A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, March 9, 2014.
“HAPPY LENT!”
(Homily texts: Genesis 2: 15 – 17, 3: 1 – 7 and Matthew 4: 1 – 11)
Happy Lent,
everyone!
Each year as Ash Wednesday rolls around, I can count on my dear wife to look over at me early on Ash Wednesday morning and say, “Happy Lent!”
Each year as Ash Wednesday rolls around, I can count on my dear wife to look over at me early on Ash Wednesday morning and say, “Happy Lent!”
Happy Lent?
Isn’t that an oxymoron?
Isn’t Lent the time when we are supposed to put on our sad face, and to clothe ourselves in the modern equivalent of sackcloth and ashes? (After all, the practice in biblical times was to do just that, and our contemporary practice of imposing ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday recalls that earlier practice, which was a sign of mourning.)
Yes, Lent is a time to put on the modern equivalent of sackcloth and ashes, a time to lament our shortcomings and our sins. Lent is a time to take a good, close look at ourselves, in an attempt to see ourselves as God sees us, a time to be totally honest and open about our spiritual condition. For our sins consist of the ways in which we follow our own desires instead of God’s desires, the ways in which we rely on our own resources instead of God’s.
After all, if we look at the account of Adam and Eve that is our first reading for this morning, that’s the bottom line in their failure to resist the temptation to eat of the fruit that God had forbidden them to eat: They both succumb to their natural desire for food, and their equally natural desire to be secure, safe and in control of their lives.
But where Adam and Eve fail the test and give in to the temptations, our Lord Jesus Christ resists exactly the same temptations, conquering them, and giving us hope in the process.
And therein lies the reason to be happy during this Lenten season….For if we rely on our own strength, intelligence and skill to conquer those things that would hinder and even destroy our relationship with God (which is what happened when Adam and Eve flunked the test that came their way in the Garden of Eden), then we, like them, will also fail to conquer the challenges that come our way.
How did Jesus defeat Satan and the powers of evil that appealed to His need for food (the same avenue of approach that the serpent used in the Garden of Eden with Eve, by the way), and His need to be in control of His own destiny (again, the same appeal which came into Eve’s mind)?
The Lord conquered these things with the power of God.
Each time Satan presents a temptation, and then another, and then another, God’s power is invoked. Scripture is quoted, and God’s power over all, even over Satan, is claimed.
The victory is won, Satan is defeated.
Where Adam and Eve fail, Jesus succeeds.
It is no wonder, then, that St. Paul, writing in I Corinthians 15: 22, will portray the Lord Jesus Christ as the second Adam. He writes, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” Continuing the argument, Paul will write a little later in the same chapter (verse 45), “Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.’”
Our cause for hope, our cause to rejoice and be happy, even to be able to say, “Happy Lent”, lies in our relationship with God through Christ. For we have passed through the waters of baptism, and have died with Christ in a death like His. And having passed through those waters, we have now been raised to a new life like his. (This is St. Paul’s portrayal of the process of baptism and of the new life that we have in Christ as he explains it in Romans 6: 3 – 9.)
In baptism, we have been claimed by God as God’s own child. The powers of death, the powers of Satan, the powers of temptation no longer have complete and total claim on our lives.
So as we live each day, we, too, can claim the same power that our Lord Jesus Christ claimed as He battled the temptations that Satan put in His way. We, like our Lord, are not completely free of the things that would try to separate us from God’s power and God’s love. That part of the victory we have in God isn’t ours completely yet. We still have an earthly life to live, a life that is still subject to the same sorts of temptations that came Adam and Eve’s way, the same sorts of temptations that the Lord encountered and conquered.
And being part of God’s team, having been claimed by Him as His own child, we can confidently claim God’s power to conquer and control any and every difficulty and temptation that might try to come between us and God.
So, there is cause to be able to say, “Happy Lent”.
AMEN.
