Feb.22, Gen. 9:8-17, I Peter 3:18-22
Lent is the longest period of sustained spiritual reflection on our church year. While our reading from Mark is short, the other passages open up a world of spiritual reflection. Noah receives a promise for his little band of survivors and is the representative not only of them but the promise of life for all of the inhabitants of the ark.This is as expansive word about the enironment of life in the entire bible.It also signals that God commits to a fallen diffiuclt world. God makes a promise, an abiding commitment to us without us doing a thing. God comes to grips with change.the rainbow is a constant reminder to god of this promise, of the continuing vitality of this promise.This piece of the Noah story seems to have God turning back from another catastrophe. for christians, jesus Christ is God’s holding on to that drastic change of healing, working with, working from within, not annihilation.
I had a member in Indiana who would not recite the line in the creed that Christ descended into Hell because it was a bad word and he feared that it could mean that punishment was not eternal. Hell is clearly an abode of the dead here. On the other hand, It is fully possible that Jesus could enter into the abode of everlasting punsihment, or everlasting separation of god and split it wide open.by Peter seen less as terrible cleansing event or even a new start but protected within the ark of the church. God notices even a small group. God continues to open a new future.Our ceiling is thought by some to try to give a sense of being in the hold of a ship, not the hold of a ship as slaves but yeas as servants of god, or better immigrants to a new land here and toward Bunyan’s celestial City. the ancient phrase for this passage and allied traditions is the harrowing of hell. Jesus continue sot lead a procession out of the ultimate Hell of fire or non-existence after death Jesus empties out Hell and leaves it to die, a mere husk. It cannot bind the lives of those who have died.and the hells we daily encounter.
Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.
Baptism and repentance/ metanoia-turn around in knowledge/mind/way of living-turn back to our best self-allied with Christ against forces seen and unseen-the baptismal pleas is also calling us to the promises and pledged heard and made in baptism-hear them again-in part baptism is a rite of exorcism of dismissing the evil within us and our world-let’s look at repent-from what to what?
.Harrowing of hell means that God does not give up on us-In the last century Protestants loved otargue if god would save usfrom the torments of Hell.Is God’s love stronger than death. is God’s love stronger than our no to God?In the earliest meaning, Lent had to do with spring in English. Even when the ground is cold, we can plant seeds like lettuce and see them spring into new life. Even in the coldest of souls,God continues to work, to bring life to us, even beyond death itself.
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