Fr. Alan's homily for The First Sunday of Lent February 25th 2007
Saint Luke ends his account of Jesus' testing in the desert with this detail: The devil left him, Luke says, to return at the appointed time. The appointed time, only Saint Luke uses those words.
They are important words because they point to what this desert episode is all about. The devil says each time: If you are the Son of God .. We are to hear those words again later: The soldiers mocked him and when they approached to offer him vinegar they said "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself." The devil reappears in the drama right at its crux, literally crux, on the cross, the appointed time.
All things are possible for God, stones can become bread, stunts can become miracles; all authority is his in heaven and on earth. By rights the devil should be worshipping him, not the other way round as the devil suggests. But by choice, Jesus excludes all possibilities except this one: It was ordained that the Son of Man should suffer and so enter into his glory. All is possible for God, yet his choice excludes all but this one. This alone was ordained. It is by the way of the Cross that the Son of God proceeds to resurrection.
Fallen humanity, the children of Adam and Eve, are not reconciled to God except at a price. The declaration of independence made in their disobedience is not annulled easily. We cannot refocus on God except through the one man who could freely choose the way of the cross in order to restore the just relationship between man and God.
Human beings alone and unaided could not do it. Only God could exclude all other ways of salvation except that one. Yet it had to be done humanly, in human time and space and a human body and soul. So it was that The Word was made Flesh, in order that he might offer his flesh for the life of the world; in order that we might not only see his glory, but come to share in it.
The prayers today speak of Lent as the sacrament of forty days. Sacraments do what they say. By sharing in the sacrament of keeping Lent, we celebrate the sacrament of our rebirth as children of the Father, beloved sons and daughters in Christ.
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