Father Riley's homily from March 10, 2019

CEC Breaking News !

…  Father Riley will lead us in Holy Eucharist Sundays March  17 & 31.  We will have Morning Prayer March 24.   

…  Our Lenten early morning (9am) Sunday School with Father Riley will continue this Sunday, March 17th, Saint Patrick's Day.  

…  We will soon be starting our 2019 Capital Campaign for raising funds to repair and paint the exterior of our beautiful church.  We have received proposals from contractors and are drafting Capital Campaign letters.  Some of you have already contributed to this needed activity and we greatly appreciate your support and love of our congregation.  Stay tuned for more updates.

LENT I - C- 19                                        LUKE 4. 1-13

Our Lenten journey began on Wednesday with the Churches’ invitation to a Holy Lent. In it, we were reminded of our need of repentance and the fact of our mortality as we received the ashes of previous Lenten palms traced on our foreheads with the sign of the cross.

During these forty days, we travel with Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross. A journey we have all made many times before. The gospel for the first Sunday in Lent is always the temptations of Christ that confronted him as he prepared for his journey to fulfill the mission God the Father had given him.

We have heard this gospel read many times. We know the temptations Jesus faced and we know he was able to overcome them through the power of the Word of God. The devil tried his best to use God’s word to counter Jesus’ steadfastness in maintaining his humanity rather than relying on his divinity. However, Satan failed. Jesus did not fall for it.

Satan did not want Jesus to die on the cross for he knew that Christ’ death and resurrection would mean his defeat. Satan would try again. There was still time in his devilish mind to derail Christ’ purpose for coming into our world, that is, to bring salvation to all who would believe in him.

Lent reminds us not only of our continual need of repentance and our mortality, but as Christians, we are in the “wilderness” of this life as we strive to fulfill our God-given purpose. With that said, the enemy will harass us with various temptations. He will always strike at the time and place where we are the most vulnerable.

Jesus was in the wilderness forty days. During that time, he ate nothing. He was famished. The devil knew he was hungry. The first temptation of Jesus was for him to use his divine power and turn stones into bread to meet his physical need.

When challenged with that, instead of succumbing to the temptation to do so, Jesus found himself being fed by the Word of God that enabled him to set aside his physical need and focus on the spiritual. That is the goal of fasting. Satan quickly tried another approach. Each one of the devil’s attempts to persuade Jesus to suppress his humanity and use his divine power began with an “if.”

Satan was trying to place the question of doubt in the mind of Christ as to his true identity. Satan knew Jesus was the Son of God. Jesus likewise knew whom he was and what he had been given to do. The voice from heaven that accompanied his baptism confirmed it: “This is my son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”

I have always thought that Satan was in the crowd that lined the banks of the Jordan on the day Jesus appeared before John and submitted to his baptism. As I am certain he heard the voice as well and saw the dove descend upon Christ. That is why the devil went after him in the wilderness in the first place.

The three temptations of Jesus are the ones we will face as well. Because we live in a physical and material world, we will be faced with choosing to meet our physical needs over and above our spiritual ones. The enemy does not want us to fast, for example, for fasting teaches us to rely on God.

The devil also tempted Jesus to change allegiances, to bow down and worship him. We may tell ourselves that we would never do that. However, the enemy disguises such a temptation so that it is not so obvious. The fact is this temptation comes to all us to place our trust in something or someone other than God. It could be power, wealth, status or self.

Another form of this temptation is to believe that God is far removed from our situation and that we are on our own. The temptation is real. How often have you wondered why isn’t God jumping in to help me? God, however, does not abandon us, even in the worst of times, as he did not abandon his Son, not even as he was dying on the cross.

The last temptation is the most common one. I would dare say we have all fallen for this one. “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” How many times have you thought, said aloud or perhaps even prayed for God to prove himself,  “God, if you are there, then do this or that or take care of this situation or that situation for me?”

The key to Jesus being able to overcome the temptations he faced in the wilderness was his reliance on the power of God’s word and in his knowledge of who he was in the eyes of God. In baptism, we were buried with Christ and raised to new life in him.

In this, we took on a new identity, a new allegiance; our trust, our faith, and our hope are in Him whose death and resurrection defeated Satan once and for all. In his living and dying, Christ has given us an example to live by. This does not mean that temptations will by any means cease to plague us because we now belong to him.

On the contrary, because we do, the enemy will see to it that there will always be the opportunity to give in to him and his ways rather than God’s. Oftentimes we will fail and do just that, give in. Thus, the Ash Wednesday liturgy reminds of our continual need of repentance.

To fail does not mean that God will love us any less. In the final analysis, we will not be judged on our failures but on our faithfulness. To continue the journey requires that when we do stumble and fall we turn once again, repent, and give our hearts to God.

Temptations will come and go as a test to our faithfulness and our trust in God. The closer we get to God, the harder the enemy works to turn us away from him. To endure the enemy’s temptations is to remember whom we are and to whom we ultimately belong. Our true identity is in Christ.

To overcome temptation, in whatever form it may take, we must learn reliance on the power of God, by putting our faith and trust in Him. God’s grace is all sufficient to get us through the “wilderness” of this present life in the Hope of obtaining the promise of the next, though Him who was tempted in ever way as we are yet did not sin, even Jesus Christ, Our Lord. AMEN+