The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Lent
The season of Lent disrupts the liturgical year and the lectionary in many ways. Click here for more information on the season and its readings.
Overview and Connections
Genesis speaks to us of relying on God’s promises and depending on God’s deliverance. It also reminds us that mature faith most often begins in the darkness. Paul tells us that, like Jesus, we too will be changed. He also exhorts us to imitate those worth imitating in the life of belief, while cautioning us to choose our mentors carefully. And then Luke recounts the Transfiguration: the disciples glimpse Jesus’ resurrection joy and a new era is ushered in.
The purpose of Lent is to prepare the people of God for the Paschal feast. So every reading invites us to ask: how can this reading help prepare me for the coming feast?
Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18
The Old Testament readings from Sunday to Sunday form a chain that’s important to pay attention to during Lent. Last week was a reading from Deuteronomy with a ritual: tell your story, make an offering, bow down. Recount your history; give what you can; acknowledge God as supreme. The story recounted last week was the Exodus, the deliverance of God’s people.
Today’s passage predicts that exile in Egypt and the exodus. Today we’re telling the story of the Abrahmic covenant in which Abram hears his own story from God (I brought you to this land), he makes an offering, and then bows down to acknowledge God’s ability to fulfill God’s promises. One of the themes that will run throughout these Old Testament readings is that we can rely on God’s promises and depend on God’s deliverance.
This reading references the Mosaic covenant. A covenant was a solemn agreement, specifying both rights and duties. Covenants were common in the ancient world and the primary goal of a covenant was peace.
To put the reading into context, you have to start at the beginning of the chapter. God comes to Abram in a vision and says I will make your reward very great. This confused Abram because people in Abram’s culture associated reward with children. How can God reward a man who has no children?
Abram has a history of trying to do things his own way, which I find comforting: even the great patriarchs tried to help God out! In this case, Abram is looking to Eliezer of Damascus to inherit everything and carry on his lineage. But God says no – I’m promising that your own child will do that.
Not only does God promise a child but he promises a host of descendants in v5. God says count the stars; think abundantly! I suspect most of the time even our wildest imagination can’t match what God has in mind.
V6 talks about faith. Faith does not mean believing in spite of the evidence. Rather, it means trusting profoundly in a person. Even if we don’t see how something can happen, we trust; that’s faith. It’s an attitude as much as an action. Abram put his faith in God, sometimes translated he believed God. The Hebrew word is âman, which is also the root of our word amen.
God attributes or credits this to Abram as righteousness. Righteousness is to be in right relationship with God. This is a relational rather than a legal term. Abram trusted profoundly in God and that put Abram in right relationship with God. Notice that we haven’t gotten to the covenant part yet. Abram is already in right relationship with God.
In v7 God reminds Abram who God is: the one who called Abram on a mission. In v8, though, Abram wants to know how all this will come about. Faith and questions aren’t mutually exclusive. This isn’t blind faith or believing in spite of. It’s a questioning, mature faith.
God replies in v9, in order for me to answer that… here… bring me all these animals. So Abram brings them, splits them in two, and lines them up to create sort of a walkway. Two parties in that culture would perform this type of ritual “cutting the covenant.” They would walk through the pieces in a dramatization of a curse: if either party transgresses the prescriptions of the covenant, the other can inflict the fate of the animals on the violator. It was a very serious covenant with a very harsh penalty.
In v11 we see birds of prey descending, symbolizing the many things that might threaten this covenant. Abram chases each problem away.
Then, in v12, a deep sleep comes over Abram, probably indicating a trance. A deep terrifying darkness descends. The divine presence is always associated with an element of fear in scripture. We also see that in the Luke reading today. This is a fear not of punishment, but of who we are in the light of God’s holiness.
The lectionary skips v13-16, which is basically a prediction of the Egyptian exile and return home. V15 is interesting. It seems to interrupt the narrative flow about the Egyptian exile. Probably in the oral tradition, it actually referred to Jacob who died in exile at a ripe old age.
The way that these covenants were usually sealed was for both parties to walk through the sacrificial animals. But notice in v17, a fire pot and torch pass between the pieces. The smoking fire pot and the flaming torch are the glory or physical manifestation of God’s presence. Only God walks this covenant. God alone accepts all the responsibilities associated with keeping it.
Vv18-21 are a reiteration of God’s earlier promise of a Jewish homeland. The boundaries given here represent an ideal that was never recognized; the Israelites never actually occupied this much land.
We might summarize this passage by saying: what begins in darkness and doubt will lead to the light of Easter and renewed faith.
What questions are you asking in this season about your faith and about God. Can you boldly take those questions to God, expecting God to answer?
What areas of darkness and doubt exist for you right now? How can you invite God to be with you in that darkness? How can you embrace the promise of new life?
Philippians 3:17 – 4:1
During Lent, all three readings stand alone, but the New Testament reading will often be sort of a “hinge” between the Old Testament and Gospel readings.
Pay particular attention to v21 where Paul uses the word change. The Greek word is metamorphosis, which relates to the Transfiguration story. Paul says this same thing will happen to us: at our death, our earthly bodies will be changed to be like Jesus’ post-resurrection glorified body. Like Abram, we don’t know how that’s going to happen. We can’t even begin to imagine how it happens or what it’s like. But we believe, and we hold onto that belief, that trust that God can make it happen.
In v17, Paul invites the community to imitate him, something he does throughout his writings. Not only him, but, he says, find and imitate those who are living right and doing right.
