Sarah Christmyer's Blog, page 6

AT LAST: A BIBLE I CAN WRITE IN!

I am over-the-moon excited about this new Bible.

RSV-2CE translation. Beautifully bound. Easy-to-read text. And nice wide margins for writing in.

Wide margins!

The Bible has always been a place where I have gone to meet the Lord, to get to know him and hear him speak into my heart and life. And, maybe since I’m a writer, or maybe just because it helps me remember, I like to write in my Bible. I like to underline things that stand out. I like to add insights I have into meaning, or notes from talks I want to remember. And I like to write dates next to verses I’m praying with in particular situations. Like these:

“1981, decision not to go to England” —the note is written right by Jeremiah 29:11, “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.” “1996, Zane” —a reference to our baby born with a heart defect, right at Psalm 33 where it speaks of God who fashions our hearts, who we can trust to deliver us.

The Lord has spoken deeply to me through his word and it helps me to remember his faithful love, to write things down like this.

The value of a “notetaking” or journaling Bible

This new Catholic Notetaking Bible from Ave Maria Press has plenty of room to write, but that’s not all. Every verse and passage of Scripture that appears in the Catechism is cross-referenced so you can see how it’s used there, and better understand the biblical roots of our Catholic faith.

It also includes practical essays introducing Scripture and explaining how to read it, written by John Bergsma and Sonja Corbitt, Anthony Pagliarini and Mark Hart, Meg Hunter-Kilmer—and one from me!  I can’t tell you how honored I am to have been asked to contribute the introduction to the New Testament:

An excerpt from my Introduction to the NT—

The four books called gospels, … like the four chambers of a human heart, form the heart of the New Testament and of all Scripture. Each proclaims in writing the good news of the coming of Jesus Christ and his kingdom. Reading them, we hear the heart of God and find proof of the depth of his love. Reading them, we meet Jesus: God with us in the flesh. We are invited to follow him and are shown how. The gospels draw us into the history of divine love that began in the beginning and extends into eternity.

“Hear the heart of God” in the Bible

Have you found the heart of God in his word? I’d love to hear about it.

And if you long to hear him there, but haven’t yet: don’t give up. Like getting to know someone you’ve just met, it takes time to recognize his voice. Make reading the Bible a habit, and start each day with prayer to the One who wants to meet you there. You’ll find some practical help in the Ave Catholic Notetaking Bible from Mark Hart … and plenty of room to record your own thoughts.

God bless you richly as you read his word!

© 2021 Sarah Christmyer

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Free Webinar

Tuesday, April 27

Have you tried to read the Bible, expecting a kind of “love letter” from God but finding instead something very hard to get into or understand? Sign up for this free webinar, when I’ll share basic principles for understanding Scripture and explain how consistently reading your own personal Bible can feed your relationship with Jesus and boost your prayer life. Participate live on Tuesday, April 27, at 3 pm ET or watch it later at this link: How to Understand the Bible—and Meet The Word in the Words of Scripture

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Special Offer

Order the Ave Catholic Notetaking Bible and get 15% OFF with the code CHRISTMYERBIBLE. Offer ends June 30, 2021. Valid in the contiguous United States.

 

 

The post AT LAST: A BIBLE I CAN WRITE IN! appeared first on Come Into The Word with Sarah Christmyer | Bible Study | Lectio Divina | Journals | Retreat.

Good Friday, Holy Saturday; ENTERING THE DARK AND THE SILENCE

Today we enter the darkness.

We feel the betrayal of Judas, then stand at a distance with Peter, deny Jesus ourselves.  Like Peter, we are afraid.  What use is there, for all this suffering?

On Good Friday, we enter into it.  We stand horrified beside the cross.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” We are crushed by the dark.

Tomorrow we suffer the silence.

“Why?” we ask.  Why all the suffering? What kind of God demands it?  It was not God who cried out, “Crucify him!” It was not God who hammered in the nails.  But it was God who accepted that death, who walked willingly toward it, who took on himself the fury and undeserved pain.

Altar of the Nails of the Holy Cross, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. Photo: Sarah Christmyer.

 

Today we watch in horror.  (Will this be asked of me?)

Tomorrow we suffer in silence.

We are tempted to rush into Sunday, to decorate with eggs and chicks and sweet jelly beans, to wrap our winter wreaths in flowers.  “It’s not about death – it’s about life!” we want to say.

