A Homily for the first Sunday of Passiontide

+ Antequam Abraham fieret, ego sum. With these five words Our Lord provoked the utter indignation of the Jews who, convinced that this was sheer blasphemy, reached for stones in order to stone Him to death there and then. “Before Abraham came to be, I am.”

If we are to understand the sacred indignation of the Jews we must, of course, recall that our Lord is here attributing to Himself the name of God as revealed to Moses at the burning bush (cf. Exodus 3:14) claiming to pre-exist Abraham, the great Father of the Jewish people with whom God made the Covenant. Whatever of the stubbornness of the Jews, etc., as related in the Gospels, their utter shock at someone daring to assert that “Before Abraham came to be, I am” is more than understandable. The claim is outrageous. How can the son of a carpenter from Nazareth make such an assertion?

My brothers and sisters, this is not an academic question for those interested in the study of Sacred Scripture. No: this is the question on which everything that has any importance in this world in fact turns. For in the answer to the question “Who is Jesus of Nazareth?” we find or we lose all hope, all meaning, all purpose. And this is precisely why, on this first Sunday of Passiontide, Our Holy Mother the Church plunges us into the heart of the conflict to which this question raises so violently for the Jews—for it is our conflict also, and in our response to the issues it raises lies nothing less than our eternal life or death.

That is to say, we can so very easily leave aside the Nazarean carpenter’s son and regard His claims and teachings as the hopes and beliefs of yet another religious guru in history, whilst we get on with our lives seeking what power and influence we can obtain, anesthetising ourselves as best we can from the inevitable pain and suffering that comes our way by means of whatever pleasures are at our disposition. If we are fortunate—and ignore the plight of those who are not—on balance, in the end we may do well enough to be able to console ourselves at least somewhat in the face of the stark reality of our own inevitable eventual dissolution.

This is a very bleak portrait of human existence, but alas, it is one that is utterly too real. How many people with whom we work or encounter, or perhaps even live, are in exactly this position! Modern life and its ambitions and pleasures all too readily consume us, deadening our ability to perceive any reality that does not pertain to the assuaging of my ego or to the tranquilization of any pain or discomfort I may encounter. Of course, ambition and pleasure are goods: that is to say that they are not of themselves evil, and that they can and do serve God and His Providential designs. But in our times they can and all too often become idols, if not gods, themselves, occluding their subsidiary nature.

It is good for a young, talented person to be ambitious to place their energy, zeal and ability at the service of others: we benefit from innumerable advances in medicine, science and other academic research that is the fruit of such ambition. Even St Paul counsels being ambitious for the “higher gifts.” (cf. 1 Cor. 12:31) And there is nothing wrong with pleasure in itself: Our Lord himself rejoiced at feasts, miraculously providing the best of wines for the Wedding of Cana! (cf. Jn 2:1-11). No: we are not Quietists who are unable to get up and do anything, nor are we Manicheans or Jansenists who must regard every earthly pleasure as illegitimate and as a penance to be endured. Such positions have rightly been condemned as heresies.

Nor are we counted amongst the myriads of modern pagans who worship ourselves and our abilities and the pleasures that this life affords (even as these temptations are constantly before us and can, at times, thwart God’s call and designs). For whilst we do not reject anything that is good of this world, we worship He who was before Abraham existed as the definitive revelation of God in human history. For the Carpenter’s Son from Nazareth offers us far more than career prominence or contentment. He offers us something substantially greater than any passing pleasure—legitimate or otherwise—that we may experience in this life. He offers us the possibility of never tasting death, of life that cannot be quenched by pain or suffering or illness—nothing less.

My friends, in this season of Passiontide our Holy Mother the Church insists with increasing intensity that we confront anew the question “Who is Jesus of Nazareth?” Our Lenten disciplines are supposed to have cut away the distractions that encumber us so often so that now, in the stark days of the coming fortnight, we can focus more clearly on this, the one question that has literally eternal significance for each one of us, for our families and loved ones and indeed for all human persons. Let us live these days, then, particularly through the pregnant rites and texts of the Sacred Liturgy of Passiontide, with greater attention and fruitfulness. For in faithfully worshiping He who before Abraham was, is, lies our salvation. +