Homily - 2nd Sunday of Lent - Sunday 25th February 2024

Homily

2nd Sunday of Lent

Sunday 25th February 2024

Many say the most important day of their lives is the day they get married. It was a great celebration letting the community, and the church, know that from that day onwards you and your spouse would be known as a couple until, God willing, the day you die. Though this day is indelibly imprinted in my soul, there are two more days that make the day of my matrimonial vows so much more significant. The days my two sons were born. Yes, four years apart, but the memories are just as vivid today as it was more than three decades ago. On each day I witnessed the first breath of each child. The transition from being within the womb to breathing within our planet’s atmosphere. Soon after came the crying but also the loving.

One of the miracles, coming shortly after the second child was born, was to discover that our love as parents for him was equal to that of our firstborn. It was as if they had both existed in our lives forever. As if this wasn’t the first day of being born into this world. Both were precious.

I was fortunate to be a father in my mid-twenties and again in my early thirties. As both my sons now have passed these ages, I am also fortunate to be relatively young to be able to spend time with them as adults and now with my grandchildren.

Imagine being through life and not having been able to have children. Then to reach a point when your wife has passed the age for conceiving. Being old and struggling with your own body, which often groans when your mind wants to achieve goals possible in youth but with physical consequences in old age. My knees keep reminding me of this daily.

Imagine being eighty or ninety and being told you would have a child the following year? No wonder Sarah laughed when she heard this. Yet this is what happened, and she gave birth to Issac. Abraham would have been over the moon. I wonder how they coped with the sleepless nights watching over an infant. Perhaps he gave them their needed rest?

Abraham trusted in the Lord and would follow him regardless. Imagine the shock of being asked to sacrifice your son, the one you loved so much and had waited so long to share in your lives. Imagine the sorrow Sarah would have experienced knowing what God had asked her beloved husband to do. Could you forgive him? Yet, they both trusted God. This was before Moses was given the Ten Commandments.

God promised Abraham a great nation of countless people would come from his line. How difficult would it have been for him to give up his only son, born of his wife through their love for one another. Yet, he trusted God and would do as he requested.

It was at the very instant Abraham’s knife was about to strike Issac that the Angel of the Lord stopped him, then provided him with a sacrificial ram, snared in a bush. Our God is a God of love. He loves all of us. So much so that he sent his only begotten son into this world, to experience the journey through the womb and being born as we did. To be tempted by everything we have, but not giving in to sin.

God revealed Jesus as his Beloved Son to Peter, James and John. They saw him transfigured, dazzlingly white, beyond what earthly bleach could achieve. The three disciples were confused. Peter did not know what to say. A shadow from a cloud overcame them and they heard God’s voice. In the blink of an eye, only Jesus remained with them. Jesus warned them not to say anything until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Between them, they chatted about what this meant.

God had given Abraham a ram as a substitute for his son, Issac, but in Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Almighty had given his beloved Son as a sacrificial Lamb in exchange for all our sins. God’s beloved was not spared. For every human that has ever existed and is to come, Jesus took on our sins so that we could be saved. This is how much God loves every single one of us. He doesn’t want any of us to be lost. God the Father loves all his children. Jesus died for us, is risen from the dead. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus has ascended into Heaven and sits on God’s right-hand side. Jesus pleads for us so we cannot be condemned if we have faith in him as our only mediator. All we must do is listen to his every word.

Amen.

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