He is Risen! Each Easter of my life, I can remember these being the first words that I would hear from my family. It was a greeting, and a statement of rejoicing, all in one. It is these words that give each of us any hope in their being something more to this life than the struggles that we deal with each day, and the misfortunes and pain that come with life on earth. I think that Saint Paul addressed this the most directly and appropriately when he told the people in Corinth, that if it were not for the resurrection of our Lord, there would be no basis for our faith, and we would in fact be the most pitiable of people. Yet this is where we have great cause to rejoice, because we do KNOW that our Lord has risen from the dead, and in doing so broke the bonds of death that held all the people captive for so long.  

On that morning of the first day of the week, when Mary first came to the tomb of our Lord, all the events that had transpired in the days preceding had to be in her mind, and the weight of those events must have been crushing. To see our Lord crucified after enduring so much humiliation, pain, and suffering had to seem almost too much to bear. Now as she approached our Lords tomb to do what she could, in what she must have thought were some final acts of love for the one who had died. All that sorrow, disappointment, and pain must have weighed down every step – until she reached that empty tomb!  

Can you imagine the glimmer of elation that must have come from first seeing that tomb empty? The initial thoughts that must have begun to course through her mind wondering if in fact there might just be hope after all, and yet still not completely knowing if this really meant that He was risen. She still had not seen Him, but the glimmer of hope was now there. As she continued to see what had taken place and heard the words of the angel that Jesus had risen, and eventually when she, and Peter and John saw the empty burial cloths, can you imagine the mounting joy that must have come from all that.  

After witnessing all that mounting evidence, they may still not have had the full picture or sensed the complete impact of what was coming, yet they were no longer devoid of hope either. All this would be completely overshadowed by what would come later that evening when our Lord appeared to them and showed them His hands, feet, and side, and even ate a piece of fish in front of them to show them it was really Him. Those moments must have been indescribable, and their echo is here with us to this day. We who call ourselves followers of Christ have the joyful hope in Him specifically because of his resurrection, and as part of that we have the promise and anticipation of eternal life with Him. Today our joy in the Risen Christ should brim over and bring us peace and confidence that can only come to people who have a reason to not be afraid. We are no longer under subjection, and we can look forward to what is to come both in this life, and in the next. He is Risen! 

As we celebrate this Palm Sunday, we get to hear the complete narrative of our Lords Passion. The words very often touch us in a way that lets us relate to some of those present. If we are honest with ourselves, the failures of so many of those present may ring true in our own self-analysis. The betrayal of Judas, Peters denial, and the Pilates pandering to those in the Jewish hierarchy whom he knew were in the wrong out of sheer jealousy and malice, because it was easier than sticking to his convictions. Yet in the midst of all this failure, there is an illumination that comes from our Lords unwavering adherence to the will of the Father, from His gift to us of His body and blood through that first Eucharist, and ultimately from His giving all that he had by laying down his very life to pay the price for our salvation. Yes, in the midst of all of the faults and evil that humanity brought together on that day, there was still a blinding radiance of love and sacrifice from the only one capable of giving so much, and of so completely emptying of himself that there was absolutely nothing left to give.

When we hear of the failures of love that came together to set in place the tools of destruction that were needed to sacrifice one who was both God and man, we should indeed contemplate our own role in this, because we were there amongst the jeering crowd as surely as we are present in the here and now. You see for our Lord the timeline of this universe flows a bit differently than it does for us, He sees the past, present, and future as completely one. The sins that we commit or have committed yesterday, today, or tomorrow were all on full display to Him as he emptied himself on our behalf so that we could be joined to Him in heaven one day. Nothing was, is, or will be omitted in the timeless accounting of the price that was paid.

