we today are brought into His Household, and become the descendants of Abraham, the person’s whose very faith in God, put God’s saving work in the world into effect from the very beginning.  

REFLECT

“… not only to the adherents of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham…”

What was God’s promise to Abraham? (Genesis 12:1–3, 17:1–8 18:16–19)

What was God’s hope to see in the world through the fulfilment of His promise to Abraham?

What was Abraham hoping for when he believed in God’s promise to Him? (cf. Hebrews 11:8–19)

If you and I share the ‘faith of Abraham’, should we have the same hope of Abraham and God did?

reading for: FRIDAY Night, 23 FEBRUARY

Psalm 22:23-31

Confidence in the Midst of Trials as God’s Children

• REAd

  22:23 You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
  
  22:24 For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.

  
  22:25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
  
  22:26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD. May your hearts live forever!
  
  22:27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.
  
  22:28 For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations.
  
  22:29 To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.
  
  22:30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord,
  
  22:31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.

   

  Commentary

  Psalms 22 is one of the most famous Psalms. Standing alongside Psalm 1, 23, Psalms 51 and Psalms 119, it stands out as because Jesus on the way to the cross, on his passion road, quotes the Psalms 7 times. And out of these 7 times, 5 times are actually from Psalm 22.

  This spotlight to Psalms 22 however, highlights the very real suffering that Jesus and by implication us as God’s children also need to go through. Jesus told his disciples in Mark 8:34, that we are to pick up our cross, deny ourselves and follow him. We cannot be God’s children and follow Jesus without following His way and path of the cross.

  But just as follow Jesus to pick up our cross and deny ourselves will mean pain and suffering, it also means that pain and suffering isn’t the end. And we will experience deliverance, salvation, joy and hope at the end.

  And that situates the deep cries and pains of the first 18 verses in Psalm 22. A transitional cry and prayer for help from verses 19-21 results in a confident response of the deliverance that God will provide. In other words, the pain and suffering, the persecution of enemies is seen by God and as the cry for help is made by God’s child (David in this case, Jesus in the gospels and we as His children now), deliverance and salvation will come.

  And that’s the confidence and hope which the Psalmist now sings and calls from in verses 22-31.

  Let’s keep fearing the LORD, lets glorify Him, lets stand in awe of Him (v. 23).

  Why? For He does not despise the afflicted, he will not hide his face from us and has heard our cry (v. 24).

  Praise comes from God and the afflicted will eat and be satisfied (v. 25-26).

  One day, every single creation, nation and person will turn to the LORD. And all famlies will worship Him (v. 27). For He is King and He rules (v. 28).

  Verses 29-31 is a reiteration of verses 27-28 which only re-emphasises that beautiful picture that will happen in the end.

• REFLECT

  Suffering, pain and evil are part and parcel of following Jesus. The apostle James in his letter also wasn’t surprised and could see God’s purpose and heart behind it.

  Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

  James 1:2-4

  What do you notice about the confidence that David has in this Psalm? What are some words that point to that?

  What is his confidence in?

  How is this confidence lived out and expressed?