The disciples had to wait three days, and so do we.  “Stay with me.”  Not just in the garden, but at the cross, beside the tomb.  “Stay with me.”  Ponder the fact of his suffering and death.  Ponder his dying words.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” –in that cry, in that emptiest of spaces, God may be silent but he is present.  There is nowhere that he is not.  With that cry, Jesus quotes Psalm 22: the psalmist cries out to God and hears no answer “yet thou art holy,” he says; “in thee our fathers trusted…and thou didst deliver them. […] Men shall tell of the Lord to the coming generation, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, that he has wrought it.”  Even in the midst of agonizing abandonment, Jesus knows that the final word belongs to God.

“It is finished.”  I love what Richard John Neuhaus says about this: “‘It is finished’ does not mean that suffering and loss and the rivers of tears are things of the past. ‘It is finished’ means that they do not have the last word.  It means that love has the last word.”  (Death on a Friday Afternoon, p. 193)

What is finished is the power of suffering and death to have the last say.  When we face ridicule, persecution, ignominy, death: we are not alone, because the Lord has descended to that lonely place.  We can unite our pain and fear with his, in hope of resurrection.  “It is finished” — but it is not the end.

Do not be afraid to enter the darkness, the silence.  Stay with him awhile.

Without a death, there can be no resurrection.

© 2015, 2021 Sarah Christmyer

 

First published April 3, 2015; Re-published with slight changes 2021.

The post Good Friday, Holy Saturday; ENTERING THE DARK AND THE SILENCE appeared first on Come Into The Word with Sarah Christmyer | Bible Study | Lectio Divina | Journals | Retreat.

Palm Sunday: ENTERING THE NEW COVENANT

Readings for Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion. At the Procession with Palms:  Mk 11:1-10 or Jn 12:12-16.  At the Mass:  Isa 50:4-7; Psa 22:8-9, 17-20, 23-24; Phil 2:6-11; Mk 14:1 – 15:47. 

My most vivid childhood memory of Easter is the Palm Sunday morning we visited a community of religious sisters.  I must have been six or seven years old.  Not being Catholic, it was my first real exposure to liturgy – and what a liturgy it was!  I’ll never forget processing through the courtyard, waving big palm branches above our heads and calling out, “Hosanna!” That was quite a day.

It came as a surprise when, as a Catholic adult, I found that the “palm” part of this Sunday only forms a kind of prelude to a mass that focuses on the suffering and death of the Messiah who was hailed in that procession.

 

The Messiah: dilemma of the suffering king

We’ve been viewing the Sunday readings through the lens of the Old Testament reading, which until now has been about God’s covenant relationship with mankind. On Palm Sunday, the focus shifts to the Suffering Servant foretold by Isaiah: in four “servant songs,”[1] the prophet tells of a Servant of Yahweh who is abused by those to whom he is sent and who sacrifices himself for their sake.

A few ancient rabbinic sources saw the Messiah reflected in one of them (Isa 53:3, “he was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief … and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all”) — but traditionally, Isaiah’s Servant was seen as a metaphor for the Jewish people as a whole.  At the time of Jesus, the expectation was that the Messiah would be not a servant but a triumphant king, delivering the people from Rome and establishing an earthly rule.

It is not surprising that the same people who shouted “Hosanna” to the king on Palm Sunday, cried for his crucifixion several days later.  He was not who they expected.  What has happened to God’s covenant?

Did God keep his Old Covenant promises?

Jesus himself gives the answer, in the Gospel reading.  At the Passover celebration, “he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it.  He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.’”

Mosaic, Institution of the Eucharist, Medjugorje

 

I wonder what the disciples thought, when he said that? In hindsight, we can see. By calling the cup the “blood of the covenant,” Jesus was saying that his blood that was soon to be shed, would seal a new relationship between God and man. He would suffer for our sins; his death would pay the price for the broken covenant; and now we who share in his death through baptism can also share in his resurrection life and enter into that covenant relationship.

Receiving the rejected Jesus

Just like back then, Jesus appears to us today in many ways.  Sometimes, he’s drawn into the public square.  It’s easy to laud him when he appears triumphant.  But when he’s battered and bruised, maligned, spat on: do we join the crowd that condemns him?

The Church gives us a daily dose of Isaiah’s Servant Songs to meditate on this week, as follows:

Sunday:              Isa 50:4-7Monday              Isa 42:1-7Tuesday              Isa 49:1-6Wednesday        Isa 50:4-9aGood Friday       Isa 52:13 – 53:12

 

The darkness of these songs is lit with messages of hope and courage.  You can find the mass readings every day on the USCCB website.  Consider meditating on them during Holy Week as part of your “Lenten covenant” with God.  May they help you enter into his sorrowful passion and see the golden crown beneath the crown of thorns; may they help you to say, with the centurion — even when things look their bleakest — “Truly this man [is] the Son of God!” (Mk 15:39)

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It seems fitting to close with the Palm Sunday second reading, this hymn from Philippians 2:6-11:

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. 