Yet, despite the gravity of the realization of our own culpability and presence on that day when our Lord gave so much of Himself, we have also a reason to rejoice. If we allow it, our sins have been addressed, purchased and ultimately cleansed by the one who was born into this world for that specific purpose. Our lives have been given new life through the Eucharist that He has provided us with so that we might have life within us. Our being has been blessed by His teaching that we have before us in scripture to guide us and to steer our lives in such a way that they lead on a path home to Him who loved us so much that He endured the suffering of a brutal passion of endurance and forbearance to carry  the very instrument of His physical death to that hill upon which He was crucified. We are cleansed by the willing acceptance of suffering that He endured on the cross, and so that our sins would be washed away in the flood of blood and water that flowed from His side in a torrent that reaches to all men and women everywhere and in all times if they simply choose to accept being loved so much that such a gift of overwhelming tenderness, self-sacrifice, and love will become part of the fiber of their beings if they simply humbly submit and allow it to manifest within them. This is the magnitude of what was given to us that day so long ago, and that we still struggle to infuse into ourselves to this day.

The gift of the Cross is an enigma in the sense that it is the greatest gift ever given, and yet is one that is so often refused simply because we cannot find it within ourselves to bear that much love being given to us so unselfishly. Our human inclination defies all logic and natural choice to sometimes refuse this, and yet it is a gift that is always unrelentingly there and will never depart from us right up until the moment we draw our last breath. The love, and the call to draw close to the one who gave all for us on that hill will be waiting for us to draw it in, so that we can be drawn home to our Lord.   

As beings of both flesh and spirit, there is a dual nature that our Lord knows needs to be addressed in order for us to be fully nurtured and guided. Yes, we have physical needs, and yes, we are subject to physical death, but our spiritual nature far surpasses that in importance, because it is through the spirit that we are truly reborn as beings that will dwell in life eternal.

In our Gospel today, we hear of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, and so demonstrating to those present that He has the power over life and death. Our Lord raised Lazarus’ physical form, but that was only a small part of His purpose. The conversations that He has with both Mary and Martha are rooted in their acceptance and faith that He can prevent death and even raise one who has died. Yet, the really groundbreaking dialogue comes from Martha in particular, because she goes a bit further in her discourse and states plainly that she believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that He can accomplish anything. This is a groundbreaking proclamation, as up to this point, no one has stated this so plainly. After this conversation has taken place, our Lord goes to Lazarus’ tomb and calls him forth from the dead, and he indeed emerges and is set free from the bonds of death while all those gathered are there to witness this. He had been in the tomb for four days – he emerges still bound by the burial cloths which he is then freed from as well, and all of this in the presence of all the crowd gathered there. People who have seen this, while they may have heard of Jesus performing great signs, now have the actual event and proof in front of them walking around alive – Lazarus is returned from the dead. Many come to believe because of what they have witnessed. Yet not all.

When Lazarus was raised from the dead, a catalyst was triggered. Many of those in positions of authority felt even more threatened, and instead of coming to belief, their hearts were further hardened, and they looked all the more for a way to kill both Jesus and Lazarus. They had seen death defeated, and this was not enough for them. Instead of falling on their knees in acknowledgement that God walked there among them just as the scriptures had foretold, they focused on how to cause others to doubt and to disbelieve, and ultimately how to destroy the Son of God, so hardened were they in their worldly convictions. Yet this should not surprise us, there are many still today who would rather do anything but acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, because they have their own agenda that does not align with His teachings. This is what we must all be vigilant against. We can see plainly that no matter how our Lord shows us who He is, no matter what miracles He performs, there will be those who will simply choose to disregard all of this – only through a change of heart can anyone come to truly believe. This is why our Lord so often was reticent to perform signs for the people, because He knew the futility of doing so. He knew that what He truly needed to focus on was their faith, and this would only come from love and obedience, not from signs performed.

In this Lenten season, we continue to reflect and meditate on our own situations, and we do so humbly as this is a time of penance. We seek to strive beyond our failings, and we readily acknowledge our inability to do this on our own. We instead look with eyes of faith to the one who loved us enough to journey to the cross on our behalf and who offers us life through Him if only we choose to love Him in return.

