HOMILY FOR THE 1ST SUNDAY IN LENT — YEAR C

HOMILY FOR THE 1ST SUNDAY IN LENT — YEAR C

HOMILY THEME: OUR SALVATION FROM EVIL COMES FROM THE LORD

BY: Fr. Celestine Muonwe

Deuteronomy 26:4-10; Romans 10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13

The central theme in the readings of today is that our salvation from the forces of evil shall only come from the Lord. In the first reading, Moses instructs the people to recall always in prayers of thanksgiving, how God saved them from the Egyptian bondage when they cried to Him, and brought them to the promised land. In the second reading, St. Paul tells us that believing in the heart about the resurrection of Christ from the dead leads to our justification and confessing with our lips that Jesus is the Lord leads to our salvation. In the Gospel, St. Luke gives us the account of Christ’s faithfulness to the word of God during His temptation in the wilderness, thus highlighting how we must conquer the devil, the greatest enemy of our souls through prayer, fasting, and the power of the word of God.

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Moses instructs the people of Isreal on how they are to present the basket full of the first fruits from the fields to the Lord in the temple. The priest is to lead at such a prayerful and liturgical act where the one who offers the first fruits will have to recount the history of God’s saving relationship with Isreal. How God took them to Egypt to escape famine and made them a great nation, and heard their cry when they were under the bondage of the Egyptians. In leaving them under long suffering, and giving heed to their prayers at the proper time, God manifested His saving love for the people.

Jesus was led by the Spirit to the desert just after His Baptism in the river Jordan. Jesus therefore underwent a sudden change of fortune, from the joyful acclamation of the Father’s voice and communion of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove at His baptism, to hunger, misery, pain and encounter with the powers of hell. Like Jesus our lives involve changes of fortune, from good times to bad times. Whenever, we encounter darkness, difficulties in our lives, we must understand that suffering is part of the Christian experience and thus remain faithful to the Lord, and never give opportunity to the devil. This periscope also challenges us to the do away with the heretical prosperity gospel, which wishes away suffering and pain as outside the domain of Christian life.

Just as Jesus was led to fasting prayer and temptation in the desert, so does God, through His Spirit, allows us to be tempted at times. He gives the devil the permission to test us, just as He gave him leave in the case of Job and our Lord. Suffering and pain are means through which God purifies us, in order to make us stronger instruments in His vineyard. He tested our fathers in the faith, Abraham, Moses, Joseph, these suffered immensely for the Lord’s cause and were proven through the tests they underwent, worthy of the Lord. No pains can come our way, unless allowed by the Lord; if only we could embrace His words, and remain faithful to Him as Jesus and the our fathers in the faith remained.

God allows the devil to create situations that could lead us to fall to his pressure and abandon the path of righteousness. The devil comes at the right time and situations he knows we are weak as humans, and tempt us. In the case of Jesus, he came at the time of hunger and thirst and loneliness. He knows our weak points and comes along subtly to test us, with God’s permission at those areas. If we are desperate for money, he can test us through theft, fetish practices like okeite, etc.

While Eve and Adam failed in their test by the devil, Jesus the New Adam overcame the temptations of the enemy with the word of God. The enemy came to Jesus after he had fasted in the Judean desert for forty days and nights, and after which he was hungry. The devil tempted Jesus, based on the three major categories: pleasure (lust), power, and money.

Temptations on Pleasure

The tempter came to Jesus when He was hungry. In other words, the devil knows the exact and opportune times to launch his assaults against us. He knew that having fasted for a long time, Jesus would be eager to eat. He asked Jesus to turn the stone in the desert into a loaf of bread. The devil intended to achieve the following objectives: first is for Jesus to abandon discipline and the life of virtue and get lost in pursuing worldly dangerous pleasures of sin, lust, gluttony, orgies, drunkenness, substance abuse, sloth and others.

The second is for Jesus to doubt Himself, His identity and His mission. The devil hypothetical tells Jesus: “If you are the Son of God”, which implies, “since you are the Son of God.” The devil was not in doubt whether Jesus is the Son of God, but wants Jesus to offer proofs, just like the Pharisees would do later. If Jesus had succumbed, it easily means He is not sure of Himself and likely not actually the Son of God.

Thirdly, the devil wanted Jesus to succumb to the sin of selfishness, and our desire to solve our problems outside of God’s will and God’s time. The devil today leads us to want to solve our problems without recourse to God’s will, insofar as the solution comes anyway; the good end justifies the means utilized in its attainment. We can steal, we can do anything wrong to achieve our purposes even if outside of God’s will for us.