Amen!

 

© 2015, 2021 Sarah Christmyer.

This was previously published March 28, 2015, on this site. It has been slightly edited.

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What have you learned from this series, or how has it struck you? I’d love to hear from you below (or email me at Sarah@ComeIntotheWord.com). Bless you!

Read about this series here:  Lent, Year B: GOD HAS A PLAN!

More on Palm Sunday:

Here Comes Jesus: Will You Receive Him? Welcome to Holy Week: Palm Sunday and the Passion

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KEEP READING!

Take Scripture into your week during Holy Week and Easter Week with this free Monday-Friday reading plan for Year B (2015, 2018, 2021…): Download 40 Days in the Bible-Yr B.

 

 

[1] The four “servant songs” are in Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; and 52:13-53:12.

The post Palm Sunday: ENTERING THE NEW COVENANT appeared first on Come Into The Word with Sarah Christmyer | Bible Study | Lectio Divina | Journals | Retreat.

5th Sunday of Lent: ANNOUNCING THE NEW COVENANT

Readings for the 5th Sunday of Lent:  Jer 31:31-34; Ps 51:3-4, 12-15; Heb 5:7-9; Jn 12:20-33 (if you hear different readings, your parish may be using the Year A readings that go with the Scrutinies for RCIA)

The night before I turned sixteen, I couldn’t sleep for crying.  

High school wasn’t easy for me.  Not the work so much; it was the rest of it – the social aspects, or lack thereof.  In an attempt to fit in, I made one poor choice after another.

In my opinion that night, I was a failure.

I sat up in bed and started to pray.  “God,” I said, “Can’t you see what a mess I’ve made of my life?!  Help me, please.  Do you even care?  If you can help me out of this hole, then I will follow you.”  By which I meant I’d start making choices to please Him, instead of myself.  “I’ll do my best, anyway,” I added – not sure that I really wanted to, or that I could.

“Create in me a clean heart,” reads the Psalm this Sunday.  “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.”  Reading it, I think of that night long ago when I lifted up my hurting heart to God.  “Cast me not away from your presence, and your Holy Spirit take not from me.  Give me back the joy of your salvation, and a willing spirit sustain in me.”

I don’t remember what I read that night when I turned to open my Bible, but I know that prayer was in my heart.  And God spoke to me through what I did read, assuring me of his love and presence and help and my worth.

I have loved tracing through the covenants this Lent, and watching the progress of Israel.  We’ve seen God’s mercy in spite of their failures, working to save them in spite of themselves.  Last week came hints of return from exile.  Yet we wonder how long that return will last.  Is there hope, without a deeper change?

Hope comes with this fifth Sunday of Lent.  Jeremiah announces: “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel … I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts.”

Ezekiel said something similar to the exiles in Babylon:  “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.  I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees” (Eze 26:26-27).

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

 

The covenants have been a matter of the heart, all along.  The Sunday readings don’t mention God’s covenant with David, but we read about it Friday  in 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 89.  Fitting, that God would choose as king “a man after his own heart” (1 Sam 13:14).  He’s the one who wrote “Create in me a clean heart” after his sin with Bathsheba.

God is in the business of restoring hearts.  He gave me a new heart, once, then gave me a clean one when I blew it; he poured in his love and with his Spirit, helped me learn to love the One who loves me.

 

© 2015, 2021 Sarah Christmyer.

This was previously published March 20, 2015, on this site.

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What have you learned from this series, or how has it struck you? I’d love to hear from you below (or email me at Sarah@ComeIntotheWord.com). Bless you!

Read about this series here:  Lent, Year B: GOD HAS A PLAN!

Coming next: Palm Sunday: ENTERING THE NEW COVENANT

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KEEP READING!

Take Scripture into your week during Lent with this free Monday-Friday reading plan for Year B (2015, 2018, 2021…): Download 40 Days in the Bible-Yr B.

The post 5th Sunday of Lent: ANNOUNCING THE NEW COVENANT appeared first on Come Into The Word with Sarah Christmyer | Bible Study | Lectio Divina | Journals | Retreat.

4th Sunday of Lent: CALLED BACK TO COVENANT

Readings for the 4th Sunday of Lent:  2 Chr 36:14-16,19-23; Ps 137:1-6; Eph 2:4-10; Jn 3:14-21 (if you hear different readings, your parish may be using the Year A readings that go with the Scrutinies for RCIA)

The honeymoon didn’t last long.

In fact, it hadn’t even started.  The people were still wearing their wedding clothes, for crying out loud; God was giving Moses the blueprints for the tabernacle so He’d have a place to live among them — but they couldn’t wait to party.  “We don’t know what happened to Moses,” they said to Aaron.  “Make us a god to be our leader” (see Exodus 32).

