Fresh Dew Media

 5^th Sunday of Lent, Year C: Homily by Fr. Isaac Chima

Theme: God does not give up on us

Readings: Is 43, 16-21; Phil 3, 8-14; Jn 8, 1-11

The message of this Sunday is simply clear. This message says that we have a God who does not give up on us; a God who reaches out to us to free us from our sinful past; a God who comes to free us from the condemnation and death we have merited by our sins and from the condemnation the world has passed on us because of our sins. This message also charges us not to condemn other people when God is still calling them tenderly to conversion. These messages are evident in the readings of today.

To understand the beautiful promises of renewal and new things from God to the people of Israel in the first reading, it will be good to make a brief recap of the historical background that led to them. The history of the people of Israel that led to the exile in Babylon was punctuated by obstinacy to the commandments of God. It was the stubbornness and sins of Israelites that led them to exile in Babylon. After the fall of Northern Israel under the Persians, the prophets of God warned the people of Southern Israel that Jerusalem will also fall if they continue to live in their sins. But the people of Israel did not heed their warnings.

Consequently, the Babylonians marched on Jerusalem, defeated her, killed her king and many of her people, and took many others into slavery. With that act of defeat and slavery, Southern Israel was already written off from the face of the earth, a replication of what happened to Northern Israel. However, when the people of Israel saw the death sentence that was hanging on their necks in the land of exile, they called on God for mercy and liberation, and God, who did not give up on them or write them off despite their sins, heard them.

The first reading of today was part of the promises of restoration from God to the people of Israel. He promised to do new things in their lives and urged them to forget their past evil lives, to move away from the memories of their past sinful lives and then look into the future with hope. God made them to understand that His novelty was not confined to the great deeds of old, but that He has already started doing new great things in their lives. Dear friends, this is how God relates to sinners who open themselves to Him. God did not give up on Israel despite their past sinful stories because He does not rejoice in the death of sinners. God always gives sinners opportunities to come back to Him. He calls sinners tenderly to conversion. This message is also addressed to all of us.

The gospel of today presents us a practical example of how God treats a sinner. It demonstrated to us how Jesus helps sinners and wrongdoers to write another history of their lives, how Jesus helps us to right the wrongs of our past lives, how God tenderly calls sinners to sincere conversion, and how God frees sinners from condemnation and death in the hands of other human beings, giving them another chance.

The adulterous woman in the gospel of today, like the people of Israel in exile, was an example of someone whose faults and sins brought disaster and death sentence upon her. Her case was not one of accusation because she was caught in the very act of adultery. The requirement of the law (Lev 20:10; Deut. 22:13-24) for such a crime was death. So, she had already been condemned by the law and the people – she had been written off completely. What was staring her in the face, as was the case of the people of Israel in exile, was death. However, dear friends, there was someone who did not write her off, someone who did not give up on her. That person was Jesus, and He freed her from death. He gave her another chance. Jesus also challenges us not to condemn sinners but to treat them with love, helping them to come out of their sins instead of writing them off.

With this story, the Church wants you to know that Jesus has not condemned you in your sins; He has not given up on you, nor has He written you off. He knows that you still have something positive to offer to the world. He wants to restore you to goodness and glory; He has another chance for you; He has not condemned you, so don’t give up on yourself; don’t condemn yourself. In fact, all of us have attracted death by our sins, but Christ has lifted the death sentence from us through His death on the cross.

Dear friends, let us now embrace reconciliation with God, with ourselves and with our neighbours through the sacrament of reconciliation this Lent, especially by doing what St. Paul urges us to do in the second reading of today. Having been freed from death by Christ and having been given another chance by Christ, the Church invites us to emulate St. Paul by putting Christ at the centre of our lives and then counting all worldly things and pleasures as a loss. Let us make sure that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross on our behalf was never in vain. Let us distance ourselves from anything that will lead us back to our old life of sin.

Let us end this homily with this beautify song:

‘What can wash away my sins, nothing but the Blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again, nothing but the Blood of Jesus.

O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow,

No other fount I know, nothing but the Blood of Jesus.’

 

Peace be with you.

Rev. Fr. Isaac Chinemerem Chima