2 Lent, Year B, February 25
Gen. 17:1-7; 15-16 • Ps. 22:22-30 • Rom. 4:13-25 • Mark 8:31-38
God speaks to Abraham: “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless” (Gen. 17:1). Moreover, God promises a covenant with Abraham, ensuring that he would be the “ancestor of a multitude of nations” (Gen. 17:2,5). Abraham, for his part, accepts the covenant “through the righteousness of faith.” That is, Abraham trusts God to do as he has promised.
Abraham shows his faith through an important and dramatic gesture. “Then Abram fell on his face” (Gen. 17:3). Trusting in God is living under a provident and secret caregiver; it is a prostration before the “holy of holies,” a silent and determined trust.
Do we fall before God? Throughout the world, many Christians begin the day with a recitation of Psalm 95. “Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and raise a loud shout to him with psalms. … Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, and kneel before the Lord our Maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice” (1-2, 6-7). The God of all glory speaks to us and, in his mercy, elects us in Christ. In the presence of such power and mercy, we do well to bow down, to bend the knee, to offer a broken and contrite heart.
Abraham’s faith passes from generation to generation so that all the ends of the earth and all the families of the nations bow before the Lord (Ps. 22:26). Indeed, the faith of Abraham embraces “a people yet unborn” (Ps. 22:30). In short, in calling Abraham, God is calling the entire human family into a covenant based entirely on the free gift of a divine summons. The divine call is preeminently and perfectly fulfilled in Jesus Christ, for the will of the Father is the will of the Son. It is in this sense that St. Paul often refers to the “faith of Jesus Christ,” the faithfulness of Christ to his Father, and the faithfulness of Christ to his mission. Our faith is derivative of Christ’s faith.
Having been caught up into the life of Christ, we necessarily experience the shedding of the Old Adam, a sinful and false self whose independence is entirely illusory. In the deepest sense, Christ is the only life we have. So, a purgation begins, a dying of what is false and the emergence of what is new. St. Paul sees this process in the faith of Abraham. God is the “one who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom. 4:17). First we die, and then we live; we die with Christ and rise anew with him.
The cross is, of course, the universal image of this pilgrimage. Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?” (Mark 8:34-36)
Along the way and at the end, there is new life in Christ. In the middle time of our mortal flesh, we walk the path of purgation. The weight of this yoke is sometimes light, sometimes heavy, sometimes crushing. By the free gift of Christ and the power of Christ, we go on; we endure to the end.
Look It Up: Genesis 17:3-4
Think About It: Bowing before God in Christ, you reverence your true self.