That incident of the golden calf, coming so close upon Israel’s rescue from Egypt and God’s declaration of love, set the pattern for the on-again, off-again relationship they had with the Lord for the next 750 years.  The first  reading this Sunday, which is taken from the last chapter in the Hebrew Bible, 2 Chronicles 36, sums up that entire history in a few verses:  God lives among them; they pollute his house.  God loves them; they are unfaithful.  God sends messengers to them; the people mock and despise them “till there was no remedy.”

His suit rejected, God gives them up to their enemies.  The Babylonians decimate Judah.  They destroy Jerusalem and the Temple and take the people into captivity.

It’s depressing.  They had such promise!  Not to mention the help and presence of God himself who has been more than patient with them.  Reading through the Old Testament, it’s easy to pass judgment.  But we aren’t so different from Israel, picking and choosing the commands we’ll obey, sacrificing time with God to do what we want.  How often do warnings come, like they did to Israel, and we ignore them?  What if our relationship with God — our salvation, if you will — depended on our efforts alone?

Thank God it does not.  Neither does 2 Chronicles 36 leave the people there, in captivity and estranged from God’s promise.  After 70 years, as he promised Jeremiah, God charges King Cyrus of Persia to rebuild His temple in Jerusalem — and best of all, he inspires the king to send the people back.   Thus the Hebrew Bible ends on a high note:  Cyrus says of any Israelite who will return to Jerusalem, “Let him go up, and may his God be with him!”

Pilgrims continue to “go up” to Jerusalem even today. These are the Southern steps leading up to the Temple mount. Photo: Sarah Christmyer.

 

What kind of love is this, that keeps on loving no matter what, that powers through infidelity and loss and rejection and pain to “be with” those who are loved?

It is the merciful love of our God.

In Israel’s story, we see lived out the truth that the NT and Gospel readings for this Sunday proclaim:  God is rich in mercy.  In the New Covenant as in the Old, salvation is a gift of grace (Eph 2:4).  God sent his son not to condemn us (much as we might deserve it!) but that we might be saved through him (Jn 3:17).  Even when we are hopelessly lost, when we stray beyond the breaking point as Israel did:  It is God who takes the initiative and makes a way to return.

A Lenten rose for Laetare Sunday

 

All of this is a terrific reason to rejoice, and that is what we shall do!  The fourth Sunday of Lent, like the third Sunday of Advent, marks a break in the penitential season.  Vestments will be rose-colored, and there may be flowers on the altar.  “Laetare Sunday” is named for the opening words of the Entrance Antiphon in the Mass:  Rejoice [“Laetare”], Jerusalem, and all who love her.  Be joyful, all who were in mourning: exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast.

It seems fitting to close with the collect:

O God, who through your Word reconcile the human race to yourself in a wonderful way, grant, we pray, that with prompt devotion and eager faith the Christian people may hasten toward the solemn celebrations to come.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen!

© 2015, 2021 Sarah Christmyer.

This was previously published March 11, 2015, on this site.

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What have you learned from this series, or how has it struck you? I’d love to hear from you below (or email me at Sarah@ComeIntotheWord.com). Bless you!

Read about this series here:  Lent, Year B: GOD HAS A PLAN!

Coming next: 5th Sunday of Lent: ANNOUNCING THE NEW COVENANT

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KEEP READING!

Take Scripture into your week during Lent with this free Monday-Friday reading plan for Year B (2015, 2018, 2021…): Download 40 Days in the Bible-Yr B.

The post 4th Sunday of Lent: CALLED BACK TO COVENANT appeared first on Come Into The Word with Sarah Christmyer | Bible Study | Lectio Divina | Journals | Retreat.

3rd Sunday of Lent: COVENANT WITH MOSES

Readings for the 3rd Sunday of Lent:  Ex 20:1-3, 7-8, 12-17; Ps 19:8-11; 1 Cor 1:22-25; Jn 2:13-25  (if you hear different readings, your parish may be using the Year A readings that go with the Scrutinies for RCIA)

“Sarah, do you take Mark for your lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse … until death do you part?”

“I do.” 

Are there two more powerful words in the world?

More than thirty years later, “I do” has become “we will.”  Two people, standing side by side as one couple—having and holding through sickness and health, through want and wealth.  Neither of us can imagine what we’d do without the other.

Not every marriage works out, to be sure.  But when it does – it gives us a peek into the relationship between Christ and the Church: the heavenly Bridegroom and his holy Bride.

