Sexagesima Sunday, February 23, 2025
Sexagesima Sunday, February 23, 2025
Paul preaches to the Corinthians. He draws upon their memory of their fathers’ experience in the wilderness. The cloud (vs. 10:1) that led them was the presence of God. The sea was their dry land passage through the Red Sea, escaping Pharoah’s army, a metaphor for baptism (vs. 10:2). They feasted upon the miracle of manna (Ex. 16:15). They dined upon the miracle of quail (Ex. 16:13). They drank from water that poured forth from solid rock (Num 20:8). Then Paul makes the turn from simply delivering up history to speaking like the preacher God called him to be. Paul proclaims, “…and the rock was Christ.” He preaches what Jesus says about himself, “From within him [me, the Christ] will flow rivers of living water” (Jn. 7:38).
Those ancient fathers Paul shares with the Corinthians were cut down in the wilderness. God was not pleased with them. To understand God’s displeasure, you must recall the story of Kadesh Barnea (De. 1:18-46). On the very verge of the land promised to them, the people failed to trust the Lord their God at his word. He had promised to lead them in the conquest of that land. Failing to trust the Lord’s promise, the people complained that the Lord had led them out of Egypt, only to be destroyed by these enemies. In judgment against them, the Lord vowed that the entire generation of adults would die in the wilderness. Only their babies and young children would enter the promised land.
This history provides the context for Paul’s athletic metaphors in the preceding verses (9:24-27). “Run to win…” “Exercise self-control…” “Don’t box the air…” “Subdue the body…” The fathers’ unfaithfulness at Kadesh Barnea interprets all these competitive comparisons. The fathers at Kadesh Barnea did not take the Lord at his word. In their complaint, they could just as well have called God a liar. Such is the way of flesh… the way of the body… it demands signs and wonders: proof of the promise rather than faith in the promise. Flesh’s demand for proof must be subdued and controlled… so that faith remains in God’s promise and God is justified in his words. God is no liar!
Table Talk: Discuss the need of the flesh for proof and the comfort of faith in the promise.
Pray: Heavenly Father, put your word in my ears that I would have faith and not demand proof. Amen
1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5 (ESV)
24 Do you not know that all the runners in a stadium compete, but only one receives the prize? So run to win. 25 Each competitor must exercise self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.
26 So I do not run uncertainly or box like one who hits only air. 27 Instead I subdue my body and make it my slave, so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified.
10 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they were all drinking from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. 5 But God was not pleased with most of them, for they were cut down in the wilderness.