Saint Paul tells us plainly, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” This is a profound statement of hope, and it really paints the theme for much of the rest of what we encounter in our readings and our Gospel today. The darkness we were enveloped in stemmed from hopelessness in sin, and from the time when all were still awaiting the coming of the Messiah. Yet this is all changed now, because of the coming of Jesus Christ, and our ability to have a deeply personal and intimate relationship with Him if we so choose. It’s important to clearly understand though that yes; our Lord came to us, he taught us, he suffered and died for us, and then rose from the bonds of death for each of us, but He still gives us the choice about whether we will accept Him into our lives. 

This choice could not be more clearly illustrated than in our Gospel today. A man is born blind, and suffers with this for years, and is then granted his sight by the only one capable of bringing him out of darkness both physically and spiritually. The narrative speaks much of the physical healing that takes place, because this is a sign for the people and an alleviation of suffering for the blind man. Yet we must understand that there is more than one kind of suffering that was placed upon him. He suffered not being able to see the world around him, but he also suffered because his fellow men assumed that either he or his parents had committed some sin that warranted this suffering. He was in fact an outcast to his fellow men because of this assumed sinfulness. They looked upon him and only saw the physical blindness, they could not see into the heart, the way our Lord can, and so did not have the full awareness of this child of God’s situation. Instead, they chose to condemn, and to hold this man in a darkness of condemnation based upon the external. Yet our Lord freed him from this, and most importantly then allowed him the choice to escape a much more significant darkness than blindness. He asked him the same question that He asks of each of us – “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” and the response is profoundly faith filled and unvarnished by worldliness – “Who is he Sir, that I may believe in him?”. It was so simple, and so natural a question – he knew that he could only have received such a gift from God, and so there is no hesitation – he simply sought to know Him who had healed him and in doing so, escaped the more profound darkness that we are held in until we accept and believe in our Lord Jesus Christ. Those gathered who still ridiculed what was taking place could see visibly, but they were totally blinded by sin, and their hearts were hardened so that they would not accept what they had just witnessed with their own eyes. They clung to their original condemnation of the man that had been healed, and of their unbelief in the only One who could have healed him. 

In this season of Lent, it is a time to ponder our own vision. What and whom do we look to as important in our lives? Do we seek to simply exist in a world where the injustices, infirmities, and petty condemnations of mankind can and will drag us down into darkness, or do we seek something more? “Awake O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

Where do I even begin? In our readings today, we cover a broad range of human conditions: ingratitude, anger, fear, desperation, resentment, despair, and finally – hope, joy, and rejoicing. We manage in three readings to cover the lion’s share of the complex mess that is the human person. In the midst of all this, we also see how our Lord, in His patience, takes us by the hand, ignores much of our whining, spoiled fits, and snarky dialogue, and like the Father He is, shows us the way to what we are really looking for, pat’s us on the head to let us know it’s alright, and lets us continue to grow on our own once we are back on the right track. 

The children of Israel seemed to forget their deliverance from their Egyptian overseers rather quickly and began to grumble to Moses because of their thirst. Their physical discomfort and uncertainty caused them to lose gratitude for their deliverance, and ultimately to question whether the Lord was still with them. We’re not that different sometimes; when things become difficult it seems like one of the first responses we have is to question why our Lord would allow such difficulties in our lives. Yet, in better times we appreciate the love that our Lord has shown us in giving us free will. We can’t have it both ways. Part of life is struggling through times that seem very uncertain to us, and that test our endurance and our faith. This is something that the season of Lent can sometimes bring out in small ways by testing our resolve and our commitment to holding fast to our Lenten obligations. This is an interesting barometer of where our faith life is, and where we may need to focus and improve. If we cannot endure small things, how can we hope to endure in times of greater trial? Our Lord knows what we need, always, and will give us what we need to endure when we need it, and in just the right amount to see us through – with the provision that we embrace our trials with our focus on Him. We have no reason to doubt – our Lord proved for us once and for all by His death on the Cross and His Resurrection the love that He has for us, and that He will always be there for us.