God loves us so much!  Two weeks ago, we saw in the covenant with Noah that he worked to save us from the chaos caused by sin.  Then last week, Abraham’s willingness to offer Isaac gave us a foretaste of the enormous depth of God’s love, that he would sacrifice his own son in our place so we can live.  Now for the 3rd Sunday of Lent, the Church gives us the Ten Commandments, the heart of God’s covenant with Moses.  These plunge us into our response to God’s offer of love.

“Moses with the Ten Commandments,” by Rembrandt. Public Domain.

 

The Ten Commandments are intensely personal.  They are God’s own words, carved by his own hand into stone and addressed to each one of us.  Every pronoun is singular:  “I, the LORD am your [singular; personal] God, who brought you [yourself] out of…that place of slavery….”  And they follow on an amazing promise:

“Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples”  (Exodus 19:5).  The Complete Jewish Bible reads “you will be my own treasure”. 

It’s tempting to think of the Ten Commandments as the Ten Restrictions.  But God gave them to Israel so they could experience the blessings of belonging to him.  Just like loving each other through the ups and downs of life, for better or for worse, enables my husband and me to experience the blessings of a good, strong marriage.  It’s not for nothing that the rabbis speak of the “ten words” (their literal name) as the “ten wedding vows.”

The glory of the Lord covers Mt. Sinai when God met with his people after freeing them from Egypt and giving them the Ten Commandments

 

In fact, every Jewish wedding recalls the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai:  the chuppah (canopy) recalls the cloud of God’s presence over the mountain (Ex 19:17); there is a mikvah for ceremonial cleansing (see Ex 19:10-14); there are two copies of the ketubah or agreement, just as there were two tablets of stone written with the ten “vows”; and a ring is given as a sign of the marriage, as the Sabbath was instituted as a weekly sign of belonging to God (Ex 31:16-17).

The Ten Commandments are all about love.  John Parsons of Hebrew for Christians has summarized them this way:

“I am your only deliverer, the One who loves and chooses you;Love me exclusively;Regard my love as sacred;Rest in me;Honor your life and its history.  Do no harm to others:Forsake anger,Abandon lust,Renounce greed, andAbhor lying.Refuse envy.

Know that you belong to me and that you are accepted.  Love others as you are also loved.”

In the Mosaic covenant, God swore eternal devotion to his people and they swore their devotion in return.  It was to the Ten Commandments that the people said “I do.”  Years later, Jesus said that the greatest commands are to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:36-40). 

The Ten Commandments are all about love.

On Sunday, a reading of the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20 is followed by Psalm 19, which praises the Law as perfect, refreshing, enlightening, just; precious, enduring, and sweet.  “Lord, you have the words of everlasting life,” we respond.  He has given us his word! Not just in the commandments that guide and describe our lives, but in his Son.  Let’s use this week to meditate on our ten “wedding vows” and examine our lives in their light.  Are we loving our Bridegroom well?

Today I say again to God, “I do.”  Do you?

 

© 2015, 2021 Sarah Christmyer.

This was previously published March 3, 2015, on this site.

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What have you learned from this series, or how has it struck you? I’d love to hear from you below (or email me at Sarah@ComeIntotheWord.com). Bless you!

Read about this series here:  Lent, Year B: GOD HAS A PLAN!

Coming next: 4th Sunday of Lent: CALLED BACK TO COVENANT

 + + + + + + +

KEEP READING!

Take Scripture into your week during Lent with this free Monday-Friday reading plan for Year B (2015, 2018, 2021…): Download 40 Days in the Bible-Yr B.

The post 3rd Sunday of Lent: COVENANT WITH MOSES appeared first on Come Into The Word with Sarah Christmyer | Bible Study | Lectio Divina | Journals | Retreat.

2nd Sunday of Lent: COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM

Readings for the 2nd Sunday of Lent:  Gen 22:1-2,9A,10-13,15-18; Psa 116: 10,15,16-17,18-19; Rom 8:31B-34; Mk 9:2-10.

Our third child was being baptized, and the priest did something at the end I’ve never seen before or since.

“Lay the child on the altar,” he said.

We walked forward, and Mark laid Clay down on his back as I smoothed the hand-crocheted christening gown around him.

I wish I could remember what the priest said as he prayed for us and for our son.   But all that remains after 20 years is a general impression of awe.  “My son is not my own,” I thought.  “I give him back to you, Father, he is yours.  For whatever you want.  Help us be worthy parents to him and to the others you have given us.”

 

The Presentation in the Temple by Bartolomeo Veneto

 

I thought of Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus to God in the Temple, and for a moment I remembered Simeon’s words to Mary: “a sword will pierce your soul also.”  Do I want to give him up? I thought – then pushed the thought aside.  It’s probably a good thing I wasn’t thinking of the readings for this Sunday at the time, or I might have hesitated more!  In Genesis 22, Abraham hears God ask him to do what the priest asked of us: lay his son on the altar.  Only his offering was to end in sacrificing his own son.

