Adam and EveOne of the things that I have noticed over the past few years of studying the Bible, reading, particularly about the Pentateuch, and listening to sermons is that there is a clear theme in Scripture of contrasting grasping with receiving. This theme starts in Genesis 3 and continues through to the New Testament. Throughout the Bible we see the pattern of God leading his people in the path, the often painful path, of maturation so that they might grow up to be the kind of people who are prepared to receive what he has for them. However, we also see a pattern of those same people rejecting the path of maturation and attempting to grasp at those things that can only be properly had by bestowal, or more accurately, divine investiture.

To illustrate, let us take a brief survey of some of the major events in which God’s people have failed to rightly obtain what God had for them. We start in the Garden. God placed Adam and Eve in a glorious garden-sanctuary where they enjoyed blessing and unobstructed communion with Him. God also gave them a task that would mature them. (The need for maturation does not imply sin, hence Jesus.) Had they done as they were told and matured in the process it seems likely that God would have eventually granted them access to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That’s why it was there. When they were mature they would have been made like God and invested with the knowledge necessary to be wise Kings and Queens. (The knowledge of good and evil is associated in the Bible with ruling. That is why it was what Solomon asked for.) But instead they opted for the option that promised instant gratification. At the serpent’s suggestion they grasped at the fruit rather than waiting for God to give it to them.

Next we come to Abraham, who rather than waiting for the promised seed, grasped at the opportunity for a son and thus took Hagar. God had already told him that when the time was right, when Abram was sufficiently matured, he would have an heir, but Abram opted for the route of grasping.

Fast forwarding several generations we find the people of Israel at Sinai. Moses has gone up the mountain to receive instructions from the God who has brought them out of Egypt and he “delays” (at least to the minds of an impatient band of graspers), and so they grasp at a new God who can lead them. Rather than waiting patiently for the instructions of YHWH God they grasp at a god of their own making. Then, not too long after they have been chastised for this episode of grasping, they stand on the threshold of the promised land. They stand ready to receive YHWH’s investiture. But rather than doing so, in a perverse reversal of the grasping motif, they allow fear to overcome them and refuse to receive what God holds out to them. Joshua and Caleb exhort them, but to no avail. Then, when God, seeing their immaturity pronounces his judgement, that not they, but their children shall be those who possess the land they grasp again declaring, “Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.” Now this has the sound of piety to be sure. After all they are confessing their sin. But this is no confession of sincerity . This is not true penance. Rather, this is the expeditious wranglings of a stiff necked people intent on grasping what they can only receive; and it led to a slaughter.

Jumping ahead again we come to I Samuel. In the interest of space we should simply note that rather than receiving a king when God had sufficiently matured them, which had been the plan from Genesis on (see Alexander, From Paradise to Promised Land) they grasped at a king saying to Samuel, “Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” And what did they get? Saul, an immature man whose petty rivalries and moody whims led to all manner of evil.

As we near the turning point we must note at least one more instance of the grasping of immaturity that brings judgement. As we look through the gospels we can’t help but notice that Jesus, the true Israelite, in whom all the hopes of Israel would find their yes and in whom all the promises of the previous covenants find their fulfillment, is not well received by the most prominent Israelites of his day. Rather, they, or at least those of them who hadn’t given up on God’s promises altogether and become duplicitous in the evils of Rome, were grasping after a Messiah who would bring about the fulfillment of promises the way they wanted, namely by overthrowing Rome and establishing Israel as an autonomous nation drunk on national pride and ethnocentrism. And so, rather than receive the investiture that God was offering them, the opportunity to be the firstfruits of his blessing to the whole world, they despised and crucified the King He had sent them.

Finally, to wrap up this survey of the failure of God’s people to receive and their tendency to grasp we should look briefly at the epistles, particularly of Paul. Even among the people of the New Covenant what do we see? It should be no surprise. Paul and the other apostles are constantly having to deal with the base graspings of those in the new churches. In Corinth they are grasping after the showy spiritual gifts rather than receiving according to the measure God had given them. In the churches where the Judaizers made their presence felt Paul had to deal with the attempt to grasp after favor with God through ethnic identity and old covenant rituals like circumcision. Indeed, much of Paul’s time was spent, and later the Augustinian and Reformation doctrines were born out of, Paul’s polemics arguing for the reception of God’s promises at the right time by faith rather than by grasping through rituals and rules of man’s devising.

While I hope that this brief survey has made the case that the grasping of immaturity in place of the receiving of faith stands as a leitmotif in Scripture I would be remiss if I did not point out the most striking counter-example to this pattern of all. As you likely guessed that counter-example is Jesus, the one who did not count equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he submitted himself to the maturing work of the Father, patiently enduring the temptations to grasp at carnal desires, divine protection, and even the Kingdoms of the world, which were His by right (but not yet) in the wilderness. He willingly accepted growth and instruction, hatred from his own people, abandonment by friends and family and ultimately utter isolation from God and man on the cross so that he might receive the divine investiture prepared for Him at the right hand of the Father. This is our model.

So what does this mean for us? Has this whole article been an exercise in ‘be like Jesus’? Well, yes and no. As we make our way through this Lenten season, thinking especially about the temptations of Christ and our own sin, we have an opportunity to learn both negatively from our forefathers, and positively from our elder Brother what it is to receive rather than grasp. In American Protestantism grasping often takes the form of innovation. Rather than receiving the wisdom of the Church throughout the ages, whom God has invested with His Spirit to bring us to the maturity of faith we grasp after new things and trendy movements. Rather than receiving God’s promise given in Baptism and confirmed in the Holy Eucharist, we grasp at assurance through emotional appeals and cathartic experiences. This Lenten season let us learn once again what it means to grow up and be matured along the long and often painful path of God’s gentle discipline, knowing that we have already received the Spirit as attested by our Baptism and faith, and that when God is finished with us we will receive what eye has not seen and ear has not heard.