Friday of the Second Week of Lent
At this point in Lent, my self-imposed abstinence and pentitential practices are starting to wear me down. It’s a long way to Easter and it can be difficult to maintain a sense of purpose and determination. Like most of the readings in Lent, today’s readings are meant to provide us some sustenance and support along the way, but in order to see that point in today’s readings, we have to directly compare the Genesis and Matthew texts.
When the New Testament authors were trying to make sense of who, exactly Jesus was, or when Jesus himself was talking about who he was, he was often compared to prominent figures in the Old Testament, since those figures would be familiar to their readers and they could more readily understand. So, in last Sunday’s gospel about the Transfiguration, we saw a direct comparison between Jesus, Moses and Elijah, because here was Jesus seated with the greatest of the prophets, and yet the only one named as God’s son. Paul says that Jesus is the Second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-48); the author of the letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus is the great high priest in the order of Melchizedek, who is also mentioned in the Old Testament.
In today’s collection of readings, we see a somewhat less familiar comparison: Jesus tells a story (Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46) that is reminiscent of the story of Joseph (Genesis 37:3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28a). There are, of course, some key differences, but some of the basic elements of the story are the same: A man, favored by his father, is hated intensely by other people, and so they take him away with the intent of killing him.
Joseph’s brothers recollect themselves just in time and instead of killing Joseph, sell him into slavery, BUT they let their father think Joseph has died. In Jesus’ story, the son of the landowner actually dies and the implication of the story is, of course, that God the Father is like the landowner, and Jesus is like the landowner’s own son. A further comparison that we might make is in the pieces of silver mentioned in the Genesis text: we will not hear this story till later, but recall that Judas does, in fact, sell Jesus to the authorities for forty pieces of silver, similar to Joseph’s brothers selling Joseph for twenty pieces. Jesus is foretelling his own death on the cross, the very cross that we journey toward this Lent.
The comparison with Joseph can lead us toward many thoughts. One comparison is to read ahead to see how Joseph’s story ends: eventually he becomes the second-in-command over Egypt. In a time of famine, his leadership is so great that people from all over the region travel to Egypt to receive food, and in fact, his brothers and father travel there too, and are joyously reunited with the brother and son they thought was long lost or dead. We who are traveling toward the cross this Lent can likewise find solace in the fact that Jesus’ death is not the end and that his story ends well for us too – hopefully with a joyous reunion between ourselves and God.
Another point to make from these texts is the close connection between the Old Testament and New Testament. I often hear people making statements about how the Old Testament god is vengeful and warlike and different from the New Testament god. However, as Christians, we do not see two gods, but one, a loving God who acts in ways we do not perhaps understand. Today’s texts show us clearly that God is loving and God remains with us in our suffering (even our relatively minor Lenten suffering). The point of these texts is to keep our focus sharply on Jesus.
- Jana M. Bennett