Then Paul says, in v18, to beware those who are acting essentially as enemies of the cross. The way Paul says this, I think, implies that it is all too easy to follow someone who is an enemy of the cross. For Paul, these were the Christians who preached adherence to the Jewish law and required circumcision. In Paul’s view, that denied the efficacy of the cross.
Reflect today on people you might imitate. Maybe there’s someone whose whole lifestyle is worth imitating. More likely, you will find a person has one or two traits that are worth such imitation.
Then reflect on the opposite: people who are acting essentially as enemies of the gospel, people we should avoid imitating at all costs.
Luke 9:28b-36
The Second Sunday of Lent is always the Transfiguration story. This is a manifestation of God’s glory, his presence. God cannot be seen directly; his glory can only be perceived indirectly. In the Genesis reading it was perceived as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. In today’s passage, it’s Jesus himself, still human but somehow manifesting God’s presence in a way that the gospel writers can only recount with figurative language and a lot of “it was like this….”
The Old Testament emphasized seeing God’s glory; the New Testament emphasizes participating in that glory. We could also say that this is grace, which is understood to be God’s self-communication.
Transfiguration or transforming was a common theme in Greco-Roman culture. The gods of the culture frequently transformed or shape-shifted. Matthew and Mark both use the word metamorphoó. This word is also used several times by Paul in referring to our own transformation, as in the Philippians passage. Luke does not use the word; instead he simply says that the appearance of Jesus’ face is altered or changed. Luke shies away from the word because his audience is thoroughly steeped in Greco-Roman culture, and he doesn’t want them to think of the Greek and Roman gods and how they are said to take on a human form. He also might not want any theological confusion that maybe Jesus wasn’t divine before this or after. So Luke simply says that Jesus’ appearance is changed somehow.
After the transfiguration event, a cloud covers Jesus and the disciples. Clouds are often associated with a manifestation of God’s glory. Clouds allow the manifestation of the divine presence but protect the divine transcendence. You can see but you can’t. Clouds are often a powerful symbol of God’s involvement with humanity. One example is found in Exodus13: as the Israelites are traveling out of Egypt, God leads them during the day as a cloud.
At the end of all this, Peter seems to want to hang on to the experience: let’s build some tents! There is often an impulse to indefinitely prolong that which is consoling to us. Maybe you’ve been on a transformative retreat; you want to live there forever, pitch your tent there. But… We are called to live out a tension between being in God’s presence and living this life he’s created us to live. It’s the tension of a kingdom that’s arrived, but it’s not yet fully here. This is the reality of the resurrected life.
The passage just before this in Luke is Jesus’ prediction of his death. Peter would rather live in the glorious wonder – the already. God says no – you must learn the pain of not yet if you want to live in the reality of already.
V27 is not in the lectionary today. There’s often confusion around what Jesus meant by the verse. I think it is connected to today’s reading: it’s a foreshadowing of what some of the disciples are about to experience on the mountain with Jesus.
Matthew and Mark both place this event six days later, which corresponds to the time Moses was on the mountain before receiving the law. What Luke means in v28 by eight days is obscure. What we do know is that mountains for Luke are places of prayer. Traditionally in the Old Testament, they are places one goes to be closer to God.
In v29, Jesus’ clothes become dazzlingly white. Jewish sources of the time often depicted heavenly beings in gleaming white. In the Old Testament, white garments symbolize joy and celebration.
And then Moses and Elijah appear. Both fasted for 40 days on the way to an important mission. And both had interesting ends, with uncertainty surrounding their deaths:
And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. The Lord buried Moses in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.
Deuteronomy 34:5-6
As [Elijah and Elisha] were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.
2 Kings 2:11
In addition to the mystery and speculation about their deaths, there was also much speculation about what their future roles might be. They are understood throughout scripture to represent the law and the prophets. Moses and Elijah “appeared in glory” and “spoke of his exodus” – both phrases unique to Luke.
In v32 we see that Peter and the guys have fallen asleep. They seem especially prone to this at critical moments. But then they become “fully awake,” a metaphor for what happens to us spiritually as we come closer and closer to God – we awaken to God’s presence. This is a glimpse of the Easter glory – the risen and heavenly life.
What exactly did the disciples see? They don’t elaborate. But we can look back for many examples in the Old Testament about what people say when God manifested his presence. Just one example is found in Exodus 24:17, “To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.” Whatever it looked like, it scared them. Like with Abram, there was an element of fear when meeting God’s very self.
Peter decides they should build tents on top of the mountain. Tents evoke the Feast of Tabernacles, a feast associated with harvest joy, the messianic age, and the end of time. The implication here is that Peter wanted to fully enter the Messianic age. But Jesus will correct that notion in a few verses by telling him that he won’t understand what it means to be Messiah until the resurrection. Part of Peter’s error is wanting to cling to and try to preserve spiritual high. But Peter’s error goes deeper: he suggested three tents on equal footing, thus treating Jesus as equal to Moses and Elijah.
In v34 the cloud descends and Peter and his companions are terrified, from the Greek word phobeó.
Up until this point in time, the Jewish people had been instructed over and over to listen to the law and the prophets. This is a new era. In v35, God says now we listen to the Son. Jesus is not on equal footing with the law and the prophets; he is bringing in a new age: the Messianic age.
Recall one of your own spiritual highs. Revisit that experience. What is it like to know you are in God’s presence?
How do you actively listen to Jesus? What disciplines and practices encourage this?
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© 2025 Kelly Sollinger