february-2018

Sojourners’
Gandhi Poster
Reuters/Gene Blevins
A man prays during
an early-morning
wildfire, fueled by
high winds and dry
conditions, that
ignited north of Los
Angeles in December.
our wake. Nature’s destruction, from predation
to earthquakes and whirling storms,
often balance the natural equation even
when human property and possessions
are devastated.
Nature’s fury is terrifying. We are terrified
in its face and traumatized in its wake. Our
biblical ancestors, like other ancient humans,
looked to the skies through which lightening
shot as though from a bow and saw in the
arc of the rainbow the template for a divine
weapon. In Genesis, the weapon of divine
warfare becomes the sign of a promise of
survival. The rabbis believed that Noah’s ark
and this cosmic covenant gestured toward the
Ark of the Covenant, as both arks would safeguard
the people of God.
It will still storm and flood. But we as
a species will survive. Unless, perhaps, our
survival depends on our care of the earth.
[ FEBRUARY 25 ]
Son of Woman
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:23-31;
Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38
WHILE THERE MAY be some speculation
about the identity, and hence nature, of
Jesus’ father, there is generally none about
his mother, the fully human Palestinian
Jewish young Miriam called Mary. Mark
8:31-38 presents the human and divine
aspects of Jesus’ natures. He is fully incarnate
here, mortal and immortal: Son of
Woman.
Jesus is also living fully in the shadow
of his impending death. There is perhaps
nothing more truly human. He teaches his
disciples that he will certainly die and suffer
along the way and—in the same breath—
that he will rise again on the third day, all
in the same verse (Mark 8:31). Christians
often rush to the resurrection, neglect the
The psalmist has read
God’s résumé in creation.
crucifixion, and avoid at almost all costs the
period that Jesus lay dead. The season of
Lent bids us sit at the foot of the cross and
in the shadow of the tomb.
It is not just Jesus’ death that we shrink
from. Death may be our constant companion
and most frequent one, but she is an
unwelcome one. Many don’t plan for their
deaths or those of their dear ones and don’t
talk about death, sometimes not even at
funerals. Lent provides an opportunity for
us to reflect on our own mortality.
We, like Jesus, are woman-born. And we,
like him, shall die. Jesus calls us to follow in
this life-space between birth and death. It is
in our shared humanity that we are called
by the Son of Woman. Jesus bids us follow
and live in the knowledge of the certainty of
our deaths. n
“Preaching the Word,” Sojourners’ online
resource for sermon preparation and Bible
study, is available at sojo.net/ptw.
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FEBRUARY 2018 sojourners 45