Friday, April 21
John 3.22-36: The position of this section of John mat have been determined by the earlier reference to Baptism in 3:5. The evangelist now returns to John the Baptist for the last time.
The reference to Jesus baptizing does not mean that He did so with His own hands. From 4:2 we will learn that Jesus’ apostles normally performed this rite. It is not easy to determine the exact nature of this baptism, and it is difficult to affirm that it was the Christian sacrament of Baptism of which John the Baptist had spoken earlier (1:33), because the Holy Spirit will not be conferred on the Church until much later in this Gospel. However, there is no need to be apodictic on the nature of the baptism here in John 3; we may leave the question as unclear as the evangelist leaves it.
1 Peter 3:13-22: To be baptized into Christ is to be associated with His sufferings. As Christ was victorious over death by His Resurrection, so will be those who belong to Him. Baptism, because it unites believers with the Resurrection of Christ, is a pledge and promise of their own victory over death.
In verses 18-22 Peter speaks of Christ’s descent into hell, which took on so pronounced an emphasis in Christian faith and worship that it became an article in the Nicene Creed. Peter says that Christ “went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
Exodus 13: By the regulations contained in these sections, Israel would be reminded of the Exodus every time a first-born son came into the world. Each such son would have to be “redeemed” by the sacrifice of a lamb. Elsewhere we learn that, for poorer families that could not afford the price of a lamb, the redemption could be made by sacrificing two pigeons or turtledoves (cf. Leviticus 12:8). We are familiar with one very notable family that took advantage of that humane and gentle provision (cf. Luke 2:22-24). This particular “Firstborn” would, by His sacrificial death, be the redemption of all humanity.
In verse 17 the inspired author gives us a picture of what line of reasoning is taking place in the mind of God. It is intimated here that God has a plan yet to unfold. This marvelous detail in verse 19 ties our story back to Genesis 24f. and forward to Joshua 24:32 (cf. the comment in Hebrews 11:22).
Saturday, April 22
Exodus 14: In the previous chapter (13:17) we already learned that God had a plan. Now it will be enacted. Pharaoh is being “set up.” As though the destruction of the firstborn sons had not been enough, Pharaoh is coming back for more punishment. On the other hand, God intends this encounter, as He knows what Pharaoh is thinking. If Pharaoh is rash enough to do battle with the Lord, he will simply have to take his chances. Meanwhile, God’s plan remains a secret, even to Moses.
Pharaoh does not know that his own plan has already been subsumed into God’s larger plan (verses 5-9). Thus, his very strategy against Israel becomes a component of his own destruction. Compare the way the New Testament pictures the plan of Satan being subsumed into Christian redemption (cf. John 13:2; 1 Corinthians 2:8).
The command to “stand” (verse 13) is more than a matter of posture. It is a summons to steadfast faith (cf. Psalm 5:3 — “In the morning I will stand before You, and I will see”). The Lord portrays Himself as a warrior for Israel (verse 14), something to which the Egyptians themselves will testify in 14:25. The image of God as a “fighter” for Israel will appear again in Deuteronomy 1:30; 3:22; 20:4, and it will be taken up again in the narratives of the conquest (cf. Joshua 1014,22; 23:3). The people must, therefore, “be silent.” When God is in the act of saving, it is best that man refrain from making comments about it, which will inevitably be distracting or even worse.
Although by now Moses is aware that God has a plan, he does not yet know what that plan is. God does not explain Himself; He simply gives an order that must be obeyed in faith (verses 15-18). Indeed, God rather often does this (cf. John 2:8; 6:10; 9:7; 11:39). Few things are more arrogant in a religious person than refusal to obey orders that one does not understand; we are dealing with God, after all, whom we shall never “understand.”
God has told Moses what to do; now God provides His own part in the plan. The text is clear that the mysterious quality of the cloud comes from an angelic presence (cf. Exodus 23:20; 32:34; Numbers 20:16). The traditional liturgical texts of the Church identify the angel here as Michael, who battles for God’s people (cf. Daniel 10:13,21; 12:1; Revelation 12:7). The cloud follows the people right into the sea, shrouding them in darkness (cf. Joshua 24:6-7). St. Paul explains for Christians the meaning of this double experience of the cloud and the sea (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:1-2).
