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The Road to Transformation
“Summer Sunset, Oil Painting” by Pobytov My first awakening to the spiritual life and to the Read More
Roberta Bondi | Read Romans 5:12-19
Understanding today’s passage depends on remembering
our single humanity. Adam and Eve, standing in for us all,
chose not just sin but death itself. Our problem ever since is not
that we sin but that in the broadest sense of the term, we die.
Our bodies die; our relationships die;...
Loving God, may we understand and follow what Paul is talking about: our intimate relationship to all human beings first, and second, our relationship to one another in Christ. Amen.
The texts for Ash Wednesday are all ominous in nature, pointing forward to the redemptive power of God’s grace. Lent is a time when Christians reflect on their mortality and sin, as well as on the creative and re-creative power of God. The original parents of humanity could not resist the seduction of the serpent, but that narrative stands beside the story of Jesus’ lonely and painful resistance to the power of Satan. In Romans, the “one man’s obedience” by which “the many will be made righteous” is the quality that endures. The Joel passage is an alarm bell in the darkness of the night. Those who are caught in this terrible moment cannot hope to save themselves, for they are powerless to do anything on their own behalf. They are powerless to do anything, that is, except to repent and to open themselves to God’s intervening mercy.
• Read Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7. What choices have you made that put you outside God’s intention for your life?
• Read Psalm 32. Are there unconfessed wrongdoings in your life that need God’s forgiveness? Will this Lent be a time when you can nd the freedom forgiveness brings?
• Read Romans 5:12-19. Have you experienced a relationship that has died? How has God renewed that time in your life?
• Read Matthew 4:1-11. What has tempted you to set faith aside and to trust only in yourself? How did that work out?
Respond by posting a prayer.
