When looking at our readings it would seem that today is something of foreshadowing Sunday, which I don’t think is a real day, but you never know what days congress will designate next. I mean in 1998 they declared April 6th National Tartan Day. As a Scot and proud owner of a kilt and some pretty sweet plaid pants I still have to say that this is a bit much; but back to foreshadowing Sunday. Two of our verses the Old Testament and the Gospel are a little odd or at least a little hard to decipher but if you take a little journey through the commentaries you can see how they might be pointing to what happens on Good Friday and Easter. Before going forward I should give you a spoiler alert that what I am about to tell you will give away some of Holy Week.
We start with Genesis and Abram (he would later become Abraham but you probably knew that already). First we hear this, “[God] said to [Abram], ‘Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other.” So just to recap the scene is this: We have a heifer, a goat and a ram all chopped in half, lying on the ground, creating a sort of morbid garden path. After this we read, “When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.” So just to reiterate a smoking fire pot and a torch float through three chopped up animals. And since this is not something that we see very often, unless we are on drugs, the natural question is what does this all mean?
First, it is probably safe to assume that the smoking pot and torch represent God. But for the next part we have to look elsewhere in the Bible and that elsewhere is Jeremiah 34:18 where we read, “And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant which they made before me, I will make like the calf which they cut in two and passed between its parts.” This would seem to infer that in a covenant, if you were the person who passed through the chopped up animals and if you subsequently broke that covenant to which you had agreed in this stroll through chopped up animals then you could expect the same thing to happen to you (i.e. you would be chopped in half). I have read elsewhere that in this type of covenant it was the weaker party who was generally the one who had to do the stroll past the ram intestines, which seems to make sense because generally the weaker party is not in a place to make such threats to the stronger party. So let’s now get to a little symbolism time. If we assume that God is the stronger party (which is a pretty good assumption) we need to ask the question of why God would have voluntarily taken on the roll of the weaker party? For remember that is God in the form of the smoking pot and torch who passed through the chopped up animals. Well this is foreshadowing Sunday, so in the case of the smoking pot and chopped up heifers, we see that the stronger party has agreed to take on the punishment of the weaker party; that is if the weaker party breaks the covenant then the stronger party will get the punishment. I assume that this is all clear by now but just in case. We believe that Jesus, the Son of God, died for our sins. We sinned but God took the punishment. So in this act way back in Genesis God is agreeing to the rules that will be in effect with the life of Jesus of Nazareth. God has agreed to take the punishment that we deserve for our sins.
Okay so now onto part two of foreshadowing Sunday, which comes from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus after pointing out how Jerusalem loves to kill prophets states, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” So for this one I had to do a little bit of barnyard research having no real experience with hens except when they went to be processed at the Foster Farms kill plant in Livingston, California. And here is what I learned. According to N.T. Wright, “There are stories that after a farmyard fire, those cleaning up have found a dead hen, scorched and blackened – with live chicks sheltering under her wings. She has quite literally given her life to save them.” So this one I would imagine takes a little less explanation – hens give their life to save their chicks, Jesus gave his life to save us. Jesus is telling the Pharisees what the plan is, the plan that appears to have been first foreshadowed in the covenant with Abram back in Genesis.
So now that we are done with this explanation of just what was going on in our readings we might be wondering so what. In some ways we have kind of been told something that we already knew. And I would agree but the thing is sometimes it is worth reflecting on the things that we already know because when things grow too common we often lose the wonder and excitement in them. It is sort of like the electricity in our house. We tend to take it for granted except when it goes out. When it comes back on we tend to be genuinely excited about it because we have seen (or actually not seen) what life looks like without it. And so there are times where it can be useful to do sort of a reset and look at what God has done through fresh eyes.
The German Romantic poet Heinrich Heine is reported to have said on his deathbed, “Of course God will forgive me, that’s his job.” I don’t want to be to hard on old Heinrich but I think he displays a mentality that all of us run the risk of displaying. And that mentality is not just one of simple ingratitude, but of entitlement; the belief that the death and resurrection of Jesus was something that was owed to us because we are just so awesome. But let’s go back to Abram. God made a covenant and then willingly took on the role of the lessor party. In Jesus’ example it is the strong hen who defends the weak chicks. In none of these examples is humanity the strong party, the party that has earned what God has done. God has come to save us of his own freewill. God was willing to suffer to save us from ourselves. I think to be a Christian we need both an understanding of our sinful nature and an understanding of the lengths God went through to save us from that sin. It is only in this that we can have the feelings of joy and gratitude in understanding what happens on Easter. The same sort of joy and gratitude we experience when the power comes back on. And part of the gratitude in the power coming back on is the realization of all the things that we could not do without it.
The thankfulness that we should have on foreshadowing Sunday should be the result of realizing that we are not capable of achieving our own salvation and it is only through God’s love that we can do any of it. The author A.J. Jacobs recently came out with a book entitled, Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey. The premise of the book is that the author, who really likes coffee, sets out to thank all of the people who make his morning cup of coffee possible. From the book jacket we read that he, “discovers that his coffee—and every other item in our lives—would not be possible without hundreds of people we usually take for granted: farmers, chemists, artists, presidents, truckers, mechanics, biologists, miners, smugglers, and goatherds.” If this guy can go to such lengths of gratitude for a cup of coffee, what should we do for the creator of the universe who desired communion with us so much that he suffered and died to achieve it? That is something to contemplate this Lent so that we may be truly ready for Easter and be God’s own both now and forevermore.