Sunday Scripture Readings

Printer-friendly versionSend to friend FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT MARCH 28 Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11 OUR GOOD NEWS: Praise and gratitude to the "exodus" God for all He has done, is doing, and for His promises of bless-ings yet to come — all in Christ Jesus. In the first reading, the poet-prophet Isaiah begins by recalling the most important single event in Israel’s entire Old Testament history: the miraculous deliverance from Pharaoh’s pursuing army at the Red Sea ... This incident is considered classic and normative throughout the Bible for two reasons. It was regularly recalled as God’s most spectacular demonstration of His powerful love, and particularly at the moment when His people first placed their faith-trust in Him. The Israelites had successfully escaped from Egypt, only to cower helplessly before Pharaoh’s pursuing powerful army. God intervened to lure the entire force of chariots and horsemen into a path He had made through the Red (or Reed) Sea, then caused the waters to flow back and utterly destroy the enemy. Amazingly, Isaiah calls to mind this greatest of divine acts on behalf of Israel to introduce a new oracle from God — who commands us to forget all about it! The audience to whom this prophecy was originally directed lived some 700 years after the exodus. Judah had been conquered by enemy troops and her leading people carried off into Babylonian exile. In the midst of despair and hopelessness caused by sinful alienation from God comes a command to hope. The people must no longer dwell nostalgically on the distant past but remember it only to ground their faith in God’s promise of "something new," which He was even now in process of doing. God planned a second exodus out of slavery and into the promised land, an event even more marvelous than the first exodus under Moses. God will miraculously create a lush, well-watered swath across the desert, through which His people can pass comfortably. As a result, the Lord’s own people can once again carry out their appointed mission of declaring in hymns of worship God’s saving acts in their regard. The Paschal (Christian "Passover") mystery lies at the heart of creation. Just as Jesus "passed over" to resurrected glory only through terrible suffering and death, the same pattern of newness through loss was the experience of Biblical Israel. This pattern of newness through loss characterizes the life of each Christian and is even discernible in nature — night-day, storm-calm, winter-spring, death-rebirth. In the Christian context, this passage calls us out of the past into a glorious future, from preoccupation with our own limitations to focusing on God’s greatest-of-all acts of redemption. We remember all God’s blessings in the past — those experienced individually and also as God’s Chosen People (the Biblical story) — not to dwell nostalgically on times gone by, but to motivate our praise and thanks for His even more marvelous gift of future, final salvation. We look forward with joy to commemorating Jesus’ death and resurrection, by which we are made into new women and men, called to praise God our Savior.

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