We all have heard the myth of the phoenix, a legend about a bird of great beauty, the only one of its kind, said to live for 500 years in the Arabian desert, then to burn itself up into ashes on a funeral pyre, and then to rise from its ashes in the freshness of youth and live again and again these cycles of 500 years. The story has made the phoenix a symbol of immortality. We have all gone to ashes this past Wednesday and now in this season of Lent, this season of renewal, we ourselves hope to rise up with Christ from those ashes as we move forward through Lent toward the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ at Easter with joy and spiritual longing. Lent is a time in which we try to get more serious and aware about the reformation--really, the transformation of our lives in Christ. This can bring more joy into our lives as we reawaken our spiritual longing for the ideals of Christianity, our longing for greater love for all people, and our longing for heaven itself and the vision of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If we have been straying off the Way that is Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, it is a time to get back on track, to walk in His footsteps again. In a discussion I had with our novices about what is a good thing to “give up” for Lent, we felt that one of the best answers was “SIN!” Sin is precisely that losing of one's way on the road to heaven. We all feel the power of temptation to turn us away from what is best for us personally and best for those affected by our lives. Like Adam and Eve, we all feel the power of the temptation to sin.
What does the first sentence of today's Gospel of Matthew tell us: “At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” The impulse of God to be humanly incarnate is so total that the Son of God himself takes on a humanity that is able to be tempted, and tested in every way that we are—though he never sinned. You might say, well, that's because he was not tempted as strongly as we are. I enjoy invoking the insight of C.S. Lewis that the person who gives in to temptation and sins, never learns the temptation's full power. It is the person who resists it. Jesus is the man to ask about what is the full power of the devil's temptations because he has known them in their full force. Also, Matthew's gospel makes it clear that Jesus encountered temptation everywhere: not just in the desert, but also standing on the parapet of the magnificent temple in the city of Jerusalem, and in the inspiring high mountains of Israel. Everywhere: desert—Temple--mountains--He was tempted to the nth degree, but did not sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has a stunning passage about this:(CCC 603) “Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned. But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness to sin ( LET ME REPEAT: he assumed us in the state of our waywardness to sin), to the point that he could say in our name on the cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God 'did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all,' so that we might be 'reconciled to God by the death of his Son.'”
The Gospel of Matthew and especially the Epistle to the Hebrews proclaims this as good news to us who so often succumb to temptation and, indeed, sin. In Chapter 2 of Hebrews, the author writes, “For because Jesus himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted” Later, in Chapter 4 the author of Hebrews gives a fuller statement of this good news: “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Yes, let us all here and now with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that is this altar upon which will be enthroned the sacrament of sacraments, the source and summit of the Christian life, our bread of life in this monastic desert, in this holy temple, on this Spencer mountain—let us receive the eucharistic body and blood of Jesus Christ given and poured out for the forgiveness of our sins. Angels will come to help minister to us the medicine of immortality mystically transcending any renewal of life a fabulous phoenix ever could have known.
Today's homily by Father Luke.
