When Jesus told the disciples that he was going to suffer and die, or as he does in today’s Gospel, tell them not to speak of the transfiguration vision until after he had been raised from the dead – what was the story that they had in their heads when they would later tell the story of the death of Jesus. Our biblical knowledge is often poor, and it is not usually helped by some of the imagery that Christians have produced over the centuries, especially during the medieval period. Some of that imagery suggests that Jesus does not die out of love, but because God so hated the world that Jesus is killed as a human sacrifice. This is so far from the authentic scriptural witness that we need to journey into the story more deeply to see how to make sense of this, and to discover what Paul meant when he said that Jesus died “in accordance with the scriptures.”
Recorded at Saint Paul’s, 8am (14 mins)
Sunday 2, Lent, Year A. Genesis 12:1-4; Matthew 17:1-9
- View the Presentation Slides
- Watch the Reflection video: The Jesus Story