Worship Notes Sunday, March 16, 2014

Worship Notes

The Second Sunday in Lent, Year A

March 16, 2014

The Season

The season of Lent is a journey. Our forty days of Lent, modeled after Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, are a microcosm of the journey of discipleship throughout our lives. Our texts that come from the Hebrew Scriptures today are about a journey, a journey that is empowered by faith. Our readings from the Greek New Testament are reflections on this faith.

 

In Word

The first eleven chapters of Genesis are “pre-history.” The historical account of God’s activity with humanity begins with chapter 12, beginning with our First Lesson for today. As in the first verse of Genesis 1, so, too, God speaks in Genesis 12. God is the actor; God is the initiator. In Genesis 12, God speaks to Abram (later called Abraham), “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. . . .” Verse 4 records Abram’s response: “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him . . .”  The Apostle Paul in our Second Lesson reflects theologically on God’s call and Abraham’s response in faith. Paul insists that it was Abraham’s faith in God that made Abraham righteous: “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

Psalm 121 is one of the Songs of Ascent, sung by the faithful making pilgrimage to the Holy City Jerusalem. The psalmist sings, “I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?” As if in response, the psalmist continues, “My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Six times in this psalm, a form of the Hebrew word shamar appears, translated variously in the verb form as “keep,” “watch,” “help,” or “guard” (the NRSV translates the word as “keep” consistently; other versions choose more than one translation). As Abram demonstrated in our First Lesson, our psalmist sets out on the journey in faith in God, our “Keeper.”

Our Gospel writer John takes us to a clandestine meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus “by night,” not wanting to be detected by his fellow Pharisees. Nicodemus famously misunderstands Jesus’ insistence that we must be born anothen—“again” or “from above.” (It seems the confusion persists.) Jesus goes on to insist that faith—belief—is the key: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

In Song

John Ylvisaker wrote both the lyrics and the music for our Song of the Day, “We Are Baptized in Christ Jesus.” Imagery of the Sacrament of Baptism sings through these lyrics, and we sing it reflecting on Jesus’ response to Nicodemus: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” Born in Fargo, Ylvisaker is a product of Concordia College in Moorhead, Luther Seminary in St. Paul, the University of Minnesota, and St. Cloud State College.