As in creation God had separated water from water (Genesis 1:6), He does so here (verses 21-22) in a symbol of the new creation. The imagery of the opening verses of Genesis all return now: light/darkness, water/dry land, and especially Spirit-wind. On the relationship of creation to the Exodus (cf. Wisdom 19:4-8).
Since the destruction of the Egyptian forces is the major type of the destruction of demonic powers in the waters of baptism, it is not surprising that the biblical poets loved to rhapsodize over the scene of the Egyptian forces lying dead on the shore (cf., for example, Habakkuk 3:8-15; Wisdom 10:18-20, and many places in the Book of Psalms). This was a sight that Israel was commanded never to forget (cf. Deuteronomy 11:1-4). This scene by the seaside, combined with Exodus 15, will return in the vision of St. John (cf. Revelation 15:1-3).
Sunday, April 23
Exodus 15: The people of God have been hymn-singers right from the beginning. The singing of hymns is the Bible’s normal response to the outpouring of salvation (cf. Judges 5, 2 Samuel 22, Judith 10, many Psalms, etc.). This particular canticle, which has been sung by Holy Church at her Pascha vigil from time immemorial, celebrates the Lord’s victory over the oppression inspired of idolatry. It should be thought of as the song of the newly baptized, standing at their baptismal waterside, their demonic enemies drowned in its depths.
It is not only the song of Moses and Miriam, but it is also the song of the Lamb, a prefiguration of that heavenly chant sung by the “sea of glass mingled with fire,” sung after the “last plagues,” sung by those who, with “harps of God,” “have victory over the beast”: “Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints!” (Revelation15:1-3).
The encounter of Israel with God on Mount Sinai, which begins in chapter 19, will be bracketed between two sequences of desert stories, which provide a narrative frame in which the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai forms the center. We begin the first of these two sequences now, and the second will commence in Numbers 20. These two desert sequences contain some striking parallel narratives: the peoples’ murmuring (Exodus 15, 16, 17; Numbers 14, 16, 17), the manna and the quail (Exodus 16; Numbers 11), the water from the rock (Exodus 17; Numbers 20).
The murmuring we find at the end of this chapter and into the next is nothing new, of course; the people have been murmuring since the Book of Exodus began, and we will be noting more about it as the account progresses. Here the murmuring is heard with respect to thirst, which is notoriously a problem in the desert.
The murmuring is rebellious, for the people’s anger is turned on Moses and is recalcitrant to his authority. They no longer “believed the Lord and Moses His servant” (14:31). This story is taken up in John 6, where the “murmuring in the desert” is directed against Jesus. The descendents of the murmurers in Exodus, immediately after the feeding of the people by miraculous bread in the desert, begin to murmur and ask for a sign (John 6:30). Then begins the Lord’s Bread of Life discourse, in which He contrasts the ancient manna with the superior bread of His own Eucharistic flesh (John 6:48-58).
Meanwhile, the rebels continue to murmur (John 6:41,43). Just as the people murmured against the authority of Moses, now they murmur against the authority of Jesus. It should also be remembered that it was precisely in the context of the Holy Eucharist that St. Paul warned against the sin of murmuring (1 Corinthians 10:10).
Monday, April 24
John 6.22-40: Commenting on the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6, St. Clement of Alexandria plays on the image of fire stimulating the yeast in the dough, as the heat of the sun raises the sown seed:
Here is observed the sacrament of the bread (to mystikon tou artou), for He says it is His flesh and as manifestly raised up; just as fire raises up the sowing from corruption (ek phthoras kai sporas), so like baked bread it has truly been raised up through fire for the enjoyment of the Church (The Teacher 1.6.).
Clement speaks likewise of this sacramentally conferred immortality in connection with the Lord’s Blood, which we receive from the Chalice. Recalling, with Leviticus 17:11, “the life of the flesh is in the blood,” he comments:
To drink of the blood of Jesus means nothing less than to participate in the Lord’s incorruption (tes kyriakes metalabein aphtharsias). For the Spirit is strength to the Word, just as the blood to the body (2.2).