It’s unthinkable, really.  “Take your son … your only one, whom you love … your own beloved son…”  All that Abraham was, all his hopes and dreams were bound up in that long-awaited child.  The promise of God was bound up in that child:  God gave his word that countless descendants would come from Isaac.  They’d be given land, and then become a royal nation that would bless all the nations of the earth.  All Abraham would have to do is … what?

Give up that son.

He gains it all for us – but only when he first can give it up.

We’re on a journey to Easter through the covenants, and I wonder as I read this: WHY?  Why does the Church take us, one by one, at this time of year, through the promises God made with people long ago?  What is the significance for me?

God’s covenant with Abraham begins to define the family of God, to which you and I belong.  That family came to be as blood descendants of Abraham through Isaac, that sacrificed son: but it is Abraham’s willingness to offer it all back to God that makes him “the father of all who believe” (Rom 4:11).  We can belong, who have faith like Abraham’s.

 

“The Sacrifice of Isaac” by Caravaggio

 

Through the covenant with Noah, we learned that God offers salvation from chaos and evil, from the terrible effects of sin.  But pulling Noah and his family out of the frying pan didn’t mean the fire was gone, that sin was conquered.  If you read on in Genesis, the first thing that happens after Noah’s new start is another fall.  God has to call Abraham out of the society that results.  He promises blessing to Abraham, but he’ll have to let go of earthly life, to get it.

The unexpected twist in the story is that God won’t just wipe away the effects of sin and hand us blessing on a platter.  The path to blessing lies through death.  But in the process, God defeats it.  By not sparing his beloved son, Jesus, he turns death into the very thing it claims to shut:  a door to life and glory.

Spend time in the Sunday readings this week.  Look for the common threads that criss-cross through them:  the “son” described in each; the theme of life and death; the idea of “withholding” or “sparing” (the same word, epheiso, is used in the Greek of Gen 22:12,16 and Rom 8:32); the surprise of resurrection.  Isaac prefigures Jesus “who died – or rather, was raised” (Rom 8:34) and who intercedes for us.  Death does not have the last say in our lives!

Psalm 116 provides our response to what we read:

I believed, even when I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted.’

R:  I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

 My grandma used to say to me, when I found myself dying to self in a difficult way – “Honey, remember: without a death there can be no resurrection.”  It’s also true that with death in Christ, there is resurrection.

It’s fitting, during Lent, to focus on sacrifice.  We lay ourselves on a virtual altar, giving up the things and habits we cling to, as we move toward the Cross where God gave up his own Son to die.  Maybe we wonder, at times, what it’s all for.  With the disciples after the Transfiguration, we “question what rising from the dead meant” (Mk 9:10).

It meant that Jesus had to die, and that his death took him to glory.  As we deny ourselves, let’s not forget: “the saying is sure: If we have died with him, we shall also live with him” (2 Tim 2:11).

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LATER NOTE:  Several readers have asked whether I could give more details about the baptism, and one wrote in to say the priest had done this with both of her children.  She described it like this:

“The priest explained all the parts of the baptism.  Not until after the baptism (being washed clean) was she dressed in the white baptismal garment.  Then, after the lighting of the baptismal candle, he blessed a cross necklace and put it on her for protection.  Then we processed up to the altar. The priest held her in out stretched arms above the altar said “God our Father we present to you this child just as Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the temple. We offer today thanksgiving for the beautiful gifts of life. And we place her on your holy altar as a sign to give her totally to you and to ask for your protection, through Christ our Lord”.  She was laid upon the alter toward the end of this and them taken off the altar by my husband.”

Beautiful!

 

© 2015, 2021 Sarah Christmyer.

This was previously published February 27, 2015, on this site.

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What have you learned from this series, or how has it struck you? I’d love to hear from you below (or email me at Sarah@ComeIntotheWord.com). Bless you!

Read about this series here:  Lent, Year B: GOD HAS A PLAN!

Coming next: 3rd Sunday of Lent: COVENANT WITH MOSES

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KEEP READING!

Take Scripture into your week during Lent with this free Monday-Friday reading plan for Year B (2015, 2018, 2021…): Download 40 Days in the Bible-Yr B.

 

The post 2nd Sunday of Lent: COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM appeared first on Come Into The Word with Sarah Christmyer | Bible Study | Lectio Divina | Journals | Retreat.

SACRED MUSIC: A WINDOW TO HEAVEN

Have you ever heard angels singing?