The other trouble we often find ourselves saddled with is the notion that because of our sins, God could not possibly be accepting of us. Despite His promise that with repentance will come forgiveness, we can’t quite seem to grasp this sometimes, and we doubt. We think that our sins and our failings are something special and unique, and that because of this our case is different than everyone else’s. To be honest, this is the height of arrogance given that our Lord created the universe, formed all of mankind, and knows all of the hearts of His people – do we really think we have something truly new that will somehow shock Him? The woman at the well knew full well the depth of her sins, and how often they had been repeated. She struggled with her shame, but when the Lord told her that even she, and all others of the Samaritan people would be able to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth, and that the field had been leveled for their acceptance, she embraced this with joy because she knew that the game had fundamentally changed. No longer were she and the others to be looked down upon because of their origins in Samaria, no longer would they be kept from truly worshiping because they could not go to the Temple – the new Temple stood before her and was extending His hands that she might have hope. Nothing has changed – He extends His hands to us in the same way, no matter how we have sinned, no matter how many failings, as long as we embrace His hands humbly with repentance in our hearts, and a desire to be closer to Him – we too are acceptable to Him. We too can be confident in His accepting our worship in spirit and truth, and in His commitment to us to care for us and watch over us every day of our lives – there will not be one minute that we are alone or beyond God’s attention. Sometimes it is difficult for us to grasp that this could be so because of our own limitations, but we must always remember, just like the children of Israel, that the Lord who created the very fabric of the universe does not share any of these limitations, and that we can trust in Him always to be there, and aware of all that even His humblest creations are enduring.

The season of Lent is certainly a season of penance, but it can also be a season of realization and transformation for us, if we simply look at the lessons that come to us. In our readings today, there is a lot that can be gleaned in terms of our own attitudes and actions when it comes to our faith. Both our readings, and the Gospel today proclaim to us transformative lessons if we look at them in light of what our Lenten take away from them could be. 

In our first reading, we hear of Abram, and the call to go forth from everything that he knew by following God’s call. In doing so, and making this leap of faith, he became blessed by God so that his very name was associated with blessings and greatness. Abram did not ask questions, he did not analyze, he simply trusted, and in doing so was transformed into one who would be the foundation of an entire people and nation. 

In our second reading, Saint Paul speaks of the sharing of hardship for the sake of the Gospel message, and the strength that comes from God to endure it. This is the call, to put aside what we are comfortable with, and to accept God’s call to live out, and to proclaim through our lives the Gospel to all people, to be transformed from simply existing, to actually living for a purpose, and in doing so to rely solely on God’s help to have the strength to persevere. This is again the call, and this is the way that leads to light and to life. 

In our Gospel today, we hear of an even more radical transformation that takes place, and that Peter, James, and John are witnesses to. The transfiguration of our Lord into His glorified form, and the conversation that is taking place with Moses and Elijah of his coming exodus. Jesus had spoken to his disciples of the fact that he would have to suffer greatly and to die, and then rise on the third day, but in some respects that had not really grasped what that meant. To witness our Lord in this form, and to see him speaking plainly of this with these prophets was a transformative moment for His disciples as well. They now knew plainly what would have to take place, and there was no way to ever look at things again from a viewpoint where there was certain level of comfortable doubt, but rather that this was a literal foretelling of what was to come. It now was laid open before them. They heard the call of the message that Jesus had been conveying to them, and they heard the call of the Father instructing them to listen to His Son. There was great fear experienced as part of this, to be in the presence of God, and to hear these words plainly was a moment that propelled them forward in their understanding. We too are called to accept the truth of the Gospel message, and to be propelled forward in our actions to live this message out in such a way that it leaves no room for doubt, either for us, or for those who witness our actions, as to what we believe. We too are called to radical transformation. 

