¹⁷Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. ¹⁸For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. ¹⁹Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. ²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

4Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

Dirk Lange writes in Feasting on the Word:

Lent has just begun.  The journey of forty days toward the three-day Easter feast engages the individual and the community in deeper reflection of what it means to live as children of God in this world.  Lent, rather than being simply a time of stricter discipline, is like a concentrated reflection on the life we are called to live throughout the year.  The forty days are rooted in our baptism.  The readings encourage us to root ourselves in our baptismal vocation. . . . In this text, Paul focuses on some of the characteristics of life in the church, the community of the children of God.  Several interrlated themes stand out: living as a community, living as an individual, and the citizenship of the children of God.

Have you made any Lenten resolves this season?  How might they transform your body and conform it to Christ’s glory?

 15After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

²But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” ⁴But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” ⁵He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” ⁶And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

⁷Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” ⁸But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. ¹¹And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹²As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.

¹⁷When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,

This Lent we continue with the themes of covenant and God’s faithfulness to provide the promised future.  In this case it is a promised child — last week it was land and agricultural abundance.

The episode related here is a vivid mystical experience, an encounter with the divine.  Abram and God carry out an ancient Near Eastern ritual of “cutting a covenant.”  The symbolism is that if either party breaks the covenant, then they are, in effect, cutting themselves in two, like the animals.  God has committed God’s very existence to the covenant, entering in as a equal partner with Abram.  What a radically, powerful idea.

What is the role of covenant in your own life?