Fear of the Lord vs. Heedlessness – 3rd Sunday of Lent – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; March 23, 2025

Last Sunday, the Gospel of the Transfiguration showed us Moses and Elijah conversing with Jesus in his glory, showing that the law and the prophets bear witness to him, in his divinity and his humanity. The light of the Transfiguration, then, invites us to discover the many ways in which the Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, is revealed in the pages of the Old Testament.

In today’s 2^nd reading, St. Paul follows this example when he tells us, point blank, the rock was Christ. The people of Israel were without water in the desert; they complained against Moses; God commanded Moses to strike the rock with his staff, and water came forth from the rock giving the people water in abundance. (cf. Ex 17:1-7) What does it mean, then, to say that the rock was Christ? The hardness and durability of the rock represents the eternity of the divine nature, while the visibility of the rock represents the visible humanity of the Son of God. The wooden staff of Moses represents the wooden Cross, upon which the humanity of Christ was opened, as when the soldier struck his side with a lance, and from which blood and water poured forth. (cf. Jn 19:34) The blood and water that came from the side of Jesus is a sign of the life of grace and the gift of the Holy Spirit, true spiritual refreshment, given to us through the sacraments, chiefly baptism and the Holy Eucharist. The water that came forth from the side of the rock in the desert, then, was a prophetic sign of the grace of Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, given to his people through his death on the Cross.

So also, we learn that the crossing of the Red Sea was a prophetic sign of baptism in Christ and that the manna, the spiritual food, was a prophetic sign of the true Bread from heaven, the Body of Christ given to us in the Holy Eucharist. (cf. Jn 6:48-54)

The salvation that God wrought on behalf of his people Israel foreshadowed the salvation he would accomplish on behalf of all mankind through Jesus Christ. He is always the same God.

We can also consider how Jesus was already revealed to Moses in today’s 1^st reading. Jesus himself makes the connection for us.

St. John, in his Gospel, recounts a debate Jesus had with the crowd in Jerusalem. The crowd realizes that Jesus is claiming to be greater than Abraham and challenges him on that account. Jesus doubles down and says, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad. (Jn 8:56) Astounded the crowd replies, You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? (Jn 8:57) This brings forth perhaps the most dramatic assertion Jesus ever made during his earthly life, Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. (Jn 8:58) The crowd clearly understood the meaning of Jesus’ affirmation, I am, so much so that they picked up stones to put him to death for blasphemy, but Jesus hid himself from them until the time he would choose to hand himself over to death.

The man, Jesus, in a solemn statement, introduced by the double affirmation, Amen, amen, identified himself with the one who revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush. Either Jesus’ affirmation was true, or the crowd was right to seek to stone him for blasphemy. Of course, Jesus’ power to hide himself from the crowd points to the truth of his affirmation.

In any case, by identifying himself with the one who spoke to Moses in the burning bush, Jesus invites us understand today’s 1^st reading in that light. The bush, though on fire, is not consumed. The bush represents Jesus’ human nature, the fire his divine nature.

Pope St. Leo the Great, in his famous Tome to Flavian, which was incorporated into the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD), beautifully summarizes the significance of the burning bush.

“For He who is true God is also true man: and in this union there is no lie, since the humility of manhood [the bush] and the loftiness of the Godhead [the fire] both meet there. For as God is not changed by the showing of pity, so man is not swallowed up by the dignity. For each form does what is proper to it with the co-operation of the other; that is the Word performing what appertains to the Word, and the flesh carrying out what appertains to the flesh. One of them sparkles with miracles, the other succumbs to injuries. And as the Word does not cease to be on an equality with His Father’s glory, so the flesh does not forego the nature of our race.” (Tome of Leo)

Speaking to Moses from the burning bush, the Lord, the Son of God, tells him that he has heard the affliction of the people of Israel enduring slavery in Egypt and has come down to deliver them. So, the Son of God, heard the affliction of mankind, laboring beneath slavery to sin and death, and came down from heaven, became man and gave his life on the Cross, to deliver us, to give us life and true freedom.

As he said to his disciples, If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. (Jn 8:31-32) This is not the freedom to pursue our own disordered pleasure, which is rather a slavery to passion, but the freedom that the son has in his father’s house, as compared to the slave, the freedom to share in the father’s work and the father’s dignity, the freedom for the good. (cf. Jn 8:34-36)

When we consider the same eternal Son of God, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit says, I am, revealing himself to Abraham, speaking to Moses in the burning bush, walking as a man among his people and his disciples, speaking to them as one man to another, and present in our midst today in the Holy Eucharist – Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday and today and forever (He 13:8) – we are filled with awe and wonderment. Who are we in comparison with Abraham? In comparison with Moses? In comparison with the Apostles? Yet, it is the same Jesus Christ who is in our midst, who comes to us in Holy Communion. We drink the same spiritual drink and eat the same spiritual food.

And yet, in this we also are given a warning: God was not pleased with most of them. And in today’s Gospel the stern words of Jesus, If you do not repent, you will all perish as they did.

Of what do we need to repent? Of the heedlessness that arises from a lack of the fear of the Lord, and that leads to grumbling, even if though we pretend not to grumble against God because we grumble instead against the Church he has established and those he has set in authority.

The Gospel today makes reference to some Galileans who were massacred by Pilate in the courtyard of the temple and of a multitude that was killed suddenly in the collapse of a tower in Jerusalem. These were sudden deaths in the precincts of the temple and of the holy city. Here is the question: were those who were killed ready to go before the judgment seat of God?

Consider that on Easter Sunday in 2019 in Sri Lanka, the home country of Fr. Cami in Vale and Fr. Christie in John Day, there were three ISIS related bombings of churches, killing 269 persons. Were those who were killed ready to go before the judgment seat of God? Were it to happen here, would we be ready to go before the judgment seat of God?

Fear of the Lord, the first of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, makes us to recognize the greatness of the gift we have received from God, makes us to recognize that we are accountable to God for the use we make of the gift, just as in the parable of the talents the servants were accountable for their use of the talents entrusted to them. (cf. Mt 25:14-30)

Yet, often we are heedless. We do not consider the gift we have been given and the responsibility that it entails. We become preoccupied with our own day to day concerns; we become like the Israelites in the desert, complaining about the lack of water, though our complaint is about a much lighter hardship. Indeed, our complaining is a sign of heedlessness and lack of fear of the Lord. In our complaining, we might not be thinking of God – indeed if were we thinking of God we wouldn’t be complaining – but with our words we tear others down, whether those in authority, those with whom we work, or family members. They too were created by God in his image; Christ shed his blood also for them.

The Gospel does not merely give us a warning to repent of our heedlessness and grumbling, but also lets us know that we have been given more time, but not infinite time. The gardener gains another year for the fruitless fig tree. Jesus is the gardener and the year is the whole time between his Ascension into heaven and his return in glory. That year is Anno Domini, AD, the year of the Lord, for whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Pe 3:8) From the divine perspective, the whole purpose of history during this “year” is to give people an opportunity to repent and to avail themselves of God’s mercy, to receive the grace of Jesus Christ, to be sanctified and grow in holiness, to gain eternal salvation. This year is the “time of mercy”.

St. Peter tells us the Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance …. Count the forbearance of our Lord as salvation. (2 Pe 3:9,15)