Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

The Abraham story was covered quite extensively last summer. During the Lenten season, we are reminded of the covenant. Getting your name changed is pretty cool. It means you've become something new, something special.

Romans 4:13-25

With a lot of work, we get some idea of Paul's thoughts on law, faith and grace. Not too much on grace, so I'll just say that's what God gives you no matter what you do. You don't earn it, but you should be thankful for it and act accordingly, as if you do need to earn it, but you can't calculate how much you'll get or complain if you don't get it. See? Then there's law. It isn't a bad thing, but it's getting abused by the Jews in Paul's time. Paul wants everyone to get Christ's grace and salvation and he doesn't want the law to get in the way of that. You can and maybe should follow the law, but it's not what earns you a place in heaven.

Faith is the key. Abraham was faithful. He knew God would provide and went all the way up the mountain and lifted a knife to kill his only son to prove it. I'm sure he was relieved when God provided a goat right at the last second. God had already figured out he was a righteous man, so I'm not sure why he needed to test him like that, but I reckon he passed the test. I have trouble saying "reckon" without a southern accent. And if we want to be reckoned righteous all we need is faith. It seems a bit circular to me, but we don't get much better definition for just what "righteousness" is so we'll have to work with this one: If you believe, then you're righteous, so then you'll know which laws are the good ones, so you'll be good, which shows you have faith, which is why you should have it.

Mark 8:31-38

The Lectionary gives you the option of Mark 9:2-9. We just covered it a couple weeks ago.

Boy, loaded with some classics, this one is; "take up their cross", "lose your life to save it", the thing on shame. I'm not going to cover all of them. Maybe I'll come back and add to this later. You could check out Proper 17A for Matthew's version.

But what's going on with this "Get behind me Satan" stuff? Some say the translation should be "adversary" not "Satan". I think the idea of what Satan is all about is pretty confused so I'd rather not try to understand that word. Peter has the wrong idea about what Jesus is doing, so to change the plan would go against the prophecy, so he'd be an adversary to the mission.

But why the big deal about Peter wanting Jesus to not die?

If Peter is a devout Jew, shouldn't he know the prophecy? He's on the inside here, he's seen the miracles and should be convinced of who he is dealing with. This could be seen as a turning point. Maybe the miracles haven't been enough and he really needs the Transfiguration, coming up in the next chapter. Mark begins with people not recognizing who Jesus is, and in the chapters that follow shows people having trouble accepting the suffering Jesus must go through. In the end, Peter denies he knew Christ.

This is a very clear and open statement from Jesus about why he is here, not something you get very much of, although he will restate this a couple more times. But when dealing with Pharisees he is less clear and when teaching he uses parables that seem almost designed to confuse. This could be part of the prophecy. If it was as simple as sacrificing the Son of God to attain salvation for all, someone would have done it already. There would be no need for all this sneaking around. But it's not that simple, not just anyone can do it.

The sacrifice has to be performed by the ones who have corrupted the teachings and distorted the law, and they will lose power in the doing of it. When everyone is forgiven there is no need for them to come to the Temple to ask for forgiveness again and again. They want to keep the God that is feared, and they want people to know that He will come for his recompense. Peter can't quite deal with this. He might understand salvation, but he doesn't want to deal with the pain of the death of his savior to get it. He might not completely trust that it will work either. For it to be a sacrifice there has to be something he is losing. He hasn't completely come to terms with giving up the living man for the hope of the future.