The Old Testament in Lent
In Lent, as the church prepares to celebrate the paschal victory of Christ, the church reads the books of the Law – especially Genesis and Exodus – and also the prophet Jeremiah and his Lamentations. Each in its own way sheds light on the strange work of God in the cross. Genesis tells of the world’s creation, man’s vocation and fall, and the promise of redemption made to Abraham, the promise that is fulfilled in the new creation that begins in Christ’s resurrection. Exodus speaks of God’s triumph over Pharaoh, and his redemption of Israel from Egyptian bondage, and their consecration to his service in the covenant mediated by Moses. It also tells of Israel’s apostasy at Mount Sinai, the breaking and renewal of the covenant, not on the basis of human merit but divine mercy. It thus prepares us for reading of Jeremiah, who declares the judgment of God on his people for their breaking of the covenant, and, on the far side of judgment, makes the promise of a new and greater exodus and the sealing of a new and greater covenant, accomplished for us in the death and resurrection of Christ. In this way, the whole pattern of God’s action in the world as a whole is mirrored in the paradigmatic history of one people, Israel, that it may be definitively summed up and brought to fulfillment in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Israel’s Messiah.
The three other books of the Law – Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy – extend the Exodus narrative in important ways, by further instruction in God’s holy will and commandments, and in their account of Israel’s journey through the wilderness to the promised land, a journey that was prolonged after their faithless rebellions, to forty years sojourn in the wilderness – a prototype of Lent’s forty days, as a time of penance and renewal, of training in the obedience of faith.
Some readers of the Old Testament are puzzled by Israel’s persistence in disobedience, despite repeated experiences of the calamity it brings and of God’s mercy. Why did not Israel learn? Was it some defect unique to Israel’s national character? And what do we have to learn from their disobedience – why do we Christians have to read this story over and over again? Paul assures us that this history is of the greatest relevance to us: “Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” – that is, the time when God’s saving purpose has been fulfilled in Christ (1 Cor 10:11). This history of Israel is not merely an account of another people at another time: it is a representative history, in which we see the nature of all human beings, not excepting Christians, their sin, and pattern of God’s working in them.
The Old Testament is a powerful witness to the deep hold of sin on the human heart. The disobedience of Adam is a template for a story that is told over and over again, in ever new versions, in the history of Israel, in ways that expose ever deeply the inability of all human beings to overcome it. The scriptural basis for the doctrine of original sin is not just the story of Adam’s disobedience in Genesis 3 – it is the history of God’s ancient and new people, Israel and the Church. As the Prayer Book puts it, “There is no health in us”; we have “no power of ourselves to help ourselves”. Just “trying harder” will get us nowhere; because of our own fallen nature we are inclined to evil and not to good. The problem is not particular actions but a poisoned heart (Jeremiah 17:9). We are not sinners because we commit sins: we commit sins because by nature we are sinners. “We have met the enemy and he is us”. We drive home the “bad news”, we do not sugar-coat our condition with false optimism, not because we are stuck in ‘medieval’ gloom, but precisely in order that we may hear and receive the good news of our redemption from it as good news. Unless and until we have taken to heart the bondage of the will to sin, the gospel of our deliverance from bondage and judgment will fall on deaf ears, and our faith will be like the faith in which Jesus himself put no trust – “for he knew what was in man” (John 2:25).
It is the context of Israel’s history, rather than the history of pagan peoples, that the reality and gravity of sin is most sharply exposed, precisely because they are not pagans, but have been called to the knowledge of God, and of his grace and mercy to sinners. It is precisely in relation to the goodness of God, the lavish outpouring of mercy and grace on his people, that the depravity of sin is known. Thus, the history of God’s Old Testament people sheds light on our own ongoing experience as the people of the New Testament, both in the patterns of sin and in the patterns of God’s gracious working among sinners. It’s not that we have less need of his grace than his ancient people, but rather that his grace is yet more largely bestowed, and more brilliantly exhibited to all peoples. Jeremiah can teach us to look beyond judgment to hope – but only we can see plainly that this hope is nothing less than resurrection. – GGD