Today we celebrate the First Sunday of Lent.  A time of introspection, prayer, and penance to prepare us for what we look forward to celebrating at Easter – the Resurrection of our Lord. As part of that preparation, we are called to ponder the areas where we have fallen short in our lives, to live out our Lord’s teachings, and to follow Him. Our readings today speak much of how sin and death entered the world, and the destruction they bring about even to this day; yet we also hear of hope, that which can come only through our Lord Jesus Christ’s victory over the same temptations that we are faced with.

Our first parents were the targets of Satan’s influence, and their failure in the Garden of Eden to heed God’s commands and instead be led astray by the half-truths and lies that Satan used in the guise of the serpent paved the way for sin to be in the world. We hear of the cunning dialogue he used to trick them, but what we do not always acknowledge is the seeming ease with which he did so. He used nothing oppressive in his approach; rather, he played upon the natural desires we all possess to try to excel and exceed our current place in life. He used the deceptive beauty of the fruit, and the innate desire to gain knowledge and power that he knew was part of us, to create a powerful temptation that was craftily designed to play upon our most powerful urges and desires and draw us in. The lure was cleverly disguised as something seemingly upright and beneficial, but with a cost that was cleverly side stepped, and then omitted from the rest of the conversation. By the time our parents realized what they had transacted, it was too late, and they felt the full weight of their choice in the nakedness they felt, and the vulnerability they had never known before, and the banishment from God’s familiarity that was now ahead of them.

Yet with all that had been lost through what had taken place in the Garden with Adam and Eve, there was already a plan of redemption in place that would erase the enmity that came from that and bring us back into intimacy with our Lord. We know that Jesus never sinned, yet we do not always acknowledge the temptation that He had placed before Him by the hands of Satan. When Satan took Him from his time of fasting in the desert, and tried to tempt Him, he walked through a litany of temptations beginning with the most basic. No one who had been fasting for forty days would not be hungry, and so his first attack played upon what he thought would be the most basic of human needs – food. Yet our Lord corrected him, and placed the lesson before us, that the most basic of needs is not satisfying bodily cravings, but rather to address the needs of the greater portion of our makeup – our souls, and specifically their need to be close to God. When that didn’t work, he played up basic safety and physical wellbeing by placing our Lord in a precarious position at the highest point of the temple, and daring Him to test what he already knew to be true, that God would not let harm befall Him. Our Lord again corrected the errors of this approach by not succumbing to pride by using God’s care as a demonstration and also by not being intimidated by the danger of the situation because He instead drew upon faith to see him through. Lastly, in desperation, Satan tried to play upon the same desires for power and position that played a role in the Garden of Eden and continue to so often corrupt those who seek to ascend to what they see as greater roles for their lives, rather than simply trusting in God’s plan for them. Yet this too failed miserably for Satan, as our Lord knew full well that nothing would ever eclipse the Father’s plan, and so did not fall into the trap of trying to obtain any benefit that God had not already chosen to bestow upon Him.

In this time of preparation and penance, we need to focus on re-learning and keeping before us that which will help us to avoid the same traps and consequences of sin. Now is the time to recall our failings, acknowledge them and pray for grace to avoid them in the future, and in doing so prepare ourselves to cling fast to God’s future plans for each of us.

As we enter the season of Lent, a time of penance, prayer, fasting, and reflection, I think that it is sometimes easy to see it as a time purely of sacrifice, rather than opportunity. Yet that is what it truly is, an opportunity to draw closer to our Lord Jesus Christ by uniting ourselves more closely to Him by focusing ourselves on His example of sacrifice.

