Freedom and life. Or slavery and death. In Holy Scripture, these are the two options presented over and again to the human race in our long struggle against the disordered self-love with which we are all born because of man’s Fall from grace, the tragedy of rebellion which happened at the very beginning of the human story.
And in the Old Testament there are two preeminent signs of these divergent paths of life and death. The first sign is Noah’s family being saved from the flood in the ark, and the second is the exodus of Israel from Egypt by their passage through the Red Sea.
Both of these signs prefigure the great sacrament of Holy Baptism, the instrument of life and freedom for which the universal Church prepares during these Forty Days of fasting, prayer, and works of mercy, forty days which are patterned after Christ’s own preparation for his public ministry following his baptism by John.
Lent is a pilgrimage of faith, a figurative journey to Jerusalem which culminates in the Passover of Christ’s suffering, death, and Resurrection. And at the heart of the Christian celebration of Passover each year is Holy Baptism which is administered to those who have come to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and which is revitalized for those already baptized by the renewal of their sacramental promises.
In our second lesson today, taken from the first of Saint Peter’s two letters in the New Testament, we read that Christ suffered for sinners, was put to death for our redemption, and was brought to the glory of the Resurrection in order to offer the gift and grace of righteousness to all who are lost in disobedience to the law and love of God and who are therefore trapped by their own selfishness on a path that leads to death through slavery to sin.
Saint Peter teaches that Christ’s work of redemption was foreshadowed by Noah, whose fidelity to God saved eight people and prefigured the sacrament of Holy Baptism. As Second Peter puts it, Baptism is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is through Baptism that we become children of God, members of Christ, and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven, and in Holy Baptism we enter the Church as through a door.
In six weeks, during the night Vigil and the morning Masses of Easter Sunday, multitudes of people around the world will be born again by water and the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Holy Baptism, and all Catholics who attend Easter Mass will renew their baptismal promises as a sign of our covenantal commitment to follow the Lord Jesus in the Way of the Cross and to live the new life of grace by forsaking whatever is contrary to the Gospel.
But living the new life of grace requires us to understand that while the grace of God is free, it is not cheap. Sadly, in every age Christians face a strong temptation to cheapen the grace of God by expecting Holy Baptism or Holy Matrimony without church discipline, by seeking forgiveness without repentance, by asking for a divine blessing without the obedience of faith, by preferring our own wisdom to the revealed Word of God, and by approaching Holy Communion without going to Confession.
But there truly is no cheap grace because we were purchased from everlasting death at a great price: the broken body and outpoured blood of our Savior, the same Lord who began his preaching after forty days in the wilderness with a clarion call to conversion. “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
In these Forty Days we can avoid the temptations of cheap grace by embracing the proper discipline of the sacraments, by going to Mass every Sunday, by reading Holy Scripture and praying every day, by serving those in need for the sake of love, by going to Confession whenever needed and at least once each year as a preparation for receiving Holy Communion, and by striving to live according to the promises of our Baptism.
At Mass on Easter Sunday, the priest will introduce the Renewal of Baptismal Promises with these words: “Dear brethren, through the Paschal Mystery we have been buried with Christ in Baptism, so that we may walk with him in newness of life. And so, now that our Lenten observance is concluded, let us renew the promises of Holy Baptism, by which we once renounced Satan and his works and promised to serve God in the holy Catholic Church.” (Roman Missal, Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord)
Friends, here is our road map for these Forty Days of Lent. The promises of Holy Baptism should shape everything we think, and do, and say, and our baptismal promises bind us by grace through faith, hope, and love to invite all others to repent and believe in the Gospel by proclaiming with our words and with our lives the liberating and live-giving truth that Jesus Christ is Lord.
This is the text of my homily for the First Sunday of Lent.
Fr Jay Scott Newman