“HIS BODY AND BLOOD: WRITTEN AND POURED OUT FOR YOU”
Saint Matthew 4: 1-11
INVOCAVIT: 5 March Anno Domini 2017
Father Jay Watson SSP
Our Introit reads: “He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will deliver him…with long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation.”
Invocavit Sunday—the First Sunday in Lent. The Latin Invocavit comes from “invocare:” to call upon…to invoke. Christians are Christians because they invoke, “call upon” Christ. Because Christ has come to them by The Holy Ghost, called them by the good news of Christ’s life, work, suffering, death, and satisfaction for their sins, and put His Word upon their tongues. You have been taught the sacred language of heaven itself in the Person and Work of Jesus.
The same devil that tries to swoop down onto the roadside and pluck up all the seed of the Word, so that it bears no fruit, is the same serpent who twisted the Word, misquoted the Word, and caused Eve to so blaspheme the Word, that Adam and all his kin fell from Grace. Words are by their very nature germinating, life giving, and creative. Adam named the animals with Words. The Trinity called existence into being by The Word. The Second Person of The Godhead took on Flesh and Blood from The Virgin that He might be The Word made Flesh. Jesus’ Words throughout the Evangels are permformative and institutive—they give and create what they call for.
In the Ninth ring of Hell, the Inferno of Dante, the greatest of Christian poets has Satan silent, mute, non-speaking, and non-wording. This old evil foe is not even deigned worthy of cursing, retorting, or howling. He sits in the silence of his own inanity and imbecility. Anti-life does not speak. Negation has no words.
The famous confrontation between the devil and The Lord starts every Lententide. This is fitting. The Forty Days of Lent, Fastenzeit, should always cause you to look to Christ in today’s text wherein He fasted perfectly, in all ways imaginable, for you and your salvation. What the Hebrews could not do during their own 40 years of wandering in the Lent of desert wilderness, Jesus did for them; for you. Moses, Aaron, and the rest were to obey God and live (eat, drink, be sustained and strengthened) by His Word. They were to refrain from the lie of the devil. They failed. They died. But God showed mercy unto many and many of them. God forgave them their trespasses and still brought them into the Promised Land as a type/picture of what He does bringing you into His Church now, and into Heavenly Glory at the consummation of the age.
The Children of Israel were only forced to wander for 40 years because the 12 chosen spies sent to explore and report back rebelled against God’s Grace and Mercy. Joshua and Caleb, by the Holy Spirit’s deposit, faithfully lived by the Word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, by way of Moses. But the other 10 Princes, wanted to live by earthly bread…works, numbers, guarantees, miracles, and, and LIES. The Israelite mobs that were constantly rebelling against Moses, against the 10 Commandments, were really rebelling against The Lord Himself.
You too have your Lent, both the 6 weeks leading up to the Triduum, to be sure, but also the Lent of your own lives’ “Three Score and Ten.” Every day is a battle against your sinful flesh, the sinful world, and…the devil. Every week, every day, the devil comes to you and says: “did God say?”
The devil knows Scripture like a parrot knows the Mikado. The devil is an idiot savant who can chirp and buzz and mimic but has neither understanding nor belief. His first temptation calls Jesus a creature, a man, and then goads Him into performing a miracle much like Moses was able to do. But even as the Law Bringer went 40 days without food on Mount Sinai because he was fed by The Lord and His Word, so too Christ Who is The Bread of Life needed no parlor trick to prove anything. Jesus obeyed the Father’s Word and lived by Faith not sight. Jesus is The Faith and He gives this to you as gift. The devil quoted out of a context, like a sectarian, Psalm 91, and attempted to lure The Nazarene in a selfish act of personal glory rather than obedient servanthood under the cross. Whereas you are always eager, like Adam, to look for God where He has not promised to be, and to do things—works by/for yourselves—that God has not commanded you to do, rather than simply receiving His Bread/His Word, Jesus did not capitulate. Neither did the God/Man do obeisance, laud, or worship to the ancient dragon. While you worship both mammon and even evil far too often, Jesus did not. His fidelity and trust of His Father and of His own mission, as Food for you, won the battle, carried the field, and planted the flag of the Crucifix right through the devil’s scaly head.
Yes, the old evil foe now means deadly woe, his guile and might are indeed dread arms with which he seeks to pluck you from the Shepherd. But the Valiant One, Whom God “Messiah-ed,” i.e. “elected,” Who is The Lord of the Angelic Host, holds the field of battle in control…even when you feel all is out of control and lost. What is the “one little Word” that fells the devil? Some think it’s the word Savior, or Jesus, or Faith, or even Tetelestai (it is finished). Some think it’s either the Word “is” or even the very fact that The Christ as a newborn infant was the “little” Word. Be that as it may, Christ is not in the desert with Satan any longer. Christ is not on The Cross of Calvary either. But The Word remains. He is on the plain of this parish with all of His good gifts and Spirit. Let His precious Body and Blood The Word made flesh—proceeding out of the mouth of God, give you life and peace.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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