Exodus 16: The bitter water is sweetened and made potable by the tree placed in it, this tree often being interpreted in Christian history as symbolic of the Lord’s cross, that salvific tree that sweetens many of our bitter experiences in the desert of our Christian journey.
When the Almighty provided food in the wilderness, He out associated that gift with certain conditions and restrictions respecting its use. For instance, those who enjoyed the bread were prohibited from hoarding it.
The present text describes what happened when the Israelites violated that injunction.
The rules attendant on the eating of the bread in the wilderness should be likened to the Lord’s command directed to Adam and Eve in the garden: ‘Eat whatever you like,’ the Almighty instructed our first parents, ‘but leave that particular tree alone. Thus far you may eat, but no further.’
The manna is spoken of much more than the quail. There are two reasons for this. (1) On only two occasions does the Bible speak of the quail, whereas the manna will remain the people’s staple food for the next forty years. (2) The manna received far more theological attention during the course of Israel’s long history. Speculations about the nature of the manna continued in Israel well into Talmudic times.
Similarly, in the memory of the early Church it is obvious that, with respect to the miraculous feeding with the loaves and fishes, the loaves were the element chiefly remembered, inasmuch as the bread understood, like the manna, as a prefiguration of the Holy Eucharist.
This is “daily” bread, in the sense that God’s people must trust Him each day to provide it. They are to leave tomorrow to His care. The bread, then, becomes the daily occasion of faith in God’s providing. It is the bread for which Jesus commanded us to ask God, “give us, this day” (Matthew 6:11; Didache 8.2), or “day by day” (Luke 11:3). As long as our pilgrimage lasts, until the other side of the Jordan (cf. Joshua 5:12), this bread will be supplied to God’s people, so that they must not fear nor fret for the morrow (cf. Matthew 6:25-34).
Tuesday, April 25
1 Corinthians 11.23-26: Written about a decade before the earliest of the gospels, these few verses from Paul are our earliest witness to what took place at Jesus’ final seder,, “on the same night in which he was betrayed.” Paul identifies this account of the Lord’s Supper as integral to the authoritative tradition of the Church: “I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you.” We observe here the chronological priority of the tradition; what is written here in the biblical text is recorded because it already carries the authority derived from the tradition. That is to say, the Bible itself testifies to the more ancient authority of the ritual given to the Church. The Church does not celebrate the Lord’s Supper because the Holy Scripture says to do so; Holy Scripture says to do so, because the Church already did it. The pertinent authority on the Lord’s Supper is earlier than the biblical witness to it.
Exodus 17: Like the other events associated with the Exodus, the stream of water miraculously struck from the rock was adopted by the early Christians for its spiritual significance. Drawing on this inspiration, 1 Corinthians 10:4 said that the people “drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.”
Two observations should be made with respect to this latter text.
First, in calling the rock “spiritual,” St. Paul did not intend to deny that it was a physical rock. He had in mind, rather, to say that the physical rock was possessed of a spiritual significance, both as the medium of God’s special intervention, and as a symbol of Jesus the Lord, who provides us with the water of eternal life (cf. also John 4:10-14; 7:37-39). Thus, St. Paul said, “that rock was Christ.”
Second, the somewhat surprising detail that the rock in the desert “followed them” is derived from rabbinical reflection on the rock. After all, is this not the same rock as in Numbers 20, from which water miraculously flowed at Kadesh?
Rabbinical texts speak of this as a kind of rocky fountain from which water poured as through a sieve, and they describe it as traveling up and down the mountain ranges while the people wandered in the desert. This rabbinical speculation about the moving rock is witnessed in the Targum Onkelos, an ancient Aramaic paraphrase of the text, probably inspired by Isaiah 48:21. The rabbinical scholar Paul was completely at home in these traditions.
For Christian interpreters the picture of Moses praying on the mountain with outstretched arms (verses 8-13) became a type of Jesus praying for mankind with outstretched arms on Mount Calvary. Moreover, the 3rd century commentator, Origen, wrote that this passage in Exodus “is fulfilled whenever we pray in the power of the Cross of Christ.”
