Homily for 1st Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
1st Sunday of Lent

March 10, 2019

Deut 26: 4-10
Psalm 91
Rom 10: 8-13
Luke 4: 1-13
Nativity, Washington, D.C.

 “He brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand and outstretched arm … and gave us this land flowing with milk and honey” (Deut 26: 8-9).

The Exodus (source unknown)

The 1st reading this morning is a Jewish profession of faith, a summary of their story of salvation, a testimony of what God has done for them.  Israel went down from Canaan to Egypt, became slaves, was rescued by the power of God, and led by God into the Promised Land.  Now they give thanks to him with sacrificial offerings, the 1st part of the annual harvest (the “firstfruits”).  And they worship him:  “having set them before the Lord, your God, you shall bow down in his presence” (26:10).

That final line from the Deuteronomy reading is probably the reason for this passage’s linkage with the gospel, in which Jesus refuses to worship the Devil, reserving his reverence for the Lord alone (Luke 4:7-8).

But the main thrust of the 1st reading is Israelite faith, the recollection of and identification with what God has done to save them.  That’s also the thrust of the 2d reading:  our salvation comes from our faith in Jesus Christ.  “If you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9).  “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (10:13).

We invoke the power of God to save us thru Jesus Christ because, like the Hebrews enslaved in Egypt, we’re powerless to save ourselves.  God the Father raised his son Jesus from the dead.  We have no power to rise from our graves except that we attach ourselves to Jesus.  In today’s psalm, it’s Jesus who says to us:  “Because he clings to me, I will deliver him; I will set him on high because he acknowledges my name” (Ps 91:14).

Death—which awaits you and me alike—is the penalty of sin.  God told our 1st parents that on the day of their disobedience they would forfeit their immortality (Gen 2:17), and St. Paul says bluntly in his letter to the Romans, “The wages of sin is death” (6:23).  As Adam and Eve sinned by listening to the serpent—symbol of Satan—so do we sin by listening to the enticements of the Evil One, his appeals to our pride, our anger, our envy, our lust; to his promises that we can have whatever we want, we’re entitled to it, we deserve it; to his assurances that we have lots of time to get our act together and repent; to his suggestions that God’s commandments don’t apply to us in this or that circumstance (in effect, we’re above the law—doesn’t it make us really mad when some politician or some clergyman conveys that message?  Yet we do it ourselves when it suits us).

We’ve given in to what the baptismal rite calls all the Devil’s “works” and “empty promises” so often that we might want to cry out in anguish with St. Paul—still in his letter to the Romans—“Who will deliver me from this mortal body” that so rebels against my desire to do what’s right? (7:24).  He answers his own question:  “Thanks be to God thru Jesus Christ our Lord” (7:25).  Jesus has the power to forgive our sins because, altho innocent of any sin, he’s already paid the penalty of death for us; and with our sins forgiven because we believe in him and so are justified—put right with God, made holy by the holiness of Jesus—we will be saved; we will be raised to eternal life.

For catechumens and others preparing to enter the Catholic Church, Christ’s Church, this Easter, these 40 days of Lent are the final preparation for their commitment to God in Christ, to their full immersion in Christ.  For those like us who made that commitment long ago, each Lent is a call to continuing conversion, to a renewal of our commitment—which is why all of us renew our baptismal promises on Easter Sunday.

The story of the temptations of Christ that we read each year on the 1st Sunday of Lent reminds us of that commitment:  to renounce all the enticements of Satan, all his empty promises, all our sinful ways, and to be faithful to God’s ways, as Jesus was.  As Ps 91 promises, no evil shall befall those who dwell in the shelter of the Most High; God will be with them in distress, even beyond the grave, and he will deliver them and glorify them; with length of days he will gratify them and will show them his salvation (91:1,10,15-16).  So we re-commit ourselves to be faithful like Jesus, that we might be saved thru him.