4th Sunday of Lent
I preached last nite to Scouts (Putnam Valley) and this morning at St. Vincent's Hospital (Harrison) on the parable of the lost son, without written text. Here's an oldie based on all 3 readings for today.
Joshua 5: 9-12
2 Cor 5: 17-21
Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32
March 25, 2001
St. Joseph, Passaic, N.J.
“The
Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have removed the reproach of Egypt from
you.’ On that same day after the
Passover, on which they ate of the produce of the land, the manna ceased. No longer was there manna for the Israelites,
who that year ate of the yield of the land of Canaan” (Ex 5:9,11-12).
Last
Sunday we heard the story of the call of Moses “to rescue [Israel] from the
hands of the Egyptians and lead them…into a land flowing with milk and honey”
(Ex 3:8). Today we hear that they have
finally arrived in that “good and spacious land” (ibid.) after 40 years of
wandering and suffering in the wilderness of Sinai and the lands on the far
side of the River Jordan. They have just
crossed the Jordan and encamped near Jericho, the gateway to the Promised
Land. Now, at last, they can begin to
feast on that “land of milk and honey,” on the abundance of its grain and
vineyards. At the same time, they are
leaving behind that wondrous and mysterious food, the manna, with which God
sustained them for all those years in the desert. For they have passed over the desert, they
have passed over the Jordan, they have passed over to something far
better. God has delivered on his promise
to Moses to lead them out of the oppression of Egypt and into the land that
will become their own. Egypt and its
slavery, the Sinai and its sufferings, are now history; they are past. The present is the fulfillment of the
promise; it is salvation.
St.
Paul strikes a similar note, but from a Christian perspective: “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new
things have come” (2 Cor 5:17). Having
passed thru the waters of baptism, we have passed away from the old things of
what Paul calls our “former way of life” (Eph 4:22) and entered a kind of
promised land, a land full of new things, “a new creation.” We have renounced Satan and all his works and
all his empty promises (Rite of Baptism).
We have left behind our slavery to sin, our doom to hell. We have crossed over the River Jordan with
Christ into the kingdom of God; Christ has reconciled us to God, who has
forgiven our trespasses (2 Cor 5:18-19) and put them all behind us. We will no longer feed on our passions but
will be filled with virtue. Thru Christ,
we stand in anew relationship with God, washed clean and pleasing in his
sight. Firmly united with Christ by our
baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist, we have “put on the Lord Jesus
Christ” (Rom 13:14) and become, with him, children of God; we have “become the
righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).
We
have passed over with Christ into the promised land. Now with him we celebrate our Passover, feasting
on the fruit of the land. Unlike the
Israelites on the outskirts of Jericho, we don’t eat “unleavened cakes and
parched grain” (Jos 5:11). We feast on
the body and blood of Christ, which is a foretaste and a promise of yet greater
feasting to come.
Return of the Prodigal, by Rembrandt |
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