The Lord avoided this idea in spite of His omnipotence, since the graces we receive from God are for the good of others and not for ourselves, neither for our vain glory, nor for self honour. St. Bernadette Soubirous in France, through Our Lady’s help miraculously opened the spring of Lourdes that has cured many people since 1858, but was told by Our Lady at her sick time that the water was not for her.

Temptation on the Abuse of Spiritual Gifts and Power

Next, the devil takes Jesus to Jerusalem and asked Him to throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, which is about 200 feet above the ground, and quoted the the Bible, Ps. 91: 11-12, (He has given his angels orders about you to guard you wherever you go) out of context and wrongly. The devil missed out, “wherever you go” in v.11, in order to suite his narrative. This shows us that not all that glitters is gold.

The devil of course, does not present himself to us as the evil agent he is, but as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14). Have we not heard of many preachers today who quote the Bible out of context in order to prove their points of disobedience to the word of God. For instance, many quote the verse: “the kingdom of God suffers violence and only the violent can take it by force,” to justify violence; some quote: “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” to justify idolatry and Neo-paganism.

The Lord answered the devil, by quoting from Deuteronomy 6:16: “Do not put the Yahweh your God to the test…” The devil tested Jesus on two grounds here. First, is for Jesus to abuse His divine power for the mundane and unnecessary goals, in order to get popular acclamation from the people. We see the devil employ such tricks today in the ministry of some self-styled men of God, who want to play God. A pastor passed away recently after three weeks of fasting, of organ failure, in his desire to fast for 40 days like Jesus.

Another one asked his congregation to bury him alive so that he can resurrect from the dead like Jesus on the third day. Yet, another in the University of Ibadan years past, entered the zoo where lions were kept in order to perform the miracle of Daniel in the lion’s den, no sooner had he descended down the barbwire than the lions made a meal of his mortal remains.

Secondly, the devil wanted Jesus to wrongly exercise his power and authority out of selfish ego, and not in the service of the Gospel and the poorest of the poor. Today, those who exercise power among us try very hard to lord it over others at all costs. Men in the family try to impose always their will and do not pay attention to the opinions of their wives and children. Our politicians defy human rights and laws and subject the people to barbaric leadership, and ready to kill to achieve their aims. Wealthy people in our villages shun order and torture poor people with security operatives.

Temptation on Worldly Power and Ambition (money, fame and political power)

Next, the devil takes the Lord to a very high mountain and showed Him the kingdom of the world and its riches and asked the Lord to worship him and he would hand them over to Him. The devil tempts us today with crave for money and wealth, that lead many into money worship and idolatry, and various degrees of pacts with the devil just for the purpose of acquiring money, fame and power. Are we not saturated in Nigeria with the stories of yahoo plus, rituals undergone by the youth for the purpose of being able to steal money, oaths and rituals for political power, election rigging, character assassinations, and theft for sake of political power.

To counter these antics of the devil, the Lord quoted again Deuteronomy 6:13 “Yahweh your God is the one you must fear, him alone you must serve…”The devil here tempts the Lord on two counts. Firstly, is for Him to abandon His redemptive mission and get preoccupied with politics and the exercise of worldly power and pursuit of wealth for its own sake. Secondly, is the undue acquisition of goods that He does not need simply to be able to show off. That is, the desire to live lives of materialism, consumerism and hedonism

Finally when the devil left the Lord, the angels came and ministered to Him. This implies that the angels provided food, drink and other necessary accompaniment the human nature of Jesus needed at that time. The primary message of the Lord, is that temptations and tests form parts and parcels of our lives on earth. However, we shall overcome them, when we remain with the Lord, and confide in Him alone for our material and spiritual well-being.

The angels satisfied the Lord’s needs when it was God’s time for them to be satisfied, until then, the Lord refused the desire to act outside of God’s own time and plan, no matter the pains and the sufferings and the temptations involved. We also find ourselves in barrenness, poverty, disappointments, sickness, misery, deaths etc, do we remain faithful to the Lord in these moments of test, or do we abandon the Lord’s plan for us in pursuit of our own will and the promptings and wiles of the devil? God’s time is the best for us, in all things and at all times.

Prayer
Lord, you alone is the architect of our lives, and You know us through and through, please help us to remain faithful to You during the trying moments of our lives, and be able to win our battles against the devil, the desires of the flesh and the world, amen.

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