Wednesday, April 26
Exodus 18: The story of Jethro (verses 1-12) and the institution of the judges (verses 13-27) represent a chronological departure, it appears, from the historical sequence. There are two indications of this departure: First, Israel is still encamped at Rephidim (17:1 and 19:1), whereas the events in chapter 18 take place at Mount Sinai (verse 5). Second, there is the testimony of Deuteronomy 1 that the institution of the judges took place after the Sinai Covenant.
There is no theological or exegetical difficulty, of course, in discovering here a departure of the story from the historical sequence. After all, there is no a priori necessity requiring the biblical narrative to follow the historical sequence. However, if we look more closely at the accounts in chapter 18, there seem to be two reasons that prompted the biblical author to put the stories in chapter 18 before describing the Sinai Covenant.
First, this arrangement is less disruptive to the narrative. Placing these events in chapter 18 before the Sinai narrative permits the biblical author, when he comes to treat of the Covenant, to concentrate attention on the particulars of the Law, without the relative distraction of these other matters. The author reasonably preferred to tell this story earlier than it happened.
Second, a story about the sacrifice of the pagan Jethro at Mount Sinai would be most unseemly if it were told after the institution of the priesthood and sacrifice in the prescriptions of the Covenant (Leviticus 8-10).
What, then, do we find in chapter 18?
To this point all of the great burden of leadership has fallen on Moses, though we did begin to see the gradual emergence of some other leadership, especially that of Joshua, in the previous chapter. In the present chapter, however, Moses accepts the counsel of Jethro and lays a broader foundation for the leadership of the people. It is particularly striking that this counsel comes from “outside” the chosen people. Indeed, it is the advice of a pagan priest! The willingness of Moses to accept the prudent counsel of an “efficiency expert” from outside the community, even in regard to his prophetic and pastoral ministry, seems to be a useful precedent for God’s people to bear in mind. This response of Moses to the suggestion of Jethro is thus of a piece with Israel’s earlier “despoiling” of the Egyptians.
Thursday, April 27
Exodus 19: The Book of Exodus, having treated of Israel’s deliverance, now speaks of Israel’s election and the Covenant. Over the next six chapters two sections will emerge as especially prominent—the Decalogue (20:1-17) and the Book of the Covenant (20:22—23:19), the latter containing a detailed, practical application of the rules of the Covenant.
The things narrated in these chapters are not naked events, but events that received theological and liturgical elaboration reflected in the narrative. It is arguable that Israel devoted more attention to these events than to any other in its history.
The people have now arrived at Mount Sinai, where the rest of the Book of Exodus, and all of the Book of Leviticus, will take place. Indeed, the Israelites will not move from Sinai until Numbers 10:33.
The stories begin with Moses’ scaling of Mount Sinai (verse 3), still known among the local Arabs as
God’s election of Israel (verses 5-6) is an invitation to become His chosen people, an invitation that marks Israel’s history until the end of the world, because God will never reject the descendants of those with whom He made Covenant at Mount Sinai; the Apostle Paul insisted on this point: “I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew” (Romans 11:1-2).
What God proposes, however, is only an invitation, requiring Israel’s ratification of His choice and the resolve to abide by its conditions and strictures (verses 7-8). Moses mediates this Covenant (verses 9,25).
The people of God are to be a “royal priesthood, a holy nation” (verse 6). Both the kingship and the priesthood of the Old Testament are prophetic preparations fulfilled in Jesus. Like Melchizedek of old, Jesus Christ is both king and priest (cf. Hebrews 7:1-3). Moreover, because of their awareness of sharing in the royal and priestly dignity and ministries of the risen Jesus, the early Christians were prompt to see this Exodus promise as fulfilled in the Church.
On this point the Apostle Peter wrote to the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy (1 Peter 2:9-10)
This theme appears repeatedly in the visions of Saint John:
To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen (Revelation 1:5-6).
For You were slain,
And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
And have made us kings and priests to our God;
And we shall reign on the earth (5:10).
Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years (20:6).
The subsequent terrifying scene on Mount Sinai (verses 9-25 and 20:18-20) is contrasted with the invitation to Christians’ “draw near” to God (Hebrews 12:18-24). The theme of a bold “drawing near” or “approaching” to the divine presence is an important one in the Epistle to the Hebrews, serving as part of its sustained contrast of Christ with Moses (cf. Hebrews 4:16; 7:19; 10:1,22).
Friday, April 28
John 5.1-15: Although our Lord evidently cured a number of people from various kinds of paralysis (cf. Mark 4:24; 8:6), the Gospels narrate only two
such instances in much detail: the paralytic lowered through the roof (Mark 2:1–12; Matthew 9:1–8; Luke 5:17–26), and the man lying at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1–15). It also happens that these are the only two occasions of physical healing in which Jesus refers to the sins of the person whom He heals. Thus, He says to the man lowered through the roof, “Your sins are forgiven you” (Mark 2:5), and after restoring the man at the pool of Bethesda the Lord exhorts him, “Sin no more” (John 5:14).
Now it is worthy of remark that we find no references to personal sins in Gospel stories about Jesus cleansing lepers, or restoring sight to the blind, or curing other sorts of ailments. He does not say to Peter’s feverish mother-in-law, for example, “Your sins are forgiven you,” nor does He exhort the man born blind, “Go, and sin no more.” Indeed, in this latter instance the Lord specifically denies that the blind man was blind because of his personal sins (9:3). In short, only in those two instances of paralysis does Jesus refer to the sins of the people He cures, even addressing one of them with the exact words that He spoke to the
woman caught in adultery: “Sin no more” (8:11).
One is disposed to wonder if there is some special reason why the restorations of the paralytics are alone distinguished in this way. Though the Gospels do not specifically address the question, one is prompted to inquire if there is not, in this kind of disability, some feature particularly symbolic of sin. Is there perhaps some aspect of paralysis itself that serves as an allegory of sin, something about the affliction that narrates the properties of sin?
This question of allegory is especially urged in the case of the paralytic at the pool, because of the recorded dialogue between this man and Jesus. The Lord’s question, when He asks the paralytic, “Do you want to be made well?” is apparently elicited by the fact that the fellow has been lying in that place for thirty-eight years. It is because Jesus knows that “he already had been in that condition a long time” that He makes the inquiry, “Do you want to be made well?” In other words, there is room for doubt about the man’s genuine desire for healing. Maybe his heart and soul have become as helpless and lethargic as
his body.
Moreover, his response to our Lord’s question is hardly reassuring. Instead of answering, like the blind men, “Yes, Lord” (Matthew 9:28), the paralytic immediately begins to make excuses: “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me” (John 5:7). There is his answer.
It is always somebody else’s fault, somebody else’s advantage over him, that he has not been cured. He is not to blame, poor victim; he has been lying there at the pool of Bethesda for nearly four decades, using the same excuse to explain why, in a place where healings took place frequently, he has never been healed. Year after year he just lies there. It gets easier all the time. It becomes a way of life.
This seems to be the point, then, of the question that Jesus puts to the man: “Do you want to be healed?” Perhaps, in his deeper heart, he does not want to be healed, not really, and perhaps that is the sin to which Jesus is referring when He tells him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you” (5:14). In removing his paralysis, the Lord also gives the man a straight, unambiguous order: “Rise, take up your bed and walk” (5:8). If this paralytic wants to walk in the way of the Lord, he must begin now. No more excuses. He must not lie around one minute longer, theorizing about the mysterious relationship between divine grace and human effort.
This lethargic soul must not worry whether he may be slipping into semi-Pelagianism or whatever. He must get up on his feet, put his bed away, and get busy walking. Conversion is grace, but it is also command. Surely wisdom too is
God’s gift, but what is the first step we take to attain wisdom? Obedience to an emphatic command: “Get wisdom! Get understanding!” (Proverbs 4:5). No more lying around, making excuses (usually involving other people who are to blame), no more theorizing about the nature of wisdom. Just get up and get it!