In our Gospel today, our Lord admonishes His disciples, and us, that when we seek to follow Him, we need to do so joyfully and without trying to draw attention to what we are doing. Any attention drawn toward our own actions is a distraction from Jesus sacrifice for each of us, even if that attention is something we are simply focusing on from within, where we think too much of ourselves with the little things we sacrifice during Lent. We are instead to humbly, quietly, and joyfully pursue our Lords example. When we fast, we do so without complaint, and we do not strive for a minimum, but instead embrace the fullest example of fasting we are capable of in order to draw that much closer to your Lord’s example. When we serve others, we do not do so overtly for the eyes of others, we do so in a way that only our Lord is aware of. When we pray, we immerse ourselves to where we are not limiting our time or effort, but rather relishing the experience and sustaining ourselves through prayer rather than consumption. Our lives become centric around Jesus Christ, and we become more attuned to His presence and His message.

Our Lenten preparations when approached in this way are not a burden, they are something to be embraced, and lived out with enthusiasm. We are preparing for a time when we will celebrate our Lord’s resurrection, which is the reason we have any hope of life being more than this brief and challenging existence we now live. We are preparing to come into full rejoicing and awestruck gratitude for the sacrifice that was made on the cross, and the fulfilment of the promise of salvation that could only come from our Lord rising from the dead. If we need a perspective to keep during our brief time of fasting, abstinence and prayer, this is the one. The God of the universe loved each of us enough to become one of us, and to take on a fate of suffering that was rightfully ours and did so out of shear love for each of us. It is the warmth of this love that we are able to draw closer to each Lent, when we share a bond of intimacy that can only come through shared sacrifice. I wish each of you a blessed, intensely prayerful, and intimately sacrificial Lent with our Lord as your focus.

In our first reading today from the book of Sirach, there is both a solution, and a challenge. We are told what will save us, the commandments, and we are told that it will do so if we choose to obey them and trust in God, the choice / challenge. The choice of how we are to live, to embrace fire or water (death or life), and whether we will be with God or cast out, is plainly left before us. Our Lord understands us completely, and desires us to be with Him, but he also loves us enough to grant us the dignity of free will and the ability to choose. We are not enslaved so that we have no choice, we are instead children of God endowed with the dignity that comes from that lineage, and so have complete freedom to choose our path.

This choice that we are permitted to make is one of the reasons that it was so imperative that He send his Son to us. To try to navigate this choice that will have eternal implications for each of us requires a knowledge and wisdom that is beyond us, and so we need a teacher. Not just any teacher, but one who fully possesses the knowledge of God, because He is God, but also one who could come to us in a form that we would be able to comprehend and to embrace on a level that would guide us throughout life and ultimately lead us to salvation. All of that is gained through a wisdom that is mysterious and hidden, that is beyond anything that human wisdom can contrive. The answers to so many of the questions that people had about who Jesus was were right in the prophecies that they read so often, and yet they could not fathom it, or accept what seemingly little they did glean from it. This inclination within the human intellect and wisdom is why so many chose to reject our Lord, and why today we still often reject His teaching and commands in favor of our own inclinations.

The commands that our Lord gave us are anything but burdensome. Whether we speak of the Commandments that God gave to Moses, or of the new standard that our Lord Jesus Christ taught us that set the bar higher in terms of our intent and the thoughts and feelings within that are so often corrupted and lead to sin. None of these would be a burden to someone who sought to keep the words of Christ foremost in his heart and mind, and who loved both God and his fellow men and women with the self-sacrificing love that we are called to. Yet, here is the challenge, because we often do not think in these terms; we are instead pulled away by the “wisdom” of man, and by worldly inclinations to self-gratification and selfishness. We choose to hate, and to ridicule, and to degrade ourselves because we think it is easier than to hold to that standard. It is like someone who is addicted, and always tells themself that there is satisfaction to be found in that “one last fix” and so they continue that destructive behavior – the same is true of our sinful destructive behavior. If we stopped to experience the alternative that we perceive as a burden and actually felt the freedom that it actually is, we would have to be completely crazy to continue with that way of living. Yet the choice remains, and the problems will continue until we finally relent and give up the reigns and let God intervene and guide us in loving, trusting acceptance of what He offers.