40 Days

Scripture: Ash Wednesday, A.D. 2015 B

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

40 days.

In the Bible, the number 40 is always significant. The Great Flood lasted 40 days and 40 nights. The people of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Moses and Elijah, the greatest figures of the Law and the Prophets, each fasted for 40 days. And of course Jesus, at the beginning of His public ministry, was led out to the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the devil for 40 days.

Ancient peoples knew that it takes roughly 40 weeks for a pregnant woman to come to term with her child, birth pangs and all. And so the number 40 always represents some sort of hardship leading to a new and brighter birth. The Great Flood washed Creation clean and gave mankind a second chance. Israel’s wanderings culminated with a new generation settling in the Promised Land. Moses and Elijah’s fasting brought mighty revelations from God. And our Lord’s temptation exorcised the desert and brought humiliating defeat to our ancient foe. As we all fell in the old Adam, so we all rise in the new.

The season of Lent consists of 40 days of fasting, prayer, and penance. We deny ourselves the pleasures of the world in order to focus and to prepare for the great celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection, the very conquest of sin, death, and hell! This is not a time to be gloomy—we do not mope our way through Lent. Indeed, making our penance into a spectacle is precisely what Jesus condemns in today’s Gospel reading. But Lent is a time for serious reflection and purification. We give something up to make room for something more.

We do not need the most opulent foods, for we are more than our bellies. We do not need an overabundance of creature comforts, for life is more than merely pleasure. What we do need, and what our world in general needs most desperately, is humility, compassion, selflessness, and hope. These are the virtues of Lent. Lent clarifies our vision to see the deeper truths, the things that really matter. Leave the raucousness of Mardi Gras behind us, that we, like Elijah, may hear the still, small voice of God speaking to us in the silence.

Tonight we mark our foreheads with ash to represent our repentance, our self-denial, and the acknowledgment of our own mortality. We turn as desperate sinners to Jesus. With Jesus, we must enter into the suffering of our world. With Jesus, we must endure in some degree the agonies of the Cross. And with Jesus, we shall arise triumphant from death to everlasting life and glory. Lent is the time of the chrysalis, that the Easter butterfly may soon emerge and take wing.

40 days to purify ourselves for the Paschal feast. And they begin now.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.