This homily was prepared but never preached, since I've been down all weekend with a severe bug of some sort. As they say, "Beware the Ides of March!" I hope and pray you're germ-free...
Fourth Sunday of Lent B
Having recently turned 40,
I’ve
been wondering just how a guy knows
when
he’s entered “middle age."
So I went to the undisputed source
of all wisdom—the Internet—
to
gain some insight.
There
I learned that middle age starts
when
a man chooses his breakfast cereal
for its fiber content,
instead
of the free toy…
The middle.
This
Sunday,
we
find ourselves smack in the middle of March.
Here
in the North Country,
any
given day—or even any given hour—
we
can take a turn back toward the cold and snow of winter
or
forward toward bright warmth of spring.
Our
first reading finds God’s Chosen People at a turning point:
having
heaped infidelity upon infidelity,
God
has allowed Israel
to
be brutally conquered by the Babylonians—
But
God takes what appeared to be punishment
and
turns it into a means of purification.
When
time enough has passed,
and
important lessons learned, important changes made,
the
Lord gives his people a fresh, new start—
and
by the hand of a most unexpected agent:
another
foreign king.
Here
in the middle,
we’re
reminded that our lives are always turning—
either
more toward God, or away from him.
Our
actions have consequences—to be sure—
and
we must accept them…
…but
the Lord also has great compassion
in
the way he guides the course of history.
When
we were dead in our sins,
God
raised us to life again in Christ—
not
as a reward for our good deeds,
but
because of sheer grace.
God
can draw out good
from
the worst of our failures.
Here
in the middle of March,
we
learn that even the most punishing of winters
will
yield to the new life of spring.
This
Sunday,
we
find ourselves right in the middle of Lent.
This
fourth Sunday of Lent is Laetare Sunday—
a
Sunday for rejoicing.
It’s
meant to be a glad pause
in
an otherwise quite sober and somber season.
The
liturgy takes on a bit of a cheery tone
to
encourage us as we continue with our Lenten disciplines,
heightening
our anticipation as Easter comes into sight.
Here
in the middle,
we’re
reminded that, even when it calls us to penance—
to
embrace self-denial, generous acts of charity,
and
deep, soul-searching prayer—
the
Gospel message is always abundantly good
news.
Here
in the middle of Lent, we learn again
that
Christians should be a people
constantly
marked by hope and joy.
And
this Sunday,
we
find ourselves hearing once more
the
very middle of the Gospel—
not
when measured by chapter and verse,
but
when you get down to what it’s all about:
For God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who
believes in him
might not perish but might
have eternal life.
A
single inspired sentences sums up
what
lies at the middle, the pivot,
the
hinge of all human history:
the
heart of the divine plan.
We
find ourselves here in the middle,
in
what St. Paul describes
as
the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4, Eph 1:10),
believing
that all things prior to Jesus
were
leading up to him;
that
all things following Jesus
are
different because of him;
that
nothing before or after Jesus
makes
any real sense without him.
“Middle
age”—according to Bob Hope—
“is
when your age starts to show around your middle.”
I
haven’t figured out when middle age really begins.
But
I know that here,
in
the middle of March, in the middle of Lent,
again
hearing the middle of the Gospel,
is
a really good place to be.
Make
Jesus the true heart, the center, the core
of
everything you are and everything you do—
keeping
him right in the middle of it all—
and
your life, at every turn,
will
be filled with joy.
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