Homily for 1 March

Genesis doesn’t mention dinosaurs! But then the last dinosaurs – other than birds – died out about 65 million years ago, while the fossils of our earliest human ancestors are only about 6 million years old. The first chapters of Genesis are not history as know it. They are primarily mythological. As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote these stories ‘represent truth in the way that symbols do — just as, for example, a Gothic window gives us a deep insight into reality, thanks to the effects of light that it produces and to the figures that is portrays.’ The Genesis stories are inspired by God and they help us understand deep truths in story form.

Adam and Eve speak of the universal experience of goodness and evil. The mystery of evil which tempts us to deny our creatureliness, our humanity. In choosing to eat the fruit Adam and Eve – all human beings who sin – become less human, less whole; we fracture our relationships with one another and creation.  We move from the myth in the first reading to the Gospel, to history as we know it, to the person of Jesus. The Lord is tempted by evil in the Gospel. The devil fails with Jesus because the light of Christ shows the tests up for what they are. They are temptations which would have occurred time and again in his ministry, but temptations he never gave in to. We, on other hand, are tempted and we fall again and again.

In the temptations the devil tries to lure Jesus into taking the easier path; the path of power and control. The tempter speaks to Jesus’ identity as Son of God and invites him to wield power. Jesus remains faithful to the path, he, his Father and Spirit has chosen.

He will not use his power to look after himself – change the stone to become bread to assuage his hunger. He remains hungry. He is one with those who hunger in our world.

He will not wield power as the powerful of the world do. He comes to serve – to manifest an alternative form of being present to and for others. He is one with those who are weak in our world.

He will not show his power and glory by testing God’s care of him. He will walk the path of humble service even to death on the Cross. He is one with those who suffer in our world.

Jesus came as one like us in all things but sin and he will walk with us, among us, faithful to us even as the blows rain down on him.

Jesus shows us the way in Lent and life, but especially in Lent. We are called to walk his path of service and humility. This is the path to freedom and humanity. into desert with faith and humility as Jesus did and with Jesus. The path of choosing to be with the weak and poor – in our families, workplaces, schools, streets. In doing this, in giving of ourselves, in loving, we encounter Christ, we experience freedom and humanity.

Our sharing in Jesus’ desert experience brings us to know that it is God’s mercy and love in Jesus who walked humbly amongst us which is our consolation and joy – not wealth, power, comfort or control.

The Church tells us that ‘the act of putting on ashes symbolizes fragility and mortality, and the need to be redeemed by the mercy of God’. We journey together to the death and resurrection of Jesus, the life and the events which redeem us from sin and death. In this journey encounter the Lord, we know his love for us and all humanity in our solidarity in weakness and sin. It sharing in this love, this faithfulness which gives us life, which sets us free.