2 Lent, Year B

“SEPARATION, LOSS AND GAIN”
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, March 8, 2009
Genesis 22: 1 – 14; Psalm 16: 5 – 11; Romans 8: 31 – 39; Mark 8: 31 – 38

“Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must suffer many things….”

So begins Jesus’ open teaching (Mark tells us that Jesus “said this plainly”) about His forthcoming passion, death and resurrection.

To Jesus’ original disciples, these words meant one thing: separation and loss!

No wonder that Mark tells us that Peter takes Jesus and begins to rebuke Him. (Matthew tells us more of Peter’s actual words, as we read, “Lord, this shall never happen to you!”[1])

Our Old Testament reading from Genesis 22, and our Gospel for today, both involve separation and loss.

For Abraham, the separation comes in the form of the loss of his only son, Isaac, as Isaac is sacrificed on the altar. With the loss of his only son, the heir God had promised Abraham, comes also the loss of the descendents God had promised Abraham, descendents would be as numerous as the stars of the heavens.[2]

So, too, Jesus’ words about His coming passion and death represent separation for the disciples, and the loss of everything they hoped would come from Jesus’ work, prominence, and growing popularity.

But in the face of separation and loss, there is gain!

Because of his faithfulness, Abraham regains his son, a substitutionary sacrifice is provided in the form of the ram, and in the process, Abraham regains the descendents God had promised.

Out of prospective separation and loss comes great gain!

So, too, Jesus’ complete statement about His suffering and death also includes not only the first (of three) predictions about those events, but also the prediction of His rising to new life again.

Out of prospective separation and loss comes great gain!

For, you see, by the prospect of separation and loss, and only through the separation that the cross represents, and the loss that the cross represents, can come the great gain of eternal life, union with God, and – like Abraham – spiritual descendents as numerous as the stars in the heavens.

No wonder that St. Paul can say, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (our Epistle reading for today).

Now, as we turn to the separations and the losses we have either faced, or face today, we must admit it’s a whole lot easier to talk about separation and loss than it is to live out such separation and loss.

Separation and loss are both painful realities of life.

Yet, it is only through separation and loss that we are reborn into eternal life in Christ, which is the greatest gain any human person can hope for.

We enact such separation by entering the waters of baptism. By descending into the waters with the Lord, we separate ourselves physically from our former life, and we intentionally “lose” the life we lived beforehand.

Lent calls us to relive that baptismal experience, to recall the power of the baptismal waters to form the boundary line of separation and loss that it represents, to live that separation and loss out, all over again.

Lent calls us to connect our baptismal experience with the painful lessons of separation and loss than sin represents, and to connect baptism’s power to wash us clean from all our iniquity, and to kill off all those things in our lives that draw us away from the love of God.

Lent offers us the gain of a closer relationship with God, through the example and merits of Jesus Christ.

Lent leads us to Easter Sunday morning, with all of the gain that Jesus’ resurrection makes possible for those who come to faith in Him.

For just as the evil one could not separate Jesus from the love of God the Father on Good Friday, neither can any separation or loss we will ever experience in the Good Fridays of our lives remove us from the love of God the Father than comes through God the Son.

Thanks be to God, for the separation and loss are Christ’s, and ours.

So, too is the gain Christ’s, and ours.

AMEN.


[1] Matthew 16: 22
[2] See Genesis 15: 4 – 5.