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.

In our Gospel today we hear the Similes of Salt and Light used to describe some of our mission here on earth. In olden times, salt was used as a preservative, though in those days the sources of salt were often impure, and so the salt could become insipid. If this happened, there was no way to restore its usefulness and it simply needed to be thrown out. The reason that salt is being used in this simile is to describe the preserving influence we are called to take part in as followers of Christ. You could interpret this as the preservation of His teachings, but also as the preservation of the well-being of our brothers and sisters whom we are called to care for. Yet, when we do not help our brothers and sisters in this way, our own usefulness or discipleship as followers of Christ is called into question.  Likewise, when we hear of the light, we are indeed called to be a light to the world, to be a source of illumination to others, like a lamp set upon a lampstand where it can be of use to all within the radius of the light that it casts forth. To allow others to see and hear God’s word and commands in our actions and in our conversations with them. In short, the call is to be an example to others, and a laborer for spreading God’s message to all.

In our first reading today, the prophet Isaiah pretty well paints the picture of what the Gospel calls us to do, and what that will look like in practical terms. The points are simple and common sensical, yet as we all know sense is often anything but common. If we see someone in need who is hungry, we are called to feed them, if they are without clothing, we are called to share some of our own – and most importantly, never simply turn our backs on them. Over the years I have spoken to many people in need, often those who were homeless, and the one thing that is consistently seen by them as far worse than being without even the necessities of life, is to be ignored. When they are passed by like they do not even exist, it is a poignant and incredibly painful statement as to their worth. This is incidentally not something confined to those who are homeless. If you walk into any assisted living facility in this town, or any other, you will see those who sit there day to day waiting for acknowledgement that they are still a person of worth, and who is seen by others as worth caring for. They await an acknowledgement by means of a simple visit, a touch of the hand, or perhaps a kind word. They wait for us to turn back around and to look them in the eye the way we did before they came to those places.

If we truly wish to see change affected in our world, to have our wounds healed, to have light break forth into times that often seem very dark these days, and to have the Lord really hear our cries, we need to start by loving those created in His image, and through them to love our Lord Himself. The most powerful testimony we can provide to our Lord that we hear and understand His message is to show Him through our actions. When we remove from our midst oppression, lies, and hatred toward others, the void left will naturally be filled with love.

I think the very first line of our first reading from Zephania really paints the picture for us – “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth”. In all of today’s readings, we focus on the humble of the earth, and their place in God’s plan, and His kingdom.

Zephania in our first reading refers to a remnant in the midst of the people who will be humble and lowly, and who will seek refuge in the Lord. These people will follow the Lord’s teachings without diverting to follow their own designs in arrogance; they will be satisfied in the Lord. This is the model which God has in mind for us, to have enough faith and trust in Him to free us from the need to develop our own “doctrines” and to so often fail at it, when all that we really need to do was to follow His word, which is perfect. We often see such acceptance as somehow beneath us, and as blind following, but it is the opposite. Humility does not mean to blindly follow (following without reason or intellect), it means to lovingly accept what we know to be good, and to not feel the need to “re-engineer” what has already been provided simply so that we can call it our own.

In our second reading, Saint Paul rightly points out that even though most of us would not fall into the category of wise, or powerful, or noble by human standards, it really doesn’t matter. The Lord did not come to choose those who are seen as exalted by human standards anyway; He calls those who are not so clouded by their own self-perception, that they fail to hear His voice. He calls instead those who by human standards are the weak, the despised, and the lowly. He knows that they will more readily hear His words because they already accept their own limitations and are not so full of themselves that His call is ignored. It is to those who willingly accept His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that his favor is extended. Jesus will be, for those of us willing to accept Him humbly, all the wisdom, righteousness, and redemption that we so desperately need and cannot hope to provide to ourselves no matter how exalted we are by human standards. If we feel the need to boast, it should be of our Lord Jesus Christ alone.

In our Gospel today, we hear the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus addresses His message to those whom we do not normally see as noteworthy by societal standards. This is in many respects an extension of what we have heard in our previous readings, but with an important distinction. He tells us exactly what will be fulfilled for those of us who live out these humble descriptive titles. We hear how the most profound want that comes along with each will be satisfied and those who have endured will be seen as blessed in God’s sight. There is true reason for rejoicing among those whose humility and patience have allowed them to live out the virtues that Jesus describes, solid in their faith that He will not leave them unfulfilled. This is truly what He seeks from each of us, the trust, humility, and faith that come with loving Him in true intimacy because we seek always to emulate Him.        

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” – this proclamation by the prophet Isaiah is some of the most beautiful and inspirational words imaginable. They do indeed give us great reason for rejoicing and joy. You see they were the foretelling of the weight and burden of the law being lifted from us and borne on the shoulders of our Lord Jesus Christ. The burden which had condemned us was taken from us by the only one strong enough to bear it. Yet, He came not only to relieve us of this, but also to call us to a new way of living and commissioned each of us with a new purpose. This is a wonderful revelation for all of Gods people.

There is however, a caution that given to us as well. In our second reading from Saint Paul’s letter to the people in Corinth, he cautions them against there being division among them with respect to whom they belong to and are oriented toward. The people had begun to attach themselves more to the messengers than to the message and whom it came from – our Lord Jesus Christ. They allowed human inclination toward a fixation on those with whom they were familiar to distract them from the real source of their salvation. This is a danger that still exists to this day. If we allow ourselves to become disenchanted with our faith because we have encountered a bad situation or experience with a person or group that is active within the Church community and lose sight of who we are really there for, the same problems can manifest. Likewise, if we place too much emphasis on a relationship with someone within the Church community and allow that to become more of our focus than the real reason for our being there, to worship our Lord Jesus, we are in equal peril. Our focus in our faith, must always be our Lord Jesus Christ, and He alone is to be our example, or standard, and our reason for participating in His Church.

In our Gospel reading today, our Lord encounters Peter and Andrew, and James and John and calls them to a life devoted to drawing others toward salvation through Him. He will make them his instruments of teaching, of healing, and of salvation for the people. The thing that we must always keep in mind, is that the call to serve our Lord is unchanged even today, as are the challenges and distractions. He calls each of us to go out and to spread His word, and to bring others to salvation. We need to heed this call as exultantly as Peter, Andrew, James, and John did when they were called to be “fishers of men”. We also need to make sure that we stay as grounded as they were in their understanding of their own unworthiness and limited abilities and instead rely completely on our Lord to give us the graces to accomplish His purposes. Our Lord did not choose Peter and the others because they were eloquent, or sophisticated, or their great understanding of scripture. He chose them because He saw their willingness to rely on Him and to place their faith, hope, and trust completely in Him without the need for analysis or explanation. He looks to us for the same faithful acceptance. In the end, while we should certainly try to know our Lord through His word, yet we must still keep in mind that all our searching, all our learning, all our gathering of facts about our Lord, are not a substitute for our humble acceptance and faith in our Lord – it is one thing to know about Him in our minds, it is another to know Him in our hearts. To truly draw near to the light is an act of faith.