I think I have for real, once at a charismatic prayer meeting. But earlier this week, I swear the angels came down and joined the choir at Mass. Or maybe it was we who were lifted up into heaven, “joining our voices with angels and archangels” as the liturgy proclaims.

I was in Birmingham at EWTN, preparing to be a guest on At Home with Jim & Joy. I made my way at sunrise to mass in the chapel there, figuring a half hour early would give me plenty of quiet before others arrived. But the chapel was packed (by COVID standards)! I slipped into the last available seat, knelt down and began to pray.

It was then that the music started. Oh, my. There is sacred music, and there is sacred music. This was heavenly. And at daily Mass! I could hardly believe it. I may not have prayed verbally then, but it had to be prayer to be lifting my heart with their voices to God. And that was just the pre-Mass practice. Now and then the director would stop and have the choir repeat, or pull in an additional voice to strengthen a high note. His reverence for the music and the words was evident in everything he said. They weren’t preparing a performance, but to worship.

 

During Mass, right about the time the choir sang “The Lord be with you … lift up your hearts” (although they sang in Latin, not English), the sun rose high enough to send a rosy glow through the vaulted window behind the altar. Etched angels came into view, playing their harps and viols and tambourines. I couldn’t tell who was singing: we in the pews; the choir; or the angels in heaven.

 

Inside the chapel at EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network), Irondale, AL

 

Maybe this is what heaven will be like! We laugh at the classic picture of heaven as an eternity of angels playing harps among the clouds. My vision of what that might be has suddenly changed. I now can’t wait.

© 2021 Sarah Christmyer

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You can join in EWTN’s daily mass and experience the worship yourself at 8 am ET here.

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I talked with Jim and Joy Pinto about what women of the Old Testament can teach us about saying “yes” to God, which I wrote about in Becoming Women of the Word: How to Answer God’s Call with Purpose and Joy. The two-part interview aired Wednesday and Thursday, February 24 and 25, 2021 and can be seen here at this link  or starting here on YouTube.

The post SACRED MUSIC: A WINDOW TO HEAVEN appeared first on Come Into The Word with Sarah Christmyer | Bible Study | Lectio Divina | Journals | Retreat.

1st Sunday of Lent: COVENANT WITH NOAH

Readings for the 1st Sunday of Lent:  Gen 9:8-15; Psa 25:4-9; 1 Pe 3:18-22; Mk 1:12-15 

Adam was not aware.

He lived in blissful beauty, he did not know the primal chaos.  He couldn’t know the bleak facts of life without God: darkness; void; formless waste. He did not witness the glory of land rising up from the sea.

Adam did know the absence of animals, and what their presence meant and did not mean as God brought them to him, one by one.  His was a life of discovery, from sleep to wakeful wonder:  here at last is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!  But everything was brought to him in beauty, as a gift from God.

Noah knew.

He lived in a good world gone bad.  The crown of God’s creation, man and woman, sunk in hate and violence.  He saw the de-creation of the flood, an echo of the fall of men: earth sinking below the waves and taking life with it.

From the window of the Ark, Noah saw the stark truth of life-without-God that is no-life.  For 40 days, he saw the earth recede until it was without form and void.  And then he saw the new creation.

Life, to Adam, was a gift added to beauty and order.Life, to Noah, meant salvation from chaos and evil.

 

God spoke to Noah and his sons of his bond with all creation.  They’re all in it together, not just Noah and his family against the world but Noah’s family and God; the birds, the frogs, the goats and camels; the date palms and olive trees; the desert sands and fertile valleys – all in it together.  God made his covenant with them, bound himself to the whole kit and caboodle.  And the rainbow shone over it all, tying earth to heaven and gleaming like a wedding band in the sky.  A token of God’s love.

Image by Cindy Lever from Pixabay

 

You and I are not accidents of life on a random planet.  God created the world so he could live with us and we with him, together in love.

If you feel that you’re adrift on a sea of darkness — your family is broken, or your livelihood lost, or you fear the shadow of evil:  take heart!  The Church is like an Ark in the world, floating through the chaos.  Stay aboard and it will take you to safety.

Take time to read the Sunday readings this week.  Ask God what he wants to say to you, in them.

Maybe it’s a promise:  “I am now establishing my covenant with you” (Gen 9:8).Maybe it’s a reminder that the action of the ark “prefigured baptism, which saves you now” (1 Pt 3:21).Or maybe it’s a challenge: “Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15).

 

God has given you life as a gift.  He also has saved you from a life without him, which is formless chaos.  Be sure to respond to him as you read.  These words are for you!  The Responsorial Psalm will help you do it.  It will lead you into a conversation about your covenant with God, your personal relationship with the God who loves you:

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9)

R. (cf. 10) Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.

Your ways, O LORD, make known to me;
teach me your paths,
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my savior.

R. Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.

Remember that your compassion, O LORD,
and your love are from of old.
In your kindness remember me,
because of your goodness, O LORD.

R. Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.

Good and upright is the LORD,
thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice,
and he teaches the humble his way.

R. Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.

May your prayers and reading this Lent lead you into a deeper covenant relationship with God.

 

© 2015, 2021 Sarah Christmyer.

This was previously published February 18, 2015, on this site as “Lent, Year B: A Journey to Covenant.”

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What did you learn, or how did this speak to you? I’d love to hear from you below (or email me at Sarah@ComeIntotheWord.com). Bless you!

Read about this series here:  Lent, Year B: GOD HAS A PLAN!

Coming next: 2nd Sunday of Lent: COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM

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KEEP READING!

Take Scripture into your week during Lent with this free Monday-Friday reading plan for Year B (2015, 2018, 2021…): Download 40 Days in the Bible-Yr B.

The post 1st Sunday of Lent: COVENANT WITH NOAH appeared first on Come Into The Word with Sarah Christmyer | Bible Study | Lectio Divina | Journals | Retreat.

Lent, Year B: GOD HAS A PLAN!

As we plunge into Lent, settling into patterns of prayer and fasting and giving to others, the lectionary points us to the reason for it all.

Each week until Easter, I’ll be musing on the Sunday readings: specifically, through the lens of the first (Old Testament) readings.  Read in turn, these take us on a journey through God’s plan to save us, from its beginnings in Genesis to the coming of Jesus.  They focus on our covenant relationship with God: how it began, how it progressed, and how it led to our New Covenant in Christ.

A covenant is a type of agreement.  It is a binding promise that unites people or peoples together.  Covenants have been made between kings and nations, cementing them as allies.  A marriage is a covenant that makes two people one and provides the basis for family.  In the context of God’s relationship with his people, he used covenants to restore and build his human family.  He used covenants to swear his fidelity and bind us to him in loving obedience.

The “Old Covenant,” established in the Old Testament (which means “old covenant”), is a series of binding promises by which God declared his intention to bless Israel and bless the world through her; to be her God and she his precious people.  For her part, she would follow him and show the world a new way of life.  She would be set apart as a light in the darkness, illuminating the way back to the Father.  The “New Covenant” is that for which the Old prepared:  something that promises and achieves for us an eternal relationship of love and blessing within the family of God as his adopted children and the Bride of his only Son.

Here’s an outline of the stops we will make on this Lenten journey:

1st Sunday of Lent – Covenant with Noah

God establishes a covenant with Noah, with a sign “for all ages to come” (Gen 9:8-15).  The psalm reminds us that God’s ways “are love and truth to those who keep [his] covenant” (see Ps 25:10).

2nd Sunday of Lent – Covenant with Abraham

Abraham offers his son Isaac to God, willing to sacrifice his only son.  Because he obeys God’s command, he receives his son and confirmation of an amazing blessing that extends to all the nations of the earth (Gen 22). “I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living,” reads the Psalm Response.  Obedience leads to life, not death.

3rd Sunday of Lent – Covenant with Moses

God brings his children out of slavery in Egypt and gives them the Ten Commandments:  laws to help them live as His children (Exodus 20).  Then Psalm 19:  the law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing, and trustworthy! – the Ten Commandments are, in fact, “the words of everlasting life.”

4th Sunday of Lent – Called back to Covenant

God sends prophets “early and often” to call his people back to his covenant love.  They refuse and are sent in exile, then the Lord draws them out to return and rebuild (2 Chr 36).  “Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!” we respond with Psalm 137, along with the exiles in Babylon.

5th Sunday of Lent – Announcing the New Covenant

As the people head into exile, Jeremiah announces a day when God will make a new covenant within them and write it on their hearts! (Jer 31:33-34).  “Create in me a clean heart,” we reply with Psalm 51.

Palm Sunday – Entering the New Covenant

Old and New are drawn together in the words of Isaiah, who says “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard…” (Isa 50:6).  Then “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” – Jesus himself takes up the refrain from Psalm 22.  Everything in the Old finds its fulfillment in the New, and we enter Passion Week reliving our baptism into his death and awaiting the glorious resurrection.

© 2015, 2021 Sarah Christmyer.

This was previously published February 18, 2015, on this site as “Lent, Year B: A Journey to Covenant.”

Take Scripture into your week during Lent with this free Monday-Friday reading plan for Year B (2015, 2018, 2021…): Download 40 Days in the Bible-Yr B.

The post Lent, Year B: GOD HAS A PLAN! appeared first on Come Into The Word with Sarah Christmyer | Bible Study | Lectio Divina | Journals | Retreat.